Marina Bellini
journalist

All long my two years of wandering in the telematic mazes of Internet, and after having explorated many different discussion areas, after having invested a considerable amount of time in the study of this "new" way to communicate, following my interests as a writer, director and journalist, I addressed me to the behaviours and relationships shown and developed by the "on line" writing. Working on a rather significant sample, my researches were concentrated in various areas dedicated to the exchange of thoughts and opinions: entertainment areas specifically addressed to some argument, or to pure entertainment and playing, rather than to the "chat" or to the simple mailing.

Through my testimoniance I intend to communicate to the psychiatric sector specialists a series of experiences by which I could achieve the convincement of how this mean could be an extraordinary tool for the evidentiation of mental diseases of various entity, and how it could have in itself the potentiality to become also a therapeutical tool.

Another point is that the "virtual" behaviours assume in the Net a meaning that is somewhat different from they are intended by psychiatrists, and there could be the risk that, for the specialists who will study this phenomenon and the pathologies that from it would be originated or simply evidentiated, there could be a certain amaunt of semantic misunderstanding.

What we mean as "virtual" when we speak about the communication in Internet? If before today as "virtual" was meant the imaginary, the same word, as used in the telematic communication, assumes a quite different meaning.

In other words, the "virtuality" that somebody shows on line, is always a branch of his self, some part of himself becoming uncovered, whetether there is or not awareness of that. That is, in synthesys, the matter of my communication at the congress, that could also be matter of debate.