I have been a lawyer since 2006 and a psychologist in psychiatric pathologies since 2012. I published 3 books to train colleagues and companions on how to intervene in serious cases that required leaving (or not entering) the mental hospital.
While working at the Borda it became clear that the basic treatment was to accompany people on a day-to-day basis. Today, those of us who create and believe in this modality of intervention are called “empirical companions” (with origins in Pichón-Rivière Community Psychiatry). I founded the Eutimia Psychological Assistance Association (EUTI SALUD), which became the most popular place to learn and raise awareness about the importance of supporting those who needed reintegration on a daily basis.
Intervening with commitment and from a clinical (not simply social) approach, was (and is) what is missing for the change to begin to take place following the spirit of the National Mental Health Law.
With EUTI and el Borda we participated in several International Congresses of Psychiatry bringing the issue of accompaniment as a fundamental non-medical discipline. I also proposed with a colleague at the 2020 International Congress on Children and Adolescents, a project that would allow access to accompaniment for people without disabilities but in vulnerable situations. The hallmark of EUTI is to articulate psychiatry, psychology and other disciplines that are essential.
After the passage of almost 2000 students, the change was noticed. The treatments we designed these years changed the results. My biggest challenge is to achieve a change regarding what is considered the accompaniment of people so that the study plans and the commitment are effective.
It is essential that everyone is informed about the modes of psychic functioning that exist in order to intervene in time (detect alarms, visualize behaviors, emotions, which are peculiar -not alarming-) avoiding that they are addressed when a certain limit is exceeded.
Psychologically accompanying someone in a TA setting (therapeutic accompaniment) needs to be recognized as an effective, reliable treatment, feasible to include in the health system. Its establishment and recognition will take time, but beginning to “make visible” that a companion is not a caregiver and that a psychologist does not graduate with immediate tools to treat acute conditions without institutional support, is the first step.
I think the key is not to lose sight of the following:
1) Accompanying people implies having a clear framework and foundations to insert treatment into the health system.
2) Accompanying is a device that puts into operation a dynamic centered on human contact and the complex dynamics that allow harmonizing “I-Reality”.
3) The new paradigm that crosses health includes psychiatry, neurosciences, psychobiology, psychology and remains of the psychoanalysis of Freud and Lacan, aimed at recognizing the human being as a biopsychosocial subject, which justifies and highlights the importance of accompanying the other and ourselves in this enormous challenge.
Dr. Pía M. Roldán Viesti
Lawyer T°92 F°959 CPACF
MN psychologist. 57,457
President and Founder of EUTI
https://www.instagram.com/piamartina.ok/
https://www.eutisalud.com/
[email protected]
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