Lizbeth García: "Art makes us aware of mental health issues".

Interview with Lizbeth García, from Astronauta Emocional, the center behind the #HablemosDeEmociones campaign.

Much of our psychological well-being depends, among other things, on the degree of openness that exists in our society when it comes to talking openly about issues related to mental health.

A culture full of taboo aspects is so limiting that it makes it difficult to effectively manage emotional and even psychopathological problems. Fortunately, lately more and more efforts are being made to normalize this type of conversation, that is, to make us lose our fear of recognizing that almost no one's life is perfect in every respect.

In this sense, mental health professionals are among those who struggle the most to encourage these conversations to be normal, so that it is not unusual to talk about our bad moments and our emotional vulnerabilities. An example of this can be found in the person we interviewed in this case. we interviewed in this case: Lizbeth Garcia. This psychologist is part of the team at Astronauta Emocional, a psychotherapy center located in Mexico City, and these days she and her colleagues are promoting the #HablemosDeEmociones campaign, which relies on the expressive power of illustration.

Interview with Lizbeth García: driving the #Let'sTalkAboutEmotions campaign.

Lizbeth García is a Clinical Psychologist and member of the management team of Astronauta Emocional, a psychological assistance center located in Mexico City. This entity is characterized, among other things, by its powerful presence on the Internet and in areas of dissemination of Psychology, bringing the science of behavior to the general public both through its social networks and its presence in the media, as well as through its podcast, "De Otro Planeta", which can be heard on the Emotional Astronaut website.

On this occasion, Lizbeth tells us about the #Let'sTalkAboutEmotions campaign, which is taking place these days and which seeks to encourage the normalization of conversations about how we members of society feel, for better or worse, and about the eventual emotional problems that arise in the lives of all kinds of people.

In short, what is the Let's Talk About Emotions campaign, when does it take place and what message does it want to convey to society?

The #Let'sTalkAboutEmotions campaign is a campaign we are running with the purpose of telling people that it is okay to talk about how we feel and that it is normal for us to experience our emotions in different ways. We believe that this is the first step to encourage empathy, but mainly to open the conversation to the different psychological disorders that today, and even more in pandemic, we are experiencing.

So what we did was to get together with five of the best Mexican illustrators so that from October 5 to 10 every day we represent through an image the importance of emotions with the objective that people also share their story.

In addition, in our podcast we will have two interviews with people who are not psychologists, so that they can tell us their story. Our first guest is a person who currently has Borderline Personality Disorder and today created the largest mental health community in Mexico. Our second guest was diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder and also has one of the leading mental health communities on anxiety issues.

What do you think are the main reasons why, nowadays, people tend to avoid talking about emotional problems in general, and those related to psychological disorders in particular?

It seems to me that it is something that comes from long ago; when we were children we were never taught what it means to talk about our emotions, and culturally we don't have this openness either. And I think this is a problem, because then we live day by day with immediacy but without stopping to reflect on what is happening to us and how we are feeling.

But also, currently there is a tendency to "always think positive" and therefore we believe that what we feel is not so bad and we say things like "Maybe I'm exaggerating", "I should be able to handle everything", "We must see the positive side", etc. The problem with this type of thinking is that it encapsulates us and makes us believe that it is wrong to feel sadness, anger, fear ... and ultimately deny all our emotions and the nuances that are in them affects us psychologically.

And this leads us to the fact that for example, in Mexico, according to statistics from the UNAM, at least 15 out of every 100 inhabitants suffer or will suffer some kind of psychological disorder, and if we do not visualize that it is okay to talk about these issues, these figures will increase, especially now that we are affected by the pandemic.

Taking into account the cultural changes that have taken place so far in the 21st century, would you say that improvements have been made in this regard over the last few years? Is it less difficult for us to talk about emotions and examine them from a constructive point of view?

I think we are on the right track. The younger generations are already beginning to have a different concept of the importance of mental health; however, there is still a lot of work to be done, since not everyone has access to the same information and psychological care.

We psychologists have to break down those myths about mental health, and make people see that problems in this area are something very common, such as when we physically feel bad. In that way, when we feel emotionally bad, it's important to go and check what's going on. And that's why at Astronauta we do these kinds of campaigns like #Let'sTalkAboutEmotions, to reach out to the general population and break the stigma.

Given that in the campaign you seek the collaboration of illustrators, do you think that drawing is a way to express more freely taboo or uncomfortable emotional aspects of mental health that society tends to minimize?

Yes, we firmly believe that art in general sensitizes us much more on mental health issues, and in the case of illustrations, since we started the campaign we noticed that it was a very good way to connect with people in a much more creative way and without being so direct. We use infographics, memes, and pop culture references to send messages about the importance of mental health.

Also, in our illustrations we always try to humorously and creatively represent the diversity of emotions, disorders, situations and conflicts that people might be experiencing.

Anyway, your brand is characterized by having a very strong and distinctive visual identity. Why did you decide to invest efforts in this?

I believe that you can never have enough, and due to the increase of cases regarding mental health due to the pandemic and the lock-in, we decided that it's a good time to open the conversation. And somehow, with the collaboration of both the illustrators, our podcast guests and allies, we can make a positive impact on motivating people to open up about their emotions.

Also, our purpose since Astronauta was born, was to encourage people to talk more about these issues regardless of whether they do it with a therapist, with friends, partner... but to do it so that they feel better about themselves.

What do I have to do to follow the campaign?

From October 5 to 10 we are making noise; within our social networks (such as the Instagram account of Emotional Astronaut) we will share the illustrations made by the creatives, podcast interviews and lives to talk about this topic, but we will also be raffling totally free sessions so that people are motivated to talk about their emotions and what is happening to them.