FAQs about Psychology and Psychologists

P1.- Post-hollyday syndrome El "síndrome postvacacional", does it exist, o is it an invention?.

P2.- 100 years ago there was no post-hollyday syndrome, Why do you invent it now?

P3.- I am not a mad, and I don`t need any Psychologist.

P4.- Which medications can a psychologist prescribe?

P5.- How much is a psychologist's consultation?

P6.- How much time can a therapy last?

P7.- How frequently must I go for each session of a clinical therapy?

P8.- Is it necessary to enroll in a psychological treatment if I right now receive medication?, And vice versa?

P9.- May a psychologist treat to relatives or friends?

P10.- Can the psychologists know how persons are only by watching them, for example, while they take a coffee?

P11.- A psychologist can be deceived?

P12.- Do the psychologists also have problems?

P13.- I think that I can be ashamed to talk about some things with someone else, although he is a psychologist

P14.- I am having some problems with my partner, does couple therapy work?

P15.- I do have no problem, anyway I would like to know myself deeper

P1. Post-hollyday syndrome El "síndrome postvacacional", does it exist, o is it an invention?.

R1. we could say that that question is trap, because the answer is NO (in part), and YES (in part):
DOES NOT exist as such pathology, until now, defined in the nowadays disorders manuals.
Not only that a newsworthy and showy term, the fact that it is used a fashionable word ("syndrome").
Syndrome is a symptoms and signs grouping that show up at the same time in the same person ( as it happens in a grippal picture: General discomfort, headache, perhaps nausea, fever, etc ).
But the truth is that after every change we react with the typical answer of stress, than will be more o less important depending of each situation and each person. The beginning and the ending of the vacations suppose some changes our organism and our mind have to adapt to. We are ready very well for that process; But it can be notorious in some especially sensitive people (the young children, for example, are especially irritable those days before and after the vacations, perhaps they sleep worse, eat badly ...: These are typical symptoms of the stress) back to top

P2. 100 years ago there was no post-hollyday syndrome, Why do you invent it now?

R2. 100 years ago there were no vacations and not even existed the word stress related to human living.
We are an animal sort very adaptative, and we have adapted very well to the best conditions of life; 100 years ago the need to survive, literally, finding every day something to eat, was so intense that anyone else was putting out. A simile can be useful for us: 100 years ago many people were barefooted out of the houses; Nowadays you have used to have to the shoes your skin, becoming more sensitive, and a very little stone right now bothers us. With other vital situations (as vacations) something like that has happened to us. back to top

P3. I am not a mad, and I don`t need any Psychologist.

R3. I have helped many people during a lot of years, and no one was "crazy". Even though the catalogued people as "madmen" can need psychological and psychiatric help, a lot of others situations in our life can suggest also that we should look for help, be by friends, of relatives, or of experts. Psychologists are specialist in helping people, the vast majority normal people with normal problems.
Definitely it is true that going to the psychologist bored certain social stigmatization, but that each time it goes being much less, because our society is seeing as a matter of course and healthy calling on the psychologist. This is something that you might talk with your psychologist.
Think that in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy the professionals even are demanded to call on in turn on a regular basis another psychotherapeutist. back to top

P4. Which medications can a psychologist prescribe?

R4. At present in Spain, no one. At other countries like USA the psychologists that acquire the pharmacologic necessary cualification are authorized to prescribe, but in Spain the formation that a graduate in psychology or a specialist in clinical psychology receives at present does not habilitate to prescribe drugs treatments.
If you need medication it would have to be prescribed by the correspondent doctor itself (that he can be the family physician, the psychiatrist, the neurologist, ...). This practice (the inter-consultation) is very habitual, more every day, where the doctors and psychologists work as a team for the sake of the patient. back to top

P5. How much is a psychologist's consultation?

R5. The relation between a patient and its private psychologist belongs to rendering of services, mercantile, so any mutual agreement they arrive to will be good. Fees are free, the same as the decision of the patient of accepting them or no. The Professional Associations of Psychologists used to publish some orientative fees; In the 2008 and at Tenerife's province, following those orientations a clinical session hover around 70 euros. back to top

P6. How much time can a therapy last?

R6. It depends on a lot of factors, and it is very difficult from determining a priori in a concrete case. In general often effects can be seen in 12 sessions (three months to a weekly session). back to top

P7. How frequently must I go for each session of a clinical therapy?

