Interview with Alejandro Garcia Alaman

Alejandro García: “Education has become as toxic as the society that shapes it”

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Andreu Navarra

“Live in the present! Never give up on your dreams! Be happy all the time…!” If you, too, are fed up with these messages, then this is the perfect book for you. Welcome to normality. This is the tagline of Alejandro García’s (Valencia, 1972) latest book, Esto es normal. La importancia de recordar lo obvio (Plataforma). García is a General Health Psychologist, a specialist in sexuality and relationships, and a Psychology lecturer at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).

You have written what could be described as an anti-self-help anti-manual… 

Yes, it is somewhat difficult to define. My intention was to provide a psychological perspective on everyday life while deliberately rejecting the style and clichés of traditional self-help literature, because I believe they do not work. Quite the opposite, in fact: they tend to be harmful and fail to reflect how human beings actually behave. I also do not prescribe solutions or tell readers what to do, so in that sense, it is not a manual either. However, the book is intended as a form of psychological support, which makes its classification tricky. I refer to it as quantum self-help, because it both is and isn’t self-help at the same time.

How did the idea arise to write a book featuring so many real-life or archetypal cases (duly anonymised)? 

After spending countless hours in psychotherapy, you como to realise that, despite how unique and special we may think we are, in fact, we are not so different after all. We follow predictable patterns; we face the same challenges as others—and thankfully so. At best, we are a unique blend of common experiences, which enables psychotherapists to intervene effectively. It also allows individuals to learn from others’ experiences and adapt them to their own lives. The cases in the book are, in a way, prototypical: they are not the story of any one individual, but rather composites drawn down from dozens of cases that share a common underlying structure. This means that anonymisation was not strictly necessary, yet many readers will undoubtedly recognise themselves in these stories.

“Despite how unique and special we may think we are, in fact, we are not so different after all. We follow predictable patterns; we face the same challenges as others—and thankfully so”

What are the most damaging recurring ideas, clichés, and obsessions that you encounter in your practice? 

The most harmful, by far, are the fantasies of omnipotence and self-sufficiency. Phrases like “You can do anything”, “overcome your limiting beliefs”, “find happiness”, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”—this idle rhetoric that insists we must be indestructible, invulnerable, and perpetually successful. At their core, these are delusions of grandeur. I have seen far too many people spend their lives trying to conceal what they perceive as their weaknesses, all the while enduring the distress that comes with it.

Combine this demand for exceptionality with another equally damaging demand: “Do it yourself”, “Trust no one”, “Contribute or step aside”, “Other people’s words only affect you if you let them”, “Surround yourself only with a lovely lot”. This is absurd. We need others—at least to some extent—in order to life dignified and fulfilling lives. Anyone who has ever had their boiler break down in the middle of winter knows this all too well. The same goes for affection: you can read a hundred books on self-love, but the experience of genuine love from another human being is incomparable.

There is an entire movement that glorifies selfishness, avoidance of discomfort, and a lack of solidarity, all under the misguided belief that these things lead to happiness. It is nonsense. Or rather, it is intentional—it isolates us and makes us more vulnerable. Beyond mere material survival, the fundamental challenge of human life is loneliness.

You write: “Many patients come to therapy with an absurd allocation of time, utterly detached from what would be desirable, and attempt to play Tetris by fitting in their unrealistic expectations into whatever tiny gaps remain” (p. 56). What is happening to us?

What is happening is that social demands have skyrocketed in tandem with the cost of living. Many people are working and studying simultaneously—a phenomenon that has become normalised but one that takes a severe toll on other equally important aspects of life: maintaining one’s health, cultivating friendships, engaging in meaningful and responsible relationships, creating a home, becoming independent, achieving self-fulfilment…

Each of these elements may seem reasonable on its own, but together, they are impossible to sustain. If you are working from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., everything else falls apart. The recipe for life success increasingly seems to involve alprazolam or paroxetine. The complaint that people lack time for what truly matters to them is a frequent theme in therapy.

“A fundamental condition for granting forgiveness without feeling degraded once again is that it must be reparative” (p. 124). Could you elaborate? 

What I mean is that, in our rush to speed up everything, to move on quickly and close matters as soon as possible, apologies have become increasingly superficial. “If anyone has been offended, I apologise”. Well, if you do not even know what you said or did that might have caused offence, such an apology is meaningless.

And since people are not fools, the person who was wronged will feel humiliated once again by this empty gesture—especially if they accept it. This statement in the book is aimed at the self-help movement that insists forgiveness is the key to happiness, advocating that we should forgive anyone who harms us, without question. The idea seems to be that forgiveness somehow makes us morally superior, though I am not entirely sure what the intended outcome is.

If I forgive someone merely because I have read that it will benefit me, or due to external pressure, or because it supposedly makes me a better person, then I am simply degrading myself once again. One must take the time to carefully reflect on whether they genuinely want to forgive, and whether doing so is actually feasible.

Are we educating in a healthy way, or in a toxic one? What needs to change?

