Interview with Sonia Algueró, technical director of Mensalus

Definitely, The Psychology career is one of the ones that currently generates the most interest, and training as a psychologist can be an enriching life experience. But many recent graduates lament that the degree is impractical.

Some students take four years of Degree, almost two more years in the Master of General Health Psychologist, and they do not get to put into practice everything they have learned. This becomes a serious problem when you have to deal with people and, on many occasions, their emotional conflicts.

Interview with Sonia Algueró, director of the Master in Integrative Psychotherapy

Fortunately, some postgraduate studies allow training not only in theoretical aspects, but also offer the opportunity to their students so that they can practice as psychotherapists and thus achieve confidence in clinical practice and psychotherapeutics. An example of this is the Master in Integrative Psychotherapy of the Mensalus Institute of Barcelona.

Today we will talk with Sonia Algueró, clinical psychologist and general health psychologist, founder and technical director of the Mensalus Institute

and director of the Master's Degree in Integrative Psychotherapy at Instituto Mensalus, to tell us about this totally practical training, designed for those who wish to acquire the necessary functional skills to be able to perform professional work as psychologist.

Jonathan García-Allen: The Mensalus Institute teaches the Master's Degree in Integrative Psychotherapy. I have been able to read on your website that it is a training with a unique methodology whose purpose is to help students to practice as future psychotherapists. What differentiates your Master from other similar ones?

Sonia Algueró: We carry out a master's degree of assistance type where the student can apply the knowledge acquired in his academic trajectory within a real context, either from direct observation of cases or through participation in alive. This is the big difference.

In addition, week after week, you can draw on whatever theoretical knowledge you still need to carry out psychotherapy. Small groups and exhaustive monitoring by tutors guarantee a guided learning process at all times. The student is never alone, there is always a team behind.

There are many students who, upon finishing their higher studies, think that they are not prepared to practice their profession. Do you think that this phenomenon is a real problem?

Completely. This is the main reason why they sign up for our Master. The training offers the possibility of exercising as a psychotherapist with real patients supervised and tutored at all times. The acquisition of skills resulting from staging helps the student to overcome fears and overcome obstacles that may arise in the practice of professional practice.

There are different orientations in psychotherapeutic practice, but what advantages does the characteristic integrative position of the Master in Integrative Psychotherapy of the Mensalus Institute offer?

Working under an integrative approach facilitates the use of all the necessary techniques according to the demand, the diagnostic hypothesis and the clinical hypothesis. It allows us to take advantage of the wide range of resources that we currently have given the scientific progress of all psychological theories.

From the integrative approach and using an evaluable methodology of the therapeutic process, the student will have the possibility of knowing how and when to apply the knowledge acquired in the approach that has been formed, as well as expanding their knowledge with tools from other approaches under the protection of the principles common. In short, the integrative approach in psychotherapy makes it possible to better adapt to the needs of the patient.

Do you think it is necessary for psychologists to experiment with their own psychotherapeutic style?

We believe that it is basic that the student knows and develops his own therapeutic style, this will make it easier for him to work more efficiently. At the same time, it will enable you greater self-awareness Useful when interacting with patients and various problems.

We work on the personal and professional style of each student in depth. On the other hand, they also get used to seeing us work under different professional profiles. in the training sessions, training sessions that, let us remember, are always carried out with patients in straight.

In the Master in Integrative Psychotherapy, students have the opportunity to learn from other psychotherapists by viewing cases live through a one-way glass. In what way does this help you?

As I said before, the fact of offering knowledge based on live real cases (through a one-way mirror, a screen and a camera circuit) makes it easier, from the first day, for the student to get used to witnessing the psychotherapy directed by different professionals, in addition to observe, comment and direct the psychotherapeutic intervention as it happens with the difficulties and characteristics of reality professional.

Do you think Psychology has all the recognition it should? What initiatives can be carried out so that reality changes?

Not at all. I would tell them to vindicate, through the collegiate body created to defend our profession (college of psychologists), the rights that snatch our profession unlike other professions that have defended their rights and have not been snapped up.

From your point of view, what would you say to those recent graduates in Psychology who want to practice as psychotherapist psychologists but do not feel prepared to put themselves in front of a patient?

I would tell you that in our master's degree you will have the opportunity to train and improve your psychotherapeutic skills as well as overcome your fears. universal evidenced in the scientific bibliography: fears to which every psychologist is exposed and idiosyncratic fears of each student.

They will also have the chance to broaden their knowledge and, of course, the key element: increase the real practice of psychotherapeutic intervention techniques that will help them expand their resources as psychotherapists.