Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): El psicólogo dice que deberíamos meditar cinco minutos antes de la sesión. - The psychologist says that we should meditate for five minutes before the session.

In Spanish, professional titles and roles very often take the definite article (el, la, los, las) when you’re talking about a specific person in that role:

El psicólogo dice… = The psychologist says… (a specific one)
La doctora cree que… = The doctor thinks that…

You normally would not say *Psicólogo dice… without an article; that sounds incomplete.

If you wanted to say a psychologist in general (not a specific one), you could say un psicólogo, but in this sentence it sounds like the speaker has their psychologist in mind, so el psicólogo fits best.

Why is it dice (present tense) and not dijo or ha dicho (“said / has said”)?

Using dice (present) often expresses either:

What the psychologist regularly says / usually tells us
- The psychologist says (in general) that we should meditate…
What the psychologist is currently saying / telling us now in a context
- e.g. a narrator describing something as it happens.

If you wanted to report something they said at a specific time in the past, you’d normally use:

El psicólogo dijo que deberíamos meditar… = The psychologist said that we should meditate…
El psicólogo ha dicho que deberíamos meditar… = The psychologist has said that we should meditate…

All are grammatically fine; the choice depends on whether you’re talking about a general statement, something ongoing, or a past event.

Why do we need que after dice? Why not El psicólogo dice deberíamos meditar…?

In Spanish, when you report what someone says using a full clause, you almost always link it with que:

Dice que deberíamos meditar…
Me dijo que estaba cansado.

Que here is a conjunction (like “that” in English).
You can omit “that” in English (He says we should meditate), but in Spanish you normally keep que.

Without que, the sentence sounds wrong:
✗ El psicólogo dice deberíamos meditar… — ungrammatical in standard Spanish.

Why is it deberíamos and not debemos? What’s the difference?

Both come from deber (to have to / should), but:

debemos meditar = we must / we have to meditate (stronger obligation)
deberíamos meditar = we should meditate / it would be good if we meditated (advice, recommendation, softer)

Deberíamos (conditional) is more polite and less forceful—closer to a suggestion.
So the psychologist is recommending a practice, not strictly ordering it.

Is deberíamos a conditional of deber? Does it always translate as “should”?

Yes, deberíamos is the 1st-person plural conditional of deber:

deber → deberíamos = we should / we ought to / we would have to

Often it does translate as “should / ought to” when giving advice.
But context can slightly change the nuance; for example,

Deberíamos llegar antes de las ocho.
= We should get there before eight (recommendation / convenient choice).

So, “should” is usually a good translation, especially for advice, as in this sentence.

Why is it deberíamos meditar (infinitive) and not something like deberíamos que meditemos?

With deber, you do not use que and a subjunctive clause. The pattern is:

deber
- infinitive

So:

Deberíamos meditar. ✅
*Deberíamos que meditemos. ❌ (wrong)

If you want something like “It’s necessary that we meditate,” you use other verbs or expressions with que + subjunctive:

Es necesario que meditemos.
El psicólogo quiere que meditemos.

But deber itself directly takes an infinitive.

Is meditar always “to meditate (as in mindfulness)”, or can it also mean “to think about something carefully”?

Meditar has two main uses:

To meditate in the mindfulness/spiritual sense
- Meditar cinco minutos cada día.
To think deeply / reflect on something
- Tengo que meditar esta decisión. = I have to reflect on / think over this decision.

In your sentence, with the context of a psychologist and a time limit, it clearly means to meditate (mindfulness practice).

Should meditar be reflexive (meditarse) when talking about meditation?

No. The usual verb for to meditate is meditar, not reflexive:

Meditar cinco minutos.
Me gusta meditar por la mañana.

Meditarse exists but is rare and sounds odd in this context. Stick with meditar (non-reflexive) for meditation as an activity.

Why is there no preposition before cinco minutos? Could I say meditar por cinco minutos?

In Spanish, duration is very often expressed without a preposition, just using the time expression directly:

Meditar cinco minutos. = To meditate for five minutes.
Dormí ocho horas. = I slept (for) eight hours.

You can say meditar por cinco minutos, and it’s understandable, but:

Without por is more natural and more common in Spain for simple duration.
Por can add a slight nuance of “throughout that period,” but in many cases it sounds a bit redundant.

So meditar cinco minutos is the most natural, everyday wording.

Why is it antes de la sesión and not just antes la sesión or antes sesión?

The normal structure is:

antes de
- noun → antes de la sesión
antes de
- infinitive → antes de empezar la sesión

So:

antes de la sesión ✅
*antes la sesión ❌ (missing the de)
*antes sesión ❌ (missing both de and the article)

Antes by itself usually needs de or a clause:

antes de cenar
antes de las seis
antes de que llegues

Why does sesión have an accent on the ó?

Sesión is stressed on the last syllable: se-SIÓN.

In Spanish, most words ending in -n, -s, or a vowel are stressed on the second-to-last syllable unless there is a written accent.
Because sesión is stressed on the last syllable but ends in -n, it needs an accent mark to show the irregular stress:

sesión (se-SIÓN) ✅
Without the accent (*sesion) a native would expect the stress on SE, which would be wrong.

Where is “we” in this sentence? Why isn’t it written?

The subject “we” is included in the verb ending -íamos in deberíamos:

deber → deberíamos = we should

Spanish is a pro-drop language: subject pronouns (yo, tú, él, nosotros, etc.) are often omitted because the verb ending already shows the subject.

You could say:

Nosotros deberíamos meditar…

but it’s usually unnecessary unless you want to emphasize we (as opposed to someone else).

Could I change the word order, like El psicólogo dice que antes de la sesión deberíamos meditar cinco minutos?

Yes. Spanish allows some flexibility in word order for emphasis or style. All of these are grammatically fine, with slightly different focus:

El psicólogo dice que deberíamos meditar cinco minutos antes de la sesión.
(neutral; standard order)
El psicólogo dice que antes de la sesión deberíamos meditar cinco minutos.
(slight emphasis on before the session)
El psicólogo dice que deberíamos, antes de la sesión, meditar cinco minutos.
(more written/literary style, with commas for extra emphasis)

The original is the most natural, neutral version in everyday speech.