Questo studio presenta la psicoterapia come strumento di crescita interiore dell’individuo e dei gruppi, che porta - pur conservando lo psicoterapeuta la debita “neutralità” professionale, intesa come equidistanza dall’Es, dall’Ego e dal Super-Ego della persona in trattamento - a una migliore percezione e realizzazione dei valori umani universali (il buono, il giusto, il vero, il bello). Occorre infatti un sufficiente grado di maturità psichica e affettiva per cogliere il senso e impegnarsi ad attuare detti valori.
Viene discusso il significato del termine "valore" dal punto di vista filosofico, socio-culturale e psicologico. Si accenna alla posizione di S. Freud rispetto ai valori etici ed alla loro collocazione metapsicologica : se si son superate le fasi del principio di piacere e del principio di realtà, si giunge al principio di attualità, proprio del livello valoriale (detto principio è stato sviluppato da E.H. Erikson sulla base di un accenno di Freud ed è inteso come capacità di “partecipazione, libera - o da rendere tale - da ogni acting-out offensivo o difensivo”). Si discutono infine problemi come psicoterapia e valori religiosi, psicoterapia e senso della vita ecc.
La bibliografia è vasta e l’Indice analitico ampio.

Fanaticism can concern any human reality whatsoever (sport, politics, profession, etc.). In its most manifest forms, it is the expression of a personality disorder that is most evident in religious fanaticism. Besides there are as many typologies as there are personality traits.

The author describes the general lines of personality development common to all cultures. In the light of depth psychology (psychoanalysis), he points out how the formation of a personality disorder is due to a profound disharmony within the individual's relationship with the environment, especially during the first years of life. The input from psychoanalysis explains the psychic dynamisms (splitting, denial, projection, projective identification, reaction formation, rationalization, etc.) that are at the base of a fanatic attitude, particularly religious. By favoring global internal and human growth, our own as well as that of others, and also through a more equable distribution of material and cultural wealth, and a more effective participation in the exercise of power on a worldwide scale, it would be possible to bring about the changes necessary for preventing the formation of fanatic personalities.

Psychology has been present in Italy since the beginning of the 1900’s, with a growing expansion during the post-World War II period following the creation of several university faculties, degree courses, and schools of specialization. At the same time there has been an increased interest not only in the various forms of psychotherapy (psychoanalytical, behavioral, relational-systemic, anthropo-existential, etc.), but also in research into and the study of the psychological aspects relative to many areas of individual and social life: family, school, work, sport, and so on. Among these, religion surely could not be excluded, on account of the importance that many scientists attach to the religious dimension of personality and in view of the visible presence of religion in Italy, above all the Catholic religion. Encouragement has also been derived from the fact that the 2 nd Vatican Council (1961-65) laid special emphasis on the value of science (Constitution on the Church and the World: Gaudium et Spes, Nos. 36, 57) and particularly of psychology (Decree Optatam totìus, Nos. 11, 22, 63; etc.). Moreover, during the last decades there has been an increase in intercultural and inter-religious problems mainly due to the considerable influx of Islamic immigrants, and this has led to a corresponding increase in the study of the psychological aspects of these problems.