Juan Luis Linares

Psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychologist, he has been President of EFTA and of Relates (Red Europea y latino-americano de Escuelas sistémicas). He has been full professor of Psychiatry at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, was director of the Psychotherapy Unit and was director of the School of Family Therapy of the Hospital de la Santa Cruz and San Pablo and of the Instituto Sistémico de Barcelona.

Lia Mastropaolo: In 1982 at the congress in Nice. We were young therapists, on a sailing boat, at 7 in the morning, after a good night of sleep, we went to listen to the masters of family therapy including Selvini and our teachers. It was on that occasion that I met a young Spanish therapist with a mustache and a slightly long hair, a bit hippy and with a small child in the stroller (now that 40 year old child calls me “tia Lia”). He is the eldest son of Juan Luis Linares, “my Spanish family”, my family and I are for them the “Italian family”: an intense, fraternally loving friendship.

Insightful, intriguing, curious, ironic, cultured but also concrete, lover of art, opera and beautiful people, “citizen of the World”, Juan Luis created RELATES European-Latin American Network of Systemic Schools, which for 20 years has brought together in a 4-day conference, mostly in Latin America, the important figures and schools of systemic therapy. This is how Juan Luis talks about Relates: “I always say the same, like Martin Luther King, always everything is a dream and this dream is called Relates, this dream has converted into a glorious reality.” Every year we live an intellectually intense, lively experience, rich not only for the comparison between the different systemic epistemologies but also for the knowledge of different cultures to which is added each time a trip to the most magical places in the country, in a group of therapists – friends “who know how to enjoy life”.

Juan is a great traveler, he has travelled around the world and has visited 110 states and some several times. I have visited countries with him that I would never have seen and I always tell him “with you I would go to the end of the world“. Sometimes he is too enterprising and I hesitantly ask him “But really you propose San Salvador? In Honduras, in Iraq? But won’t they be dangerous places?” Juan Luis replies: “We can’t now paralyze ourselves and no longer travel just because there are wars!” And he convinces me and I leave with him or join him in the strangest airports. He is a great travel organizer who chooses particular hotels, restaurants, places to see that I don’t even know exist. Then he photographs and makes wonderful photo books with comments just for him and for those who travel with him, books that I jealously keep with pleasure.

He is a “Superfine Chef”, he prepares dishes to which he adds a pinch of spicy originality. He wrote a book of recipes “Comer en verso” and a book of sonnets. Plus, if you ask him to buy 4 flavors of ice cream he comes back with 4 huge tubs each for one flavor.