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Salvo Pitruzzella

Academic Researcher

Europe, Italy

Salvo Pitruzzella is Professor of Arts Education at the Fine Arts Academy of Palermo and a pioneer of dramatherapy in Italy with over twenty-five years of experience working in mental health, education, and social care. He is dramatherapy course leader at the Centro ArtiTerapie, Lecco. He has widely published on dramatherapy, educational theatre, and creativity theories. His latest book is Drama, Creativity and Intersubjectivity: Roots of Change in Dramatherapy (London: Routledge, 2016). He argues: “it is essential to consider the social dimension of therapy: the problems are not just with people’s psyche (or in their soul, or in their brain), but in the relationships they have with the world. And we, as therapists, are part of this world.” According to Pitruzzella, science points to compassion and creativity as two crucial factors that make us human. “Empathy is rooted in our mirror system,” he claims, “but it takes an imaginative effort to actually turn it into compassion”.