The specialist, who closed the Psychiatry in Everyday Life course with the talk ‘The Healing Power of Words’, Luis Gutiérrez Rojas, a psychiatrist at the University Clinical Hospital of Granada, was responsible for closing the lectures of the 8th Psychiatry in Everyday Life Course, organized in Molina de Segura by UNIMAR in collaboration with the local Foundation for Medical Studies (FEM). Gutiérrez Rojas delivered the talk ‘The Healing Power of Words’, in which he combined humor with more philosophical and profound elements to discuss truth, psychiatry, and language.

What is truth?, Gutiérrez Rojas asked, before stating that “one of the symptoms of mental illness is that the patient’s discourse differs greatly from the truth. We all have a distorted version of ourselves.”

The psychiatrist indicated that ” the truth generates rejection in the patient and bothers him ,” especially when he is told phrases like “you smoke a lot,” so he believes that “the fundamental thing is to ask him reflective questions, such as ‘what do you think is happening to you?’. In this way we weave a mature and therapeutic discourse.”

Gutiérrez Rojas pointed out that we create a reality with words, as when a patient constantly repeats statements like “my life is a disaster” or “no one has ever loved me.” “These aren’t true, but you come to believe them by repeating them. That’s why it’s necessary to create a therapeutic, logical, and mature truth in order to accept reality,” he added. All of this explains the difficulty in taking a medical history, continued Gutiérrez Rojas, who insisted that “patients need to know and understand what is happening to them.”

“Patients always lie when they tell the truth. The greater a patient’s conviction (fanaticism and intolerance), the greater their degree of illness,” said the psychiatrist, adding that “one of the greatest signs of mental health is that they can talk to us and tell us things (…) There are people who have the feeling and conviction that they are being attacked and crushed, and that creates a lot of suffering.”

Gutiérrez Rojas maintains that “changing one’s mind is a sign of maturity and is very healthy. We must listen to those who think differently, because the other person also possesses a great deal of truth. If we don’t, communication is impossible. Doctors sometimes impose the truth, and that humiliates the person and is not helpful for therapy.” He emphasized that “the greater people’s lack of knowledge, the easier it is to manipulate them. We must learn, discuss, and reflect. Accepting the truth is difficult, but it must be done.”

Regarding self-awareness, he stated that people are often poor judges of themselves, and to help patients understand their illness, “the diagnosis must be explained very clearly,” especially considering that their defense mechanisms include denial, projection (attributing their own flaws to others), and reaction formation (lying). “The healthy approach is to accept things and face them appropriately. There’s no worse lie than a half-truth,” Gutiérrez Rojas said.

The psychiatrist added that “the art of medicine is to get the patient to have a discourse that is as close to reality as possible.”

Turning now to the power of words, Gutiérrez Rojas asserted that “it is very difficult to talk to someone who cannot speak. If I have few words, my thoughts are very limited. The richer my language, the greater my capacity for thought. Not being able to explain in words what is happening to one is a characteristic of modern man.”

“When we speak,” he continued, “we are aware of ourselves. That is why speech is what most distinguishes us from animals. (…) With the internet, people are losing the ability to write.”

Gutiérrez Rojas cited his grandfather’s essay ‘Madness and Language,’ in which he analyzes the language of people with schizophrenia. “These people use incomprehensible language, but it makes sense to them. The cure would be if they could clearly explain what is happening to them (…) The psychotic person needs things to make sense, and that causes them a lot of suffering. They have a tendency to see things that aren’t there.”

How do we create truth with words? The psychiatrist said that “therapy involves dismantling lies, and that can only be done with words.” That’s why he advocated using “healthy words that are healing. In healing through words, you have to know how to seduce people with the truth, and that is appealing.”

To achieve this, Gutiérrez Rojas believes it’s necessary to “enhance the placebo effect.” In other words, “to enhance and generate hope. That’s what enhancing the placebo effect means, and that’s how we’ll get the patient to improve and get well. We need to set short-term goals, because that’s how they improve so much, and help them see the positive progress.”

And to enhance that placebo effect, the psychiatrist advocates for knowing how to prescribe well, announcing the positive effects and warning of the side effects, among other things.

Furthermore, he stated that “the great failing of doctors is falling into either verbosity or silence. What do we say to our patients? It’s not good to go around giving advice, but it is important that patients become aware of what is happening to them.”