a day ago
My session with the beach therapist stopping sunbathers feeling sad
'What is worrying you this morning?' asked the psychologist, pulling out a pen and sheet of paper.
Off the top of my head I mentioned climate change, because temperatures in Italy were edging towards a freakish 40C, then added 'war' because I had just read of more people killed in Gaza and finally I listed my teenage son, since it was A-level results week.
Alessandro Iacubino drew two concentric circles and wrote 'son' in the centre then 'war' and 'climate' in the outer ring. 'Let's start by focusing on where you can make a difference: your son,' he said.
So began my first ever session with a psychologist, which was taking place next to a group of men in trunks playing cards and women in colourful bikinis stretched out to catch the rays. We were sat under a umbrella on the sand at a bustling beach club in Puglia.
Iacubino, 47, turns up here on the Gargano peninsula once a week, hangs a 'psychologist' sign from an umbrella and offers free advice to holidaymakers who might balk at booking an appointment to lie on a sofa in an office.
He explained: 'There is a stigma about seeing a psychologist but people need to know psychology is not just for those with problems, it's about preventing problems before they happen. And the beach is a great place to meet people.'
After clocking up 100 free consultations on the sand over 15 days this summer, the psychologist from Puglia has become a media star, being interviewed by newspapers and national TV.
In his day job Iacubino is regularly hired by companies to help their workers and has held sessions in ports amid the shipping containers and in food factories — meaning he already knows something about psychological outreach.
'In Europe the use of mental health medication has soared by 40 per cent in ten years and one in ten Italians take benzodiazepines like Xanax and Valium, so we have a problem,' he said.
'Last summer I was at the beach when someone asked me about my job and people starting requesting advice, giving me the idea to bring my work to the seaside.'
During a whistle-stop tour of beaches in Bari, Cagliari and Rimini, where he teamed up with an organisation pushing for free psychological care, local mayors thanked him for his work.
He said that he finds people can be more willing to discuss anxieties on a busy beach than in the privacy of his office, adding: 'Here I am not behind a desk and people don't feel judged.'
Some 70 per cent of his beach customers have been women, mostly aged 30 to 50. He said: 'It's mainly anxiety over anything from children to work to fear of the future. Stress like that causes difficulty making important decisions, low self-esteem, lack of concentration and brain fog. But if you can deal with it in time, you can head off the more serious problems it leads to, like depression.'
However, his venture has been criticised from within his own profession. Puglia's association of psychologists admonished Iacubino for practising 'pop psychology' and 'discrediting the professional nature and seriousness of our work,' by setting up shop in the 'informal' setting of a beach club.
Iacubino said he was not looking for a fight but argued: 'We psychologists are too distant, too academic.' Pointing to the 'psychologist' sign swinging in the sea breeze from his umbrella, he added: 'This sign has scared a whole profession.'
One piece of advice Iacubino gives to stressed-out beachgoers is to dwell on positive memories. 'We instinctively focus on negative memories because we think they are instructive and will safeguard us,' he said.
During our informal consultation, he advised that I think of five actions to tackle my stress about my son, starting with making more free time to help him out. He said: 'What I do here is more about personal growth than therapy, but it means problems can be halted early. If, on the other hand, I see real issues, I can refer them for therapy.'
Around him at the Fuori Rotta beach club, stress appeared in short supply as sun seekers lined up to buy ice creams at the kiosk and children splashed in the shallows. But Italy's beach clubs have become a lightning rod for national anxieties this summer, as a decline in business is blamed on rising entry fees and seized on by opposition parties as a sign of creeping poverty, drawing furious rebuttals from the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.
Beachgoers at the Fuori Rotta welcomed Iacubino's initiative. 'Where better to do this than at the sea, where people are trying to improve their health,' Claudia Giagnorio, 45, said as she headed for the surf. 'It's a great chance for people to work on their problems,' Jasmine D'Orio, 15, said. 'I might go and have a word,' Gianluca Tenace, 44, a tiler, said.
Aurora Morrone, the manager of the club, said Iacubino was good for business. She said: 'I was surprised to get calls from people asking when he would be here so they could meet him. Now I think we will be seeing more beach clubs with psychologists.'
