Nacho Coller: "Humor is therapeutic, it helps to de-dramatize and take distance from problems".

A unique psychologist with a particular style of humor.

A tireless conversationalist who knows how to generate optimism and good vibes around him That's how he is Nacho Coller (Valencia, 1969), a psychologist and professor who combines his professional facet as a clinical psychologist with multiple immersions in the Spanish media scene.

Interview with Nacho Coller

We have met with him to talk about his personal and professional lifeWe met with him to get a closer look at his vision of the psychology profession and his present and future plans. Today we talk with the great Nacho Coller.

Bertrand Regader: Nacho, you have been working as a clinical psychologist for more than 20 years. You are one of the most recognized psychotherapists in Spain, and yet it seems that you are always training and embarking on new projects. Is it this vitalist attitude that led you to want to dedicate yourself to clinical practice?

Nacho Coller: To tell you the truth, the attitude I had 20 years ago towards the profession is nothing like the one I have now; in those years insecurity and fears prevented me from doing many of the things I do now. I was anxious about criticism and I also thought that other psychologists were better than me.

So imagine, on the one hand the desire I had to eat the world and do things, and on the other hand, the brake I had in my brain as a result of my Darth Vader and my Dark Side of the Force. In my case and based on personal work, life experiences of all kinds and how much I have learned from my patients, the cool part has won, the part that adds up and takes risks. My Darth Vader keeps talking, but I try not to pay much attention to him.

B. A.: What do you consider to be the three virtues necessary to treat clinical cases? And how have you managed to develop your talent in each of these facets?

Being a good human being, being well trained and accepting one's own limitations and imperfections. I don't understand being a good psychologist without being good people, without being a good person. To be up to date in training, to read, to study, to train, to ask questions when you don't know, to make an effort and to persevere. Adapting a phrase of the great Bertrand RussellI would say that psychotherapy has to be guided by love and based on knowledge. A third virtue is to recognize our own psychological and emotional limitations. Psychologists also cry, get depressed, have anxiety and suffer like the rest of the staff. The important thing is to accept our mistakes and work on them to improve. How can we ask a patient to make an effort to change if we are not capable of doing so ourselves? To develop the virtues I try to be clear about my life project; to recognize my limitations and know how to ask for help, to accept my many imperfections, to try to do my best to help the people around me and, finally, to surround myself with good people who bring balance and value to my life. Tiny people, those who subtract, those who see the world under kilos of dandruff, the farther away, the better.

Even so, and having more or less clear what you want, with a positive mood, leading a balanced life or at least trying to do so and having good people around you, one is not free from psychological disorders.

B. A.: You have spoken on some occasions about the bad times you had in the past.

Yes. Note that I have had a depression that I narrate in this article: nachocoller.com/depresion-un-perro-perro-negro-and-a-surprised-psychologist/

If you only knew how many colleagues have congratulated me publicly and privately for this act of sincerity and supposed courage.

With psychological disorders there is a lot of stigma and psychologists join the copulative verbs ser, estar and parecer with the word bien or perfecto, what an obligation and what a drag not to allow oneself to be an imperfect person. In addition, there are professional colleagues who sell that they are mega happy and that they have the method to have control of thoughts and emotions full time (how much harm does selling fallacies). Note that when I had depression I lived it in silence and with much shame and now I am a teacher in the field of depression, precisely.

A psychologist as I was depressed, phew! I had a terrible time, not only sadness but also guilt. Writing the article was soothing, it helped me to banish the posturing of 'everything is fine' and 'I can handle anything' and to be able to tell others: "yes, I've had depression too! is something wrong? I know from the number of messages I have received in public and privately that this post has helped more than one colleague, especially the younger ones, to feel guilty for feeling bad. And the best part? You should see the faces of many people who come to my office for the first time distressed and depressed when I tell them that I also had depression. I tell them about the article and encourage them to read it, that it is possible to get out of it, that it is normal, that anyone can fall, even the psychologist who is there in front of them with a half smile and looks like Supermanalso had his dose of Kryptonite.

B. A.: In addition to your professional facet as a therapist, you are one of the most followed psychologists in social networks. In fact, you were recently named by our digital magazine as one of the 12 biggest 'influencers' in the field of mental health. What is your main motivation when it comes to taking care of your social networks?

Wow, I assure you that the main one is to enjoy and have fun; the day I stop laughing and having fun in my work as a clinician, publishing articles, participating in some media or giving classes, I will ask myself what the hell is wrong with me; it will surely mean that I have lost my way. And I would be lying to you if I did not add another motivating factor to keep doing things, and it is none other than personal ego and a certain vanity.

