Every day we experience nostalgia for both the past and our imagined future. This feeling affects our relationships, our well-being – even our consumer behaviour. What is nostalgia and how does it work? Why is it so important? Both sweet and bitter, instinctual and rational, nostalgia diminishes the world’s unpredictability and mitigates our sense of loneliness. During the most challenging moments of our lives and as we transition from one age to another, nostalgia helps provide continuity to our existence.

Andrea Stracciari was formerly a chief neurologist at the Sant’Orsola-Malpighi University General Hospital in Bologna and taught Neurology and Behaviour at the University of Bologna.

Angelo Fioritti was formerly a chief psychiatrist in the public health service’s department of mental health in Bologna and taught Social Psychiatry in that city’s university. He currently presides over Italy’s National Council of Mental Health Departments.