Pirandello? No, Tambourine. Shakespeare? No, better Recalcati. Psychology is changing shape. From a one-to-one meeting to a collective ritual celebrated in the theatre, shared. Works. Human relationships, change, emotional pain, happiness, personal fulfillment, everything is spectacular and the rooms are full. The 2026 program is crowded with one-man shows, conferences, analyses, public speaking (difficult to give a name to this trend) with psychiatrists and psychologists, television and otherwise.
The most striking case is Antonino Tamburelloprofessor, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, who on the eve of turning 80 has found himself to be a kind of rock star. In Rome there were 1700 people listening to him. His cult phrase: «For the love of God, do it. If you think you can’t stop, do it», which has become popular on social media, applies to every situation. Do I want to eat a ton of sweets? «For the love of God, do it. If you think you can’t stop, do it.”
Those who go to the theater go in search of answers, those who want to find a meaning (even if this life doesn’t have a meaning, at least according to Vasco Rossi) «and the ticket costs less than ten sessions» jokes, but not too much Adriano Formoso, psychotherapist, singer-songwriter and inventor of Neuropsychophony.
Professor Antonino Tamburello at the Brancaccio Theater in Rome. Photo by Chiara Calabrò
Maybe there are those who expect a miracle… Miracleson tour until March 30, 2026, for now, is the show of Massimo Recalcatipsychoanalyst and bestselling author whose notoriety was multiplied by the irreverent imitation of Maurizio Crozza with his “psychobananalysis”. Recalcati talks about Jesus, about loaves, fish and water that has become wine, but invites the public to explore the unexpected and extraordinary things that can happen in everyone’s lives, like an internal transformation that we will then call a “miracle”. And which instead is the fruit of desire.
Psychology in the theatre: Paolo Crepet audiences from twenty to ninety years old
Perhaps there are those who expect consolation, and instead find it Paolo Crepet (4300 evenings in a lifetime), scheduled for the whole of December, then a short break and resumed from February to May with The crime of thinking. «Not a show», he specifies, «but a public speaking as is tradition in America, without a written assignment, without a script, and I never repeat myself. Current events nourish me. If the case of the family in the woods breaks out, I’ll talk about it. If Musk declares that he wants to create the perfect man, it helps me. AI geeks are the ultimate. They offer me the opportunity to ask: do you want this world here? I’m not a motivator, those agitated guys who run around the stage, I don’t want to motivate anyone. I don’t have the seven golden rules to become the perfect mother. I have two thousand people in front of me, from the twenty-year-old who thanks: “You saved my life”, to the ninety-year-old lady with her granddaughter. I provoke! If I say that parents are idiots you can’t expect applause, and they even paid, but I know I did my job. I reassured them of the normality of not being sure.”
Paolo Crepet at the Theater with “The crime of thinking”. (Photo: Press Office)
The message comes through loud and clear. «In Rome there were people who came from Oristanoto Locarno from Zurich, to Alessandria from Catania. A few days ago, when saying goodbye, a boy unrolled a sheet. It said: “Can I ask a question?” He was 20 years old and had the usual doubts: how to live better, how to be happy. I made him go up on stage and I answered him.” Yes, because of answers (as can also be seen in the extremely cute commercials of UnoBravoonline psychology site) there is, without exaggeration, a desperate need.
Adriano Formoso, from Sanremo Giovani to Neuropsychophony
If with Crepet the public is public, with Adriano Formoso and the Curvy Therapy show (sold out at the Teatro San Babila in Milan, next event on January 15th in Bergamo) things are changing. The format, which brings together coaching, theatre, music and meditation, was created with the aim of bringing “therapy” outside the professional studio, making it accessible and even fun. A “show therapy”.
Formosus has a very particular history. In 1997 he was with Tiziano Ferro in the Sanremo Giovani Academy. Then Ferro was taken under the wing of the legendary Mara Maionchi, and he by Augusto Martelli, but he had no luck: the record Conscientious objections it remained in the drawer. For a certain period he worked as an entertainer in tourist villages, so he manages to make people smile. Having become a psychologist, he wanted to combine scientific life with artistic life by creating the Neuropsychophony (neuroscience+psychology+music): «I’ve noticed that certain sounds and frequencies can lower cortisol and raise endorphins» he explains. «I took care of mothers on psychotropic drugs, and thanks to music I was able to reduce the drugs. Children born with this method had a better sleep-wake ratio, spoke earlier, walked earlier. I regularly include songs in therapeutic paths. I write them down, after listening to certain frequencies, or I look for them. And that’s what I also do in the theatre, where I talk about love, adolescence, crises, creating a bridge between sound and people’s emotional life. Once the show is over, many chat amicably without even having introduced themselves”
Adriano Formoso in the “Formoso Therapy show”. (Press Office)
Matteo Sinatti, the hypnotist psychologist on Instagram
The other side effect of psycho-shows is that they create communities. He confirms Matteo Sinatti, psychologist and hypnotist who many know for the essay Disheveled hearts (Rizzoli). During his Instagram live of Thursday suggested: «If there are 2000 of you here listening to me, you are alike; why don’t you try to get to know each other?”. They really did it and in Florence, at the last Christmas dinner, 120 of them gathered. Let alone at the theatre. They bring him gifts, mugs with his name on them, wine.
Matteo Sinatti, hypnotist psychologist.
In the first tour, Sinatti talked about fatal attractions (that everyone is trying to understand), and in the next? «The title is The courage to love yourself. Subtitle: How to find yourself when you get too far away from yourself. A bit long” he admits. «I read poetry, a musician accompanies me and I tell anecdotes to help people cheer up when everything seems lost». The first date is in February, followed by 17 others, for now. And who knows if he will have time for his patients.
“No one is wrong” words by Michele Mezzanotte
Michele Mezzanotte, psychologist and psychotherapist, probably finds many of them at the theater. His videos are comforting: “No one is wrong!”, “It’s not your ex you miss!”. On the show Ask the Psyanswers everyone: anxiety, panic, stress, depression, there is no taboo topic. «Anyone who wants can go on stage” he explains, “but the majority prefer a message. It seems strange, yet an intimacy is created that prevents me from sharing the things we said to each other in the room. James Hillman claimed that everything is therapy: reading, seeing films, living. In the theater I tell stories, fairy tales, myths that lead to moments of healing. The psychologist’s goal, in the end, is to make himself useless so that the patient can heal.”
Psychology in the theatre, women between thrillers and clinical introspection
But there are also “social” diseases. Barbara Fabbroni, psychotherapist and criminologistfocused on violence and feminicides. Your Crime Café (the first, last September, on the case of Elisa Claps and on Garlasco) were enormously successful, and for 2026 «other talks are planned to be brought to the theater and to schools to elaborate crime news by talking about it with the public and introducing narrative elements. A single case can be symbolic, it can set in motion a path of awareness. I did it in the novel The Porcelain Doll Killer (Curcio) by creating Emma Antinori, a psychologist and criminologist who wins a police competition and faces the dark places of the soul.”
No thrillers for Stefania Andreoli, a highly followed psychologist, which will be at the theater from February 2026 with The mind on stagealready sold out in Gallarate, Turin, Milan and Bologna. The show explores mental health through the story of Hélène (Alice Redini) who suffers from borderline personality disorder. Hélène and the doc dialogue on stage, between clinical introspection and emotional truth, to make it clear that «no one is alone. Everyone can find the courage to face the disease without remaining silent.” And all this for the price of a ticket.