Photo-reportage: UPAD Psychology and Coaching, a reference center in Madrid.

We will get to know how the team of psychologists at UPAD works through the following photo-report.

The origin of UPAD Psychology and Coaching dates back to 2009 at the Autonomous University of Madrid, where two sports psychology students began their Master's internship at a prestigious sports club in the Community of Madrid.

Since then, Fernando Callejo y Carlos Rey would not separate their paths again, officially founding UPAD Psicología y Coaching in the summer of 2014. Gone were the projects as independent psychologists in the sports field, participation in the sports psychology unit of the UAM, Human Resources consulting and individual consultations. The center for personal and professional development that we know today was born in Madrid, to accompany people in the difficult task of "turning their problems into challenges".

With this approach drawn from Positive Psychology and Coaching, they began to form a team of interdisciplinary professionals, helping their users to face situations of very diverse nature (sports, work, studies, personal, social, sexology, clinical, etc.), seeking to optimize their levels of performance, well-being and satisfaction with life.

How does the UPAD team work?

The UPAD team is organized around a joint assessment of the different needs presented to them by their users.After an initial free consultation, we determine which type of professional from the team is best suited to accompany each user in his or her development process.

Located in the center of Madrid, they have extended their scope of action thanks to the advantages offered by new technologies, offering their innovative and particular work methodology both in person in the capital, as well as online to people inside and outside our borders.

As psychologists, UPAD professionals do not trust in endless therapies and therefore, they aim to help people who come to the center to pursue their challenges, take responsibility for their own development and achieve in the future the ability to regulate themselves autonomously to the challenges ahead, previously empowering them to do so.

At UPAD Psychology and Coaching, each person is conceived as a complex system.The UPAD is composed of various gears that represent the different areas of relevance to their lives (personal, emotional, social, family, educational, professional, etc.), in each of which, moments or situations may arise throughout their development, which may pose difficulties for the proper functioning of the entire mechanism.

To achieve this, they evaluate the different areas of relevance of each user who comes to UPAD, in order to determine what kind of techniques and strategies are appropriate to use, which favor self-knowledge, acceptance and overcoming of the different situations they may be going through.

Each period presents its own challenges, so they offer their services of psychological care and development in all stages of life, from children, adolescents, adults, couples, families and seniors.

The areas of psychological intervention

At UPAD they focus on finding the lowest common denominator that underlies the different areas or contexts of psychological intervention that we can find in practice, in order to optimize a number of objectives, which correspond to the major areas of work that psychology addresses, finding among them:

• Our behavior (manifested in the performance we obtain in the different spheres that make up our life).

• Our feelings (expressed in terms of the well-being, or lack thereof, that we experience on a daily basis).

• And our thoughts (responsible for our level of satisfaction).

By intertwining these elements, they can be approached as the true responsible for our states of frustration, distrust or fear among others in various types of situations such as, for example:

• The person who lacks confidence in his or her ability to adequately address his or her relationships with others.
• The professional who is having a bad time at work because he/she does not feel motivated, recognized or does not feel that he/she fits in with his/her colleagues.
• The athlete who finds it difficult to face competition with sufficient performance guarantees or similar to those he finds in his practice during training.
• The dancer or musician who finds it difficult to control his states of tension derived from his auditions and concerts.
• The student or candidate who spends sleepless nights before exams and tests.
• The boy who finds it difficult to assimilate a breakup or to face his relationships with girls and vice versa.
• The self-demanding person who gets frustrated before starting his projects because of his high expectations.
• The one who wishes to increase his self-knowledge and reach higher levels of autonomy in the management of his person. Wherever there is a challenge, UPAD seeks a way to accompany these people in the development of their self-control, focusing on those aspects that they can truly control.

Psychology and Coaching

The approach of UPAD professionals is oriented to combine the application of different types of therapeutic techniques that come from the field of Psychology and Coaching, to adapt to the specific needs presented by each of the users who come to the center..

From more basic approaches, based on training in psychological skills management strategies for people with a lower level of knowledge in this regard, to a less directive approach, with a desire to explore new possible scenarios of action, more based on Coaching.

Courses and training

Another of the most characteristic aspects of UPAD is its commitment to training and excellence.offering both face-to-face and online training through its website, in all kinds of environments (sports, academic, professional, personal), pursuing different objectives such as prevention, awareness, skills training and development, among others.

Special mention should be made of their involvement in the practical curricular training of university students from various universities in the Community of Madrid (UCM, UNED, URJC, CUCC, UPC, VIU, etc.) of which they have been external tutors for more than 10 years and, occasionally, with other universities outside our borders.

The task of dissemination

The UPAD team is very aware of the importance of transmitting knowledge.The company's main objective is to make Psychology known to both the specialized public and the general public, serving as a "loudspeaker" of its work methodology (in its own professional training courses for psychologists) and various articles on different topics related to Psychology through the blog on its website (one of the most active in the networks).

• Follow them on their official Twitter.