The Authors made a comparison between their observations on fathers met in the nineties with those on the fathers they have met during the last 18 months: traditional fathers are disappearing, and we still don’t meet new fathers: are they a protective factor? More and more fathers, also separate, become those who ask for a therapy and they themselves are a resource for it. Matteo Selvini’s personal experience about his mother Mara Selvini Palazzoli and on himself, Stefano Cirillo’s and Annamaria Sorrentino’s ones, show how, for the biggest part of psychotherapists, the mother is the model of a good parent and how it is necessary a work on themselves to overcome the limits associated to the figure of traditional fathers. Also the interviews with the specializing students show how growing with a new father or re-thinking a traditional father allows to better helping fathers in therapy. The basic assumption is that parental skills have no sex: distinctions between paternal and maternal roles have been historically determined by patriarchal culture and are now to be minimized in modern culture of parental sharing.
Keywords: Fathers, decline of traditional fathers, therapists’ personal experiences about their own fathers, fathers, resources, therapy, resonances.