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Walter Riso: «Faced with an extreme situation, skills emerge that we did not know we had»
Psychology
The psychologist Walter Riso reveals in “Stronger than adversity” how to face stressful events, learn from them and emerge stronger
Let it end, let it pass now, let it be just a memory or one day we wake up and it was all a bad dream … There seems to be in the looks, in the conversations and even in the environment a vital need to find a definitive end or a clean slate for this pandemic. But we do not know when that is going to happen (call it the end, call it the beginning) that we long for and that is why in many cases we are experiencing the effects of a anticipatory anxiety, as explained by psychologist Walter Riso. There is no better fuel than uncertainty for anxiety. And of that, of uncertainty, we are left over.
In his latest work “Stronger than adversity” (Planet), the cognitive therapy expert provides tools precisely to face uncertainty, learn to develop self-confidence, take control of what does depend on us and learn to manage the anxiety sadness or the go to. Does he want to convince us that misfortunes are capable of activating our survival instinct and making us grow? Let’s see…
He defends that self-confidence is not obtained through deep spiritual and philosophical reflections, but through action. But in this context we have more excuses than ever not to go out into the ring …
Now is when we have to go out into the ring the most. My patients told me during the pandemic that they did not know they were so strong and that in extreme situations they have discovered capacities, abilities, skills and resistance that they did not even know they had. But the meaning of that phrase about trust and philosophical reflections has to do with the fact that experience helps more than conviction.You have to go out and sweat your shirt … Perspiration is more effective than inspiration.
We had become badly used to living in a postmodernity in which the usual thing was to look the other way, live with automatic pilot and practice multitasking and lack of time for everything … But then everything stopped and we began to have time to spare and wonder for boredom and for other things that we did not know how to handle.
In this context the look has changed and instead of looking the other way we are looking at ourselves and our immediate reality. There is more self-observation.
With that self-observation, in any case, he invites us not to stay there, to act, to try and challenge ourselves …
Psychologically we are still in confinement. But the mind cannot resist for so long on the roller coaster in which we find ourselves (illusion, peak, disappointment, run into reality, disappointment, hope, go up, peak, illusion again, go down again …). When this “going up and down” is done many times, as it is happening now and will probably continue to happen for a while, the mind goes into hopelessness, which is the first cousin of depression. Any subject facing uncontrollable stress tends to experience that hopelessness. And that is what is now being called emotional exhaustion, emotional fatigue or pandemic fatigue. Something that, by the way, we all have.
Regarding action, he tells us that “brave is not someone who is not afraid but who faces it even if it trembles to the soul”, to what extent are we distorting this concept today?
I have written a motivational book that encourages you to try, to continue, to bring out the inner warrior and to put yourself to the test. Courage is a virtue but it must be accompanied by a noble purpose because a brave man can also be, what do I know, a drug dealer. That is why true courage must have a noble purpose. As Aristotle said, virtue is in the middle, but with courage we do not speak of not being afraid. A person who is not afraid is either a psychopath or is sick. What we are talking about is the need to face the situation, even if we are afraid. You can face fear however you want, but you must face it and not let yourself be overcome by fear so that, when you find yourself in an extreme situation, skills and abilities that you did not know you have emerge in you.
That is exactly what is happening now. I do not believe that, at the social level, this pandemic will bring fundamental changes. You will not become less selfish or more supportive or more caring after this. But there are going to be changes at the individual level. Each of us is discovering things that we didn’t even think about before. From the possibility of living without things that previously seemed necessary to us, the ability to discern between what matters to us and what does not or the importance of managing the phenomenon of waiting …
So is the pandemic an opportunity to challenge ourselves to do things that we might never have dared to do?
Yes, the need pushes you. But the action also comes from the fact of demanding oneself and putting the effort. We have not only discovered skills or abilities that we did not know. We have also discovered that we love some people more or less than we thought, we have been aware of the importance of physical contact and we have learned to select friends. We have done a job of discernment.
And also many people have realized in the pandemic that they were not prepared for have a life of your own. They got up at seven in the morning and went to bed at twelve at night, but they had no time for themselves. They went without stopping, without stopping to think.
It is painful to think that someone is not ready to have “a life of their own.”
Yes, there are people who are not, but I want to make it clear that it is not their fault. Sometimes society wants us like this, productive and lost in a hive where we go unnoticed. But we are unique beings, each with their individuality. That own life implies taking charge of oneself and appropriating his being. If I was working all day or on social media it was impossible to have time for myself. Life does not belong to you if you do not do with it what you want to do.
In “Stronger than adversity” he invites us to bear in mind two concepts: self-efficacy and perceived personal competence. How to integrate them into our life?
Self-efficacy appeals to the ability you feel to achieve a specific goal. But how can a person know if he’s capable if he doesn’t try, and tries again, and tries again? The key is in what Michael Jordan said, explaining that he could cope with failure but would not forgive himself for not having tried. Self-efficacy has to do with a certain persistence in attempts and with the ability not to escape from obstacles. People with high self-efficacy trust themselves.
