Contents
- They deceive you when they tell you that to be happy you only need attitude
- Psychology
- The psychologists Inés Santos and Silvia González, from the team of ‘In Mental Balance’ banish one of the myths about psychology and explain why it can be harmful for the mind to highlight the importance of having a positive attitude
They deceive you when they tell you that to be happy you only need attitude
Psychology
The psychologists Inés Santos and Silvia González, from the team of ‘In Mental Balance’ banish one of the myths about psychology and explain why it can be harmful for the mind to highlight the importance of having a positive attitude
PM3:02I will be honest, I have a negative attitude towards the word attitude. The use that is given to it bothers me a lot. It is used for free, as if the way in which we face our day to day is eligible and stable, as if it is so easy to smile at the difficulties of life and we are happy just to wake up and smile every morning.
Attitude can be defined as learned predisposition we have towards an event. Thus, if we always tend to have a positive predisposition towards everything, we are supposed to be “a person with a good attitude.” And I wonder then: why do we sometimes face situations in a negative way? Is it that we are masochists? If the attitude is a learned predisposition, it means that it depends to some extent on the coping strategies that we have acquired, how difficult we see the situation and the degree of discomfort or well-being that we think that situation will cause us.
And what if I have a bad attitude?
If a situation is harmful to us, it is normal for us to go through phases. Take, for example, a grieving of a loved one. It would be adaptive if, for a time, the person has a pessimistic predisposition towards death. Saying, “have a more positive attitude, the world keeps turning” would only invalidate and make the pain that person feels invisible. It will be necessary for him to have an attitude of anger towards what is happening and that at another time, if the duel continues its course, it can have a positive look.
I am proud to have one bad attitude towards certain things, such as attitude aggressive towards injustices, attitude pessimistic when things go wrong and I don’t see a way out, attitude review towards moral dilemmas, attitude suspicaz when I don’t trust something or someone. I know that if I allow myself to feel bad and learn from what is happening to me, my gaze will change.
I think the problem is not the attitude we can have at a certain moment, but rather that we remain stagnant, that we do not learn or seek other ways or solutions. And perhaps sometimes to find other more positive ways of facing life we have to go through other previous phases that, in some way, are more negative for us.
Inés Santos has a degree in Psychology from the UCM and specialized in Evidence-based Clinical Psychology, Child-Adolescent Behavior Therapy and Systemic Family Therapy. She is currently doing her thesis on gender differences in depressive disorders and has participated in numerous national and international conferences. She has extensive experience in teaching, as a supervisor of the PsiCall Telematic Psychological Attention Service of the UCM and a tutor in the Master’s Degree in General Health Psychology of the UCM, as well as a professor at the European University. In addition, she is the author of different clinical psychology guides.
Silvia González, who is also part of the ‘In Mental Balance’ team, is a psychologist with a master’s degree in Clinical and Health Psychology and a Master’s degree in General Health Psychology. She has worked at the University Psychology Clinic of the UCM, where she has also been a tutor to the students of the University Master’s Degree in General Health Psychology. In the field of teaching, he has given informative workshops in numerous institutions such as ‘Emotional understanding and regulation workshop’, ‘Workshop to improve public speaking skills’ or ‘Exam anxiety workshop’.