Interview with María Padilla, coach psychologist and director of the Capital Center Psychologists

Today in psychoactive we have a new interview that will possibly be helpful for many people. We have the collaboration for this capital psychologists, by the hand of its director and psychologist María Padilla, currently one of the most innovative psychology centers, as well as prestige in the capital of Spain

First of all, thank you very much Maria for attending us for this space. First if you think we are going to meet you and your team and/or center a little.

Since when do you dedicate yourself to psychology and because you chose that career?

I say that I dedicate myself to psychology since I decided to be a psychologist at age 19 ... or before

I decided to be a psychologist because when I went to the institute I had an empathy above the average and I noticed it, it was the classic "friend" that I do not know if that is good or bad ... I like the relationship with the people and I was doubting between Biologist or mathematics but there was an instinct within me that threw me towards people ... and here I am ... being a psychologist, coach, forming of other psychologists, supervisor, workshop designer for adult population, child -second infant, expert in pairs, motivation dynamics of motivation of Qippi and Director of the Capital Center Psychologists.

The most rewarding of my work is that I love it, I am a geek of emotions, the brain, how it works on how human personality is being built from the fetus even.

To my 22 years of experience I still have concerns and desire to learn, I am a researcher for essence, but the most rewarding thing is to be in contact with people

What case has you impacted you the most?

Each case, in particular, has its impact on me, but there is something that still surprises me a lot today: and it is the ways in which a perceived stress of the environment or parents is manifested when you are a child and the adult reflects in your personality.  The emotional education of the parents, how they communicate with the children, the way in which they manifest love, details that are sometimes imperceptible leave a perpetual mark that reaches adult life and that translates into symptoms of discomfort that then the later the person costs or cannot change. It is reflected in patterns of unwanted behaviors, thought and moods that have a conductive thread in the past. When you are in therapy and accompany the patient to discover their origin and in their process it reaches the understanding and absolute empathy with itself is when all its interior begins to wake up, that is where the change begins. Although work has already started long ago. The process today still seems admirable.

For example, if parents do not dedicate time to their children, the brain stays with many details that perpetuate themselves to adult life, are reflected in their personality in ways (the "S" of patterns should not be than when when the Person you want to change is very difficult or practically impossible because they are in an area of ​​the brain with complicated access for change. Due or conditioned by the environment and by the emotional education of fathers, mothers or attachment figures in early childhood and are reflected in personality.

If you were not a psychologist, what would you have dedicated to?

But the answer to that question more (should not be) exact is "dancer", I love to dance. In fact, today I combine my life with a class of the dance week.

When was capital psychologists and with which human and technological team do you?

I've been working since 2001, I first started in a town in Mallorca where I was 12 years. It was called “Cabinet Daus” in addition to a psychologist and director of my own Psychology Center carried a theater school, temporary summer schools and collaborated with the municipalities to intervene the personal growth and motivation program of work teams. My experience in Mallorca that stimulated my research spirit designing tools and creative techniques of effective intervention to each problem that came to me in consultation. When a patient did not advance, trying to observe beyond what I had learned in my formations and that is when I started experiencing new ways to treat, always from the study of each case the attentive listening of the patients. When I am asked who have been my best teachers, my answer is undoubtedly: a good scientific information base is necessary but my patients have been my teachers par excellence with each of their testimonies. The answers have taught me the architecture of human personality.

When I came to Madrid, I first worked as a psychologist independently until in 2018 I started directing capital psychologists, which today we are a team of 15 people, 13 psychologists and 2 secretariats. All the students of the 2nd Master of Psychology who choose our clinic as a reference center and collaborating with the Amacae Association, Madrid Association Against School, which we have the privilege of participating in their wonderful work.

Do you remember your first patient as a psychologist?

Yes, and with love. From my role as current trainer, if that psychologist had in its beginnings, as a student, I would admire her creativity and impetus, and her human quality. I would tell you that you can go very far and maybe I would offer you to be part of our team.

Talking about technology, what do you think about the artificial intelligence applied to the field of mental health?

Very good question, because now there is a lot of information about this and therefore a lot of confusion too. I have a fairly immovable opinion. The world evolves and is about making good use of technology and applying education and training programs to know how to use it at all levels, both training, emotional, contextual. We have all raised in the streets and can we say that they are the cause of robberies or murders? I would say the answer is: no, of course. Artificial intelligence in its good use will always be a help, and if that is not its goal, I am on the side that with whom you have to work insistently is with people. From educators to children, with children in schools through games. If we combine emotional intelligence with artificial intelligence, safe success for mental health and to continue evolving from absolute harmony.

In what topics are you more specialized or what do your team work more?

We have a very large team and we play practically all areas of mental health. We even have a neuropediatrician: Noelia Moreno. The issues related to anxiety, depression or sadness, humor changes, personal growth, any psychologist of our team has an expert training. The specializations are differentiated in terms of the population, we have specialized psychologists in adults, others in Unjuvenil Infanto, in pairs, families ... there are psychologists who receive more than one population. For example, Victoria, Rosana and I, we are psychologists who attend all areas of specialization.

Yes, we have 4 trainers in our team: David, Laura, Victoria, Mercedes and I. We supervise other psychologists, we give advanced training to other professions and every week we offer training to students who in that period are part of Capital Psychologists. They are the 2nd Master's students and that come from different universities: the Complutense University of Madrid, UNED, European University, Francisco Vitoria, Villanueva, Cardenal Cisneros University. It is a very requested center and we offer certain places, so only the brightest students access. The work of students in practices is part of a social service that we offer: free therapy to people who find it hard to pay a psychologist and in this way they can access psychologists in continuous training. It is an enriching symbiosis that connects the possibility of attending a psychologist, with the motivating training of the 2nd master psychologist and with the work of a trained center (remove the "S") to be able to do this work.

