Interview with Massimo Agnoletti Ph.D. Psychologist

Interview with Dr. Massimo Agnoletti, Ph.D., Psychologist based in Venice, Italy

Dr. Massimo Agnoletti, psychologist, founder of “Centro Benessere Psicologico” in Venice, is also the President of PLP Veneto, the association of private practice psychologists. He has published many articles and has done several international collaborations and research in various sectors of Psychology, such as Flow, Persuasion, Positive Psychology, Epigenetics, Stress and Science of Telomeres. 

Massimo, how much does the mind affect well-being, also at a physical level?

Scientific literature has by now clearly identified the key role of psychology in the processes defining our psychophysical and cellular wellness. For example, from 2004, Nobel Prize winner molecular biologist Elisabeth Blackburn and her colleague the psychologist Elissa Epel (who I have the honor to know personally) have even quantified in at least 13 years the reduction of life expectation for those who suffer from chronic stress compared to those who do not live in this condition, which is by the way very widespread in today’s people (cf. my article http://www.massimoagnoletti.it/stress-invecchiamento-dna/).

We often think that psychology has to do with something that goes wrong. Can psychology also help us improve our abilities and reach excellence in some scope?

Of course, from 2000 there is a sector of psychology called Positive Psychology, which I actively support, and which has revolutionized the previous concept focused on disease and psychological disorders (cf. http://www.massimoagnoletti.it/la-psicologia-positiva/). 

Very often, I tell my patients and clients that there is a big difference between “feel sick”, “feel not sick” and “feel good”, so aiming at reducing a problem is very different from aiming at a life full of satisfactions, with a good life and health quality. 

During my Ph.D. (which I did also in the United States), I had the opportunity to do my thesis also together with Prof. Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, co-founder of the global movement of Positive Psychology and founder of the Flow concept.

Flow is the best way in order to reach excellence in each sector, and is also effective in order to improve our health and our psychophysical performance (cf. http://www.massimoagnoletti.it/le-esperienze-ottimali/).

In the old psychological paradigm, the aim was to reduce psychological disorders, while the aim of Positive Psychology is to improve psychophysical wellness, by involving other aspects which are not related to the absence of disease. Positive Psychology involves more complex dimensions, such as the quality of life, increasing life expectation and living healthier and more fulfilling lifes.

This new model of Psychology is by the way more similar to the definition of wellness of the World Health Organization, in which the health state is not equivalent to the absence of diseases and disorders, but coincides with the expression of human potential abilities.

Let’s talk about Flow: what is the intrinsic motivation and how does it help us in our daily life?

Intrinsic motivation is the mechanism through which we are actively looking for activities whose practice is enjoyable of its own and involving for us.

Play your favorite sport, hobby or any enjoyable and involving activity are examples of the way intrinsic motivation plays a fundamental role  (https://www.facebook.com/pg/CentroBenesserePsicologico/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1301072543326769). 

The very interesting think is that scientific literature shows how activities which are promoted through intrinsic motivation are a powerful factor in improving our health and psychological wellness too.

Particularly, it seems that intrinsic motivation experiences are very beneficial to our physiological stress management system.

To improve ourselves, it’s also useful to know how to communicate effectively, in order to have relationships which give a sense to our life. But how can we improve communication?

As a species characterized by a very strong social component, Human beings are both positively and negatively affected by interactions with others. 

Meaningful people in our social network are particularly important, but also relationships with other people who are not directly related to our family/friendship network affect our psychophysical wellness.

Communication is of course fundamental in this context, because it concerns the conscious or automatic / unconscious way we interact with ourselves and the others.

In order to improve this way of communicating, we have to be aware of many psychological aspects and we have to keep on regularly applying several psychological knowledges (cf. http://www.massimoagnoletti.it/specializzazioni/comunicare/).  

The limit of persuasion is ethical. How can we try to convince someone and respect by the way his/her opinions and personality?

Generally, in non-Anglo-Saxon countries, there is a negative perception of persuasion, as it is linked to an idea of non-ethical manipulation focused on change a behavior in the other person. 

But persuasive processes do not have an ethical connotation, as they can be used both ethically and non-ethically.

