MAFIA life used to be simple; whether you liked "Morte Alle Francia Italia Anela" or "Morte Alle Francese Italiani Avanti"(1)  they both meant kicking the snot out of the French, who had a pesky habit of causing trouble prior to Italian unification and weren't much better afterward.

But then it became about money, and causing trouble for people in order to protect them from trouble they caused.  Eventually, the right people could not stay bought and the wronged people started to have enough so crackdowns by law enforcement occurred, to bloody effect.

Result; mob life is even more dangerous from both other mobsters and the government and a whole raft of insecurities for current generation mobsters worried they won't fit into their grandfathers' or fathers' criminal shoes.   

The American television show "The Sopranos" dealt with this hidden anxiety in the form of a New Jersey 'mob boss' who had to have therapy - but it had to stay secret or his mental weakness would make him a target.   

Even the wives of mob bosses have 'existential loneliness', it seems - they want to have their ill-gotten money but still be adored by the public.    It's become so prevalent Palermo's University of Studies will soon offer a masters course in Mafia psychology, the first of its kind.

The Associated Press obtained, on promise of confidentiality (and really, what reporter would violate it, since the patients of these therapists are armed maniacs?) rare insights into the secretive, increasingly strung-out world of Italy's centuries-old criminal organizations.

It's a crisis of confidence for some, though not most, though it would seem the obvious way to stop your own nightmares is to stop causing them for other people - never that simple when you regard your lifestyle as a family.

NOTE:

(1) Or it's an old Italian word for 'confidence', which is similar to that Arabic term for it mahias ' or even Arabic mu ('strength') plus afah ('to protect').   Etymology is hard work and pretty subjective so it comes down to what you want to believe.   But someone on the Internet will tell me they know the exactly correct answer regardless.