Is any psychologist suitable for any case? Interview with Beatriz Romero Martín

What criteria are used to select psychologists?

The operation of a psychotherapy center is not simple: the forms of discomfort and the problems that lead people to come to these consultations are very varied. How to make sure that the team of professionals working in one of these clinics or psychology offices will be able to provide the necessary care? The key lies in the selection of psychologists, training and the dynamics of working together.

To understand how to respond to the diversity and complexity of patients' problems, we interviewed Beatriz Romero, a psychologist with a specialization in psychology, we interviewed Beatriz Romero, Director of Consulta Psicológica Despertares..

Interview with Beatriz Romero, Director of Consulta Psicológica Despertares

Beatriz Romero Martín is a psychologist specialized in adult psychotherapy, couple therapy and organizational psychology. She is in charge of Consulta Psicológica Despertares, an entity specialized in mental health care with centers in Madrid, Getafe, Leganés and Móstoles.

In this interview he talks to us about how teams of psychologists are configured to cover all the possible needs that patients may have.

When it comes to selecting personnel to expand the team of experts at the psychotherapy center, is it complicated to know how to make the right choice?

Yes, it is complicated because our selection criteria is strict. At Despertares, we are very clear about the profiles of the professionals with whom we want to collaborate. They are profiles of high value, good training, a lot of experience and ability to work as a psychologist.

This last required ability may seem obvious, but something we have learned in these 8 years of experience and more than 8000 patients attended is that not only training and experience make a good psychologist. It is also very important to be mature and have a good aptitude and attitude for it, this is usually the most difficult to find. We can say that our team has training, experience and individual capacity, so they are very good psychologists.

Is it common for the psychologists on the team to advise each other, or do they always work in parallel, without their paths crossing when it comes to their patients' cases?

We have a team of approximately 35 psychologists with different specialties, distributed in 5 centers in the community of Madrid. Being such a large team, the possibilities of support and counseling are very important.

Our team, in the centers, has common meeting areas, and in them during the breaks there is a lot of counseling. We have specialists in all the psychological problems that we usually see in consultation, so that any doubt or need for support is immediately attended to. Sometimes there are psychologists who request complete supervision of cases, these supervisions are also carried out by our senior team.

On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that when a psychologist comes to work at Despertares, it is because he/she has the proven ability to attend patients with guarantees, so in practice, psychologists are very independent and self-sufficient.

Are there methods and theoretical-practical orientations from which it is possible to treat any psychological problem, or is it necessary to combine several of these methodologies? If it is the latter, how do you achieve a balance between what is offered to patients?

In Despertares we work with an integral method of theoretical-practical orientations. This means that the psychologist-patient assignment is made on the basis of the psychologist's profile and the characteristics of the patient or the demand.

All psychological orientations are applicable to all cases, but not all psychologists have all the tools of a single orientation. We value the professional as a whole, and the skills of our professionals are framed within different psychological currents but not only in one.

Experience has taught us that it is most effective for practitioners to use the tools with empirical evidence and to frame them within their theoretical framework. This is how in Despertares we have managed to balance theoretical-practical knowledge, empirical evidence and characteristics of the patients and their demand.

Beyond the reasons that patients say have led them to seek professional help in psychotherapy, there are many other factors that influence their problem, such as their work, family life, group of friends, etc. Is this also taken into account to know what type of professional and therapy best suits their needs?

Many patients who call us for help are not very clear about their real needs. They tell you their circumstances and we are the ones who, based on what they tell us and our experience, try to determine where we should start the attention.

To know the necessary data for this, we need to know information about the person and their personal, work, social, etc. situation. We try to find out this information before assigning the case to one of the professionals of our team.

What criteria does a psychological assistance center of the characteristics of Consulta Despertares follow when assigning patients to the psychologists of the team?

It would be: personal data, patient preferences (there are patients who ask the psychologist to have a specific type of orientation or to apply a particular tool), reason for consultation and other data that help us to make the first "snapshot" of the person.

To what extent is continuous training important when it comes to being a psychologist specialized in therapy? Is it not enough with what is learned at the university and in the day to day treating patients?

The training career of psychologists is very long. I mean, the university offers a first approach to psychology, teaches orientation and techniques. This is not enough to be a psychologist in the field of health psychology.

To be a psychologist in this field, it is necessary to have a deep knowledge of the psyche, the theoretical frameworks and the different techniques used. This in-depth knowledge is obtained after completing various training courses and master's degrees. One of them, the master's degree in general health psychology, is a prerequisite for working in Despertares.

Psychologists, in the exercise of our profession, sometimes we see that we do not feel confident in some areas because we lack training. To make up for these shortcomings, there are a multitude of courses specialized in all types of problems.

To facilitate access to these trainings Despertares has an agreement with the Spanish Association for the Promotion and Development of Psychotherapy, where our psychologists receive high quality training in very advantageous conditions for them.