Letizia Cardelli

Letizia Cardelli

Systemic Couple and Family Practitioner

Letizia is an Italian licensed Clinical Psychologist. She is UK trained, and specializes in working with Individuals, Families and Couples. She is currently in the process of obtaining her license with DHA (Dubai Health Authority). She is fluent in Italian, English and Spanish, and holds her sessions in all three languages. 

Letizia works with the client on creating a safe environment to explore everyday challenges, coping strategies, as well as our communication style. For Letizia this is the starting point for a deeper understanding of our strengths as well as potential improvement areas, leading to growth and thriving in a social context. She views self-awareness as a natural consequence of our rediscovered abilities to connect to others, as well as a newly gained, wider perspective on our life journey and goals. 

Letizia uses the systemic approach in her work with Individual, Families and Couples Therapy. She helps the family/individual identify the dynamics that trigger the development  of symptoms such as eating disorders, mood disorders and obsessive-compulsive behaviors, among others; in fact, a family member’s manifestation has its roots in the complex set of interactions and rules in which all the others are embedded too. Therapy can help untangle the reasons behind such symptoms, relieving the pressure on each family member and, ultimately, equipping the whole system with new and more appropriate resources to face future challenges. 

When adopting a Systemic Perspective, we look at the problems – and the potential symptoms of an individual – not just as isolated manifestations, but rather as part of the elaborated set of our relationships, expectations and narratives. These are, in turn, developed and maintained within our system – our family, our partner and the lenses through which we experience the world. Therefore, developing a deeper self-awareness of this complexity is the first step towards healing, and towards gaining healthier coping strategies.

Couples Counseling may bring topics such as domestic violence, personality disorders, an history of emotional abuse, addictions, communication and trust issues; such circumstances can benefit from therapy by exploring the partners’ coping strategies and usual patterns in intimate relationships. The end goal is to better understand what triggers them and their reactions, and gradually increase their sense of control over their emotions and responses. In doing so, both the partners gain a different perspective on their own and each other’s role in keeping an unhealthy and painful dynamic, opening the way to new interaction dynamics. 

This is equally true when it comes to Individuals therapy, where the goal is to rediscover the roots of what is affecting the person at present time. The family’s unspoken rules, expectations, and sense of belonging are used as lenses to interpret the world thus they find it particularly helpful to explore them. Therapy guides them through a journey of independence from perceptions and strategies that might have become too rigid or simply not fit them anymore. It helps them develop new, more flexible and adaptive ones. 

Eventually, it is Letizia’s belief that the end goal of  therapy is to equip clients with a deep insight on the reasons behind their struggles, taking into consideration how our family, partners and society have an influence on us. It also helps explore our preferred coping strategies and behaviors, as well as developing healthier interactive dynamics and gaining a stronger sense of self-reliance and renewed sense of control over life outcomes.

Letizia completed her Bsc in Behaviour Science and Social Interactions Psychology at Bologna University, and her MSc in Clinical and Social Psychology at La Sapienza in Rome. Letizia then joined a specialized training program in Systemic Family and Couple Therapy at the King’s College London. Upon the completion of her degrees, she worked as a Systemic Couple and Family Therapist with the National Health System (NHS) in the UK,  St. Thomas’ Hospital, and at the Maudsley Hospital. She also worked at the San Marino State Hospital at both the Family unit and the Adults/Couples unit, and at Centro Sammarinese di Andrologia (CSA) as a Systemic Practitioner. Letizia has worked in the context of adoptions, with the San Marino State Tribunal, and with the Ministry of Health, as part of a multidisciplinary team focused on offering a comprehensive service to couples and a social support to young women and men, in terms of sexual and reproductive health, and uptodate IVF methodologies.

l.cardelli@bepsychologycenter.com