Life can be a journey full of excitement, joy, and love, but also laden with difficult and stressful situations. These life circumstances can range from a fight with an excellent friend, a challenging period at the workplace, or a severe loss to the death of someone we genuinely love. There are also other stressful situations such as assaults, accidents, childhood neglect, natural catastrophes, war conflict, or different types of violence that can break us.
If you are experiencing any discomfort in your life, know that you don't have to do it alone. I am a certified psychologist and psychotherapist committed to healing trauma and constructing resilience in individuals, groups, and communities around the globe. Being resilient implies asking for help, isn't a sign of weakness!
Our professional relationship will enhance yours/others' overall well-being through a set of trauma healing techniques and training on resilience skills. Either with individual therapy, group therapy, resilience training, or any kind of mental health program, we will reduce your distress and build the kind of life you ever dream of.
WE CAN ALL RISE FROM THE ASHES LIKE A PHOENIX AFTER A VERY PAINFUL SETBACK OF LIFE!
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resiliencia trauma psicoterapia consultora salud mental
My
story
My mission since I was a little child has been to protect the vulnerable, be it animals or persons. I always searched for a common place where both can coexist, develop, and live in peace.
My training in social psychology and humanistic psychotherapy has been my framework of knowledge to develop my professional skills in Africa. They fed my passion for biodiversity, conservation, and human well-being.
Psychology
After the global pandemic COVID19, most of us, feel as if our foundations have been shaken living in this uncertain world. For others, life keeps sending difficult circumstances and problems to solve that leave them helpless or drained. But I think that almost all of us feel that life is becoming more demanding. It is difficult to meet all payments at the end of the month, plus the amount of juggling we have to do to be a good partner, a good son/daughter, a good parent, a good neighbor, a good professional...and without even realizing it ....we live in chronic stress.
As a consequence, many of us are experiencing anxiety, fear, anger, worry, and sadness facing an uncertain future.
Added to this, it is more common to suffer from one to many traumatic events (accidents, assaults, surgeries, betrayals, catastrophes) including a neglected or abused childhood can difficult life today.
Most of the time we don't know what is happening to us, but we know we are not ok and we wish things to be different.
e-Psychology is bringing a great solution to all of us, as is just as effective as face-to-face therapy. I have been working this way for the past years with excellent results. Our chaotic lives don't allow us to lose time on displacements to the psychologist's clinic. It is easy to include it in your daily schedule.
“I am Lorena Aguirre Cadarso, I have been working for more than a decade in the promotion of mental health. One of my great discoveries was that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, on the contrary, it is what a resilient person does. After that first big step, the journey will begin, a unique process since you are a unique person. The success of the therapy will depend not only on the professionalism of the psychotherapist but also on your involvement in the process. Do not wait any longer, request psychological support to achieve the life you always wanted"
Resilience Trainings
"Resilience is the ability to face the adversities of life and recover quickly, even being even stronger than before"
In 2018 my concept of psychotherapy changed when I learned the fundamentals of Positive Psychology. My focus was always on healing the deep pain of individuals and making them feel better. But the mechanism for the changes to last over time was lacking.
Positive psychology revolutionized the field of mental disorders by shifting the focus to promoting wellness. So the concept of resilience made sense to me. We must reduce the pain of the past, but for the future to be better, we have to know each other in the present. Discover the patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior that do not allow us to move forward and change them for others that make us see life, others, and the world with different eyes.
Therefore, resilience is responsible for exploring these patterns and improving them. It is as if we downloaded an improved version of our software. For this reason, resilience training is suitable for all types of people, including those who have low, medium, and very high resilience. Because you can always improve. Self-discovery is a lifelong process and we cannot simply let ourselves be, because we must be better people so that we can create more altruistic and equitable societies. For there to be peace.
Consulting
“Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community" (World Health Organization, 2020)
Our vision of how we should promote mental health in vulnerable communities focuses on a well-being model of the world instead of looking at the world's disease model.
We feel that it is necessary to deal with individual and collective mental disorders and not neglect either. The individual or collective interventions have to balance the emotional healing of distresses and provide skills that will enhance a positive conception of the self and the world. Healing emotional wounds has to be accompanied by reinforcing a constructive vision of the future
"IT IS OUR WISH TO WORK WITH COMMITTED ORGANIZATIONS INSPIRED TO PROMOTE OVERALL
WELL-BEING IN SOCIETIES, RISING FROM ASHES LIKE THE PHOENIX"
Mutima Africa
WHY WAS THE MUTIMA PSYCHOSOCIAL CENTER BORN?
COOPERA CONGO and Lorena Aguirre Cadarso, have worked with child soldiers, minor victims of sexual violence, women victims of domestic and gender violence, and men devastated for not having been able to save their families during attacks by armed men, for having been kidnapped, for lost their limbs due to machete or bullet wounds ...
The aftermath of war leaves deep and silent suffering, but there is a beauty that emerges from the darkness, people, warm and smiling Congolese people. People who dance to the sound of their voice, and shout peace with hope and pride.
All trauma survivors but especially a woman inspired MUTIMA AFRICA. This woman is MAMA Zawadi, which story was told in the doc short, "MAMA", directed by Pablo de la Chica. She taught us that if you have the right support, your life can shine again. That if you find safety and love, you will recover.
This is why we construct a center where trauma survivors can find safety, professional support, and LOVE.
MUTIMA AFRICA is a temple for life that gives support to overcome trauma and construct resilience. At Mutima, people learn about trauma and self-application tools to reach their full potential as human beings, at all levels, mental, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual.
Mission
To create a more equitable, conscious, and peaceful society, through collaboration with Congolese communities, civil society, and governmental organizations, integrating mental health services in primary care and in the areas with the highest rate of violence, being accessible to all:
children, youth, adults, and the elderly.
Vision
To train mental health professionals in modern psychotherapy and psychiatric treatments, giving a quality support to trauma survivors
while researching on mental health topics and informing the community on mental disorders to avoid stigma and discrimination.
Project
Thanks to the COOPERA EUSKADI and the support of the Basque Government, which believed in the vision and mission of the COOPERA CONGO team, led by Lorena Aguirre Cadarso, it was possible to build the first MUTIMA Psychosocial Center in the South Kivu Province. The Mutima Psychosocial Center is a service of the Pediatric Hospital of Lwiro, managed by the prestigious Center for Research in Natural Sciences (CRSN / Lwiro).
