Dr. Lucia Focella

Dr. Lucia Focella is an English-speaking clinical psychologist in Padua. She receives patients in person in Padua and works online with people living elsewhere in Italy and abroad, in English and Italian, with adults, adolescents and children. Work with children is in person only.

She graduated with honours in Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Neuropsychology from the University of Padua, and completed MSc training in the United Kingdom and in Sweden. She is currently training in psychotherapy at the Narrative Constructivist Institute in Padua.

That neuropsychology background is the thing to know about her. It means cognitive rehabilitation, ADHD and specific learning differences are not adjacent interests but her core training: how attention, memory and processing actually work, and what can be done when they do not work as expected.

Her clinical experience has been built across a wide range of healthcare settings: the Family Clinic of Monselice, the Centre for Dementias and Cognitive Decline in Treviso, the Veneto Oncology Institute in Padua, the Intensive Care Unit in Treviso, and the Centre for Mental Health in Camposampiero. Intensive care and oncology are places where psychology is practised under real pressure and with no room for vagueness.

She has volunteered at the De Leo Fund in Padua, supporting people through bereavement after traumatic loss. Traumatic loss is its own clinical territory, distinct from grief in general, and the people who work in it are few.

She also runs preparation courses for parents-to-be and parenting workshops for families with adolescents, and is particularly committed to working with young adults from different cultural backgrounds, on change and on finding new ways to adapt.

Her approach is constructivist: understanding the specific difficulty a person is facing, and exploring alternative routes for their present and future, in a space where they feel heard rather than assessed.

She grew up with an American father, born and raised in the United States, and is at home in Italian-American culture as well as in the British and Swedish contexts where she studied.

You do not have to pick her yourself. At Therapsy every person is matched by a human being, not by an algorithm: our clinical team reads your request, and if Dr. Focella is the right fit for what you are bringing, they will introduce you. The first call is free, and it is there to check that the fit is real before anything begins.

Dr. Focella is registered with the Italian Order of Psychologists (registration no. 11647). She receives in Padua and works online with patients across Italy and abroad.