Regarding perceived personal competence, it is a personality variable. Some people feel capable of coping with many things because they have strong self-confidence. But the principle of this is exactly the same as that of self-efficacy: it develops by acting. That is why I say that many people think that Trust or self-efficacy has to be achieved by thinking, although in reality it is only achieved by acting.
What should be the role of psychologists in this pandemic?
I think psychologists are not, as I think they should be, giving their opinion on many things related to the pandemic. That place has been occupied by philosophy and sociology. Psychologists, as thinkers and specialists in the mind, should be present in the great debate that exists in the world today because the two great consequences of what they are experiencing will be: economic crisis and mental health problems. We must be prepared for adversity by preventing and promoting mental health.
But people just want tips or advice. And actually when someone goes to therapy they are not looking for a cure, but a relief because the cure hurts, transforms, breaks schemes, involves effort and work. And that is why relief is often sought. But more than putting relief formulas or tips or advice, in reality each one must create their own space for reflection to change. Until now the inner warrior has been the immune system, but it has been shown that we are not invulnerable as a species and that we have to help the immune system. Each one must complete that inner warrior with the other inner warrior, who is the one born from awareness.
How to distinguish the worries that help us to survive from those that lead us to anxiety? What signs indicate
Anxiety is an anticipatory fear. How to distinguish anxiety from healthy worry? When it immobilizes you, when you start to sleep badly, when you start drinking alcohol or eating more than necessary, when you start to have a generalized feeling that something bad is going to happen, when you think that if something good happens to you, surely something will happen later bad … you’re closer to anxiety.
The best way to attack anxiety is change catastrophic anticipations. If anxiety incapacitates you, there may be psychosomatic disorders (your body swells or you get fat, skin problems appear, hair falls out …), it decomposes you physically and it destabilizes you emotionally. That is why the important thing is that it can be overcome and that for this you have to face those fears. All the techniques that exist to overcome fear go through the exposure to fear and coping. Machiavelli said that ghosts scare more from afar than up close. And that is what usually happens, that when you face something thinking about the worst that can happen (speaking of irrational fears, not objective fears, of course), it is normal that you discover that what you feared is actually not so horrible.
It is common for us to try to get sadness out of our life. However, it reveals that it is a basic emotion that offers options for survival …
We live in a society where a person is sent to a psychiatrist if he is too happy, but they ask what happens to someone who does not always seem happy. The sadness appears when you have one pérdida; when you have a problem that you do not know how to solve (the characteristic of sadness is that you process everything slower so that you can look for solutions in your experience or in your data); when you need a freno or an anchor when life takes you too fast and when you need to ask help (the gestures, the easy and corporal expression of the sad person invite an approach behavior).
Sadness is a primary emotion and that is why it is so important that we separate it from depression. The first comes, it stays for a short time, it makes you work at half throttle and in the end it goes away. When there is depression you do not work, neither at half engine nor at half throttle. So when sadness comes, what we have to do is put it in our pocket and make it work for us.
With suffering something different happens, because it warns us that something is not working correctly, how can we use that information for our own benefit?
Suffering for him suffering it’s stupid. It is an almost masochistic attitude, but there is useful and useless suffering. The first is necessary, the second is not. Let’s take an example. If you are with a partner who has been unfaithful to you for years but you still think that he is going to change (even if you know that it will never happen), that suffering is useless because it sinks you. And how could that suffering be turned into something useful? Moving away, breaking up, leaving there … That break will make you suffer but that suffering will be useful because it will be part of the duel and grief frees you from suffering.
Suffering is part of life, you just have to learn to read it and separate what is useful to us from what is not. When one is aware that suffering is necessary, it hurts less and you look at it differently.
We cannot close the circle without talking about affection as protection. How much it costs us to show affection!
It is true that some cultures are more inhibited and some personalities are encapsulated. But for example Latinos (I include here Spain, Central America, Latin America, Greece, Italy and Portugal) are more emotional, spontaneous and we feel the need to touch, hug and show affection. I defend the “I recontract you” because with each new “I love you” love rearranges itself and acquires strength, is revitalized, refreshes the art of loving.
Physical contact, social support, and emotional displays are factors that help create resilience and they are a post-traumatic growth factor. That implies a necessary positive assertive behavior. I consider that perhaps the importance of expressing affection and love should be taught in school as if it were just another subject.
Walter Riso and his «vaccine against suffering»
For thirty years Walter Riso has worked as a clinical psychologist, a practice that alternates with the exercise of the university chair and the realization of scientific and popular publications.
He has a doctorate in Psychology, specialized in Cognitive Therapy and obtained a master’s degree in Bioethics.
He has published 25 books, including technical and popular texts, and it could be said that his works have served the purpose of creating a vaccine against suffering by proposing healthy lifestyles in different life orders. Some of his titles are “I already said goodbye to you, now how I forget you”, “Wonderfully imperfect, scandalously happy”, “To love or to depend?”, “In love or enslaved”, “The way of the wise”, “To detach without anesthesia “,” Fall in love with yourself “,” Think well, feel good “,” Highly dangerous loves “or” A matter of dignity “, among others.