Position/Role

Full professor of Social Psychology and Director of the Master in Death Studies & The End of Life at University of Padua

Professional career

After graduating in Applied Psychology at University of Padua in 1989, she continued her studies for a Specialization in "Clinic and Theory of Systemic Therapy" at the "Gregory Bateson Center", Niguarda Ca' Granda Hospital in Milan. In 1995 she graduated in Theoretical Philosophy with Professor Emanuele Severino at Ca' Foscari University, in Venice. In 1996 she obtained the specialization in "Cultural and Social Anthropology" at the University of Padua. In 1991 she was appointed as assistant under command from the Ministry of Education to the chair of Social Psychology at University of Padua, where she became a researcher in 1999 and associate professor in 2003. In 2017 she obtained the national qualification as full professor, and has been in this position since 2024.

During her activity she leaded countless national and international projects, among which two European ones. She was Visiting Professor at the Universidade De Caxias do Sul (UCS), at the Semmelweiss University of Budapest (Hungary).

At University of Padova, she has been teaching at the Doctoral School in "Social Sciences. Interactions, Communication, Cultural Constructions"; teaches "Psychology of group and system relations" and "Fundamentals of Social Psychology" at the SPGI Department, and "Psychology of end-of-life relationships, bereavement, loss and death" at the FISPPA department, where she created and has been leading the Master in “Death Studies and the End of Life”, continually since 2008. Since 2018 she has been a research fellow at the Emili Sagol Creative Arts Therapies Research Center, University of Haifa (Israel).

Scientific results

She is affiliated to numerous research organizations among which: the Italian Society of Palliative Care (SICP) and of the parallel European Association of Palliative Care (EACP), she is part of the Steering Group of the Bereavement Network in Europe (BNE); International Society for Research on Aggression (ISRA); Federation of European Psychodrama Training Organizations (FEPTO). Furthermore, she is a member of the National Conference of Masters in Palliative Care and Pain Therapy, established by the Ministry of University and Research (MIUR), and has been scientific director of about ten international conferences on the topics of death, dying and palliation.

Her research is centred on Severin's concept of "nihilism", in particular on the representations of death as annihilation, on which her fundamental themes are pivoted among which: psycho-thanatology, Death Education, grief processing and treatment, human death attitudes/behavior and pathological suffering (suicide, drug addiction, anorexia and suicide, gender-based violence); loss, grief and mourning; social construction of bio-political and bio-ethical management of death; Dignity Therapy; Informed consent; Mind-brain conceptualization and social representation of death; Self-determination and biological will; Death/spirituality/religiousness; Coping with death and dying; Terror Management Theory; Counselling and therapy;  Professional training; Psychodrama and photo-voice/photo-therapy for mourners; Death and "sociatry" in social violence (gender based violence and discrimination; mafia dynamics).

Editorial work and publications

Ines Testoni is the author of about ten volumes and curator of about as many texts, about a hundred articles and contributions to collective works of national and international importance, including:

(2019) Testoni, I., Piscitello, M., Ronconi, L., Zsák, É., Iacona, E., Zamperini, A. Death Education and the Management of Fear of Death Via Photo-Voice: An Experience Among Undergraduate Students, Journal of Loss and Trauma, doi: 10.1080/15325024.2018.1507469

(2019) Testoni, I., Ronconi, L. Noppe Cupit, I., et al.  The effect of death education on fear of death amongst Italian adolescents: A nonrandomized controlled study, Death Studies, doi: 10.1080/07481187.2018.1528056

(2018) Testoni I, Bisceglie D, Ronconi L, Pergher V, Facco E. Ambivalent trust and ontological representations of death as latent factors of religiosity. Cogent Psychology, 5(1). doi: 10.1080/23311908.

(2018)  Testoni I., Mariani C., Zamperini A. . Domestic Violence Between Childhood Incest and Re-victimization: A Study Among Anti-violence Centers in Italy, Frontiers in Psychology,  doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02377

(2018) Testoni, I., Ronconi, L., Palazzo, L., Galgani, M., Stizzi, A., Kirk, K. Psychodrama and moviemaking in a death education course to work through a case of suicide among high school students in Italy. Frontiers in Psychology, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00441

(2017) Testoni I, Facco E, Perelda F. Toward A New Eternalist Paradigm for Afterlife Studies: The Case of the Near-Death Experiences Argument. World Futures, 73(7):442-456. doi:10.1080/02604027.2017.1357935.

(2017) Solomon S, Testoni I, Bianco S. Clash of civilizations? Terror Management Theory and the role of the ontological representations of death in contemporary global crisis. TPM Testing Psychometric Methodology in Applied Psychology, 24(3):379-398. doi: 10.4473/TPM24.3.5.

(2017) Testoni I, De Cataldo L, Ronconi L, & Zamperini A.  Pet loss and representations of death, attachment, depression, and euthanasia.Anthrozoös, 30(1):135-148. doi:10.1080/08927936.2017.1270599.

(2017) Testoni I, Ghellar T, Rodelli M, De Cataldo L, Zamperini A. Representations of death among Italian vegetarians: An ethnographic research on environment, disgust and transcendence. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 13(3):378-395. doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301.

(2017) Testoni I, Milo V, Ronconi L, Feltrin A, Zamperini A, Rodelli M, Cillo U, Germani G. Courage and representations of death in patients who are waiting for a liver transplantation. Cogent Psychology, eprint, 4(1). http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23311908.2017.1294333.

(2016) Testoni I, Parise, G, Visintin EP, Zamperini A, Ronconi L. Literary plastination: From body's objectification to the ontological representation of death, differences between sick-literature and tales by amateur writers. TPM - Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 23(2):247-263. doi: 10.4473/TPM23.2.8.

(2016) Testoni I, Visintin EP, Capozza D, Carlucci MC. & Shams M. The implicit image of God: God as reality and psychological well-being. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 55(1):174-184. doi:10.1111/jssr.12252.