Interview: “Aragón en Abierto” program. 2021
Interview in the Aragón en Abierto program about the book “A gift for the soul” by psychologist Jose Luis Arias, the culmination of the solidarity work he has carried out through his free online clinic, psicologiaparticipativa.com, for 6 years.
This is his story:
In 2015 an idea materialized, the creation of a free psychological help site for people who were afraid to go to a psychologist’s consultation or who simply could not afford it. The great person behind this project is the psychologist José Luis Arias.
To help José Luis in this project, the company Flat 101, specialized in the creation and optimization of digital businesses, sponsored his project. The results were spectacular in a short period of time.
In the 6 years that the page has been open, it has answered inquiries from people from many countries. The main places of origin of his patients are, in order, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, United States, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, etc.
His page quickly became popular since its opening, reaching a peak of monthly requests for help through the contact form in 2018 of more than 400. From this point, José Luis had to make the decision to open his “digital consultation “Only when he had properly cared for the other patients. Despite the workload, he did not stop periodically opening the contact form to continue attending new people, stabilizing in solving an average of between 100 and 240 monthly consultations.
The 2020 pandemic and the months of confinement have had psychological consequences in many people and this has also been reflected on the page, having a peak of consumption of its blog articles of 45,000 sessions in April 2020.
During these years, José Luis has written 42 articles about anxiety, anguish, fears, obsessive and mood disorders, etc. His articles have been of great help to many people who find in his way of writing and explaining things, a place where they finally understand what is happening to them.
José Luis was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in 2020 and has had to stop doing digital consultations and writing. He now he is dedicated to his family and taking care of himself.
The treatments and help that an ALS patient requires are expensive. Jose Luis’s friends, looking for ways to help him with this heavy burden, have transformed the work that Jose Luis did on his blog into a book. Each sold unit of this book will help two people:
- The one who reads it, because he will learn to understand what is happening to him, how our mind works and to remedy it by modifying his thoughts and behaviors
- and José Luis, who will receive a small amount of money to face the high financial burden that the care of his illness requires.
“A gift for the soul” is the book that compiles the articles published by Jose Luis Arias on his blog, psicologíaparticipativa.com, during the 6 years that it has been active.
On behalf of José Luis, his family and his friends, thank you for buying the book, and thank you for telling all your friends, family and colleagues about it, who you think may be of interest to them, so that they can also purchase their copy.