Dr. Silvia Cau

Dr. Silvia Cau is an English-speaking licensed psychologist and cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist in Cagliari, and a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA). She receives patients in person in Cagliari and works online with people living elsewhere in Italy and abroad, in English and Italian, with children, adolescents and adults.

She is a specialist in third-wave CBT, and above all in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, with over a decade of applying ACT in clinical settings. ACT is not about arguing your thoughts down: it is about loosening their grip enough to act on what actually matters to you. The practical goal is psychological flexibility, and it travels well to situations that cannot simply be fixed.

Her clinical expertise covers anxiety, OCD, mood disorders, trauma, grief, and emotional and behavioural difficulties.

She provides psychological support for neurodivergent people with an explicitly neurodiversity-affirming approach: the work is not about making a mind pass as typical, but about the conditions in which it functions well. She is also LGBTQIA+ affirming and works with identity-related distress, including gender identity and sexual orientation. Both commitments are stated rather than implied, which for anyone who has had to test the water in a consulting room before is the point.

She works with people living with chronic illness and chronic pain, a field where ACT has some of its strongest evidence: when a condition will not go away, the useful question stops being how to remove it and becomes how to have a life alongside it.

She also delivers parent training and ACT-informed support for teachers, in families and in schools.

She holds a degree in Work and Organizational Psychology from the University of Trento, became an Applied Behaviour Analyst in 2016, and earned a PhD in Human Interactions at IULM University in Milan on ACT-based interventions for chronic illness in children. She completed her psychotherapy training at the Tolman Institute in Sardinia in 2023, is a member of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science since 2011 and of the Italian ACT Chapter, and is training as a clinical instructor at her psychotherapy school.

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. Cau 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.

Fewer than 1 in 100 therapists joins the Therapsy team. Dr. Cau 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 Cagliari where you can meet in person, not only online.

Silvia Cau 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: Silvia Cau, 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. Cau is registered with the Italian Order of Psychologists. She receives in Cagliari and works online with patients across Italy and abroad.

Further reading from Therapsy: what OCD looks like in adults, autism in women, and why it is missed.