We Are Children, NOT Diagnoses

Building an alternative is always the answer, more or less revolutionary, that we can give. Be-cause, where there is nothing that can be done about it—namely, an alternative to the psychiatric supply chain—this will continue to creep insidiously into the folds of our society, but especially into the lives of our children.

I have rarely found “difficult kids”; I have almost always found children who were not understood. And I have encountered invented diagnoses, so-called disorders, and words that mean nothing. The child doesn’t write well? … he’s dysgraphic (which means he doesn’t write well)! There is something terribly wrong! It ends up being a performance (not writing well) turned into a diagnosis! But why doesn’t that child write well? That is what we need to understand! It will differ from child to child—the reason. We will need to observe carefully and for a long time his performance in writing and discover why he doesn’t write well. Based on that specific, individualized reason, we can design the exact Effective Pedagogy. HE IS NOT a SpLD child but a child who doesn’t write well “because of…”: this IS what we need, this works!

They are children, not diagnoses: they are free beings.

VINCENZA PALMIERI, Ambassador for Human Rights and Peace in the World, is the founder of Family Pedagogy and the National Institute of Family Pedagogy, which she presides over. For forty years, she has fought against diagnostic abuse and is the one who identified the intricate system she called the “Psychiatric Supply Chain.” Founder of the National Forensic School and Technical Consultant for the Parties, she is committed to restoring thousands of children unjustly taken from their families through authoritative measures. She has extensive academic experience at the University of Basilicata and most recently at La Sapienza University in Rome. With Armando Editore, she is a series director and author of thirteen publications, including several bestsellers: The Psychiatric Supply Chain in Italy – from Basaglia to Bibbiano and up to the time of the Coronavirus (2020), Family Pedagogy Manual – Helping Families at Home (2022), I Don’t Know If You Know… about Bibbiano – the Great Battle of the People for Human Rights (2023), and The Malamente (2024 edition).