Amanda Sales Cafezeiro (photo) is a psychologist specialised in children and teenagers in her native city of Jequié, in the Brazilian state of Bahia. She is also a volunteer worker at Bezerra de Menezes Spiritist Centre, giving counselling, or fraternal assistance, healing, talks and taking part in mediumship meetings. 

In the interview he gave us, she speaks about her early days in Spiritism and her experience as a psychologist and an active member of the Spiritist Movement. 

When and how did you come across Spiritism?

My first contact with Spiritism happened 22 years ago, when I lived in the state capital, Salvador. I was 12 years old when a friend of mine took me to an public Spiritist talk. There was no youth group there at the time and I joined the adults. I remember well that I was welcomed by the president of the Spiritist Centre, who became a great friend of mine. Later in the same week, I took all my family there for the first time:my mother, father, grandmother and brother. And to this day, we continue to walk together in Spiritism. It feels like it was a reunion with the Spiritist Teachings, as all that I learned and heard there sounded very natural to me, as if I already knew it subconsciously. 

What aspect of Spiritism strikes you the most?

I believe that Spiritism reveals in a very rational and objective manner who we really are. Our spiritual dimension is the missing piece of the human jigsaw. When it is properly connected, it can give meaning to our existence and help us understand and face the challenges of life. Science shows that we need to include the spiritual aspect of life in order to improve people’s health. 

Where does your interest for psychology, and especially the health of children and teenagers, come from?

My journey as a professional psychologist follows along the path of my links with Spiritism. I always felt a great urge to look for true human essence, to discover the reason behind all the suffering and illnesses so I could help treat the people and bring relief to those in pain. And I was able to find that both in psychology and Spiritism. My work in that field, especially with children, is an essential part of that search for healing. After all, the earlier you address the problems of the young Spirit who has just reincarnated, the better are their chances of achieving a more balanced progress in this incarnation. 

What would you like to highlight from your experience with young patients?

I would divide the challenges young people face these days in two major categories: the first one concerns conflicts of a parental nature; the second one refers to the paradigm of materialism and consumerism that impacts on the subjective constitution of children and teengares. In the first aspect, I have observed profound conflicts over the exercise of parenthood. Fathers and mothers don’t seem to know what their role is and that knowledge has been delegated to the experts. Therefore, parents often feel unable to play their true role. The second problem concerns the influence of materialism and consumerism, which weakens the psychological structure of children and teenagers. They end up developing low tolerance to their defeats and losses, as they are led to believe that they will always be able to soothe their anxieties with some new material object. 

In a country like Brazil, with huge social problems, do you think that dysfunctional family structures are largely to blame for the physical and emotional problems in the lives of so many children and teenagers?

Absolutely. Living through poverty and social injustice are major risk factors in the development of young people. But Spiritism helps to explain why some people need to go through such experiences in life. In order to go through this dramatic situation with dignity, it is essential that young people have a well-structured family around them, providing the constant presence of people who can give them care, can establish strong emotional links, clear guidelines and rules and give them higher moral values. We must bear in mind that in the struggle to earn their living, parents often stay away from their children for long stretches of the day. When they meet, they feel the need to make up for that, which has a negative impact on creating deep, secure affective links. The result of all that is a fragile structure, which makes those young people extremely vulnerable to drugs, violent relationships, crime and the incapacity to deal with the problems that life throws at us. It’s no coincidence that we have a growing incidence of suicide,depression and anxiety in those groups. 

What’s your main memory from all these years in Spiritism and psychology?

I continue to be amazed by the huge transformations that we achieve so often in my practice when I have the opportunity to add the spiritual dimension to the treatment. Children, teenagers and parents benefit from it. It’s amazing the psychological progress and the level of conflict solution we reach when we include spirituality in our therapy.  

Is there anything else you would like to add?

There’s been remarkable progress in scientific research concerning spirituality. More recently, research has focused on clinical interventions that include spirituality. The result of these studies will be crucial for our efforts to continue including the spiritual aspect as an essential part of psychological treatments. As the Spiritual Benefactors have been telling us, we are entering a new era on our planet.