This material is for informational and educational purposes only and is not medical, psychological, or psychotherapeutic advice. If you are experiencing an acute psychological condition or need professional support, please contact a doctor, psychologist, psychotherapist, or crisis service.
But at each new stage of life, there are new challenges that need to be solved. And then it turns out that the problem is not as simple as it seemed at first, and cannot be solved on your own. That's when a psychotherapist comes to the rescue
Every person has a toothache at least once in his life, well, at least once. And then he knows what to do, go to the dentist. He has no doubt that he cannot cope without the help of a specially trained person. He goes and gets help. Everything is simple.
But what to do if it is not the teeth that hurt, but the soul? Or even the soul does not hurt, but there are problems, insomnia, everything is not as we would like. A person lives for himself, but there is no happiness, continuous troubles and longing. Then where to go? They often turn to friends, fathers, and wise adult fears. They read books, go to fortune-tellers - to find out the future, to clairvoyants and psychics - to remove corruption. And it helps! And good.
All of the above will listen, share their experience with you, give advice, and remove damage. Makes you feel better until your next problem occurs. And they will certainly come, not because there is something wrong with you, but because at each stage of life we face new challenges that we will have to solve. And then what to do, run again to those who give advice about your unique situation and unique life?
Very often, people come to us, psychologists, with exactly this: they want advice, they have a problem or several, and they want to be allowed to understand them or something. This process is called consultation. It is implied that the psychologist is a certain expert in the field in which he understands, and he can answer questions, share a vision, give advice.
The consultation usually takes an hour, and what the client who came to us leaves with is some new vision of his problem, slightly more expanded horizons, a slightly different, previously invisible focus. For some, this is quite enough. Now he will be able to live on and try to approach his problem from completely different angles.
Sometimes a client who came to us during a meeting understands that the problem is not as simple as it seemed to him at first, and without outside help, he is unable to solve it on his own. Companion needed. And then both - the psychologist and his client focus on the identified problem and begin to solve it. If the problem, symptom, request arose recently and does not have roots in deep childhood, then, most likely, a few meetings will be quite enough. But if the client's problems have a long history and are related to many layers of his psyche, then methods aimed at short-term treatment can only bring temporary relief. In this case, more long-term and large-scale work will be needed, which can take more than one month and even more than one year.
Psychotherapy is…
There is another type of psychological help, about which I wrote this book. In our country, it is called psychotherapy, which, strictly speaking, is not exactly terminologically correct, since psychotherapy in the West implies medical support and is carried out by psychiatrists or psychotherapists, that is, people with a medical education. Everything is wrong in our country. In our country, a psychotherapist is informally called any psychologist who helps a person to know himself and change his life.
I am often asked by people who are not related to psychology, what is psychotherapy? Who needs it? What is it? Why spend so much time and money on this event? From time to time I feel discomfort and despair at the fact that I cannot simply describe what I have been doing for so long. Do not tell what psychotherapy is in two words. Helping a person in a difficult situation? No, it's more about the processes I described above. "Healing of the soul" - if translated literally? Closer, but also not the same. "The path, the journey" - that's how many psychotherapists talk about it. Even warmer. But still not exactly. As before, I can't find a single word to describe what it is.
Psychotherapy for me is, first of all, a decision once made. No, probably everything starts even earlier: with an honest look at your life. At some point, you realize that you are not living exactly the way you want and could. And no one is to blame for all this, except for yourself, you live like this because in your life you made many small and big decisions in order to live this way now. However, the understanding of this will not come to you immediately, at first it will seem to you, like everyone else, that the world is unfair to you, that you have an unfortunate fate, spoiled karma, you were born under the wrong star. In addition, the people around you are angry and stupid, since they do not want to recognize your obvious talents and merits or for some reason do not want to treat you in a human way.
And if at some very bright, but difficult moment, the obvious is revealed to you, that it turns out to be useless to wait for the world to decide to restore justice and give you what you deserve, and you understand that, no matter how cool, you have to start with yourself right then and there you will find yourself in my office. So, in fact, everything begins with unspoken, but brewing somewhere deep questions: Who am I? Why is this happening to me? What should be done to prevent this from happening? What do I need to change in my life? And how to do it? And sometimes you are already in such pain and bad that you have no doubt that you need to change your life without fail and as soon as possible.
Therefore, the first stage of psychotherapy is equally related to the presence of any level of discomfort in life. After all, if you feel good, then there is no motivation to change. So it turns out that crisis, suffering, worries, pain lead us to psychotherapy. And at that moment we hate this state, although in fact we should be grateful for it, because it is the discomfort that visits every person during the transition from one life stage to another, which gives us the impetus for development, movement, transformation.
Why do we have our problems?
Our life is cyclical. This is how everything in nature is arranged: day turns into night, summer into autumn, youth into maturity. This is how the need for rotation is embedded in our psyche. There are periods of peace, joy, and satisfaction. But each of us knows that if we stay in them for a long time, then peace turns into boredom, joy turns into satiety, and joy turns into longing. And then we want something new in order to get even a little out of balance and start fighting again for peace and security to be restored.
As paradoxical as it sounds, we should be grateful for our problems and troubles. After all, crises, troubles, changes in our lives happen so that we have the opportunity to learn something new, to become a little different. But the trouble is that some people do not know how to use crises and problems for development. They are afraid of problems and spend a lot of strength and energy to avoid them and, as a result, to avoid changes in themselves. But, as a rule, it is not possible to completely evade problems, and then we often react to crisis or difficult situations with a set of our former behavior models, a set of our established stereotypes. As a result, either the crisis is overcome with difficulty, or we are still forced to make some new decision for ourselves.
So, it hurts, it's bad, or it's just uncomfortable for you to live. This means that your previous models of behavior, views on life, ways of interaction, probably quite effective in childhood or youth, now do not save you, do not help, simply do not work at the new stage of your life. Most likely, not all, but some, perhaps, the most important at this moment. Very often you do not even realize what kind of models these are, how exactly you do it and what else you can do in such situations. Moreover, the stricter the upbringing, the firmer the convictions of your parents, the narrower your idea of how the world is arranged. As a child, you needed restrictions and prohibitions to keep you safe. But when you grow up, it is important for you to learn to look at the world more broadly. It is very difficult to do this without outside help, partly because you are already completely convinced that the world is arranged exactly as you are used to perceiving it. That if you work hard or help everyone, denying yourself everything, then there will be happiness. Or if you are obedient, kind, sacrifice yourself to an idea or a person, then retribution or a reward will surely catch up.
It's only later that you realize that so much effort has already been put into achieving all this, but it doesn't work out: loved ones leave, parents are still dissatisfied with something, the superiors do not recognize either happiness or rewards. How so? You tried so hard! And how else can this be explained, if not world injustice? You can explain. For example, your reluctance to say goodbye to children's ideas and illusions. Moreover, for some time you will not be ready even to accept that these are illusions. And rightly so - it takes time and someone's perspective to help you see what your fixed ideas are leading to in your current life.
