Martha Deiros Collado, Clinical Psychologist specialised in family therapy, LGB 2000
Martha Deiros Collado
La Grande Boissière, 2000
Clinical Psychologist specialised in family therapy
United Kingdom
Find more about me:
You may make lifelong friends at school and you might not. Those you remain close to, even when you are in different continents and life has changed you from the person they ‘thought’ or imagined you were at school, are the ones you can hold on to for life
I graduated in 2000 and attended La Grande Boissiere. I went to Kindergarten in 1986 in the old wooden huts that used to be in Chêne-Bougeries and I remember attending the inaugural opening of Les Maronniers in 1987, at La Grande Boissiere campus by Princess Caroline of Monaco (I was in the front row!)
I am a mother and live with my husband and children in London. I am a Clinical Psychologist and have spent my career working in paediatric hospitals with children and young people who live with chronic and life-shortening conditions. When lockdown happened in 2020, I decided to start a social media page on Instagram to offer information and support to children and families through this challenging time. The only community grew quite rapidly and I now have two separate strands to my work: I work therapeutically with children and families and I also work as a psychologist in the media writing in magazines, papers, and sometimes on TV too.
My entire childhood was spent at Ecolint, so I don’t have anything else to compare it to! I think the biggest learning for me was experiencing so much loss at the end of every academic year. Making friends I always had to say goodbye to and always feeling like I was the one who was ‘left’ behind. It has definitely taught me a lot about relationships and the power of connection. The experiences of loss have probably shaped what I do now as the greatest focus of my work with families is around loss, grief, attachment, and learning to build and hold life-long relationships. I think doing the IB was also great preparation for university and my further education. My university exams were easy in comparison! It’s probably why I also didn’t shy away from applying to clinical psychology, the most competitive doctoral course to get on in the UK as it is fully paid and there are only a handful of places every year. So having said all that, my academic time at Ecolint probably taught me determination, grit and resilience too.
I have so many Ecolint memories, it’s hard to choose. I probably would say the first one that has popped into my mind which happened in Middle School (I think it was 6th grade) where we all joined up as a classroom on April Fools day to do pranks on our teacher. I remember one of them involved one of the boys shouting ‘“there’s a bat in here!” in the next room and it was a baseball bat and we all fell about laughing. It was really silly and fun and completely different to our usual school day. The biggest difference for me was that we were a ‘class team’ for the day, all in on the jokes and working together to make it happen. My class had a lot of bullying going on and there was quite a lot of unkindness between groups, but this was one day where everyone was included in the fun and it really did feel different. It must have mattered to me because it has really stuck in my mind!
If I had to do it again, I would have liked to speak up more in school. To have greater confidence to stand up for what felt was right both with my peers and with teachers too. I think until my IB years, I was quite quiet and I let a lot of things happen to me and to others around me that were not ok but out of fear and also lack of understanding, I followed the crowd a lot and didn’t want to stand out. The great thing about Ecolint is that it’s diverse and multicultural, but this brings with it a responsibility to talk about culture, diversity and racism to help children understand the words and actions of others. That kind of understanding was not explicitly talked about during the years I was at Ecolint, there was an assumption we would all get along and not see skin colour or difference. This “colour blind” attitude is toxic and I didn’t realise until I was much older how much it had affected me and what I saw as my role or responsibility when things happened around me. I think if I went back now I would have liked to be less of a bystander and much more outspoken about things.
I think doing the IB was also great preparation for university and my further education. My university exams were easy in comparison! It’s probably why I also didn’t shy away from applying to clinical psychology, the most competitive doctoral course to get on in the UK as it is fully paid and there are only a handful of places every year. So having said all that, my academic time at Ecolint probably taught me determination, grit and resilience too.
My words of wisdom to students: You are in a very privileged position, most of the world does not get to learn and grow up the way you are doing. Use your privilege as a power for good when you go out into the world because attending Ecolint comes with a responsibility and others will perceive you differently for it. I would also say: “You may make lifelong friends at school and you might not. Those you remain close to, even when you are in different continents and life has changed you from the person they ‘thought’ or imagined you were at school, are the ones you can hold on to for life” (My Ecolint friends reading this, you know who you are, and I really do love our impromptu Whatsapp chats!).
My legacy: I strongly believe that focusing on the parent-child connection is the key to effective and generational change, rather than trying to apologetically modify and control children’s behaviour. My mission is to help parents put themselves in their children’s shoes so they can work together to move through challenges while feeling connected and safe in the parent-child relationship, not just for the childhood years but for a lifetime. I think my legacy will be carried by the families and children I work with, the parents who choose to put my words into positive actions to support their relationship with their child, and ultimately – my own children who I will continue to offer the best of myself to for as long as I can.