Manuela Tomai is an Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology at the Department of Dynamic, Clinical, and Health Psychology (La Sapienza University of Rome),  where she teaches in bachelor’s, master’s, and postgraduate programs and serves as Academic Coordinator for several academic programs. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1986, specializing in Community Psychology and Family and Relational Psychotherapy, and subsequently earned her Ph.D. in Community Psychology and Educational Processes from the University of Lecce. From 1992 to 2005, she worked as a consulting psychologist at the S. Pietro Fatebenefratelli General Hospital in Rome, providing counseling and therapy to inpatients and outpatients, and conducting training and recruitment activities for healthcare staff. She also taught at Aspic (School of Training in Clinical and Community Psychology and Integrated Humanistic Psychotherapy). From 2018 to 2020, she served as the scientific director of the “Aqua futura” project, funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and implemented in El Salvador and Guatemala. She has supervised research and academic projects in Italy and abroad. Since 2018, she has served as Scientific Director of the Observatory on the Psychology of Chronic Illness at the Order of Psychologists of Lazio. She is the author of over 60 publications in national and international books and journals