Some people think that psychologists are dedicated to giving therapy only to satisfy their curiosity in a purely intellectual sense; to be able to study the human being like someone who observes a colony of bacteria from a microscope. This way of understanding psychotherapy is not only incomplete, it is fallacious: in many cases, it is precisely the human and empathic component that makes many people decide to dedicate themselves to this profession.

This is the case of Guillermo Orozco, a psychologist from the Canary Islands who left behind a promising career in advertising to give his life a boost and become a psychologist. His testimony shows that vocation can sometimes prevail over the inertia of continuing to work on something simply because one does not have to adapt to a change.

Interview with Guillermo Orozco: psychotherapy as a life philosophy

Guillermo Orozco is a General Health Psychologist specialized in third generation and cognitive-behavioral therapies, with a practice in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. His professional career is a declaration of intent: changing professions and cities can be worthwhile if it is to develop as a professional for vocational reasons. In the following lines we talk to him.

Guillermo, before entering the professional field of psychology you worked in the advertising world, and even had your own agency in that sector. What made you decide to change your life by starting to study psychology?

There were several reasons that led me to consider changing my professional career, but the most important was my own process of self-knowledge and personal growth. I started to work very young, since I was 17 I was serving drinks, and with 19 I combined the work of a graphic designer with that of a waiter. When I managed to save a little money, I joined forces to set up an advertising agency in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. They were good years and business was good, but I always felt that I was missing something.

I started reading a lot about personal growth, psychology, philosophy, metaphysics and spirituality. My personal values and concerns were changed, I felt I was evolving as a human being, and the simple fact of living to work, earn money, get married, have children, buy a house, a car… stopped making sense to me. A great compassion for human suffering developed within me and I was uneasy about the meaning we give to life. I realized that what is really important are the people and the emotions that we share, and I felt the need to do my bit to make this world a better place.

So I made the decision to give my life a deeper meaning and to devote myself to something really worthwhile. I know it sounds like a cliché, but I decided to dedicate myself to helping people, and I succeeded.

Although there is a lot of psychology in the marketing world, probably already in the transition to university and later to graduate school you noticed a significant change in what you were doing. Were you able to adapt without problems during the whole process that led you to become a psychologist?

When I started to study for the UNED I was still working as a freelance web designer, so it was a big effort for the little time I had, but I enjoyed those years very much. Every book I read, every new subject, was to go deeper and deeper into a world that I was passionate about. I studied and read all the free time I had, including Saturdays and Sundays. This effort was reflected in my academic record, which was very good and allowed me to choose a university to study the Master in General Health Psychology.

The biggest difficulty I encountered was when I went to Madrid to study the Master’s, since I had a hard time adapting to the city. I really missed the sea, my family, my friends, and the one who was my partner at that time. Besides, Madrid is a city with a difficult pace to get along with, I will never forget the Nuevos Ministerios metro at 8 in the morning, with hundreds of people pushing each other to get in…

But the effort again was worth it, since I wanted to study and learn with the best, and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid has one of the best psychology faculties in Spain. So, by the time I finished the master’s degree, I felt confident and ready to start my professional career as a psychologist.

The popularization of online psychotherapy in recent years is a fact. Do you think psychologists should adopt a new way of managing their personal marketing to take advantage of the potential of this type of therapy?

Personal marketing is definitely a must for any professional, especially if you want to direct part of your work to the online world. In my experience, it is very positive to dedicate effort and an important economic investment in marketing, since this way you reach many more people, beyond your own locality. I have a website that I regularly update by posting articles on my blog, I am in several professional directories, I post ads on Google AdWords, social networks, etc.

When you are in a healthcare profession, such as psychological therapy, you are dealing with people who are suffering and need a trained professional. The fact that patients can get to know and trust you before the first consultation is essential. Thanks to digital marketing and social networks, people who contact me already know me well, and know that they are placing their trust and health in someone who deserves it, and not in a stranger.

What do you think psychologists can learn about the human being if they look at the field of advertising?

It’s really the publicity that has been feeding off the discoveries in psychology for years. We know how people can make decisions based on emotions, and then “rationalize” them, how they trust brands by mere continuous exposure to them, or by associating them with people they admire, etc. What I have learned from watching advertising is that we need to trust something, we need to be able to believe and be sure that what we are doing makes sense.

We need to be understood and valued, we need to evolve, love, and be loved… all this is what the advertisers offer us in their campaigns, but we will not achieve this by buying the products they offer us, we will achieve it by knowing ourselves, and growing as people.

