Byron Emanuel Hernández interviews Dr. María de los Ángeles Mollinedo
August 31, 2018
ICF is founded on the Dignity of the Person
In mid-2018 I was invited to a radio interview. They wanted to learn about our academic institution, ICF: our university-level programs and our approach to psychotherapy. Unprepared and with no advertising intent, what began almost as a test of academic knowledge slowly became an encounter and a dialogue.
I was asked for the etymology of the word Psyché; once answered, we reflected on the human being and the richness of the person, which can only be reached by giving oneself to others: the human being created for relationship, for the encounter between I and Thou.
During that encounter a marvelous human being revealed himself, coming out to meet me and leaving me with the experience of a communal "We". The young announcer at a Guatemala City radio station is an outstanding psychologist who is blind and who completed his degree studying through the Braille system. His name is Byron Emanuel Hernández.
Byron Emanuel took part in our Diploma in Addictions centered on the Person through Logotherapy, and today I thank him for that interview, because it confirms what Nietzsche wisely tells us:
"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."
That is what helped Byron Emanuel's mother fight for her son. When a psychologist asked her, "Ma'am, how do you picture your son thirty years from now?", she answered: "As a professional." The psychologist replied: "Please, ma'am, be realistic…"
Byron Emanuel was awarded the Viktor Frankl Medal, given to those who find meaning in their lives in spite of everything and become a testimony and a school of life for the great family that all human beings form, united as a community, trying to build a better world for those who are always forgotten.
"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them become what they are capable of being." Goethe
