Lizbeth García: «Art sensitizes us on mental health issues»

Much of our psychological well-being depends, among other things, on the degree of openness we exists in our society when it comes to speaking openly about health-related issues mental.

And the fact is that a culture full of taboo aspects is so limiting that it makes it difficult to effectively manage emotional and even psychopathological problems. Fortunately, lately more and more efforts are being made to normalize this type of conversation, it is that is, to make us lose our fear when it comes to recognizing that hardly anyone has a perfect life at all aspects.

In this sense, mental health professionals are among those who strive the most to promote these conversations are normal, it is not strange to talk about our bad times and our vulnerabilities emotional An example of this is found in the person to the one we interviewed in this case: Lizbeth García. This psychologist is part of the Emotional Astronaut team, a psychotherapy center located in Mexico City, and these days both she and her colleagues are promoting the #HablemosDeEmociones campaign, which relies on the expressive power of the illustration.

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Interview with Lizbeth García: promoting the #HablemosDeEmociones campaign

Lizbeth García is a Clinical Psychologist and member of the management team of Emotional Astronaut, psychological assistance center located in México D.F. This entity is characterized, among other things, by its powerful presence in Internet and in spheres of dissemination on Psychology, bringing behavioral science to the general public both through its social networks and their presence in the media, such as through their podcast, "De Otro Planeta", which can be listened to on the Astronauta website Emotional.

On this occasion, Lizbeth tells us about the #HablemosDeEmociones campaign, which is taking place these days and which seeks to promote the normalization of conversations about what members of society feel, good and bad, and about eventual emotional problems that arise in the lives of all kinds of people. people.

In short, what is the Let's Talk about Emotions campaign, when does it take place and what message does it want to convey to society?

The #HablemosDeEmociones campaign is a campaign that we are carrying out with the purpose of telling people that it is okay to talk about what we feel and that it is normal for us to experience our own different ways emotions. We believe that this is the first step to foster empathy, but mainly to open the conversation to the different psychological disorders that today, and even more in pandemic, we are experimenting.

So what we did was get together with five of the best Mexican illustrators so that from October 5 to 10 every day we represent through an image the importance of emotions with the aim that people also share their story.

In addition, in our podcast we will have two interviews with people who are not psychologists, so that they can tell us their story. Our first guest is a person who currently has Borderline Personality Disorder and that today created the largest mental health community in Mexico. Our second guest was diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder and he also has one of the leading mental health communities on anxiety issues.

What do you think are the main reasons why, today, there is a tendency to avoid talking about emotional problems in general, and those that have to do with psychological disorders in particular?

It seems to me that it is something that comes from long ago; As children we were never taught what it means to talk about our emotions, and culturally we do not have this openness. And I think this represents a problem, because then we live day-to-day with immediacy but without stopping to reflect on what is happening to us and how we are feeling.

But also, currently there is a tendency to "always think positive" and therefore we believe that what we feel is not for so much and we say things like "Maybe I'm exaggerating", "I should be able to do everything", "You have to see the positive side", etc. The problem with this type of thinking is that it encapsulates us and makes us believe that it is wrong to feel sadness, anger, fear... And in the long run, denying all our emotions and the nuances in them affects us psychologically.

And this leads us to, for example, in Mexico, according to UNAM statistics, out of every 100 inhabitants at least 15 suffer or will suffer some type of psychological disorder, and if we do not visualize that it is right to talk about these issues, these figures will increase, and more so now that we are affected by pandemic.

Taking into account the cultural changes that have occurred so far in the 21st century, would you say that improvements have been made in this regard over the last few years? Does it cost us less to talk about emotions and examine them from a constructive point of view?

I think we are on the right track. The younger generations are already beginning to have another concept regarding the importance of mental health; However, there is still a lot of work to be done, since not everyone has access to the same information and to be able to have psychological care.

We psychologists have to demolish those myths about what is thought of mental health, and make people see that problems in this area are very common, as when we physically we feel bad. That way, when we feel emotionally bad, it is important to go check what is going on. And that is why at Astronauta we do this type of campaign such as #HablemosDeEmociones, to reach the general population and break the stigma.

Given that in the campaign you seek the collaboration of illustrators, do you think that drawing is a way of more freely express taboo or uncomfortable emotional aspects about mental health that society tends to minimize?

Yes, we firmly believe that art in general makes us much more aware of mental health issues, and in the case of illustrations, we Since we started the campaign we noticed that it was a very good way to connect with people in a much more creative way and without being so direct. We use infographics, memes, and pop culture references to send messages about the importance of mental health.

In addition, in our illustrations we always try to represent humorously and creatively the diversity of emotions, disorders, situations and conflicts that the people.

In any case, your brand is characterized by having a very strong and characteristic visual identity. Why did you decide to invest effort in this?

I believe that it is never enough, and due to the increase in cases regarding mental health due to the pandemic and the closure, we decided that it is a good time to open the conversation. And somehow, with the collaboration of both the illustrators, our guests on the podcast and partners, we can make a positive impact by motivating people to open up to talk about their emotions.

In addition, our purpose since Astronaut was born, was to encourage people to talk more about these issues regardless of whether they do it with a therapist, with friends, partner... But let them do it so that they feel better about themselves.

What must be done to continue the campaign?

From October 5 to 10 we are making noise; within our social networks (such as Emotional Astronaut Instagram account) we will share the illustrations made by the creatives, podcast interviews and lives to talk about this topic, but also We will be raffling totally free sessions so that people are motivated to talk about their emotions and what is happening to them going.