Prof. Robert Cialdini, world leader of this topic and who I have the honor to know personally, (cf. http://www.massimoagnoletti.it/libro-pre-suasione-cosa-come-quando-comunicazione-persuasiva/), always stressed the fact that persuasion is a specific communicative way, which is defined by rules and processes which can be learned to maximize “win-win” games, from which both communicative actors can benefit.

“Persuasion” is a complex topic, which is similar to “power” or “force”: it’s not by itself positive or negative; its ethical value depends on the context in which it is applied.

A deep knowledge of the topic of persuasion definitely improves our ability to be less easily manipulated in a non-ethical way by others, and to be more effective in the communication aimed at reaching our ethical personal and professional goals.

Let’s talk now of the new discovery of the way how DNA works: what is epigenetics?

Epigenetics is the study of factors determining what is expressed in our DNA and what remains silent, i.e. is not translated into biologically active molecules. Compared to the previous paradigm which foresaw the absolute priority of information in the DNA, the more recent concept of epigenetics adds importance to the factors which select what genetic information is expressed and what remains silent and thus virtually absent for the cellular mechanism of our organism. 

The most interesting thing in the last 15 years of scientific research on biomolecular dynamics, is that psychological factors also affect these epigenetic variations. The impact of these psychological factors is very relevant, and almost similar to nutritional and motor factors, and also to other dimensions affecting our cellular fitness, our aging, and ultimately our health and quality of life.

In January 2018 I invented the term Epigenetic Psychology (cf. http://www.stateofmind.it/2018/10/psicologia-epigenetica/ and http://www.massimoagnoletti.it/epigenetica-anello-mancante-psicologia-biologia/) in order to define the particular sector of scientific psychology which deals with psychological factors involving variations in the cellular epigenetic dynamics.

A new research points out the importance of DNA telomeres in affecting the quality of our daily life. What are telomeres and why are they so important?

In few words, telomeres are structures at the end of all our chromosomes, and they affect cellular longevity and aging of our organism. The science of telomeres has been developed in the last twenty years and has revolutionized the concept of aging, because researchers noticed that these structures  “dwindle” based on various factors, including nutrition, quality of sleep, motor activity and – very interesting – some specific psychological aspects. 

Nobel Prize winner Elisabeth Blackburn and Californian psychologist Elissa Epel have been true pioneers in exploring how much psychological factors affect the degree of cellular aging both positively, by slowing down the aging process, and negatively (cf. http://www.stateofmind.it/2018/11/la-scienza-che-allunga-la-vita-recensione/). 

I also invented the expression “Telomere Code Funnel Effect” or “Telomere Code Bottleneck Effect” (cf. http://sipnei.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/PNEI-NEWS-5-2018-WEB-rid.pdf) to describe the dynamics according to which all factors which has been identified by the science, though partially independent, converge, at the level of telomere organic code, to affect our cellular fitness. My colleague Prof. Epel expressed me her appreciation of this concept, which has multiple practical implications.

In conclusion, which advice could you give us in order to live a well-balanced and rewarding life?

I can’t answer this question in few words, because we as human beings are characterized by an amazing complexity. Though I can assert that a healthy and rewarding life requires a specific physiological and social aspect, and a particular psychological configuration, which is bound to Flow, personal Time Perspective and the stress management ability, which was also identified thanks to Prof Phil Zimbardo, Stanford University, with whom I’ve been cooperating for years (cf.http://www.stateofmind.it/2016/12/orientamento-temporale-pnei/).

Since some years, I’ve also created the first and unique website in Italy where you can know your personal Time Perspective for free ( www.profilotemporale.it) .

The book I am writing on this topic will be published in 2019 and will present all these aspects in an integrated way, so that they can be more easily applied in the daily life, in order to improve our psychophysical wellness.

Dr. Massimo Agnoletti, Ph.D.

Centro Benessere Psicologico

Via Triestina, 54 int. 20

30173 Favaro Veneto – Venezia

Italy

www.massimoagnoletti.it

www.agnolettishop.it

www.profilotemporale.it

© 2018 by Alessio Del Zotto & Dr. Massimo Agnoletti

© 2019 for the English version, translation by Alessio Del Zotto