The vast majority of mental health clinicians and researchers rely on diagnostic systems based on operational criteria. However, in their everyday practice, many clinicians also pay attention to their own feelings or intuitions about the patient. For an even greater number of clinicians, this process may occur inadvertently. Scholars from various fields are increasingly stressing the importance of complementing the emphasis on operational criteria with thoughtful attention to the subjective and intersubjective elements involved in a thorough psychopathological evaluation.

Angelo Picardi is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, currently working as a researcher at the Centre for Behavioural Sciences and Mental Health of the Italian National Institute of Health in Rome, Italy. His main research interests are in psychopathology, psychosomatic medicine, psychiatric epidemiology, attachment, alexithymia, and epilepsy. He has been Principal Investigator for several studies funded by the Italian Ministry of Health. He is co-editor of the book Dimensional Psychopathology (Springer, 2018) and the author of 140 papers published in international peer-reviewed journals. He also serves on the editorial boards of several peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Affective Disorders, Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, and Rivista di Psichiatria. 

Mauro Pallagrosi is a child and adult psychiatrist with a PhD in clinical and experimental neuroscience and psychiatry. He is the clinical coordinator of the acute psychiatric inpatient ward at the Policlinico Umberto I Hospital in Rome, and is an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the School of Nursing, Sapienza University of Rome. He has over twenty years of clinical experience in mental health services, particularly with acute and severe inpatients. His main research interests are in psychiatric diagnosis, phenomenological psychopathology, and epistemological issues in psychiatry. He is the author of several book chapters and 15 papers published in peer-reviewed international journals.        

Laura Fonzi is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and a candidate member of the Training Institute of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society. She currently works in private practice, and has been involved in research at the Sapienza University of Rome for many years. Her main research interest is in the therapeutic relationship in psychiatric and psychotherapeutic settings, as well as its theoretical implications from both the phenomenological and psychoanalytical perspectives. She has authored several book chapters and 14 papers published in peer-reviewed international journals.