The story

Petar Duper returns to La Zanzara after what the programme presents as his removal from the register of psychologists. Host Giuseppe Cruciani greets him almost as a symbol of freedom; Clizia De Rossi, already in the studio, immediately takes the opposing side.

The central question is how much Duper’s appearances on La Zanzara and other podcasts contributed to the disciplinary proceedings he describes. According to Duper himself, they mattered a great deal.

For readers unfamiliar with the context, the Ordine degli Psicologi is the Italian professional body whose register and ethical rules are at issue here. This article recounts the participants’ statements on the programme; it does not independently establish the disciplinary decision or its reasons.

Duper says the committee reviewed his appearances

Cruciani asks how many complaints Duper has received over time. He answers provocatively with a figure of four or five thousand and calls himself the most reported man in Europe, an obviously exaggerated formulation that he adopts with pride.

He says the disciplinary committee listed numerous statements and public appearances, including contributions to La Zanzara and the podcast Il Podcasterone.

For Duper, that is exactly the problem. He argues that a professional body should not be able to restrict a person’s freedom of expression outside clinical practice. He says he has never felt freer than after leaving the register and claims the right to speak in vulgar, provocative and politically incorrect terms without answering to a professional code.

The disputed remarks

Cruciani recalls some of the statements at the centre of the controversy: sweeping generalisations about women, money and relationships, as well as suggestions that certain male behaviours were incompatible with a particular model of masculinity.

Duper does not make a substantial retreat. He first performs an apology, then immediately turns it into another provocation, saying that men and women alike are subservient to the god of money.

His defence remains the same: vulgarity, bad taste and offensive opinions should not automatically amount to a disciplinary offence. De Rossi takes the opposite position.

De Rossi confirms her complaint

At one point, Cruciani reveals that De Rossi was among those who reported Duper to the professional body. She confirms it.

She says she decided to act after a series of posts and comments, and reads part of her complaint to the disciplinary council on air. In it, she challenges repeated conduct that, in her judgement, damaged the profession’s dignity and breached its ethical principles.

She refers particularly to dignity, self-determination and opposition to prejudice and discrimination, connecting those principles to Duper’s statements about women, gender roles and non-binary identities.

Duper responds by accusing her of having too much free time and systematically collecting his videos and remarks to send to the regulator.

Does a professional role end at the studio door?

This is where the underlying disagreement becomes clearest. For De Rossi, belonging to a regulated healthcare profession creates obligations that do not disappear when someone appears on radio or social media.

If a psychologist publicly makes statements she considers discriminatory or incompatible with the code, she argues, the professional body is entitled to assess them.

For Duper, that overlap between professional responsibility and public life is intolerable. He defends the possibility of playing a character, acting as an influencer or participating in a deliberately extreme programme without every sentence being treated as a professional matter.

Duper presents the outcome as liberation

He goes so far as to say that removal has done him a favour. He says he will continue referring to his academic qualifications in psychology, while not practising or presenting himself as a registered psychologist.

It is an important turn in his account: he presents a sanction as personal liberation. He does not promise to soften his public persona. Instead, he says he will pursue his opposition to political correctness even more freely.

De Rossi stands by her complaint and repeats that freedom of expression does not erase the responsibilities attached to a regulated profession.

The confrontation ends without agreement. Duper frames the outcome as the price of speaking freely. De Rossi sees it as the consequence of statements that, in her view, were incompatible with the professional role of a psychologist.