Guillermo Orozco: "Truthful information is necessary on the Internet".

Psychologist Guillermo Orozco talks to us about his experience as a popularizer on YouTube.

YouTube has long been much more than a place to upload improvised videos made by amateurs. Nowadays there are many professionals who use this platform to disseminate useful information, for example, and for this reason there is already a virtual "ecosystem" of popularizers from all fields of knowledge: Astronomy, Biology, Music, etc.

In this case, we talked to someone who dedicates part of his time to spreading the word about what he is dedicated to: psychology. We are talking about Guillermo Orozco, author of the channel "Psicología en Serio con Guillermo Orozco", in which he talks about his work in a combination of his own work.in which he speaks combining his knowledge obtained from his experience as a psychotherapist with that which arises from scientific research and discoveries at a global level.

Interview with Guillermo Orozco: spreading about Psychology through YouTube.

Guillermo Orozco is a General Health Psychologist with a practice in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, from where he offers face-to-face sessions or online therapy. For some time now, he has also begun to take advantage of the potential of the Internet as a communicator on topics related to Psychology as a science. In this interview he talks to us about what he proposes through his YouTube channel, "Psicología en Serio con Guillermo Orozco" (Serious Psychology with Guillermo Orozco).

What was the main idea that led you to start this project?

As I have already mentioned in other interviews, my work as a psychologist is mainly vocational. Years ago I worked in the marketing world and I decided to leave everything to dedicate my life to help people to suffer less.

Currently I am fortunate to be able to see many patients in my psychology office in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, but the desire to be able to help more people is always on my mind.

Individual and personalized therapeutic work is my passion and mass outreach can never replace individualized therapy. Even so, and taking into account that not everyone can afford personalized psychological care, making these videos can help people who are suffering and can't find a way out of this impasse, either for economic or family reasons, or because they are ashamed to talk about these issues.

Precisely this is another of the reasons that led me to talk about my work on a platform like YouTube, trying to stop society from stigmatizing people with mental disorders and see them as other human problems.

I started writing in the blog of my website, where I have been publishing articles for a few years and also collaborating with some psychology and health portals, such as you, Psicología y Mente, AZSalud and other pages of the sector. Even so, I still had the need to reach more people, given the amount of misinformation that exists today in the networks about scientific psychology.

We can constantly see on the Internet how treatments for mental disorders are trivialized with pseudotherapies based on "positive mentality", "secret tricks" to eliminate your anxiety forever, gurus who claim that "will is power" and a long etcetera of quick and infallible methods to alleviate your suffering.

All this avalanche of alternative methods can be very harmful in some cases and I wanted to do my bit and bring some light. This is what motivates me to continue making this effort and to talk about psychology in scientific and empirically supported terms.

Psychology is characterized, among other things, by having many areas of research and application. What kind of topics does your YouTube channel focus on?

The topics I deal with on my channel are mainly those I work on in my daily practice: anxiety, depression, stress, self-esteem problems, social skills, relationship and sexuality problems... I also like to talk about social psychology and neuroscience, as they are very interesting topics that help us to understand many of our habitual behaviors.

Social psychology has discovered numerous psychological effects that occur in human interactions and that can be key to enjoying life more. Theories such as "cognitive dissonance", the "halo effect", the "diffusion of responsibility" or "the Pygmalion effect" are just some of the many contributions that social psychology brings to the understanding of human behavior.

Neuroscience is a relatively recent field, and it helps us to understand the human mind by relating thoughts, emotions and behaviors to different brain structures.

The topics I deal with have to do with memory, learning, attention, emotion or perception, among others. This helps us to understand how our brain works, knowing its true potential, but also the limitations it has, and this can help us to suffer less and have a greater well-being. In this field, we can also find numerous myths and a large number of biased beliefs that can be harmful to people, so I think it is necessary to talk about these issues in a rigorous way and offering information that is as truthful as possible.

What topics do you notice have a greater impact on the audience, and which ones do you think need to be addressed to educate society on important issues?

Although I talk about all kinds of disorders and emotional problems, anxiety is undoubtedly the star topic both in my practice and in the videos I publish. There are hundreds of people in the world suffering from anxiety, in some of its variants, and that is a very alarming situation.

That so many people suffer from this problem and the billions of anxiolytics that are consumed in our society, warns us that something serious is happening. This is why I saw the need for information based on scientific data to be disseminated on the Internet, since anxiety has unfortunately become a millionaire's business.

