Interview with Marta Guerri, psychologist and director of PsicoActiva

Today we have the pleasure of sharing a talk with a person who has put a lot of effort and work into promoting and coordinating a psychology website. Is about Martha Guerri, director and content manager of psychoactive. A nurse and psychologist by training, she has an extensive and multidimensional resume. He combines his presence on the internet with talks and conferences at different universities.

Psychology and Mind: First of all, Marta, thank you for sharing this conversation with us. We want to start by asking you about the website you run, PsicoActiva. How and when did the idea come about? For what purpose did you create the website?

Marta Guerri: Well, the idea of ​​creating psychoactive It arose a long time ago, while he was studying his first degree in Psychology. At that time, this whole world of web pages was beginning to grow, the Internet was already very popular, but not remotely as immense as today. I'm talking about the year 1998.

The idea of ​​making a page on psychology came more from my husband than from me, he is a computer scientist and he told me that it would be a good idea to make an informative page on this subject. And in the end he convinced me, even though I hated computers! So he started to do the programming and all the technical part of the web and I did the content. He thinks that blogs as we know them did not exist at that time, it was programmed mainly in HTML, which is how he developed our main page. Subsequently we have made the blog, our most dynamic and current section and the services section with other tools.

It has always been a joint effort between the two, but he has preferred to remain in the shadows and not appear as a co-founder or collaborator, so that only I appear as the director of the web, but not it is so.

Our purpose was mainly informative and entertainment, for me more the former and for him more the latter, since he he loved programming psychotechnical tests and brain teasers, which is why he subtitled our page as: “psychology and leisure website intelligent". In fact, he loves this field so much that he produced several more pages of his own just for brain training.

Psychology and Mind: I suppose that, over time, your expectations about what you wanted PsicoActiva to be have been changing.

M.G.: Indeed, our expectations have been changing, for many years we only had it as our own entertainment, to do in our spare time, entering informative content so that it was accessible from anywhere in the world, we had no more expectations than this. Keep in mind that the boom in the Google advertising business and the famous SEO is later.

Honestly, we realized that we could get something out of it in terms of advertising on the web in in 2009, after a call from a publisher who wanted to put up a banner for us because we had many visits. We weren't even aware! We did not do anything at all in that sense, and it was then that we began to move the subject of publicity through Google AdSense, at least we began to cover hosting expenses, which were beginning to be elevated. Although as you know, it is difficult to obtain a reasonable income even having numerous visits.

In any case, we remain focused on our initial objective of spreading the word and entertaining, we like to do what we do, because it is still a creative process, a personal project that you put together and you manage in your own way, without anyone telling you how to do it or how not to do it, and that is something that is very fulfilling, because it becomes a process of continuous growth on a personal and professional.

Psychology and Mind: Let's talk about your professional facet. In what fields have you worked? Tell us a little about your professional career. Because in addition to being a psychologist you are a nurse. Interesting. Surely knowing both disciplines has been a positive point when it comes to understanding health in broad terms.

M.G.: Curiously, my professional career is somewhat varied, because as you say, I had studied previously Nursing, and in fact I had been working as such in a hospital for a few years before starting the Psychology career. But it is that since I studied nursing I was very interested in the whole subject of psychology and mental health, in fact my end-of-year internships were I chose in the specialty of psychiatry and I did them in the psychiatric emergency ward of Bellvitge, an experience that I loved and with which I learned very much. On the other hand, I have to admit that I didn't feel fulfilled as a nurse, which is why I threw in the blanket and asked for a year's leave of absence to start psychology.

Psychology and Mind: A brave decision.

M.G.: Well, and necessary. I was already married and had a mortgage behind me, so even though I started studying the first year face-to-face, I had to go virtual after getting pregnant with my first son. I assure you that it is not easy to work outside the home, study a career, attend the web, do housework and, on top of that, being a new mother. I think it has been the hardest time I've had in this sense, I don't recommend it to anyone!

In short, it is not easy when you already have financial burdens such as a mortgage and children, leaving a job stable as the one I had, to launch you into the adventure of trying to live exercising a new profession. There are moments in life when you have to know how to make the most correct decision not only for yourself, but also for those around you.

Of course, having knowledge of both disciplines, nursing and psychology, has given me a lot experience, I have been working alongside psychiatrists, I have dealt with all kinds of patients and everything is learn.

I finally left nursing four years ago now, for reasons of family organization, since I couldn't stretch my schedule any longer or my time to get to everything. That is why my husband and I discussed it and we decided that from then on I would dedicate myself only to the website, to have more time to take care of the children.

Psychology and Mind: Returning to the web, it will have taken a great effort to write articles periodically to supply the site with updated content. How important is disclosure when building a professional profile on social networks? Has your presence on the internet helped you professionally?

M.G.: Well, as I told you before, by dedicating myself now only to the page, I have more time to create content, although I still lack it, don't believe it. Luckily we also get requests from professionals who want to publish with us, who provide us with very interesting material on a more or less regular basis.

It is clear that social networks today are essential to obtain a good presence on the network. We started using them a bit late, but I think you have to work on them regularly and professionally to achieve a good profile, interesting and at the same time open and trustworthy for users, this is how you manage to make your brand known in some way shape.

On the other hand, personally I am not currently dedicated to psychotherapy, partly due to lack of time and hours of training in this field, because as you can see my career has not been the most common and, honestly, I have not been able to be in everything. But currently I have set up an online office where some trusted collaborators do offer their services and I can honestly tell you that it is more difficult than it seems to get patients, even if they are well known. On the internet, most content is free and if you don't also sell a product that can be “see and touch”, then people are reluctant to pay for it. Many people write to us asking for psychological help, but when it comes to hiring a paid service they back out, it's that simple.

Psychology and Mind: One of your specialties is emotional intelligence. What are the fundamental keys for a person to develop this capacity? Why is emotional intelligence so important to successfully face the day to day?

M.G.: The key to the development of any capacity, be it the emotional intelligence (EI) or any other, it is of course first wanting to do it, and then follow the advice that the professional can give you as many times as necessary until the change occurs. For me it is like the phrase "Genius is made with 1% talent and 99% work", this is true and valid for practically everything we wish to learn or achieve, regardless of what to be.

If we define emotional intelligence, we will see that it refers to the human capacity to feel, understand, control and modify the emotional states of oneself and also of others. It is a type of psychological aptitude that governs and directs our emotions in every way. It is a way of knowing how to enjoy the events of life from a state of understanding and self-acceptance. It also allows us to know how to act on our shortcomings and at the same time expand our strengths. All this allows us to become aware of our emotions, understand the feelings of others, tolerate the pressures and frustrations that we endure both at work and in everyday life, accentuating our ability to work as a team, for example, allowing us to adopt a more empathic and social attitude in our relationships interpersonal. An adequate IE will offer us, in short, more possibilities for personal development in all senses.