At first, you may encounter such discoveries with resistance. And that's understandable. Since childhood, your psyche has set up fortress walls and bastions in case of all kinds of surprises and troubles, and now it is not ready to give these walls to you so easily. Who will protect you if you break down all the walls? And suddenly someone or something hurts or injures you? And you without walls? And what will protect you then? That is why the restructuring of your ideas and defenses will take place very gradually. After all, fortunately, a psychotherapist will not be able to quickly destroy old defenses: your psyche will fight hard to maintain its internal ecology.
example. As a child, the main value in your family was to be smart, to learn a lot and constantly, to shine with erudition, to constantly raise your intellectual level. Therefore, you had no choice but to study a lot, all the time to demonstrate your knowledge in order to be accepted and loved in your family, because it is almost impossible for a rogue child to survive. You did well at school and institute - you knew how to learn and share your knowledge to the delight of your teachers and parents. But now a new stage of your life has arrived: you came to work, and there you no longer need your ability to learn or demonstrate your intelligence, there you need to be able to interact with people or make responsible choices or issue non-standard solutions. And you continue to shine with your erudition, and you do not understand why your colleagues do not respect you, and your superiors think that you are not doing well. You are so smart! Smarter than all of them! You try to understand even more, and somehow it leads to even worse results.
Then comes a new stage in your life. All your peers have already fallen in love more than once, some have already married, especially gifted ones have even divorced. And you never had a normal long-term relationship. And it is clear why, first of all, all girls are terrible fools. It's boring with them. And if you start telling them about some new theory, their eyes become glassy and further conversation loses all meaning. They are interested in you, but not for long, because they cannot keep the meaning of what you are telling them in focus for long. You don't realize that instead of your theories, they want to hear something else. But what?
And here you are in a crisis. Discontent begins to accumulate in all directions. At the same time, you do not understand why? After all, you did everything right: you studied, you know a lot, then why is everything like this?
Friends, if you have them, of course, will say: Be simpler and that's it. Don't be smart. relax Be your own boyfriend." And they will encroach on your defenses. Not only that, but you don't know how it can be easier? So you still don't understand what it's like to give up measuring the world with your intellectual ruler. And then what? Why do not the smartest achieve success? And why don't they get the most money and generally all earthly goods? How to live then? What to push back?
Therefore, you will not be able to be simpler, no matter how hard you try. And that's good. Because you are not really simple anymore. You don't need to become simpler, but wider, bigger, deeper. It is not to remove the mind, but to build up other abilities, skills, models. Learn to listen to yourself, for example, and trust not only knowledge and logic, but also intuition, master the language of feelings that is not easy for you, accept your possible stupidity and limitations, then it will be easier to accept someone else's, recognize yourself and start appreciating your unusual personality. only for high intelligence.
You will not change
Psychotherapy will not take away your old way of life, you can always use old patterns if you want to return to them, or if they are the most appropriate at some point in your life. But with its help, you will learn about numerous options, among which there will be those that are much more suitable for the new situation than the old, established and tested ones. From some beginner clients, I have heard more than once about such a popular "horror story": psychotherapy can change you, you will become completely different and cease to be yourself. I confess, once I was afraid of it. But my own client and psychotherapy experience suggests the opposite: you will remain yourself, even if you desperately want to be someone else. There is something very deep and unchanging inside that will not change in you for the rest of your life, no matter how hard you try. But what is almost guaranteed to happen to you at meetings with a psychologist is that you will become an even bigger person than you were before.
While you grew up and matured, people around you saw you, as a rule, from one side, well, at most from two sides, and very soon you began to think of yourself as such. And if it weren't for the crisis and psychotherapy, you might never have found out what else you are capable of. After all, in reality, each person is a huge world, a whole universe, huge, immeasurable, unknowable. But most people are used to perceiving themselves as a small town, a tiny village, a small foggy island, not wanting to face their greatness and incomprehensibility. Their reluctance is understandable. After all, if you face even a little with your own depth and power, then it will no longer be possible to pretend that you do not know how talented you are and what potential you have. And then your knowledge will ask you, will demand implementation, development, growth. Do we need it? — that part of you that wants comfort, peace, and stability will always ask that.
Therefore, psychotherapy is definitely a risk. The risk of not returning to the former childish and illusory ideas about the world, the risk of losing the former idea of yourself, the risk of greater knowledge about yourself, which you will somehow have to deal with. And a person who embarks on this not at all fun, but extremely exciting journey through his own universe is a real hero. A hero in every sense of the word, now regularly and planned (like the famous baron), who does his feat.
More than once during this trip you will want to stop or stop. This is also understandable and even normal: it is costly and wrong to open your inner territories all the time. Having discovered them, after all, they still need to be explored, mastered, lived. Without it, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to move on. So if you sometimes feel like your psychotherapy is "sliding" or you really want to take a break, there's usually a reason for that. And one of these reasons will be the desire to live with what you have learned, master what has been discovered, accept it and make it your own. A healthy organism requires alternating periods of rest and satisfaction with periods of change, development and growth. A psychotherapist will help you notice in which period your psyche gets stuck for some reason. Since the need for security is basic, and the need for growth and development is higher, we often choose security over the rest. This is understandable if a person does not feel strong, deep, self-confident.
One of the tasks of psychotherapy will be to return your integrity to you, so the more you learn about yourself, the more actively you appropriate it, the more strength, interest, confidence and desire to develop you will have. Psychotherapy is a self-induced process. The more you engage in yourself, the more you have the desire and opportunity to discover more and more within yourself. Is there an end to this process? Everything will depend on your life goals, needs and intentions. How much of the universe can be recognized? As much as you want.
Psychotherapy does not make people happier
This is true. It makes them more mature. If our clients come to us for happiness, they will be disappointed. Once upon a time when we were children, the world lavished happiness upon us in large spoonfuls, at least for some of us. It was so easy to surprise, delight, impress us, but the older we got, the less opportunities remained in the world to do it, and we also lost the childish sharpness of impressions year by year. At some point, we began to feel what was rightfully ours draining away from us, and we inevitably had a subconscious desire to return all the positive and magical things we experienced when the trees were big. How hard it is to come to terms with the fact that this is also an illusion. Because it is impossible to return it. Psychotherapy will help you understand this simple truth. And you will be saddened by this realization, I assure you. But at the same time, you will stop spending a lot of time, effort and energy to return what is irreversible.
Paradoxically, despite the fact that we develop and grow, something in us always wants to go back to the good things that were. We - not always consciously - want to regain a child's sense of security, joy, inclusion in life, maybe that's why we hold on to our childish illusions and protection so tightly. But we are getting older, and life at each subsequent stage throws new and new challenges before us, which often cannot be answered using the old models, means and ways of living.
