The battle against the social stigma around addictions and drug addictions was highlighted
The Chair of Christian Thought celebrated this Saturday the twentieth edition dealing with the subject of addictions and how to face them, from various sides, with presentations by Dr. Josep Solé, psychiatrist and former head of the addictions area of the hospital Bennito Menni, doctor Miquel Àngel Prats, psycho-pedagogue, doctor in Psychology from the Ramon Llull University of Barcelona and doctor Francesc Torralba, director of the Chair of Christian Thought and doctor in Philosophy and Theology from the University of Barcelona.
The day, which was held at the Diocesan Seminary, in La Seu d’Urgell, was attended by around eighty people. Dr. Solé presented the paper ‘Map of addictions’ where, in addition to drawing a map of the types of addictions, he focused his speech on geographically indicating the locations where drug addicts and their families can go in search of solutions in the Catalan territory. Solé detailed the wide resources that Catalonia has to try to provide solutions to the problem of mental health, mentioning the 102 socio-health centers, 68 hospital centers, 40 mental health centers with more than 900 ambulances for non-urgent medical transport, 62 Care and Monitoring Centers (CAS), 428 basic and advanced life support ambulances and 4 medical helicopters.
Another theme that was highlighted was the social stigma surrounding addictions. Through humorous vignettes, they represented the irony of how a psychiatrist judged his patient for being addicted to heroin, while the same professional had a pyramid of burritos and ash on the floor. With this representation they wanted to show that, although both are addictions, smoking is more normalized, and therefore the two addicts do not face the same value judgments.
During the Chair, all the mental health professionals were also thanked, for the realization of the better visibility that mental health pathologies have been acquiring, noting that in recent years, they have been becoming more aware of the matter, a fact that has led to the increase of public policies to expand services to the population and that this whole process is helping the battle against the stigma of what it means to be an addict or a drug addict, and what it means to go to the consultation from a psychiatrist
After a break, psycho-pedagogue Miquel Àngel Prats’ presentation ‘The addiction to screens’ began. Towards a responsible use of technology’, placing a lot of emphasis on the generation of a critical spirit in young people and children through the influence of the family, which despite the fact that it means an effort by the parents is the way to achieve in them, the capabilities to manage technology responsibly.
Regarding the last presentation, called ‘Reconstructing the life project. From despair to hope’, Dr. Torralba discussed ethical and moral aspects, as well as the role of the community not only in prevention but also in order to rebuild the life project. For Torralba, despite being marked by the social stigma of being addicted, the people who have gone through it are people with inherent dignity and must be treated with care, love and respect and remember that you must be careful about how you talk about ‘these vulnerable groups.
Torralba sets a six-step guideline so that addicted people can build a life project. First of all, self-awareness and a process of self-knowledge and differentiating what qualities and limitations are there to find a vocation. The doctor explains that the process of self-mastery to reject the stimuli that want to take the addict to the previous life; anticipation of possible futures and determination of where to turn to avoid the emptiness and the feeling of boredom that could lead to relapse; and finally assume that this life project must be flexible and ductile to adapt to the circumstances.