Knowing that my work is liked and has social recognition, it's cool for me. I am very happy to know that with my contributions I can make it easier for some people to make their lives a little more fun and safer. And if I can also bring a smile to people's faces, I've achieved my goal.

B. A.: We recently saw you starring in a TEDx talk in Valencia. How did this possibility arise?

My experience at TEDx was fantastic and from an intellectual point of view one of the challenges that has squeezed my brain cells the most. It seems easy once you see the video, but preparing something original, with your own style and without copying, with more than 300 people in the audience and knowing that what you say will be recorded and can be used against you... (laughs). It was a huge challenge and very rewarding.

The story came about after a conversation with the licensee of TEDxUPValencia, Belén Arrogante and with César Gómez Mora (an excellent coach). We talked about anger, the losses of control we have in the car, the smoke peddlers and the excesses in the messages of the Taliban of positive psychology and there began the story of the inner Neanderthal. The video came later.

B. A.: Those of us who know you know that you combine your many years of experience with a remarkable sense of humor. Do you think humor can help during therapy? Is it necessary to de-dramatize life?

I don't understand living life without humor and laughter. Humor is therapeutic, it helps to relativize, to de-dramatize and to distance oneself from problems. In my practice, we cry, and sometimes we cry (on more than one occasion I have had tears, and may they continue to come, this will mean that I am still alive), but I assure you that if we put the balance, there is more laughter than crying. It is amazing how we are able to use humor even in extreme situations.

B. A.: We read in your blog an incisive article in which you vindicate the role of the psychologist with respect to other professionals, such as coaches. This is a controversial issue and the various Colleges of Psychologists are beginning to confront these forms of intrusiveness. What do you think the position of psychologists should be regarding this?

I am very angry about this issue. Our professional group is somewhat peculiar, the moment we see a colleague who stands out, who appears on TV in a debate or in an interview, we start to criticize him or her and to speculate about which school he or she belongs to or that he or she is not one of mine; we go straight to the mistake. I cannot imagine two traumatologists doing the same as us or two psychiatrists or two lawyers.

In the rest of the professions there is respect for the colleague, in ours there is not in general. I tell you this, because while psychologists are with the criticism and we continue taking it with a cigarette paper and anchored exclusively in the pathology, in the problems and in that there are things that we do not have to say or do in consultation because it indicates the brainy university manual, has come a group without training that has caught us with the changed step. A group that, under the fallacy that everyone can be happy if they want to be, in the "if you want you can" and the infinite power of the mind to improve in life; with the wind in favor of the media pressure that we must be happy at all costs (the self-help industry moves in USA 10,000 million dollars annually) and taking advantage of a certain legal vacuum, sell happiness and sell personal development without having the slightest basis of studies in psychology (the degree, of course).

It makes me very sad to see a lot of prepared psychologists, with excellent training, with a great desire to work and to contribute their bit to the improvement of society, who are struggling to find a job and then some guy or gal comes along who is a good communicator, with some negative life experience of which he will take advantage to sell himself, who uses some powerpoint words or sugar-coated slogan and sells smoke and mirrors and takes the cat to the water. We psychologists are not doing something right, and I think we need to make an exercise of self-criticism. We are in a society of image, of perfect photographs, and we must recognize that many coaches, mentors, companions and tarot readers handle image very well. Psychologists do not only go to the photo, to the static, we go to the X-ray, which is more precise, and we go to the film, which is more complete. By the way, psychologists work on personal growth; in fact I do it regularly in consultation, we are not only in pathology. Mental health is not to be trifled with, and coaching is nothing more or less than a tool of psychology.

B. A.: Is it so difficult to be happy, or have we been led to believe that happiness is a commodity?

If by happiness we mean living in congruence with your values and with your life project, being good people, showing attitudes of generosity with the people around you and accepting that from time to time one is going to be bad; it is possible to be happy, yes. But of course, accepting that suffering will not disappear, that we cannot control everything, that we are not supermen and that on many occasions we will lose battles due to our own inability to face challenges or conflicts, or because life will sooner or later give us news that will make us suffer, sometimes suffer a lot.

When I hear people who go through life saying they are mega-happy or happy all the time, it makes me sick to my stomach, I can't stand them. I can't stand them. Just as I feel a certain disgust for those people who make of complaining an art and a means to manage through life.

B. A.: Lately you are "on tour" with Miguel Ángel Rizaldos, Iñaki Vázquez and Sònia Cervantes. What is this experience as a lecturer giving you personally and professionally?

Our profession is very individual and solitary, and meeting a group of colleagues with whom you share the stage and who see life and psychology in a very similar way to yours gives you comfort. Professionally, it provides me with continuous learning from the best and personally, I take with me new challenges, new experiences, many laughs and good friends to continue on my journey, and for many years to come.