Perhaps that is why one of the tasks of psychotherapy will be help in growing up, i.e. bringing your real age into line with your psychological age. Not many people in our country correspond to the dates of birth indicated in the passport. It is even considered fashionable to appear younger. But you will always feel the difference between "being young", "looking young" and "getting younger", that is, for some reason, running away from your real age, pretending that it does not really concern you. It looks, let's face it, sad to say the least.
Some people, having received a psychological trauma at a certain point in their life, remain at the psychological age in which this trauma was received, or return to this age at those moments when something similar to childhood psychological trauma occurs. I have seen quite a few people who are already very old, who behave like five-year-old children, many whose behavior "pulls" only in elementary school, and many who have never "passed" past the peak of the adolescent crisis. What is bad? - you ask. At least, because you lose the opportunity to live all other ages.
A grandmother who behaves like a frightened, complex little girl forever loses the opportunity to live life as a young girl, a grown woman, a mature and wise representative of the human race, of course, if she refuses to even begin this exciting journey called "psychotherapy". After all, this grandmother, no matter how small she was inside, still had to solve adult tasks: give birth and raise children, keep a house, make a career. And it is quite obvious that it is terribly difficult to do all this with an immature psyche that has not developed. It is not easy for little girls to cope with adult affairs. That is why such a grandmother, as a rule, will already have a bouquet of diseases by the time she turns sixty, not only because it is her age, but mainly because the body is already tired of enduring the overstrain she has felt all her life.
Whether it's bad or good, but you can solve most of the tasks life throws at you without any psychotherapy, the only question is what price you will have to pay for it. How much effort you will spend, how it will affect your health... In addition, it is important to understand that those who still managed to grow up and those whose passport and psychological age are matched will always be more successful, richer, more fruitful than those with whom this did not happen. Simply because they will not have as much life energy to support children's illusions.
So psychotherapy won't make your life any happier. I, at least, would not write you a warranty card for happiness, but it will definitely become more and more high-quality, interesting, filled. This does not mean that there will be no more problems or difficulties in it. They will be, if you do not live in a fairy tale that you invented for yourself. But you will cope with them much easier, learning something new about yourself and the world each time, mastering new abilities and opportunities.
Those who have tried their best to avoid some internal catastrophe have only learned how to avoid. The one who experienced it and understood it, understood how strong, wise and stable he is. Such disasters do not scare him. He has the opportunity to meet with something new that elevates his life. And all because he has more and more experience in dealing with various problems and situations, becoming more and more voluminous and multifaceted.
Those who live in a childlike fear of catastrophes spend their lives anxiously waiting, building their lives under the paranoid motto "at least nothing happened." And in this sense, they are already living in their internal catastrophe, from which they run so painfully, wasting the days of their precious life on it. It is scary to change an apartment, change a place of work, go to another country, meet new people, say goodbye to old habits. Let it be bad, dislike, even torment, bring suffering, but it is familiar, known, predictable. Paradoxically, the epitaph "Nothing ever happened to him" would be the worst possible way to live your life.
Why grow up after all?
This is really disadvantageous, especially for those who manage you. When you were a child, your parents were responsible for you, they showed with all their behavior: life is like this, we live according to such laws, and you will live the same way. And you agreed, because a child needs someone to look up to. Maybe you protested as a teenager, meaning you did the opposite, whether you really wanted to or not. But no matter what you do, still, if you are over thirty, you may be surprised to find that you are partially repeating the life of your parents, even if you firmly vowed in childhood never to do this.
We have to be made of something. Here we are made up of the flesh and blood of our parents, who carry their same genotype, and our psyche consists of their attitudes, models, principles, views on life. And whether you like it or not, it is worth admitting: we are mediated and conditioned by the fact that we are someone's extension. And while we were children, we did not have many opportunities to resist the instructions of the adult world, to deny them, to question them, to do things our own way. In some ways, we had to obey simply because the power was in the hands of adults.
As we grew up, we had more and more opportunities to decide things ourselves, to choose how to act, what to do. We became freer, not noticing how, after trying all the things that were forbidden to us, we returned to what we grew up in, not realizing that we surrounded ourselves with things that would implicitly remind us of our childhood days. Have you at least once wondered why some men live with women who stifle them or make endless scandals, criticize, devalue them? Why don't women avoid men who humiliate, insult, and beat them? What causes them to remain in obvious distress? Not only the fear of change and the fear of starting over, but also the hidden desire to organize your childhood situation, reproducing what happened to you before. And the saddest thing is that most people are not even ready to admit to themselves that everything is repeating itself: they walk in a circle that is densely scattered with invisible rakes.
Well, if the parents were "bad", and the childhood was traumatic and unimportant, then treatment is probably worth it - you say. But if the parents were wonderful, the childhood was happy, then it is quite possible to become the same as them - rich, healthy, successful. It is possible, but it will not work. Because you will not become like them anyway. They went their way in time, and you will have to go yours, and you cannot do it by following in the footsteps. And you are not their clone, but a separate and unique personality, which you would not mind getting to know anyway, because in any case you live in a different time, at least with a twenty-year gap. Of course, adult, harmoniously developed parents can help their child find himself and his way. But to help, not to do it for him.
Do you tremble when your superiors scold you, are you afraid of your mother-in-law, tense up when someone older than you addresses you? Of course, you don't believe in Santa Claus, but for some reason you really want to believe in a good "father king", a good president or at least the existence of world justice? It means you are still there in child land. I hear your indignation. I make responsible decisions! I make hard choices, I make money! I myself have children! I believe "Children" can also be responsible, make decisions and even earn money.
An adult is someone who creates his own life, someone who lives authentically, that is, according to himself. The way he likes, the way it suits him, according to the values he chooses. An adult is his own legislator and judge. Even if he does something that is against the laws of the state, he is aware that the consequences will certainly follow. Therefore, he makes any choices and decisions himself, and is ready to pay a certain price for them. An adult does not feel ashamed, because there is no finger from above that can point at him and say: "What a bad boy! You are doing everything wrong! You are not ashamed!", because whether he is right or wrong, good or bad, only he decides now.
And before you understand how you should build your life, you should decide who you are. What you have is unchanged, what you have to come to terms with, and what you really want, and most importantly, you can change it. Which parental ideas and attitudes are completely suitable for you personally, and which only interfere with life. Realize what you should thank your parents for, and what is difficult to forget and forgive. Getting angry because they did wrong to you, "showing the bills" and realizing that no one will pay them to you anymore. And after all this, to forgive them, realizing that they were not perfect gods who came to earth to make your life happy, but just people living their lives and making mistakes like all mortals. As you yourself, raising your children now. And, getting acquainted with your childhood expectations, illusions, ideas about the world, reviewing them and choosing those that suit you for this period of life, you move on, advancing along the age scale, completing at each age what at the time for what reasons failed to complete, completing something that could not be completed for some reason.