A new car won’t make you more confident, it will make you a healthy self-esteem. Having the latest smartphone won’t make you more and better friends, that’s achieved with social skills. An expensive perfume doesn’t make you more attractive, it makes you more assertive, confident and charismatic. Advertising teaches us that people are looking for happiness and wellbeing, but we keep looking outside ourselves for what we have to look for inside ourselves.

What aspects of psychological intervention caught your attention most during your time in college? Does it correspond to what you ended up specializing in?

When I was in Madrid I was lucky enough to study with wonderful professionals who fed my passion for the profession. In particular, I found the subjects of couple’s therapy exciting, so I decided to go deeper into that subject. Nowadays it is one of my favourite areas of work, in fact, many of the individual consultations I attend have to do with couples’ issues, which is a recurrent theme in my practice.

On the other hand, I was able to go deeper into third generation therapies, especially Acceptance and Commitment, and Mindfulness. These types of therapies are indicated in certain cases, such as rumination, intrusive thoughts, relapses into depression, personality disorders, among others. After finishing the master’s degree I continued studying how to apply these techniques in practice, and today I combine them with traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy.

New interesting research in the field of psychology is constantly emerging, so there is always something new. What are you most interested in learning about today?

My daily work is as a therapist in a private practice, treating problems of anxiety, depression, self-esteem, stress, emotional problems, fears, phobias, etc., so all I study now is psychology applied to therapy, in order to be more efficient in helping my patients.

As I mentioned before, third generation contextual therapies (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness, Couple’s Integral Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy) are being of great help to me in my daily life, since they are tools that complement perfectly with what I studied during my college years.

The psychological therapy that is scientifically proven, and which has proven results, is the cognitive-behavioral one. This is the type of therapy that is officially learned in formal education, and it is the basis of my treatments, but I have noticed that there are people and situations in which, for example, Mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy work wonderfully. There are numerous scientific studies that support the results of third generation therapies, so I am increasingly confident in the usefulness of these techniques.

The goal is to get people who come to my practice to improve as quickly as possible and avoid relapses, so all the tools I can include in my therapeutic repertoire will be very useful. In addition, I love my profession, and I am passionate about reading, studying, and continually updating myself with the latest advances in psychological therapy.

You studied and worked in Madrid, but returned to your homeland, the Canary Islands. Do you notice differences in the way you work in one place or another, or in the type of needs of the patients?

Once you’ve grown up by the sea, you don’t forget that. I decided to return to the Canary Islands because of the quality of life, my family, the climate, water sports and the human quality of the people here.

One of the things that struck me about the people who came to Madrid for therapy was that many of them were from provincial towns that had moved for work. These people, although they had been living and working in the capital for years, still felt lonely and missed their place of birth.

In Madrid he dealt with a lot of anxiety, work stress, and feelings of loneliness and sadness. Perfectionism, self-demanding, the need for control, low tolerance for uncertainty, lack of emotional intelligence… All of these things wreak havoc on people living in a big city, where life is extremely competitive. There we are surrounded by thousands of people, but you often feel very lonely.

In Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, despite being a big city, as it is the ninth most populated city in Spain, the rhythm is different. The sea, the climate and the proximity of all the services can help a lot to the good mood of the people, although the feeling of isolation can have a negative influence.

The problems I see in my practice really don’t differ much from what I worked on in the capital: anxiety, stress, depression, relationship problems, low self-esteem, emotional problems, behavioral disorders and fears and insecurities in children, maladaptation problems in adolescents, etc.

Do you think that the online therapy and the technological advances that are emerging will soon make it almost impossible for the psychologist to be physically away from the patients?

I practice online therapy by video call, and I make sure that patients find a quiet place for sessions, have a good Internet connection and use a desktop or laptop computer. I think it is necessary that the video call should be as close as possible to being face to face with a person. In psychological therapy, communication is fundamental, and everything in us communicates, not just words. Body language is essential in order to receive a message correctly, so it is very important to be able to see the person on the other side of the screen well.

As I mentioned before, third generation contextual therapies (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness, Couple’s Integral Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy) are being of great help to me in my daily life, since they are tools that complement perfectly with what I studied during my college years.

The psychological therapy that is scientifically proven, and which has proven results, is the cognitive-behavioral one. This is the type of therapy that is officially learned in formal education, and it is the basis of my treatments, but I have noticed that there are people and situations in which, for example, Mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy work wonderfully.