Generally speaking, the services that I can offer fall in three categories: (a) Experimental Research, (b) Lectureship, and (c) Psychotherapy; as well as consultancy on these. As the first two are obvious from looking at my profile, I dedicate this section to describing my psychotherapeutic services.
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Although I have always been interested in scientific pursues, my heart resides in the practice of Psychotherapy (herein I use the term generically). Ever since completing my clinical training in Colombia (conferring me the title of Clinical Psychologist) I have been exercising my profession and putting both my investigative and clinical skills at the service of people who can benefit from them for over 15 years. I like to think of psychotherapy as the application of psychological principles to the modification of behaviour, whether it is for corrective purposes (i.e., "treatment") or to improve skills (i.e., establishing new habits, better time-managing). Read on below to learn about the nature of this service.
Si prefieres la información correspondiente a mis servicios psicoterapéuticos en Castellano, puedes dirigirte directamente al documento ".pdf" indicado abajo.
What does a psychological process or counselling service consist of?
What does a psychological process or counselling service consist of?
The practice of psychology is based on three principles: confidentiality, veracity, and commitment. The first, refers to the exclusive character of the information that the client provides, as s/he is the only person who has access to it. That is, besides the psychologist in question, no one else is to know what a patient or client has shared within the sessions. However, on some occasions within the professional practice of psychology, some aspects of a client's process or situation may be discussed with professional colleagues; but in this case the identity of the client/patient remains anonymous and of course all information is treated with the utmost respect and within the ethical boundaries of the profession.
Veracity as the term imply has to do with the honest and truthful nature of the information being shared. The reason behind this principle, besides upholding ethical standards, lies in the fact that a great part of the clinical analysis done by the psychologist is based on such an information. Consequently, the potential effectiveness of the therapeutic work and the decisions around the psychological process will also depend upon the quality of the information provided.
Commitment on the part of the client involves the willingness to carry out the activities that the psychologist prescribe having the client's best interest in mind. The psychologist is committed to handle everything related to the work with the client ethically and professionally, which includes appropriate planning and documentation of the process outside face-to-face time.
A psychological process requires consistency and perseverance. The improvement that the client may experience is related to the his/her level of personal responsibility with respect to the suggested exercises and activities as part of the psychological work; just being present in the sessions is not sufficient for significant changes to take place. If the type of psychological service is of a directive nature on the part of the psychologist, trust the activities and behavioural exercises designed for your benefit as part of the process. If the service is better characterised as consisting of emotional support, take some time after each session to reflex upon its content. Regardless of the style of the psychological service, is important to recognise that neither the psychological sessions nor the psychologist is "therapy"; what is of critical importance is the extent to which the users put in practice and introduce into their everyday lives the psychological work. Be aware that, it may take a bit of time before improvement is experienced and sometimes things may even get worse before they get better.
The psychologist can be regarded as a "behavioural tailor" who designs activities in accordance to the "client's measurements", or as a person who provides a different perspective relevant to the particulars of the user. Therefore, the user is to "wear" the design clothing in order to experience any change in his/her current circumstances or problematic. As much as the psychologist wanted to, he cannot changed or behave in the client's stead.
On what occasions or for what reasons one could consider psychological services?
On what occasions or for what reasons one could consider psychological services?
The reasons why anyone would consider benefiting from a mental-health professional may vary significantly from person to person. Usually, the person who requests the service has been struggling with a challenging situation or some personal aspects that cause emotional pain; generally, the person has not managed to cope with the situation on their own accord and do not know how to proceed to find some relief. Sometimes, the reasons for consultation are specific (e.g., fear of speaking in public, relationship problems) or unspecific (e.g., lack of confidence). There can also be a feeling of urgency or gravity (with the expectation of receiving immediate help) or it could be a deliberate decision to treat an event, which although difficult and traumatic, may not represent a disruption from the person's daily functioning.
On other occasions, the user is experiencing a discomfort or inability to respond to the daily requirements or duties, or the clients want to explore facets of their personality or history with someone who is impartial and non-judgemental.
There are also times when an emotional or cognitive evaluation may be required. For example, academic institutions, such as schools or nurseries, could request that a pupil be evaluated by a psychologist due to poor performance in order to determine whether there may be some learning difficulties.
It is worthwhile to note that the reason for seeking psychological services does not necessarily have to be in response to emotional pain or to undergo treatment. Sometimes people seek the help of a psychologist to improve certain aspects of their lives or change a particular behaviour. For example, when amateur parents want to learn how to better instruct their children and implement effective parenting practices to shape the behaviour of their children; or when a client wants to learn how to perform better at work interviews or simply change a habit. In other words, psychological services can be sought to find ways to improves one's life (such as maximising the learning of a new skill), whether you are struggling with a difficult situation or not.
What do psychological sessions consist of?
What do psychological sessions consist of?
The sessions with the psychologist are a safe space in which the user can share whatever they want of relevance to their situation or reason for consultation. All information shared will be treated confidentially, ethically, with the utmost respect and in an impartial manner.
The sessions are characterised by descriptions of situations, events, behaviours, thoughts, memories, and feelings that the user expresses and shares with the psychologist. The user is in the liberty of choosing both the manner and the content of what is shared; it is expected that the user behaves as naturally and genuinely as possible and feels comfortable.