Education has become as toxic as the society that shapes it; the two are inseparable and reinforce one another. I recently heard that half of Spanish university students have experienced depressive symptoms. This does not surprise me. Their path into adulthood involves completing a degree, undertaking at least one master’s programme costing thousands of euros, and—if they are lucky—aspiring to a minimum-wage job by the time they are 25–27, assuming they manage to secure employment at all. The pressure to succeed and self-sufficiency begins early, intensifies over time, and offers increasingly meagre rewards. It is hardly surprising that many young people conclude that they will never meet these expectations, that no matter how much they learn, it will be of little use. They disengage from education, much like someone experiencing burnout, because they lose hope—and thus, real interest. They see this reflected in the adults around them, both educators and family members.

“The pressure to succeed and self-sufficiency begins early, intensifies over time, and offers increasingly meagre rewards”

Encouraging a genuine love for knowledge under these conditions is exceedingly difficult; one must have a strong personal fascination with a particular subject to sustain it. What, then, needs to change? On the one hand, fostering critical and autonomous citizens requires material and human resources, so that young people can focus solely on their education during this period. On the other, it is crucial to offer a future that holds the promise of progress, rather than a jungle where survival demands Spartan discipline—where the world outside is portrayed as a place of horror, and self-reliance as the only possible strategy. Young people internalise this idea at an alarmingly early age; adults pass it on to them, because deep down, we believe it ourselves. Yet it is both false and unjust.

The conclusions drawn by adult-led institutions about young people often resemble the joke about the spider: if you pull off its legs, it becomes deaf. We rob them of their future and then complain that they are lazy and irresponsible.

Is distress becoming a booming business?

To sell happiness, you need a public desperate for it. The greater the distress in society, the more profitable the industry. Following this perverse logic, the more distress there is, the more urgent it becomes to eliminate it— driving ever more spending on instant solutions that do not work. It hardly matters whether these take the form of pharmaceuticals, escapism, mystical rituals—or even hugs, since those come cheap. And if they fail to bring relief, the blame is yours, because you alone are responsible for everything.

What truly astonishes me is that, in a time when housing, food, and education costs have soared, wages remain stagnant, and productivity is driven up by sheer overwork, some people are still surprised that workers and their families feel sad, anxious, or exhausted. And what is the proposed solution? Hire a CHO (Chief Happiness Officer), bring in a couple of clowns, organise a smiling workshop—and demand that people cheer up.

In any case, I would refine the expression: rather than saying distress is a booming business, I would say distress is on the rise—and that some are capitalising on it. Usually, the very same actors responsible for producing it in the first place.

“To sell happiness, you need a public desperate for it. The greater the distress in society, the more profitable the industry”

“We do not simply inhabit a physical body, nor is it merely a vessel for the mind. We are one with it” (p. 154). This stood me out…

Even if we like to think Cartesian dualism is outdated, it remains deeply embedded in contemporary thought. The tendency to oppose emotionality and “reason” is an extension of the same logic that separates “body” from mind. Many still believe that the axis of cognition-mind-rationality is the correct, evolved, and superior one—that it represents “objective information”—while the emotion-body-impulsivity axis is dismissed as subjective and unreliable. Others, in a reactionary pendulum swing, reject the former altogether, exalting emotional experience as “authentic” while dismissing conscious reflection as artificial and detached.

But this is a false dilemma—a dichotomy that does not actually exist. We cannot separate the body from the mind, nor our involuntary thought processes—what William James called the stream of consciousness—from our voluntary ones; they shape and influence one another. While the brain has a functional division of tasks, we remain an integrated organism, constantly processing and generating information. In that sense, there are no hard boundaries between parts. Subjective, of course—but that does not make it any less real.

“It is healthy to ask where an opinion comes from, to be genuinely interested in understanding the other person before either rejecting or accepting ideas”

Give us a good piece of advice on how to rid ourselves of intrusive thoughts (even if this clashes head-on with the philosophy of your book…). 

Well, yes, it does clash a little, but I doubt that offering some general guidelines will do anyone any harm. Instead of going through life avoiding people who do not always tell us what we want to hear, or setting ourselves unattainable or harmful goals, I believe it is far more beneficial to practise critical analysis. First, critical analysis of what I am doing: What purpose does this serve? To what extent do I truly need it? Is it working or not? It is crucial to lighten the load, to focus our attention and efforts on what adds value to our lives, and to allow ourselves time to rest. Everything else is secondary. Second, as I was taught in history, critical analysis of external sources. Understanding who is offering me their point of view and why they are saying what they are saying. Careful, though—analysing critically does not mean distrusting or assuming bad intentions. For this, we must apply principles of kindness and inquisitive innocence. It is healthy to ask where an opinion comes from, to be genuinely interested in understanding the other person before either rejecting or accepting ideas.

What are you currently working on? Any upcoming publications? And what is the subject of your much-discussed doctoral thesis? 

Right now, I am working on that much-discussed thesis, trying to finish it. I am studying stereotypical patterns in how individuals present themselves on dating apps, specifically Tinder. Unsurprisingly, I have found regularities—people tend to standardise themselves when seeking to appeal to a broad audience. There is a powerful component of social desirability, closely linked to our discussion on fantasies of success and individualism, which paradoxically results in highly uniform profiles. I would love to publish more on relationships, which is my area of expertise—it is an inexhaustible field of study.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons