Interview with the psychologist Elisabet Rodríguez Camón

Education is not only one of the most important and complex social processes. Through it, entire cultures can be modified and, of course, change the way of thinking and acting of the people who inhabit them.

That is why teaching and education is an area that can be approached from different disciplines, many of which are increasingly building bridges of dialogue towards pedagogy. Psychology, of course, is one of them..

Interview with Elisabet Rodríguez Camón, child and adolescent psychologist

To see first-hand that point where psychology and education come together, we interviewed Elisabet Rodríguez Camón, which in addition to collaborating in Psychology and Mind She has experience both in child and adolescent psychology and psychopedagogy, as well as in psychological care for adults.

What has been your professional career up to now? What projects are you currently working on?

I started my professional activity in the field of psychology after doing an internship the Degree in the Eating Disorders Unit at the Hospital Mútua de Terrassa. That period of time helped me to opt professionally for the clinical path in the cognitive-behavioral current, for this reason I prepared for three years the PIR oppositions. Although I did not obtain the residency position, I considerably strengthened my theoretical knowledge in the field of clinical psychology. Subsequently, I dedicated a year to work on the preparation and development of various psychological prevention projects for victims. of traffic accidents and I began to carry out my first individual psychological interventions in patients with symptoms anxious.

Currently, she works as a psychologist at Center d' Atenció Psicopedagogica Estudi (Sant Celoni) working as a psychologist child-youth, adults and as a psycho-pedagogue, although I have been collaborating in different care centers for more than three years psychological. In addition, since last April, I have been in a project-agreement of the Center Estudi with Social Services of the Town Hall of Sant Antoni de Vilamajor, offering psychological therapy to demanding users of the service. I combine all this with the collaboration in your Digital Magazine "Psychology and Mind" and the development of the Final Master's Thesis for the title of Master in Clinical Psychopedagogy, which is entitled: «Incorporation of Mindfulness Techniques in the school curriculum: psychological effects on the student body".

Since you have been researching about the practice of Mindfulness, in what sense do you think its techniques can be useful in the educational field?

The truth is that this field is still in a very early stage in terms of studying the effects of this type of technique in the educational context. Until now, the mindfulness it has been closely linked to clinical psychology and its application in the adult population; Between 1980 and 2000, around 1,000 references to Mindfulness were published, while between 2000 and 2012 the figure rose to around 13,000.

Regarding the school population, most of the research carried out internationally belongs to the last decade (and in Spain they are even more recent) which in science is a very short period to assess results at awareness. Even so, in most of them the findings are aimed at concluding numerous benefits achieved in the students intervened in terms of measures of attention span and concentration, cognitive abilities in general, as well as greater empathic ability and a higher level of general well-being, and even lower rates of aggression. In any case, the publications converge on the need for studies to be complemented by more long-term follow-up assessments after of the intervention and that they must have a greater number of representative population samples to be able to validate a generalization of the findings obtained. The results are very promising, in short, but more studies are needed to corroborate them.

The tendency on the part of the educational system to give great importance to exams, in which the correction is made assuming that there is only one correct answer for each question, which can serve to reward rigidity in the way of think. What position do you hold in this debate?

Talking about the educational system in a uniform way would be unfair to teachers. Slowly but progressively, the teaching community is committed to assessment systems other than the traditional ones (which are associated with a more finalist character) such as self-evaluation, peer evaluation, hetero-evaluation or peer evaluation, among others. However, it is true that the Educational Administration does not seem to support innovations in the field of evaluation as a learning tool. The revalidations and external tests introduced by the LOMCE serve as an example of this.

In the same way, to think that the school is the only educational agent responsible for the development of rigidity in thought would not be completely correct, since the influences that an individual receives from the different environments where he interacts are very relevant in the configuration of his own ability to reasoning. The creativity, for example, is a concept intrinsically incompatible with an inflexible style of thinking and its main determinants are both cognitive and affective, namely, openness to experience, empathy, tolerance of ambiguity and alien positions, a positive self-esteem, high motivation and self-confidence, etc.

These aspects must be forged jointly also from the family environment, therefore, this educational agent and the The values ​​that it transmits to the child are highly relevant and must be in line with the indicated factors. previously.

How would you describe the changes produced in the conceptualization of the current educational system with respect to the traditional one? Do you think there has been a significant evolution in this area?

Undoubtedly. I think that for a couple of decades, especially since the publication of the great best seller of daniel goleman"Emotional Intelligence" and all the research that this new field entailed then, there has been a great paradigm shift in terms of the way of understanding education today. Since then, other types of learning have begun to be taken as relevant, such as cognitive-emotional skills, to the detriment of those more instrumental and traditional.

There is still a long way to go but we are beginning to see how emotional variables condition the academic performance and the performance of the individual in their environment of interaction, that is, in relationships social. An example of this would once again be the rise in the incorporation of Mindfulness techniques and emotional intelligence content in the classroom.

To what would you attribute the increase in the incidence of learning disorders in the child population? Do you think there is an overdiagnosis?

My opinion on this question is somewhat ambivalent. Obviously, I am convinced that part of the increase in diagnoses is due to the advancement of science and the fact that today Today psychopathologies are known whose nosologies at the beginning and half of the last century went unnoticed, were underestimated or wrong. Let us remember that initially autism it was described as a kind of infantile psychosis, until Leo Kanner differentiated it in 1943. However, I also believe that recently it is going to the other extreme, in that there are cases in which They grant diagnoses although the criteria are not reliably met both quantitatively and qualitatively enough. At this point I see clear pressure from the pharmaceutical industry to try to maintain a high volume of diagnoses that allow them a greater economic benefit, as occurs with the diagnosis of the ADHD, For example.

On the other hand, as I said before, in a considerable proportion of the cases detected, both the diagnosis of behavior disorder learning as the nature of the evolution that is observed in the child is significantly influenced by factors of type emotional. Many times, low self-esteem or self-concept, lack of self-confidence and achievement motivation, difficulty in emotional regulation, etc., undermine the achievement of the main goals in the intervention of learning disorders, usually related to difficulties in literacy and calculation. For this reason, my opinion is that we should also focus on analyzing the factors that cause these deficits. emotional, while working to improve the cognitive abilities mainly affected, evidently.

If you had to mention a series of values ​​in which children are educated today and that did not have as much prominence in educational centers 20 years ago... which would be?

From my point of view, and derived from the experience that working closely with schools has brought me, it is possible to differentiate very clearly the values ​​that are intended to be transmitted from the educational context to those that prevail in the more personal or familiar. In the educational centers I observe a great teaching work that tries to compensate the harmful influence that It can be derived from the media, social networks, the capitalist economic system that surrounds us, etc

I could say that the teachers I interact with on a daily basis are very clear that today's student should not be a passive recipient of knowledge. instrumental, but must play an active role both in the acquisition of this type of knowledge and in being educated to live in community effectively. Examples of this would be the strengthening of their critical reasoning capacity and all those skills that will allow them to establish satisfactory interpersonal relationships such as empathy, respect, commitment, responsibility, tolerance for frustration, etc

In the case of the family environment, I think that, despite the fact that little by little the importance of Incorporating these mentioned adaptive values, there is still a long way to go in this sense. I usually come across cases in which parents spend insufficient quality time shared with their children (although not premeditated, in most cases) and this makes it difficult for children to internalize the skills previously cited. In my opinion, the influence of the values ​​that characterize today's society such as individualism, consumerism, competitiveness or Quantitative results make it extremely difficult for families to instill learning that goes in the right direction at a more "micro" level. opposite.

How do society and the environment influence the way in which boys and girls regulate their emotions?

