My personal life
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My name is Pedro, I am 29 years old and I am psychologist, researcher, and effective member number 22205 of the Board of Portuguese Psychologists. I am from Maia, which is a small town located in the beautiful city of Oporto, in Portugal, where I have lived since I was born. I am fortunate to have a wonderful family as well as very supportive friends whom I enjoy spending time with. I am also a federated swimmer in a masters swim team near my hometown. Apart from swimming and spending time with family and friends, I like to read, listen to music, workout, play basketball (even though I am terrible at it), watch movies and shows of humour, as well as interesting presentations (such as some TED talks).
My interest in psychology
My interest in psychology started at a very young age as a combination of being passionate about helping others and an immense curiosity about human behaviour that follows me until this day. To give you an idea, the word is that when I was about 5 years old I told people I wanted to be a helper so I could help the elderly and the less fortunate who couldn’t pay for healthcare. Also, I started to wonder why we laugh when someone tickles us (please if somebody knows this, let me know because I still don’t know!) and what would be like to be other person: would I see the same? Would I hear the same? Would I think the same? This was arguably the first glimpse of scientific curiosity I can remember. Later, all this interest in human behaviour eventually led me to choose the psychology course and to pursue research, as I regarded it as the perfect combination between my will to help others and my need to satisfy my curiosity.
My education
I finished my course in 2013, with a master’s degree in clinical & health psychology, after 5 years of studying at the University Institute of Maia (ISMAI). My master’s thesis was about change in psychotherapy, more specifically about setbacks in assimilation of problematic experiences, and it was later published in one of the most reputed journals about psychotherapy, called psychotherapy research. You may read it here [RG]. In 2015, I enrolled in ISMAI’s doctoral program to become a specialist in clinical psychology. During this program I had the opportunity of being taught by fantastic professors, such as William Stiles, the 2013th president of APA’s psychotherapy division, Michael Barkham, one of the most notorious clinical psychologists in the United Kingdom, and Robert Elliot, one of the developers of emotion-focused-therapy for depression. Simultaneously, I had the opportunity of learning and practicing advanced therapeutic-relationship skills, advanced cognitive-behavioural-therapy for children and adults, and emotion-focused-therapy. Still during the same program I benefited from weekly supervision sessions in cognitive-behaviour therapy and emotion-focused-therapy.
My clinical practice
Since 2013 I have been working as a psychologist and researcher, first at the youth sector of Maia’s city council and then at the centre for psychological support of the University Institute of Maia (ISMAI). I have worked with children adolescents and adults with a variety of issues, such as: anxiety, depression, adjustment problems, impulsivity problems, panic disorder, personality disorders, etc. The therapeutic model that underpins my interventions is the cognitive-behavioural model as it is the most studied model in terms of its effectiveness. However I have a very humanistic approach to psychotherapy and I am flexible enough to integrate techniques from other types of models as long as the therapeutic intention is congruent with the cognitive-behaviour conceptualization. Also, I have a rigorous system of quality control of interventions that involves monitoring the therapeutic progress regularly through the use of psychometric measures. Regarding online interventions, I started this practice in 2018, after reviewing prior research about its effectiveness and concluding it is a viable way of providing therapy and counselling.
My research
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In terms of research, I have two main interests: change process research in psychotherapy, and depression treatment as well as suicide prevention. I have participated in an international research project (STOP Depression) which aimed to improve depression screening, assessment and treatment as well as suicide prevention in Portuguese primary care. In this project I have developed materials regarding assessment and treatment of depression and suicide risk (mainly digital materials) and I have co-authored 2 books about the theme. At the moment I am preparing the publication of the primary care suicide risk assessment interview that we have developed as part of the STOP Depression project and I am one of the judges of adherence to a cognitive-behaviour protocol by psychotherapists involved in another project. This means I watch their psychotherapy sessions and judge how well the cognitive-behaviour therapists are following the cognitive-behaviour therapy model.
