Psychological first aid: CPR for the soul
Maya Arun - 12 September 2025

Jada McGillvray at the airport

View of Plaça de Catalunya in central Barcelona

Jada in front of Basílica de la Sagrada Família
As a psychology major, Jada McGillvray is a tenacious advocate for mental health. With a family history of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Jada constantly looks for ways to better educate herself on the topic. When the opportunity to partake in a psychological first aid course in Spain presented itself, she was eager to apply.
Jada arrived at with excitement pumping through her veins, and an inescapable anxiety. She was travelling abroad for the first time, all by herself, and the magnitude of the experience only became apparent when her classes started.
“It didn't hit me on the plane, or even when I moved into the dorms. It was that first moment in class and the realization that I actually did this — I’m doing it right now and I’m getting trained by a professional.”
focuses on mental health treatment in critical situations, for both common and larger scale emergencies like natural disasters. Students were taught to be sensitive to the age and background of the patient. Jada was told that the course does not involve typical counselling strategies and instead emphasizes the imparting of trauma-informed approaches to care. They learned everything from preventative measures of acute stress disorder (ASD) and PTSD to more common issues, like helping people grieve their loved ones.
Her instructor’s assessments, not unlike the course itself, were unconventional. Jada and her classmates demonstrated their grasp of trauma-healing methods through group presentations and even enactments of hypothetical scenarios. Jada’s dreams of becoming a psychologist were cemented by not just the holistic approach to health care, but also the diversity she found in her classmates.
“Everybody in my class was from different parts of the world and they were all doing amazing. There was one girl from China and she was studying x-rays to find breast cancer. There was someone else who wanted to take this course just to get more educated because his country doesn't talk about mental health much.”
She saw the privilege that Canadians have in a society where talk of mental health is far less taboo than in others. The growing need for mental health resources in places like Canada and Spain is a double-edged sword; while it reflects societal progress, it also highlights the lack of access in other countries.
Jada’s three-hour classes every morning, although very hands-on, left her a lot of time to explore the city of Barcelona. Her instructor’s recommendations were useful, even if the blistering Spanish heat affected her plans.
Growing up in Grand Prairie and later moving to Calgary, Jada was aware of the lack of diversity around her from a young age. “Being Latinx and growing up there, I wasn’t really surrounded by my culture. Going from where I grew up to Barcelona was a big leap. I enjoyed learning the culture there and the original language and everybody's stories that I met from there.”
Jada went into it expecting to learn from her course, but did not anticipate just how much her perspective on cultural diversity would change. She discovered the very tangible reality of becoming a psychologist — the harsh truth of what people go through, whether it’s discrimination or the severity of life itself, and its lasting mark on them. "This opportunity showed me just how important diversity and awareness is for mental health."