Maria Montessori e il “futuro” della medicina: alcuni elementi di una ricerca sul campo

In 1951, Maria Montessori said that there would be a great future for medicine if it started to cure the patients’ souls, rather than just their bodies. What does this statement mean? Medicine has to turn into something different than what it currently is? The aim of this article is to contribute to a possible interpretation of Montessori’s convincement, trying to overcome the separation between the medical and the pedagogical meanings of care. Starting from the data gathered through an ethnographical investigation carried out with a Special-Pedagogy perspective in many hospital divisions dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of Rare Illnesses, the author here discusses some critical aspects that affect medical actions of diagnosis and treatment dynamics. In order to set an interdisciplinary dialogue between medicine and pedagogy, this study provides some possible educational horizons for overcoming clinical mechanisms and elements that influence the identity development of the disabled person.