Sonia Algueró: "The integrative approach allows us to better adapt to the patient’s needs".

What is the best training to be able to practice as a psychotherapist?

Undoubtedly, psychology is one of the careers that generates most interest today, and training as a psychologist can be an enriching life experience. But many recent graduates complain that the degree is impractical.

Some students take four years of undergraduate studies, almost two years more in the Master's Degree of General Health Psychologist, and do not get to put into practice everything they have learned. This becomes a serious problem when dealing with people and, on many occasions, their emotional conflicts.

Interview with Sonia Algueró, director of the Master's Degree in Integrative Psychotherapy

Fortunately, some graduate studies allow training not only in theoretical aspects, but also give students the opportunity to practice as psychotherapists and thus gain confidence in clinical and psychotherapeutic practice. An example of this is the Master in Integrative Psychotherapy at the Mensalus Institute in Barcelona..

Today we will talk with Sonia Algueró, clinical psychologist and general health psychologist, founder and technical director of Instituto Mensalus and director of the Master's Degree in Integrative Psychotherapy at Instituto Mensalus, to talk to us about this totally practical training, designed for those who wish to acquire the functional competencies necessary to be able to perform professional work as a psychologist.

Jonathan García-Allen: Instituto Mensalus offers the Master's Degree in Integrative Psychotherapy. I have read on your website that it is a training with a unique methodology whose purpose is to help students to practice as future psychotherapists. What differentiates your Master from other similar ones?

Sonia Algueró: We offer an assistance-type master's degree where students can apply the knowledge acquired in their academic career in a real context, either through the observation of live cases or through live participation. This is the big difference.

In addition, week after week, they can nourish themselves with the theoretical knowledge they still need to carry out the psychotherapy. The small groups and the exhaustive follow-up by the tutors guarantee a guided learning process at all times. The student is never alone, there is always a team behind him/her.

There are many students who, when they finish their higher education, think they are not prepared to practice their profession. Do you think this phenomenon is a real problem?

Absolutely. This is the main reason why they sign up for our Master. The training offers the possibility to practice as a psychotherapist with real patients supervised and tutored at all times. The acquisition of skills resulting from the staging helps the student to overcome fears and overcome those obstacles that may arise in the practice of professional practice.

There are different orientations in psychotherapeutic practice, but what advantages does the integrative approach characteristic of the Master's in Integrative Psychotherapy at Instituto Mensalus offer?

Working under an integrative approach facilitates the use of all the necessary techniques according to the demand, the diagnostic hypothesis and the clinical hypothesis. It allows us to take advantage of the Wide range of resources currently available given the scientific progress of all psychological theories.

From the integrative approach and using an evaluable methodology of the therapeutic process, the student will have the possibility to know how and when to apply the knowledge acquired in the approach he/she has been trained, as well as to broaden his/her knowledge with tools from other approaches under the protection of common principles. In short, the integrative approach in psychotherapy makes it possible to better adapt to the needs of the patient.

Do you think it is necessary for psychologists to experiment with their own psychotherapeutic style?

We believe that it is essential for the student to know and develop his or her own therapeutic style, which will help him or her to work more efficiently. At the same time, it will enable you to gain a greater self-knowledge useful when interacting with patients and with different problems.

We work on the personal and professional style of each student in depth. On the other hand, they also get used to see us working under different professional profiles in the training sessions, trainings that, let's remember, are always done with live patients.

In the Master in Integrative Psychotherapy, students have the opportunity to learn from other psychotherapists by viewing live cases through a one-way glass. How does this help them?

As I said before, the fact of offering knowledge from real live cases (through the one-way mirror, a screen and a camera circuit) makes it easier, from the first day, for the student to get used to witnessing psychotherapy conducted by different professionals, as well as to observe, comment and direct the psychotherapeutic intervention as it happens with the difficulties and characteristics of the professional reality.

Do you think that psychology has all the recognition it should, and what initiatives can be taken to change this reality?

No, not at all. I would tell them to claim, through the collegiate body created to defend our profession (college of psychologists), the rights that are taken away from our profession, unlike other professions that have defended their rights and have not had them taken away.

From your point of view, what would you say to those recent graduates in Psychology who want to practice as psychotherapist psychologists but do not feel ready to get in front of a patient?

I would tell them that in our master's degree they will have the possibility of training and improving their psychotherapeutic skills as well as overcoming the universal fears evidenced in the scientific literature: fears to which every psychologist is exposed and idiosyncratic fears of each student.

They will also have the possibility to broaden their knowledge and, of course, the key element: to increase the actual practice of psychotherapeutic intervention techniques that will help them to expand their resources as psychotherapists.