You drew attention to the fact that elderly people are different. If you roughly divide them into two subspecies, then there are those who radiate wisdom and calm - it is pleasant to be with them, young people are drawn to them, because next to them you feel accepted, understood, kind. They accept their old age, they know a lot about life, but they will never come with advice and guidance unless you ask. They know and accept themselves, so it is easy for them to accept the people around them, the life they live, and even death, which is getting closer with each passing day.
And there are those who did not allow themselves much of what they wanted in life, and therefore envy young people who still have a lot ahead of them. Their ideas about life are rigid, and therefore they panic or get angry when there are changes or events that do not fit well with their usual views. They are bilious, demanding, critical, dissatisfied with everyone around them, largely because they are dissatisfied with themselves and the way their lives have turned out. They are afraid of death, because it is the end of everything, and "they didn't have time to live." This second subspecies is the same people who, for some reason, have never aged.
So growing up, in my opinion, is still worth it. At least in order to live your life, not someone else's. And also, perhaps, in order to live with the feeling that you are discovering an unexplored land, creating your own destiny, weaving your own unique carpet of actions and events, and not just trying to do everything every day of your most valuable and only life in such a way as to avoid trouble, condemnation and punishment from someone who decides they have the right to know how you live, rule you, and judge you.
A waste of time and money?
Psychotherapy is expensive. And it is not surprising that it is so. Not only because the psychotherapists also undergo their own psychotherapy, receive supervision from more experienced colleagues, constantly learn, spending a lot of time, money and effort on it.
But also because it is a difficult profession that requires not only a good education, high qualifications, but also the ability to withstand the emotions of clients, their transferences, feelings directed towards us, but not directly related to us. This is a profession that requires us to have great psychological stability combined with high receptivity, responsibility and spiritual strength combined with fine mental organization, excellent analytical abilities and the ability to feel the smallest nuances of feelings. We must be able to help and empathize with other people, but not allow them to violate our personal boundaries, not transfer our own problems and difficulties to our clients, be able to endure other people's aggression, be on guard for our own interests, while remaining humanistic, accepting, and effective.
A person is good by nature, and when a close or even not so close person gets into trouble, the desire to help and save is both obvious and natural. Not even three tears of an unfortunate victim will be shed, as almost every such a good person enthusiastically begins to play the savior.
What do real girlfriends do if one of them has just been abandoned by her husband? They immediately collect advice. And they suggest: "quickly stop yelling", "immediately forget this scumbag", put on your best dress, go away and find someone else tonight. All of these tips and suggestions will be the opposite of what a woman experiencing stress and loss should do from a professional perspective. And if the unfortunate woman begins to resist and does not want to do all this, then her friends will definitely be disappointed, and their rescue zeal will subside very quickly. At the same time, the poor woman will remain not only "abandoned" by her husband, but also not understood by her own friends.
Let's return to the metaphor with the dentist: you have a toothache, and instead of the doctor with his medicine, drills and fillings, you go to your friend and tell him:
- The tooth hurts, you can imagine, for the second day already!
And he to you:
- Yes, kill it, you will think a tooth! You know how dizzy my head was here yesterday! And you are a tooth!
Or:
- Does the tooth hurt? But you go and sing sweetly, you will turn away ...
It's a pity that rarely anyone can send a person with mental problems exactly where they need to go: to a psychologist or psychotherapist. And the thing, of course, is not only that our profession is perceived by ignorant people as emotionally charged, dangerous, with the fear of spoiling the reputation. But also in the fact that people have a bad idea of what kind of process it is. Psychotherapy is not rescue, as it may seem at first glance, it is a method of professional help and support.
— What am I paying for if my psychotherapist just sits and listens to me? — I often hear from people who are not very connected with psychology. But, first of all, you probably don't even notice how rarely you are listened to carefully. After all, in ordinary life, not in a psychotherapist's office, many people like to talk about themselves more than to listen. They like to give advice, even when you don't ask for it at all. They offer you easy solutions from their point of view, which you are not ready for at all, they force their own experience and intelligence on you, instead of helping you to acquire your own. They will stop your feelings: don't cry, don't be afraid, spit, kill, forget, quit, start all over again. Instead of helping you to discover and live what was not lived and prevents you from living on. To help understand yourself and make the only correct decision from your point of view. By helping you, they will unconsciously think the same about themselves, and not about you, about how generous and kind they are, saving someone who is in trouble. And if you don't get out of trouble in the near future, they may start actively pushing you, and if you still don't do well, they may lose interest in you because they want to be involved in someone else's rescue.
Rescue makes a person a dependent victim, psychotherapy helps to become personally richer from what has been experienced, smarter from someone who has opened up, clearer from an honest look at oneself and more confident from realizing the ability to survive difficulties, becoming even wiser and more whole.
Therefore, on the proposal "Why should I go to a psychotherapist, I can drink vodka with my friends?" I answer: "You can. You decide how to act and what to spend your time and money on." I tell my clients: "Psychotherapy is not a waste of money, it is an investment, an investment in the most important and responsible project: in one's own life, in oneself." I also think so about my personal psychotherapy and I know for sure that my investments, as before, are paying off handsomely.
We know them, these psychotherapists!
I have repeatedly encountered the fears and mistakes of potential and actual clients about how things are done. The most common of them are:
A psychotherapist has the ability to see right through you. He will somehow find out about you even what you do not want to know at all, and even more so to reveal to someone else. You are afraid that someone will bite you and take advantage of it.
There is a certain basis for this fear. When you were little, your parents, having certain intentions, could see you like in the palm of their hand, easily read your feelings, including those that you would like to hide. Maybe one of them used it for their own purposes. And now it's hard for you to believe that a person who can "bite" you will not use his knowledge.
In fact, even an experienced psychotherapist with empathy and the ability to read your body signals can only guess what is happening to you. A good psychologist will do exactly that - ask you what is really going on with you, or, as a last resort, put forward your versions. It is important for a good professional not to be right or big by "biting off" your footstool, but to lead you to an honest look at yourself and the way you live. And then decide what to do with what you have discovered. You may say, “Everything is wrong. I don't agree!"
A psychotherapist will make you a completely different person at his discretion.
Maybe, if he really wants to, he will violate all possible ethical norms. In general, you are reliably protected from the intervention of another person by your psychological defenses. You will feel resistance when you are faced with something that is difficult for you or something that you are not yet ready for. A good psychotherapist correctly works with your resistance until you become aware of it and decide what to do with it: to resist further or to try something difficult, unusual, but new for you, to expand your horizons. Fortunately, the human psyche is sufficiently protected even from the most "friendly" invasion. No one can completely change you, and even just change a little against your will, of course, unless you start doing it maliciously. And even then, there must be a strong break in your psyche, a trauma, to allow this to be done to you.
