Dr. Arianna Antonelli

Dr. Arianna Antonelli is an English-speaking psychologist in Milan. She is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist, and she receives patients in person in Milan and works online with people living elsewhere in Italy and abroad, in Italian and English, with adults from 18 and with couples.

Her international experience is unusually wide. She spent a high school exchange year in Ohio, and has worked abroad as a volunteer in Sri Lanka, Ghana, Jamaica and Brazil: as an educator with people with disabilities, as an English teacher, and as a psychologist in psychiatric care and addiction services. She collaborates with a Swiss scientific journal, and her sister lives in the Netherlands, a country she visits often.

That background is the reason cultural distance is not an abstract topic for her. She has worked inside health systems and communities very different from the Italian one, and knows from experience what it means to be the foreigner in the room.

Her approach is integrated psychotherapy, combining a systemic perspective with Therapeutic Assessment, and drawing on relational-symbolic work and Gestalt therapy. What distinguishes her practice is the use of Collaborative Assessment: psychological testing is used together with the client, to help people understand themselves better and find solutions to persistent problems. Its primary goal is to facilitate positive change, not to produce a label.

Alongside her clinical work, Dr. Antonelli is a lecturer and teaching assistant at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, and works with the journal of the International Society for the Rorschach as an editorial assistant.

Fewer than 1 in 100 therapists joins the Therapsy team. Dr. Antonelli was personally vetted by our Clinical Director, Dr. Francesca A. Boccalari, on three non-negotiable criteria: she shares our values, she speaks at least one language beyond Italian, and she has a physical practice in Milan where you can meet in person, not only online.

Arianna Antonelli does not work alone. She takes part in Therapsy’s internal clinical supervision, a standing group where therapists bring their most demanding cases, train together and ask for help when a situation calls for it. Every therapist in the network, Case Managers included, can turn to our Clinical Director for clinical questions and further training, and Therapsy runs regular professional training with senior therapists and external trainers. Scheduling, invoicing, payments and the rest of the paperwork are handled by Therapsy, so that her time with you stays clinical work and nothing else. On your side, the same platform gives you one place to see your sessions, invoices, payments and documents.

At Therapsy you do not have to pick your therapist from a list: you start by speaking with Dr. Francesca Boccalari, our Clinical Director, who listens to what you are going through and matches you with the therapist she believes is right for you: Arianna Antonelli, or one of her colleagues. Then you have a free introductory call with that therapist, and only after that do you decide whether to start.

And if the fit turns out not to be right, you are not back at square one. Dr. Boccalari and her team find you another therapist inside Therapsy, at no cost, without you having to tell your story from the beginning. Choosing a therapist while you are struggling, in a language that is not your own, is a lot to ask of a person. That is the part we take on.

Dr. Arianna Antonelli is registered with the Italian Order of Psychologists and works as part of the Therapsy network of licensed multilingual therapists.