What kind of problems is the most frequent with which your patients usually go to consultation?

The most frequent are: entry into anxiety or panic, thoughts that take over your head and keep you in a state of alert or discomfort. They come for anxiety, states of sadness, many also due to work stress, problems in their daily lives or work. Many due to couple problems. There are also consultations that deal with sequels that leave bullying. Shyness or lack of social skills and what most for "feeling in a certain way": inferior, not feeling loved, that I am not worth, that I am a bad person ..

Do you think there are many myths about psychology that do not correspond to reality?

Yes, in fact, I encourage what you see a youtube of our channel that is titled “Myths about psychology today. Our field has changed a lot and in the present it will be accompanied by the discoveries give neuroscience. It is no longer a matter of believing or not believing, it is simpler. It is a matter of being informed or not.

What would you say to a person who is skeptical when going to a psychologist?

I know that it is difficult to change a belief but that trying to read or inform yourself well, not reading or seeing something that reinforces that very successful opinion for your well -being or for those around you. At one point it can be salvation to their problems or the resolution of the problems of people you love.

What mental illness catalogs as the most worrying and that you have more forgotten?

They would be diseases that escape psychology and are more serious because the patient is very difficult to be receptive to a therapy. They are mental diseases type: schizophrenia or psychotic disorder. Paranoid personality disorder. One of the symptoms of these patients is that there is no awareness that they have mental illness. Without that awareness it is very difficult. Here I would advise that nearby people press as much as possible to put them as a basic condition or rigid rule. Go to psychiatric treatment and to be possible psychological without haste, the necessary time. With this guideline, at least, care of professionals and coordinated are received that together with social services could have a minimum quality of life.

Speaking of this topic, we want to focus a little on one. Let's talk about the OCD of thought and obsessive concerns What can you tell us about it? What consists, symptoms, treatment, etc ..

Toc is a very broad topic and if I started talking about the TOC, fascinating theme, it would be months. I'm going to talk about perfectionism, which is an OCD area. Like any TOC: Behind the compulsion there is always an obsession. In this case, the compulsion of being a perfectionist hides under the obsession of "not receiving criticism" or "receiving acceptance assent" and below there is a reflex impulse learned related to "not suffering". I'm going to explain it a little better:

How to be a perfectionist?

• Perfectionism is learned and becomes part of our personality as if it were an inherited character or instinctive reflection such as flickering. That is why then you have to do therapy to remove it
• Like all personality mechanisms there are functional or maladaptive. In my work, for example, I am a perfectionist and it is something that I do not contemplate changing. It doesn't cause me any discomfort. On the contrary, it is channeled in that area and only leads me to satisfaction

How is built?

There are many environments that stimulate perfectionism.

“If I perceive being different, it moves me to do things to be normal?

All human beings tend to the balance of our emotions, we tend to well -being to be happy and everything that causes us an unpleasant emotion we will try to make that emotion disappear. The balance of the human being, although it seems utopian or topical is ... to be happy.

3 combinations must be given:

1. There are 3 types of learning.

• Instinctive (ancestral): If you blow me in my eyes, I close them
• Learning (functional): The fire is associated with burning me, it hurts me. This learning serves me in adulthood
• Learning (non -functional): If I am as I am, people reject me. It is a learning that takes it under adulthood, but at that stage, it not only does not work for me but it will condition my life.

2. We have 5 emotional basic needs that we would have to receive in childhood:

• Manifestation of love: Our parents love us ... but how they told us
• Validation: Feel listened to and with a dedication of time. Sometimes the wheel of life does not allow parents to complete this element.
• Security: Have physical needs such as food, drink, live inside a house. Some people tell me. Ah ... this is the basic and I tell you no, the basic is the five.
• Healthy references. May my parents explain how the world works. That they apply some consistent rules to know how to move. That interact verbally and not verbal with me
• Happy environment: That there are environmental conditions that facilitate personal growth. If there is any sick person living in a child's house, there will be an hindering circumstance.

It is not a matter of guilt. The fault is not from anyone. It is the responsibility of the parents to be informed of all this. But sometimes there was no possibility or knowledge.

3. Learnings have origin at an early age when the brain is in development:

We are going to think about parents based on rules and afraid of harassing their son because they fear that he grows up or moving away from reality: "so suffering that it is" (in those parents' times, perhaps it was so it was or the parents lo They lived like this) ... or occupied parents than ... any of the previous needs that cannot be met ... the parents were not taught

The construction process is as follows:

• Start from a perfectionist person, a combination of the 3 areas is hid Just do things well ... I'm going to the opposite pole. I have done the perfect things, the mechanisms of perfection specialize in hyperreparasty .. .  Confusion is built in the control variable. I try to control situations that there really is no control over them, but I give myself that power as consequences of learning mechanisms at an early age that has to do with adaptation.

Behind a perfectionist person there are many thoughts errors, poorly made associations that have been born in these environments and have been reinforced with a snow ball effect.

A simple example to explain confusion is using metaphor: if I open a tap, light on the light? It seems that once so it worked and the neuronal circuits were misunderstood.

Non -functional association in adult life: if I do the perfect things ... I get "I do not reject" or "acceptance".  It is an unconscious association where naturalness is being sacrificed in the process and I would dare to say that people are lost in these infinite attempts to be perfect.

It is not easy to understand why they are complicated process. All comments that want us to put will be happy to answer.

Well, thank you very much Maria, it has been a real pleasure to tell you and your team for this interview, by the way very comfortable and cozy the facilities of the center, of course recommended.

María Padilla
Coach psychologist
Capital Director Psychologists
Supervisora ​​Formator
www.Capitalpsycologists.com
911 305 155