Most psychotherapists still do not have this malice, although in our country, and in any other, you can always come across a not very strong professional. If you've had a bad tooth treated once, you don't put the thought in your head: never to go to dentists again. You're just looking for another.
The psychotherapist makes you dependent on him, wanting to get more money out of you. You will definitely develop some emotional connection with your psychotherapist, and maybe even an addiction. A certain stage of psychotherapy may be accompanied by the appearance of different feelings for your psychologist: from fierce hatred to great love. Fierce hatred will strongly provoke you to immediately quit everything (although this is often so ineffective, because with a high degree of probability it means that you have come to an important part of the work - negative transference!), and then the psychotherapist will offer you anyway stay in the relationship to figure out this difficult but absolutely necessary process for you. You can mistake his persistence for a manipulative desire to pursue only his own interests, but this is far from always the case. On the contrary, the less experienced the psychotherapist, the happier he will let you go, unwilling or unable to endure your strong negative feelings, and the more experienced he is, the more willing he will be to go through all this with you in order for you to gain yourself, psychologically separated from parental figures.
"Great love" is often also explained by transference, that is, you love a person who is not quite real - your psychologist, you personally do not know him that well, you love some kind of image: parental, savior or some other. This love is absolutely necessary for you - you entrust something very personal, awe-inspiring, important to another. And you need to believe in your therapist, like children believe that their mother is the best. Without it, it is very difficult to grow and develop. A good specialist always understands this and does not use your love for his own purposes, knowing that as you grow older, you will gradually stop depending on him so much and begin to see him as real.
Only mentally ill people need psychotherapy.
This is definitely not the case. Mentally ill people also receive psychotherapeutic help because they have problems that are difficult for them to cope with. But this process will also be very useful for a mentally healthy person. Since the life of any person is a series of various crises, from natural age-related to unplanned events, it is not possible for everyone to be able to go through them as efficiently and adequately as possible. No man has lived his life twice in a row, and therefore no one can be prepared in advance for what a new age or a new situation will bring him. Someone else's experience to your life, as a rule, has little application. In addition, it is almost impossible to live your childhood and youth without receiving any trauma. It is quite difficult to have in your environment exclusively healthy people who have not caused you any harm.
There are certainly people who achieve maturity and enlightenment in other ways. And it's great that these methods exist! It's better for you - you can choose the one that suits you best.
Who needs it?
To anyone who has problems and difficulties, who does not live as he would like. Anyone who is interested in people and himself, who wants to understand himself and his loved ones: children, spouses, parents. For those who want to live qualitatively and not be afraid of this word, effectively. Who does not want to get sick, but wants to listen to his body and not oppress it, placing it in such tense psychological conditions, from which any body will begin to adjust and falter. Those who are ready to ask questions and not swallow other people's answers. Someone, at least a little, believes that he is unique, complex, unrepeatable. So it is worthy of study, if only by itself.
Children need this in order to timely correct those unintentional mistakes or unconscious damage caused to them by adults. Sometimes they just need to be helped to adapt to the environment and life in which they are forced to live. One of them needs to be supported, to recognize talent, to help him reveal himself. Some of them simply lack sympathetic and non-exploitative attention, interest in their lives beyond the usual roles of "student", "son", "well-behaved boy".
For men, in order to learn to admit their fears and become calmer and more confident from this, to understand their feelings, to better understand the feelings of the people around them: women, children, colleagues, bosses. In order to understand that the woman with whom he shares the days of his life is not a savior, not a mother and not a servant, but a loved one who is very different from herself, ready to love and care, but also lives with her own goals and tasks . In order to start respecting yourself and your business and naturally receive the appropriate money for it. Real, and not compensatory, self-confidence will help him respect any person, even a person very unlike himself.
For women, to recognize their beauty and strength. To discover in oneself the ability not only to understand everyone, to enter into a situation, to smooth out corners and to avoid conflicts, but also the need and opportunity to protect one's personal boundaries, to feel one's perspectives and talents. To consider motherhood a happiness, and not a punishment due to guilt and anxiety, which is constantly induced, and one's marriage - a union in which everyone can become their best self. To believe in your charm and ability to conquer hearts regardless of the number of wrinkles or gray hair. So that wisdom will be an assistant that will help her cope with everything that life brings.
For her and him, when the two of them can't come to an agreement. When it seems to them that everyone is right in their own way, but somehow it still doesn't work out to live happily together. In order to still have the opportunity to hear each other, to see reality behind the veil of expectations and fantasies hung on each other. In order to preserve and grow the love that once happened to them. Or break up, realizing the reasons and contribution of each, so as not to repeat the old mistakes in a new relationship.
Families are a special complex system in which people live every day. And every day something happens in it according to established laws and rules, from which they may suffer, but they are unable to realize and change it. Because if they start to change something in it, the whole system starts to move and returns everything to the former, long established equilibrium. And then they only have to come to terms, or ... come to psychotherapy as a whole family, so that each of these close people, united by kinship and common traditions, can live as well as they want, without losing the sacred ties bonds and the super-important union called "family".
For young people, in order to understand themselves from a young age and not to waste their precious youth on anxieties, fears, insecurities and worries, instead of being excited, taking risks, trying, getting to know the world in all its manifestations. In order to, having fallen in love, keep love, turning it year after year into a strong relationship that mutually nourishes each other. So that the children they will have do not carry the burden of their parents' problems, unresolved psychological problems, emotional difficulties, "hangovers" on their weak shoulders, but can be proud of their young parents: the bravest and fairest dad and the most attentive and attentive mom .
For the elderly - to deal with their life history, to admit what was not admitted, to think about what was out of reach, to forgive someone whom it was difficult to forgive for many years. Enter into partnerships with a conscience and free yourself from the burden of guilt accumulated over the years. Having learned to trust young people, get rid of anxiety about children and grandchildren. Find a new meaning in this "autumn season" of your unique life, turning the accumulated experience into wisdom that will always be in demand.
To the poor - to understand that poverty is not a vice, but the wrong functioning of vital energy, the unworkedness of the subject of money, ancestral messages, socialist heritage or past traumatic experience. To arrange your life in such a way that financial ability will be a natural result of professional fulfillment, in which money will become a natural result of personal success.
To the rich, to understand that they could have missed out on something vital while they were earning their capital. In order to survive the crisis of dissatisfaction and emptiness, which is easy to earn by treating yourself and others functionally and one-sidedly. To fill your life not only with things that have long ceased to bring pleasure: bills, houses, cars, yachts, trips. And realize and arrange your life so that earning money does not turn into an escape from parental dissatisfaction or a traumatic and poor childhood, so that bank accounts are not a compensation for insecurity and anxiety, a desire to take everything under your control, to avoid repeating some of your childhood stories. . To make your life not a race for power and achievements, but an interesting journey in which you can be truly happy, enthusiastic and fruitful.
What will you get?