One of the problems that most frequently motivates consultations in my workplace is both in the child population As in the adult, the poor ability to manage and adaptive expression of the emotional and lack of tolerance to frustration. This is very relevant since the reference figures for a child are their fathers / mothers and it is very complex for the child to can develop adaptive psychological capacities if you do not observe them in your role models, that is, family members and educators. I believe that today's society is generating less "resilient" individuals, understanding resilience as the ability of a person to overcome adversity quickly and effectively.

In other words, in this society of "the immediate, the quantitative or the productive" the message seems to be transmitted that the more roles an individual plays, the higher the level of Success will achieve: professional role, role of father/mother, role of friend, role of son/brother, role of athlete -or of all the hobbies that the person does-, role of student, etc The desire to cover more and more vital skills becomes an infinite loop, since in the person the desire to go further and further or to achieve a new goal will remain constantly latent raised. And obviously, the efficient assumption of so many simultaneous roles is impossible to achieve. At that moment frustration appears, a phenomenon diametrically opposed to resilience which I mentioned at the beginning.

For all these reasons, one of the main objectives in the interventions that I carry out in most cases is work on identification, the expression of emotions and sensations of the moment, putting aside both the past and the future. Priority is also given to learning to detect how language determines our way of thinking. think (based on judgments, labels, etc), trying to establish a balance between both items. The philosophy that guides my work is aimed at making patients aware that it is recommendable to learn to stop working with "autopilot" and to stop "producing" constantly. Many studies defend the beneficial effects of "boring" a few minutes a day.

In short, I try to teach that the key is to become aware of a specific situation, because that is what allows you to choose what kind of response you give consciously, rather than reacting to a stimulus impulsively or automatic. And this facilitates a greater ability to adapt to the environment that surrounds us.

The youngest population is the one that has been more intensely involved in the use of new technologies that many adults still do not understand Do you think that the fear about the way in which the "digital and technological" revolution affects us in the way we relate to each other is more unfounded than realistic?

On this issue, it is undoubtedly observable that the use of new technologies our way of relating to the world has changed in a very short period of time; The first smartphones began to be marketed only about 15 years ago. In the question of technology, as in most aspects, from my point of view, the key is not found in the concept itself, but in the use that is made of it. Technology has brought medical advances and significant positive results in psychological therapy; virtual reality applied to anxiety disorders would be a clear example.

Even so, on a more individual level, I believe that the use of new technologies is certainly unbalanced towards excessive and unregulated consumption. For example, one of the most common situations that I find myself in a consultation refers to the fact that the use of the tablet, console or mobile phone has replaced other traditional elements such as playing time in the park or carrying out an enjoyable extracurricular activity as objects of punishment towards the little. It can also be seen how, from the stage of adolescence, the fact of sharing all kinds of of details of personal life in social networks constantly is at the order of the day. It seems that face-to-face conversations are no longer in fashion, but exclusively through the screen.

Derived from this, I think that a feeling of fear may be developing towards the idea that the uncontrolled use of this type of technological device is increasing. However, I do not believe that the solution is through the prohibition of its use, but through education for proper use. responsible and balanced, both regarding the type of content that is transmitted and in the totality of time invested in its use. On this controversial issue, I would like to recommend the Black Mirror series to the interested reader; I must say that on a personal level its contents have managed to adopt a new perspective on this subject.

What future projects would you like to embark on?

Looking to the near future, I would like to direct my professional career to acquire further training in relation to the field of application of Mindfulness and Compassion in clinical practice. The truth is that since I chose this topic for my final Master's research my interest in this field is increasing. In addition, I would also be interested in delving into the field of learning disorders and emotional intelligence.

I believe that continuous training is an essential necessity to achieve optimal performance of the work professional, especially in the field of clinical psychology and education, so linked to advances scientists. Finally, despite the fact that I feel very comfortable carrying out my work in consultation, I am very attracted to the attention to the research sector, although for the moment it is only an idea to assess in the long run term.