Mori draws on more than twenty years of work with a residential community for children and adolescents struggling with severe physical and psychological difficulties of every kind.
The Gugliano Community exists to give its young residents the affection and education in respect for boundaries that their birth families could not provide. Environmental influence plays a decisive role in easing their struggles—equally important, the author argues, as biological inheritance in shaping individual personality.
Fabrizio Mori traces the history of Gugliano and lays bare its founding principles, above all a total rejection of violence in any form. A conviction took root early on: abandon every label—"handicapped," "autistic," and the rest. Such terms are essential in medicine; here they become useless and harmful, almost a form of discrimination. The children were all different and all the same. The book unfolds through numerous interviews and dialogues with the young people themselves. The effect is immediate and deeply moving.