Many people have certain ideas about themselves and the world formed in the process of education. Most often, the ideas were rigid and unambiguous with a clear set of actions and judgments, with a logical retribution or punishment at the end. If you will be a good boy, which means - study well, do your homework, be polite to your elders, help your mother around the house, be friends with your class, be kind and neat, then when you grow up - you will become a good engineer and family man. And if you are a bad boy as a child, then you will grow up to be a bandit, you will be put in prison, or you will die under the fence, here in principle there are several options.
We were given a set of stereotypes and rules in childhood to make life easier for us. After all, it is not easy for a child's mind, as it seemed to an adult, to contain all the diversity of the world, its multiplicity. That is why they explained to us what is good and what is bad, dividing the world into black and white, a simple polarity, to make it easier. Having divided the world in our minds into two tunnels - "good" and "bad" - we were urged to choose the one we should follow, and without any doubt, inclined us to the same "white" tunnel, to the good life of a good boy. And what's wrong? - you ask. After all, every parent wants his child to have a successful life, to be happy. It is so natural for us, who have lived, to arrange a safe and understandable life for him. We want the best for him!
Parents can certainly be understood. Life in the tunnel is much safer - you are protected by the walls, and you don't have to think and choose where to go, because there are only two directions: forward and back. And with the received instruction "only forward!" and ready, only one thing. Living in a black-and-white world is also much easier: because it is immediately clear whether it is black or white. True, sometimes a gray color still appears, and then it is difficult to decide which of the previous two it belongs to... But you can see it by eye.
Solving the challenges of our childhood was fine with a black-and-white world and a tunnel to our happy future, but as we grow older and life presents us with challenges that are more difficult than twice two, the childish notion of good and bad ceases to help us as effectively. , as before.
In the process of psychotherapy, you may realize that being kind and responding to other people's requests is, of course, good, but only gradually you will begin to notice that some people simply take advantage of your kindness, some manipulate you on purpose, seeking to achieve their own, that sometimes you are simply not respected for the fact that you cannot deny that you are always busy solving other people's problems, and who will solve yours? In addition, you will have a chance to notice that your good deeds are often not really good, because they strengthen in others, for example, infantilism, develop in them psychological dependence, sacrificial attitude, manipulative behavior patterns. And then you will have to revise the usual scheme "being good is good" or at least abandon its clarity and simplicity.
Previously, when your boss scolded you, at first you felt scared, and then you felt sorry, because bosses always scold very unfairly. You blew and discussed the nasty boss with your colleagues. All this, at least, annoyed the boss, and at most provoked him to be dissatisfied with you again. If you deal with your usual childish reactions, you will gradually have a wider range of feelings and, accordingly, actions for the same event. You are scolded by the boss, and you can:
- get upset, because it is always unpleasant when you are scolded, analyze and try to take into account what happened to you;
- ask your boss to explain what exactly he sees as your mistake or wrong;
- admit your mistake, apologize and correct it;
- take your time, understand the situation and understand that you were right, not him, and try to respectfully convey your position to him;
- if the issue is important, and the boss still does not hear you, then you can engage in a constructive confrontation with him on this matter.
In any case, all these actions of yours will cause only respect from others and the boss himself. And you will not feel like a victim, but a person with certain rights, position and personal boundaries.
Psychotherapy works like this: instead of one usual way of reacting to a situation (which will always remain with you), several more may appear that are often much better suited.
Instead of the black and white world, not only colors will appear, but also shades. Yes, it will be more difficult to live, because you will no longer be able to say: green is good or bad? You will say: looking in what combination, where and in general - it is neither good nor bad, it is simply "green", and rather "emerald", or "herbaceous", or "pistachio".
Instead of one direction in the tunnel "only forward", you will be able to walk, swim, fly wherever you want. Where your feet will take you, where fate or your destiny will call you.
And also, if you have had psychological traumas and for some reason you have not been able to cope with them, the trauma in your life will be reproduced again and again, because in the psyche there is an intention to complete what was not completed. And if your trauma has not been worked through and closed, then you, without wanting it at all, will attract people and events that will "help" you fall into this trauma again and again. And without outside help, it will even be difficult for you to understand exactly what and why something happens to you again and again, and it will be even more difficult to overcome it.
There is such a phrase "to fight with yourself". It is considered good. This implies that we have something bad and wrong that should be fought against. Struggle implies someone's victory or defeat. In this case, you - the "right" one - will defeat the "wrong" one. What do you do with the "wrong" one? Exterminate? Put in jail? Such a struggle leads to the fact that you do not become better, you become smaller, weaker, already. Man is only similar to God, but he is not God, which means that he is imperfect by nature. It has everything - and the task of a person is not to destroy something in himself for the sake of something else, but to know as much as possible about himself, to discover and appropriate his various abilities and qualities, as those that are considered in everyday life " good' and those that some might call 'bad'. After all, a happy and harmonious person is not a "good" person, but a whole person. The one who knows his "flaws" accepts them and considers them to be his specialty, the one who is aware of his advantages and knows how to use them, the one who does not evaluate or condemn either in himself or in other people.
If you know and accept your flaws, you cannot be impressed. You will be told: "You are fat", and you will reply with a smile and a slight surprise: "Yes, I know." If you take advantage of your advantages, you will not be knocked down: so that it does not happen, you know what you can rely on inside.
Your relationship with other people will be mediated by your relationship with yourself, say psychologists. This is true. If you know and accept yourself, then other people will be interesting to you, if you harshly evaluate and criticize, struggling with something in yourself, then other people will cause you irritation, a desire to criticize and rework. And you will do this to them, and they will do the same to those around them, including you, of course.
Words, words, words. Sadly, none of what you read now will actually help you. Simply because what I am talking about in this chapter is not enough to just read and understand in your head, you have to live it, because talking about psychotherapy is different from the process of psychotherapy itself, as someone's travel story is different from the path you have taken yourself step by step, kilometer by kilometer.
What is the difference between professional psychotherapy and "home" psychotherapy?
In education. In our country, everyone likes to engage in self-treatment, self-education, and self-relief. Everyone, it seems to them, knows how to treat if you get sick, how to raise and teach children, how to help in case of mental problems. It is clear that such a mistake did not arise from a good life, but because professionalism was not important in the country, and money was also not important. But nevertheless, a professional differs from an amateur, first of all, by the presence of special education, which in the case of medicine, psychology, pedagogy (and in other cases too) will be systemic, that is, it will consider a person and the process in which he is, in some systemic integrity This is very important. If you hurt your hand, you can smear the wound with green tea, cover it with a plaster, and everything will be fine. But if suddenly your hand began to swell or redden, chills began, the temperature rose, then it is quite obvious that your minor problem has become systemic. Your body needs to be saved as a whole, which is what the doctor should do. If you continue to self-medicate, you risk getting even bigger problems, maybe even losing your life.
