How to help your partner or children control anxiety
Lucía Rivera: "I have realized that I am my worst enemy"
If we do a quick search on Instagram with the word 'psychology', the social network returns us an infinite list of profiles - anonymous or personal, although
almost all female -
of experts in the field.
The same thing happens with the words 'sexology', 'nutrition' or 'emotional intelligence'.
If we delve into them, statements such as 'set limits', 'don't write to your ex', 'Are you jealous?', or 'you are your only safe place' are continually repeated in image or audiovisual format.
In this last case, the expert presents in
pills of between 30 and 60 seconds
a moral or psychological dilemma that could happen to any mortal on a daily basis and offers a reasoning that seems very similar to a solution and that, on many occasions, It becomes a hackneyed mantra.
The figure of the psychologist-influencer
They accumulate hundreds of likes and thousands of followers, so many that, according to the prism, they could be considered 'influencers', since many of them also show aspects of their private lives.
It is nothing new: since we can remember,
we need references
to admire and gods to venerate.
In social networks we find a window to alleviate this urgency: according to the study
Digital 2023: Global Overview Report
published by DataReportal, we spend
six hours and 37 minutes
on average consuming this type of platforms, which represents more than a quarter of our lives. being impacted by content of different kinds.
Those of psychological dissemination, in particular, are situated in a social moment where mental health goes far beyond the medical consultation, being the protagonist of conversations at hangouts with friends after work, in the workplace itself, in our families - until now silenced -, and even with ourselves.
We want to know what is happening to us
because no one had even told us before that things could be happening to us and, at the click of a button,
for free and immediately,
we finally seem to have the answer.
What we are looking for
With more than 500,000 followers on her IG account, psychologist
Alicia González
also refers to this need to try to explain the success of accounts like hers: "People need headlights, lights, movements that tell them that there is something bigger than them, to show them that they can be better, to give them strength and security. There are many influencers who tell you what you have to do to be happy, but what I try is to work on the grays. There are neither perfect nor evil relationships, "Everyone can have and do anything."
Epidemic of false relief?
The renowned psychologist Sherry Turkle
already warned about it
in her famous work 'Alone Together', where she reflected on how alone we were going to feel when the era of hyperconnection
in
which we are now immersed arrived.
The 'I' directed by others who, in this case, are on the other side of the screen sending us these types of messages.
The continuous impact creates a placebo effect by making us feel better and part of something, a dependency in which we feel less alone, and our feelings are 'validated' by third parties so that we end up believing them.
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Alicia started uploading videos on her personal profile four years ago during a difficult time at work.
That helped her leave her previous job and she filled her agenda with consultations so much and she grew so much in networks that she was
"forced" to create her own company.
A business, yes, but where a mass of followers becomes one more variable or even the only one to continue earning income.
Is this always the case when certain figures are reached?
In her case, it doesn't seem like it: "I'm a psychologist, I'm not a businesswoman. We have a greater responsibility when working with mental health."
This makes her move away from the 'influencer' concept: "I understand that it can be said, in the end our figure in networks is very new. But
I define myself as a disseminator
and that in the end, makes you have constant control over what is good or not. networking".
A real boom
María Esclapez
is another of the best-known informative profiles on psychology today.
Her book, 'I love me, I love you: A guide to developing healthy relationships (and improving the ones you already have)', has sold more than 150,000 copies and the second one, 'You are your safe place', is going the same way. .
On networks, where he triumphs with his videos looking at the camera or with his graphics where he exemplifies real situations with WhatsApp conversations, he has more than 460,000 followers.
Like Alicia, she emphasizes the responsibility she feels when talking about mental health but sees it in a practical way: "Disseminating information is
another way to reach people,
in consultation you reach one at a time and in networks you reach many more."
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Now, is one reached in the same way as thousands?
Are we facing a
mental placebo epidemic
?
"Evidently, a video is not the solution, the process of personal development is more elaborate, but if a reel invites that person to go to therapy or reflect, it is already wonderful. What we try with the content is to convey an idea, but It is not the solution nor do we present it as if it were, at least in my case," says Esclapez.
Everything will depend, in this case, on who receives the message and in what context: that is, the tired follower, without work or without emotional tools, is not the same as another who carries psychological baggage behind him, is in a good position. moment and look strong to take a minimum step from the video you have seen.
Like Turkle, other philosophers such as Zygmunt Bauman with his
theories of 'liquid thinking
', have made reference through their works to the ancestral need of the individual to search in self-help books, alternative therapies or now in this type of virtual windows that seem -and they are called- to be social and approach conversation and debate with others, to be part of a whole that makes them feel less alone and more in community.
But the truth is that, faced with such a quantity of stimuli, the difficult thing on many occasions is to be able to debate and feel somewhat accompanied through a screen.
Disclosure and therapy
Montse Cazcarra
, who is also a psychologist and has a popular Instagram profile with almost 200 thousand followers, hits the nail on the head in this sense: "I try to make psychology available to anyone. However, there is a very important con and it is that
disclosure is confused with therapy
. I see that many times followers look for advice, a tip, some indications to improve their situation or even solve it. We are a little used to the medical model where I have a problem and I am given a solution, and it's like something generalist. 'I have this problem, tell me what I have to do.' And
that's not how psychotherapeutic processes work
."
Across the river
There are more than 940,000 registered psychologists in Spain, of all of them, it is difficult to calculate at this moment of ecstasy of likes and followers how many have an informative profile on a social network, but what is confirmed today is that the prism from the expert who If you do not use this tool, it is clear: psychological pills on social networks are
more entertainment than real help.
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This is how Luisa Aguiló, a couple and family therapist for more than 20 years, explains it.
"If you stop to look at the contents, they seem like phrases taken from books.
They don't say anything new,
they are even things that could be said in therapy, but they are totally out of context. Furthermore, it seems that they point out to us all the time the need to work even when we are well.
He who says and he who listens
In that sense, María Alba Díaz,
also a general health psychologist
and director of a shelter in Seville, appeals to the responsibility we have been talking about, but for both parties: sender and receiver.
"The balance so that informative psychology and the power to promote circles and spaces for reflection through social networks develop in a healthy and professional way is a
shared responsibility
between the one who publishes and the one who reads. The one who publishes, knowing in what terms, how categorical to be, because or else it cannot be nuanced or deepened and then a responsibility on the part of the person who receives it to frame it, situate it, to see if it serves him or not, not to take it for truth or as a dogma, see if it contributes to the life experience where you are and to the specific issue that worries or destabilizes you.
In any case, consumer or consumed, whether through the screen or off it, we will continue to need and look for
pills
- in whatever format and space - to feel a little
less alone
.
Psychology