This is happening with all kinds of psychological problems and disorders and the rogues do not stop taking advantage of human suffering. Thousands of courses, miracle remedies and gurus flood the networks, offering the cure for all kinds of disorders for little effort and a lot of money. That is why truthful information is necessary on the Internet. The more the better. It is a priority for people to know how psychological disorders really work and to seek appropriate help.

Other topics that attract a lot of attention from people who watch my videos are personality disorders, and I think it is very necessary to talk about them, as it is a very difficult problem to treat and causes a lot of suffering. Family members and friends of individuals with personality disorders need to know what they are facing and have tools to be able to manage crises, which are common in these problems.

What do you think your channel brings to the Spanish-language outreach community on YouTube?

What I really hope is that my channel brings clear and concise information about psychological and emotional problems. In an entertaining and understandable way, but without falling into simplicity.

Emotional and psychological disorders, problems or disorders are complex and multifactorial, and it is terrible to see how many "popularizers" and "YouTubers" venture to talk, without training or scientific basis, about how to "fight", "eliminate" or "cure forever", and quickly and easily anxiety, depression or stress.

I know that my channel will not be the most popular, as I am rigorous and cautious, as science is. You won't find magic or miracle methods in it, but what you will see is the harsh reality, and this is not usually appealing.

Cognitive behavioral therapy, which is what I practice, is based on work and effort, and that doesn't sell as well as quick fixes and miracle cures, but I know this is the way. I am used to live it in my practice every day, desperate and frustrated people who come having gone through all kinds of therapies and pseudotherapies.

Real change is achieved with work, effort and time, that is the message I would like people to internalize. I want people to cultivate critical thinking and learn to discern between contrasted information and "worlds of fantasy and color, where everything is possible".

Has it been difficult for you to adapt to this new channel in which to communicate?

I am related to new technologies and social networks, so I am used to seeing and consuming this type of formats. On the other hand, in my practice I tend to be quite directive and I really like the psychoeducation part, so in those moments I feel comfortable explaining how psychological problems work, what to expect from therapy, from life, etc.

I really enjoy that part of my job so, adapting it to the videos has been quite easy and I have felt very comfortable, the hard part has been getting used to seeing and hearing myself. I had only seen myself recorded in some local TV interviews and, to be honest, I didn't feel comfortable in front of the cameras.

I recorded the first video without much conviction, driven by my desire to help and to spread my experience in the psychological consultation. I didn't like it at all when I saw it finished, but my partner, who was watching it with me, told me: "it's really good, I'm sure it will help many people to better understand how anxiety goes" and, although I wasn't convinced, I uploaded it to YouTube.

Soon after I saw that the video was accepted and that the comments received were positive and, most importantly, that it was helping people to better understand what was happening to them. That was crucial, the feedback with people. Reading how people from all over the world encouraged me to upload more content and told me that thanks to these videos they were understanding and improving their symptoms, this was, is and will be the engine of this channel.

There are some very powerful testimonials in the comments of my videos, where you can appreciate the deep suffering that exists in our society. People from all over the world are now connected with my words and thank me for the help given with the information I convey in the videos. This is all that matters.

Making a video for YouTube with today's production standards is often quite laborious. How do you combine this task with your main job running your psychology practice?

Luckily I am familiar with the tools needed to shoot and edit videos, as I spent many years in marketing, so I do all the work, from scripting, to final editing, to publishing and promotion on social media.

I usually record the videos and edit them during the weekends and, during the week, in the free time I have (which are not many), I prepare the scripts. I have to juggle with the hours of the day to give me time to do everything I set out to do, but the results are worth it.

For all this, you can see that they are not very elaborate videos, neither in production nor in postproduction. There are channels that invest a lot in aesthetics, effects and advertising. In mine, on the contrary, I look for the content to be understood in a clear and brief way, without much digital flourish. The important thing is the message and that it reaches as many people as possible.

With the development and diversification of the Internet, do you think it will become more and more common for psychologists to have a role as communicators?

I really hope that scientific psychology and evidence-based therapy will have an increasing presence in social networks, blogs and any other format that becomes popular on the Internet. It is necessary that some scientific rigor can balance this nonsense and this proliferation of pseudotherapies and magical methods that flood the networks to treat psychological disorders.

It is natural that human beings tend to seek quick and easy results for their discomfort, and pseudosciences are very attractive for that reason. But people have to know the scientific method and be realistic about the opportunities we have to learn how to handle and manage psychological problems.

Currently we can see great science popularizers, such as Javier Santaolalla, José Luis Crespo or Rocío Vidal on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, and even on TikTok. So it is only a matter of time before more and more new generations of psychologists spread the message of "serious and scientific" psychology throughout the networks.