The psychologist can be regarded as an judgement-free audience, a source of observations and reflexion. Even though, the interaction within a session consists of conversations, the psychologist is at the service of the client and therefore everything that is dealt with revolves around the user; not the psychologist. It is not incumbent upon the psychologist to discuss his life or personal opinions. Any comment from the psychologist — however casual — are carefully measured in terms of its pertinence and relevance to the psychological process of the user. It is common that users will experience significant psychological benefit from talking to someone and certain degree of emotional relief from voicing their concerns and listen to themselves within this type of professional context.
On occasions, the psychologist could suggest to tackle a particular topic and ask specific questions in order to promote the clients' reflexion around their situation or aspects of their behaviour. It is important to know that the counselling process is likely to arouse emotional pain; specially if the reason for consultation is related to challenging situations and acute psychological suffering. It is common that the psychologist will address a topic that the user has been avoiding or that elicits emotional discomfort; this is part of the process and it is expected to happen. Still, the sessions with the mental-health professional constitute a safe and trusting environment, and if there is indisposition to touch on a particular topic such feelings or reluctance can be discussed with the psychologist openly.
Lastly, the psychological session goes beyond the time spent "face-to-face". Due to its nature, a session with a psychologist can generate strong emotions, and is important to go over what came up during the session and revise some of the offered observations. Therefore, it is recommended that the user allows some time alone, immediately after a session, to "digest" or meditate about what was discussed during a session. Similarly, the psychologist will dedicate some time before and after a session to revise and take notes.
What kind of therapy is offered?
What kind of therapy is offered?
There are many styles and therapeutic models, which could be available depending on the training on the therapist (and interested users are encouraged to inquire about this and discuss it with the psychologist). Although, sometimes the style of therapy is more relevant from the point of view of the user than the therapeutic model. In this regard, generally speaking we refer to two styles of delivery: directive and structured, and non-directive support.
The directive psychological service is structured around four phases: evaluation, formulation (of hypothesis and treatment plan), intervention, and follow-up. Evaluation takes the form of semi-structured interviews with the aim of gathering information about the particular situation or problem that the user is bringing into therapy. As an interviewing process, the user/patient tends to adopt the role of an informant and no change or improvement is usually perceived at this stage (having said that, it is not uncommon for people to experience some immediate relief from sharing the details of their suffering and expressing emotions). As a consequence, some users may consider suspending the process, either because no immediate improvement is perceived or because they found the process too painful and feel they are not ready to address it yet. Thus, it is important to recognise these occurrences as an initial part of the psychological process and discuss with the psychologist any doubts or "second thoughts" about the service at this early stage.
The phase referred to as case formulation (also known as the stage at which the professional can offer a tentative diagnosis) is the moment when the psychologist, based on the collected information thus far, shares his views about the nature of the problem or situation (potential causes, characteristics and strategies about how to address it and cope with it). Depending on the model being implemented or the judgement of the psychologist, such information may be shared with the client in full, partially or not at all; the reason for this is to allow for corroboration, modification and/or addition to the clinical hypotheses.
Treatment, as the term implies, relates to the deliberate implementation of the activities and exercises which aim to promote behavioural changes and psychological benefits to the user. Most of the time such activities transcend the walls of the "consulting room" or specific context in which the therapy is delivered. Psychological improvement lies in the willingness on the part of the user to carry out the prescribed activities and not in their mere design and planning by the psychologist. The psychologist may suggest an activity or behavioural strategy recognised to be effective for the type of problematic that the user is facing, but if the user does not put into practice such suggestions is very unlikely that any improvement will take place.
Before talking about follow-up, is worth mentioning the termination of the service. Irrespective of what the terminology may imply, psychological improvement and well-being are not discrete phenomena and often lack discernable stages or states. The decision to discontinue a psychological process can lie in the fact that some primary therapeutic objectives have been achieved (sufficiently or necessarily), even though some other or secondary objectives may remain untreated. Very often this decision is judged against a clinical criteria as sometimes "helping too much can do a disservice to the client"; the idea is to promote the client's ability to cope with future challenges, by putting in practice the skills learned during the sessions with the psychologist, whilst discouraging over-dependence on the therapist.
Finally, the follow-up consists of one-off sessions or check-in updates (usually through email) to find out how the user is doing since the termination of the service. Depending on the case, additional sessions or even treatment renewal may be considered. For example, if the user has experienced a relapse or there is a risk that the situation that led the user to seek assistance in the first place may re-occur.
If the agreed service is a of non-directive support style, the psychologist refrain himself from planning specific activities for the user or from making concrete suggestions on how to deal with a difficult situation in question. The psychologist's role is one of emotional support. The emphasis is on the client's own ability to make sense of her/his situation or aspects related to the motivation to seek a professional; this process, although facilitated by the psychologist, stems from the client's own reflexion and self-observation (though this is true for any process).
A more thorough description of the terms and conditions of receiving a psychotherapeutic service with me (including price fees, cancellation policy, confidentiality, etc.), can be found in my contract documentation:
InformedConsent_psychotherapy_ScientiaMentis.pdfPara la información correspondiente a mis servicios psicoterapéuticos en Español:
Consentimiento_psicoterapia_ScientiaMentis.pdf
I have been meaning to do a series of videos in which I share some fun content about psychology and how we can take advantage of some of what researchers have discovered so far about how our minds work. So, I conceived (well, not quite yet, I am at the gestation stage) the YouTube channel "Mind Anatomy". Stay tuned for more updates, related content and launching dates.
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