Interview with Rubén Monreal: psychotherapy for deaf people.

Psychologist Rubén Monreal talks about his experience helping deaf people with sign language.

Psychotherapy is characterized by adapting to the needs of each type of patient; it is part of the nature of this service to take into account the particularities of the individual and to do everything possible to match them in the professional treatment given.

This work philosophy implies not taking anything for granted: what works for one person may not work for another, and this applies even to the way we communicate. The clearest case in which this occurs is found in deaf people who come to the psychologist.

In this interview we talk to Rubén Monreal, a psychologist specialized in psychotherapy for deaf people, who works in Madrid. who works in Madrid.

Interview with Rubén Monreal: psychological therapy for deaf people.

Rubén Monreal is one of the few psychologists in Madrid who treats deaf people in Spanish sign language. On this occasion he talks to us about his professional experience helping people with hearing loss or profound deafness.

How was your process of learning Spanish Sign Language?

I consider that I am fortunate in that sense to be a direct relative of deaf people and that has made things easier for me when it came to learning Spanish Sign Language. Since I was born I have been able to express myself fluently in this language and I have been able to understand what a deaf person wants to transmit without any problem.

Sometimes it happens that we professionals are trained to be able to offer services, but in my opinion that training is not enough to be able to reach people and understand what they need until we truly connect with their needs.

Sometimes we fail to connect with others, and in that I consider myself lucky, when it comes to relating to and understanding the demands of a deaf person who comes for consultation.

We often talk about the deaf community as a group with its own cultural particularities, having its own language and typical ways of socializing. Do you think this is reflected in the type of problems and needs that lead some deaf people to attend psychotherapy?

I don't think so. I think that deaf people have integrated into today's society in an extraordinary way, thanks in part to technologies that make it possible to send messages and make video calls.

In fact, the proof is that there are practically no longer any educational centers or schools exclusively for deaf children, but rather there is a commitment to the inclusion of this community in mixed classrooms with hearing and deaf children mixed together.

On the other hand, it is true that realistically the world is not ideally designed for deaf people even though the advent of cell phones and computers has made things easier for this group.

Because of this, at times, some deaf people may feel undervalued, disconnected from the rest, disillusioned or tired of perceiving how in situations that are important to them, they are not provided access or facilities to what they want or what would make them feel better.

Many times, in addition, the fact that we are hearing people does not help us to put ourselves in their shoes, we do not understand what life is like without being able to hear and we do not even stop to become aware of this.

In your experience, are the instances of discrimination that deaf people may still face today significant enough to be, in and of themselves, the primary cause for many to go to therapy?

In a way, yes. Let's imagine for a moment that a deaf person gets on a bus and decides to sit at the end of the bus without noticing the sound of the little machine warning that there are no more rides left on the ticket.

The driver tries to warn her, but notices that she is not paying attention. Therefore, the driver, fed up and offended by this "attitude" of passivity and feeling ignored, aggressively and exasperatedly addresses this deaf person to tell him that he has not paid for the trip and that he has to get off the bus.

Well, what would we perceive if we were that deaf person for a moment? Exactly, the consequences. We don't know what could have happened, we are only seeing a driver who is angry, exasperated, accusing us of we don't really know what. Emotionally, we are receiving a message of hatred, of anger, and this has an unexpected impact on us.

Emotions are transmitted, so we have already absorbed the unpleasant message even though it could have been avoided with sufficient means or by paying more attention to things.

Consequently, being attentive to the present moment (one of the first things we work on with hearing impaired people is Mindfulness) becomes essential for deaf people, since running on autopilot for hearing people may not generate apparently painful consequences, but in the case of the deaf community, it does.

That is, this is just one example of how there are many everyday situations that can generate conflict and that can make deaf people sometimes feel misunderstood, discriminated against and poorly treated in the society in which we live.

Does the way in which the psychologist establishes the therapeutic relationship between professional and patient have particularities when dealing with a deaf person?

Not necessarily. We work in a similar way to the way I work with hearing people, except that we change the "language". Both the client and I establish communication through Spanish Sign Language (LSE).

For me as a professional it is a challenge, a pride and a motivation to be able to collaborate with deaf people and to propose the learning of psychological skills without the use of the auditory channel for it.

It seems to me that it is a way to add value to this group so that they can relate in a healthier and fuller way with reality and I feel a real privilege to learn in this therapeutic relationship of the difficulties and strengths that these deaf people have developed throughout their lives to get where they have reached.

From the type of complaints that you have been perceiving, what ideas do you think would have to permeate more in society for deaf people to feel more and better integrated?

At this point, I am in favor of only one idea, which is to be more aware. To be more attentive and empathetic to the needs of the deaf community.

I believe that without paying real attention, there is little we can do to raise awareness as a society. Look at climate change. We did not realize that we might be destroying the planet until October, when the temperatures started to be very high.

For this reason, it seems to me that we, as hearing people, could try living without hearing for a month to understand from what perspective a deaf person faces day-to-day situations and the difficulties they sometimes encounter because they can't hear or hear very little.

Regarding psychotherapy services specifically designed for deaf people, do you think there are good options for training as a trained psychologist in this field?

Regarding this topic, I think there is still a lot of work to be done. Each psychologist has his or her own way of working and approaching the demands of the people who come to us.

Currently, it seems to me that there is no subject in the career or higher training in psychology, which devotes part of the agenda to train future professionals in Spanish sign language.

For that reason, being a necessity not contemplated in the present curricula, I consider fundamental that those psychologists who wish it adapt what they know to sign language and that they train their capacities to be able to reach and transmit to deaf people the knowledge that they are capable of transmitting to hearing people.

My ideal vision of all this is that there are not or should not be any difficulties in any psychology center to attend deaf people in Spain, but unfortunately we are few at the moment and I would like things to be different in the future.