World Health Organization

The World Health Organization is the international organization behind a program in which Daniele Carradori works in emergency psychology, providing psychological assistance to populations affected by catastrophic events. Through this brief but consequential reference, the novel connects his personal history with a vocation centered on helping people rebuild a sense of life after profound loss.

Program and Purpose

Carradori explains that he has joined a World Health Organization program devoted to psychological assistance for communities affected by catastrophes. He describes it as demanding, necessary work: those seeking help may have lost everything, including children or older relatives, and may be left without anyone in the world. The task, as he understands it, is not merely material; it is also to help survivors conceive of a life that can still be lived.

Carradori’s Work

The program takes Carradori away from Italy for much of the preceding years. He acknowledges the scale of the work, along with its difficulties, privations, and frustrations. In some places, psychologists are rejected, especially by the very people most in need of their help. The novel offers no detailed account of the program’s structure or particular disaster responses; its focus is Carradori’s account of the work’s human purpose and the obstacles that accompany it.

Personal and Thematic Significance

Carradori’s commitment to emergency psychology marks a break with psychoanalysis, which he calls a trap and says he could no longer imagine practicing. The change is significant in a conversation with Marco Carrera: professional care remains central to Carradori’s life, but it is now directed toward people confronting catastrophe in the world rather than toward the analytic practice he has left behind. He also confesses that, despite the demands of this work and the fullness of his life, he has often found himself thinking about her. The passage therefore places a personal attachment alongside a vocation grounded in care, without suggesting that one cancels out the other.