The same is true in psychotherapy. From your lay perspective, the problem may seem minor, and you may give advice that is inconsistent with the situation and the personality of the person you want to help. And then at best you won't do any damage. And if it concerns children or people who depend on you, then your unprofessional actions can be the cause of increased psychological trauma.
In the special position of a psychotherapist. I already wrote about how rescue differs from professional psychological help. I want to say this again. Rescue is, as a rule, an unconscious desire to solve one's own problems and tasks at the expense of another person. A rescuer always has certain bonuses for saving other people. For example, he feels good, generous, strong (while the rescued person feels weak, dependent, subordinate, obliged). Or he fills his life with meaning, and then the one who is saved often becomes a hostage of the meaning of his savior's life, and that is why it is so difficult for him to save himself. Or the rescuer starts passionately dealing with other people's lives and other people's problems in order not to solve his own. Unawareness of intentions makes this measure very unclear and blurred. Ingratitude, dependence, disappointment, guilt, coercion - not only these hard-to-digest emotions begin to "walk" in the space between these two people. And still, according to the theory, there is a third one, a "persecutor" or "tyrant", without which this couple quickly loses energy. And then everything becomes so complicated that soon you won't be able to tell who is tyrannizing whom, saving or counting on being saved.
The rescuer is positionally at first always slightly above, the "victim" below, this allows one to feel strong and resourceful, and the other to use his traditional childish manifesto. At the same time, no one is truly saved. Because the "victim" only sharpens his infantile ways of behaving, and the "savior" feeds his own grandiosity, in fact, rising at the expense of the implicit humiliation of the other.
The psychotherapist's position does not imply rescue. A psychotherapist teaches his client to feel his own resources and, relying on them, to solve his problems. It expands the client's view of the world and himself, and this expansion allows him to make other choices. The psychologist's position is equal to equal appeal. A psychologist knows about people in general, knows the laws of mental development, the peculiarities of certain mental processes, but he does not know about the peculiarities of the client's life, about his personal history, about the uniqueness of his contact with his deep emotional experiences. Only the client who came to us has this knowledge. And that's when these two people create a field woven from this knowledge, arising from each other feelings and emotions, which allows you to discover patterns, see the previously invisible, hidden in the deep layers of the psyche, find root causes, remove obstacles, reveal the undisclosed.
There are clear boundaries. Rescue workers often feel "eaten" if their wards do not begin to cope on their own, if they hang on the phone, demanding attention, participation, support. No matter how much time the savior spends on rescue, should he start to get annoyed or hint at fatigue, refuse help, go about his own affairs and problems, how their unfortunate wards will begin to feel abandoned, deceived, undeservedly offended. And instead of gratitude, which was supposed to feed the waning forces of the savior, he will receive resentment, anger, and disappointment. And it will not be what the rescuer was subconsciously counting on!
Therefore, psychotherapy sets certain limits. There is a certain time - an hour, two hours, fifty, forty minutes (each therapist determines this period for himself) during which a psychotherapeutic meeting lasts. This time is given to the client, his life, his manifestation, history, tears. Time at your disposal. But it is defined, not infinite. And having a quick finality of the meeting pushes the client to use this time as efficiently as possible.
Another limit is the money the client pays the psychologist. Money actualizes the responsibility of both. In addition, it is an easy way to measure and reimburse the psychotherapist for this process. This frees the client from the obligation, he does not feel obliged to somehow compensate the psychologist for his time and trouble. While the "victim" of the classic rescuer is eternally indebted to him and must, but neither she nor her patron can measure and do not know how to compensate for the time and participation aimed at solving her problems.
In the features of the processes taking place. An oral or written contract is concluded between the client and the psychotherapist, which provides for and describes the extent of each person's responsibility, rules and conditions are stipulated. Accordingly, the psychotherapist cannot say to the client: "Listen, I'm tired of digging through all your problems" or "I'm not interested in you right now, I'm full of worries." The client has the right to expect that they will be with him as much as necessary. As a last resort, the psychotherapist may transfer the client to a colleague if, for some reason, he cannot continue the work.
The very field, in the event of a good working alliance between these two people, creates a situation of immersion, transfer, the correct handling of which leads to the fact that the client discovers and processes his former models, which have ceased to be effective.
The client in the process of psychotherapy does exactly what he does in ordinary life, manifesting himself in the same way as he manifests himself with other important figures for him: parents, husbands, wives, children. And if the "savior" can react to the client's anger, insult, criticism, and depreciation with retaliatory criticism, anger, or self-destruction, then the therapist's task will be to persevere in any client storm, respectfully demonstrate to the client his features and processes, search for the origins of such behavior, treatment old wounds", which led to the fact that now, for some reason, he reacts in this way. Gradually, when the wounds are healed, and inside the client becomes more flexible, multifaceted and the degree of his self-acceptance increases, he will stop reacting destructively. But this requires knowledge, time and effort, which the "household savior" is simply not capable of.
For what?
And really, why am I writing about this? When people have conviction, they preach their truth, their way of life. The manual will convince you that all problems are due to your back problems, the immunologist is due to your weak immunity, the nutritionist is due to improper nutrition. I can also say that all your illnesses and complications are, as the people say, "from nerves." But I won't say. Because a person is too complicated to give simple and unequivocal answers. But psychotherapy is a way. At least one of the many ways to get to know yourself and those around you. And it seems to me very important that people take advantage of this opportunity. I have a certain "skinny" interest in this.
And it is not at all that you, after reading my book, will come to me. This motive is perhaps the least important, as I am not in a position to accept all who are already willing to do so, and I look with anxiety and flour at the list of those who have signed up. It is important to me that you just come. Psychotherapy in Moscow and the leading cities of Russia is currently developing rapidly and is being replenished with personnel who are becoming more and more qualified every year. There are already many talented and experienced psychotherapists who can help you.
So why do I need to promote psychotherapy with such conviction? I know that an adult who is aware of himself will not really be so blindly guided by various structures and forces, from the political to the spiritual. I want to live in this country, but I don't want to live under a totalitarian or authoritarian regime. And in this sense, I am interested in the fact that the society in which I live is as healthy as possible. I have no illusions about this, but I see how with the change of the political regime, avoiding the children's communist-socialist paradise, people in general become more mature, realizing that simply being a convinced Leninist is not enough to successfully live in this new world. The modern world poses a new challenge and only those who are at least somehow ready for it respond positively to it.
I also know that a doctor, teacher, educator who has undergone psychotherapy will cause less trauma to children, as well as to my child and grandchildren when they appear. I know for sure that if people start going to psychotherapy, then there will be more interesting and enthusiastic people around me and less manipulation and self-destructive tendencies: alcoholism, drug addiction, driving cars at crazy speed in yards where children play. Men will beat their wives less, and they will argue with them less. Parents are happy with their children, and children are happy with their lives. Idealism? Children's dreams of paradise? Well, let's assume. Can I afford to leave any illusion? Let it be called: "psychotherapy can help anyone who wants it." She has already helped me.