R7. In order to effects are progressive and the therapy is effective, the usual minimum is of at least one session per week. Some treatments can need a bigger frequency (from two to three weekly sessions). For determined cases of very consultation or support a session can be every 15 days enough or every month, but this frequency can make difficult the attainment of therapeutic effects. back to top

P8. Is it necessary to enroll in a psychological treatment if I right now receive medication?, And vice versa?

R8. In each concrete case the specialist will recommend the most beneficial option for the patient. Anyway, the scientific available evidence guarantees that they have got greatest hits combining both options: The psychotherapeutist and the pharmacologic. In fact, in some upsets like the diagnosed depression or in front of the presence of psychotic symptoms the medication is essential (and I repeat, in combination with psychotherapy). back to top

P9. May a psychologist treat to relatives or friends?

R9. My experience and the one belonging to other colleagues shows that the psychologist is not supposed to treat neither to relatives neither to friends. Something else is that upon his knowledge he can give some piece of advice or punctual personal kind of orientation. back to top

P10.- Can the psychologists know how persons are only by watching them, for example, while they take a coffee?

R10.- Although anybody has enough perceptive and intuitive capacity to become with first impressions that can be accurate, the psychologist does not have any kind of scanner that permits him to guess the state of mind of a person, although his professional experience makes him develop abilities to detect certain especial details in people, in the same way that an architect detects other details at the buildings.
The psychologist's work is based on the application of some methodical, rigorous and scientifically proven techniques , and normally needs time to obtain and to verify his findings, obeying many times a methodology scientific-experimental. back to top

P11.- A psychologist can be deceived?

R11.- Of course yes. The therapeutic work is based on a contract of honesty on both sides, departing of the supposition that the patient wants to surpass his problem and that gets in the professional's hands in order that he helps him. When a person means to deceive the fact that a psychologist even detects it of immediate form, although perhaps you perceive certain contradictions, is very difficult; If arrange time, he would precisely compare those contradictions.
Something else is that the patient initially feels observations in telling determined things (what is comprehensible), but as the professional makes easy that he forges for himself confidence they will leave keeping awake those secrets. That such a thing happens is nothing rare. back to top

P12.- Do the psychologists also have problems?

R12.- Like anybody else. Psychologists are not a rare kind coming from Mars, and suffer and have a good time like the rest of mankind. It is like asking if a doctor can fall ill.
It is true that each professional can try to apply in bigger or minor measure his knowledge and abilities to his own life; It does not invalidate the precise application of its techniques on other ones (in the same way that a cardiovascular surgeon that smokes can continue to be an excellent surgeon). back to top

P13.- I think that I can be ashamed to talk about some things with someone else, although he is a psychologist back to top

R13.- That is perfectly comprehensible. The patient needs not in principle to tell nothing that he does not want, still knowing that the psychologist is required to hold the professional secret. It is clear that the most know the professional better you will be able to help, but it always prevails of the patient to preserve his intimacy.
Nevertheless, even though these resistances are normal very to the beginning of every therapy, through of the sessions the professional will make easy unblockings and the increase of the confidence of the patient, helping to express things that they could give pain, fear, shame, or enclosure that they may have been forgotten. back to top

P14.- I am having some problems with my partner, does couple therapy work?

R14.- That is the best moment to go to some couple therapy: when problems begin. It is usual couples come to therapy when relation is so broken and there are so many problems it is already very complex to recover that dreamingful initial relationship .
Some points to be in mind:
a) There is no miracle solution; therapy will demand from both partners a honest compromise with work.
b) Both parts use to make guilty each another. This attribution is one of former to be taken away. Couple is a matter of two.
c) Couple will work over relation specific aspects, those broken or that need to be improved, and over emotions clarifing. Usually communication is after problems; others may be sexual relations, housework schedulling, power and influence, attitudes toward children, infidelities, routine, mobbing over any of the partners,...
d) Therapy will look for the best for both and each of partners, either keeping the couple or its dissolution (it will be clarifing through therapy process). back to top

P15.- I do have no problem, anyway I would like to know myself deeper

R15.- I think it is a very legitimate option, choosen by many people, as well in a personal frame as in a professional one. Positive Psychology, and other Psychology contributions as psychoanalitics, humanistics, or cognitive-behavioural, may help you to get your objetive.
"Coaching", o "personal support", developed both in a professional/business and in a personal fields is one of those possibilities. back to top