Analyze this

last updated 8 January 2015

Rome

An Italian psychiatrist who specializes in treating Mafia bosses says they’re a neurotic, miserable lot with lousy sex lives. La Psyche Mafiosa (The Mafia Psyche), by Girolamo lo Verso, punctures the myth of the mobster as a strong, ruthless man of powerful passions. The reality, lo Verso says, is far different. They come to him with “eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and sexual problems.” Most of them are far from lady-killers. “Real Mafiosi are more interested in power and being in command than sex,” he told the London Independent. “They have hurried sex with their wives in order to have children.” One Mafia patient was in despair because his son had just come out of the closet and refused to take over the family business.