Why I wrote this story
It is impossible to explain what psychotherapy is in one article, I even described the stages, phenomena, and processes in detail. The soul has its own language, and in different areas of psychotherapy, the language of the soul will be traced through different manifestations of a person. In body-oriented therapy, the language will be the symptoms and signals of your body, in the cognitive direction - your mental constructions, in Jungian psychoanalysis - your dreams, symbols, your life, which is reflected in myths. The language of the soul is diverse. And there is no single true one. Any manifestation of you is you, and there is nothing secondary or unimportant.
After listening to many different stories over the years of work (Hanna's story is in some ways traditional, and in some ways different from all the others), I realized that much of what happens in my office and in the lives of my clients actually happens somewhere else, on some other symbolic level of being. Perhaps on a distant island, densely covered from the rest of the world by fog.
Our childhood life is somewhat similar to the life of Hans from my symbolic story. Being good children, we did our simple but useful work on the island with clear rules called "childhood". We were saved from real adult life by fairy tales about the "dangerous world outside the island", when we meet it, anything can happen.
In childhood, we needed our parents so much, their care and protection helped us grow up. But, growing up, we gradually got out from under the controlling care of our mother's eyes. It is not obvious to everyone in our symbolic foggy City that the Board - in some respects the prototype of parental figures - can hide behind concern for the people only the need to maintain control and power. And not everyone realizes that the price they pay for perceived security is freedom.
"Who am I?" - everyone periodically asks this question. Like my hero, any person is able to bury the apparent simplicity of the question under himself, because the answer is not at all obvious. Moreover, Hans' journey to other shores and another life begins with the search for this answer. The path of my clients in psychotherapy, of course, did not always begin with this question, but symbolically it sounds constantly in our meetings, because our knowledge about ourselves and others is, in fact, as fragmented and incomplete as the knowledge of the inhabitants of the City about themselves and the world outside the island.
Just as Hans dreams of the sun, wanting to see that special light again, so many of my clients dream of a life filled with completely different colors and feelings. They don't remember her well. Maybe this happened to them only in very early childhood... They dream of those times, dreaming of experiencing again that sharpness of feelings, brightness of desires and fullness of being. But instead - only fog. Safe, but boundary-eroding, perspective-eating, the ability to see more than three steps ahead. The unconsciousness of my clients, who have just come to therapy, is very similar to living in a fog: they are visited by thoughts, feelings, sensations that they often cannot connect into a whole picture of their existence. It is also impossible to see the whole landscape in the fog, it will be in parts, depriving the completeness of perception.
Only a true hero would want to leave the island in my story, let alone risk his life for the illusory possibility of freedom and new discoveries. It is the archetype of the hero in Jungian psychology that exists within each of us that allows all of us at some point to neglect safety for the sake of growth. It is the hero who takes a risk, leaving a familiar and well-established life in order to go beyond the known. It is he who leaves everything he had in order to acquire much more—his destiny and his own life.
To leave a reliable and fully recognized craft requires courage and determination, and also the realization that you can do something more, for example, like Hans, build ships. In addition, an inner confidence is needed, bordering on an unshakable conviction of the need to do this - to start a search. Like Hans, my clients usually go through a lot of self-doubt as their inner hero begins to argue with other sub-personalities who are used to a vague but simple existence. Doubts come only with the awareness of the poverty and suffocation of the former existence, limitations and total dependence on internal parental figures. And only relying on your inner hero, always ready to answer life's challenge, no matter how impossible the dream may seem, no matter how difficult the path, allows you to overcome all doubts.
But just as our Hans has to defend the right to seek his destination and overcome many obstacles before setting off, so my clients often have to come into confrontation with their loved ones. After all, most of them perceive psychotherapy as a threat to their own existence, since changes in clients bring the entire system of former relationships out of balance. And unfortunately for loved ones (temporary!), many clients, like Hans, have no way back. Realizing that they have been living on a foggy island all their lives, most of my clients do not want to stay there and are willing to go through a lot to see the sun and other lands. Relatives eventually humble themselves with life in such unpredictable relations for them, and then begin to be proud, admire, recognize. Some, as a result, also come to the desire to start their own psychotherapy, to begin their search, moving to their shores.
But Hans is still ahead: both the joy of discovery and the bitterness of loss. And when it is finally possible to escape from the captivity of the sickening symptoms, many clients feel relief, and the temptation to leave psychotherapy visits them in the same way as Hans - the temptation to stay in the pine forest, having escaped from the captivity of the City. And only a talisman given by a little girl and the protests of a friend bring him back to his former intentions. And different sides of our clients, who help in search and development, do not let them deviate from the difficult path. After all, it is necessary not only to understand the system of parental rules, injuries and prohibitions, to break out of them, having passed through your terrible mire (J. Hollis, a famous Jungian psychoanalyst, calls our "spiritual whirlpools" that are impossible to pass, you can only pass them), but and find out who you are by building your own special ship.
How difficult and dangerous the path is described without exaggeration in Hans' first voyage. The feeling of freedom and the meeting with the inner sun alternate with heavy storms and the death of something very dear, close, but in the past. For many clients, these are very difficult subjective experiences. Many people say: "I will not survive this. It's too hard. The old is gone, the new is not yet. How to live? What to rely on? But breaking away from one's childhood land and sailing to new worlds cannot happen otherwise: clinging to old supports, it would be difficult to move forward.
Forgiveness and cooperation with Jacob, the former internal parental figures, allows you to get support from the past, use the ancestral resource and continue to "build the ship". The need for the old fisherman - Hans's guide in his search - gradually disappears by that time. Relying on external knowledge should change one's creativity and creation.
But when the ship is built, it is not the end of the journey and not the end of the story. The sailing itself is still waiting, so dangerous with storms and losses. Thus, in the process of psychotherapy, my clients are overwhelmed by the strongest feelings, which, from their subjective perception, threaten to "drow" them. Thus, in the process of therapy and swimming, they lose their former, childish illusions, increasingly encountering adult existential loneliness, anxiety and fear of never seeing a new land, of not being able to cope with this new adult life. So they sometimes stop feeling the beauty and majesty of the sea and their own life, because they start thinking about the outcome or immerse themselves in the anxious expectation of disaster.
However, new land is on the horizon, and it cannot be missed, and its acquisition is only a matter of time, unique to each client and each journey. How much do you need? months? No less. Years? Perhaps. All life? Not excluded. After all, after your ship has docked to new shores, you will still have to develop new lands, build your new house, find a new destination, and maybe a new one, and even more than one trip. Only you will learn to do all this over time without the help of a psychotherapist. Because you will know this complex answer to the simple question: "Who am I?". And believe me, this answer is worth a heroic journey and seeing the sun.