Whether speaking in public or working with clients, they talk to us about the most personal. We often look at them as special people with a recipe for happiness. But are psychologists really happier than us?
They are invited to TV talk shows, their lectures attract full houses, their books become bestsellers. According to surveys, psychologists and psychotherapists are, on average, happier than other professions. But can they be role models? Their knowledge, practice, ability to penetrate the secrets of the psyche – does all this make them happier? There is nothing more controversial.
Among psychologists, they like to tell stories from life, which rather indicate the opposite. A great psychoanalyst reproaches himself for failing to prevent his wife from committing suicide. Another therapist, a bachelor, suffers from the fact that all his love stories end in scandals. The child psychiatrist never had children…
Consider also the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, whose humor concealed a tendency to depression. Do psychologists confirm the saying about the shoemaker without boots? And what qualities are acquired through the profession?
More vulnerable
History shows that the path to psychotherapy often begins with a deep spiritual wound, which future specialists are trying to heal, get rid of, studying and testing the method they practice on themselves. We can say for sure that many psychologists began to study this particular science because they suffer or suffered themselves.
The famous American psychotherapist Irvin Yalom had an unhappy childhood, he was the victim of an anti-Semitic atmosphere at school. The French ethologist Boris Tsiryulnik lost his family very early as a result of deportation in 1942. It is not limited to an unhappy childhood.
Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Christophe Andre suffered from anxiety and depression and was powerless to overcome them for many years.
The founder of Soviet experimental pathopsychology, Bluma Zeigarnik, already a famous scientist, experienced family dramas, the arrest and death of her husband, and the persecution of “cosmopolitanism”. After a prosperous youth, her life until the age of 60 was full of hardships and losses. But “she knew how to start a mechanism at the right moment, which created a feeling of serenity for her,” recalls her grandson, photographer Andrey Zeigarnik. “As if she knew for sure that under all the storms of life she hides some kind of surface with which she never loses touch.”
Many legendary psychotherapists were not in good health: “This is known, in particular, about the Scottish psychiatrist Ronald David Laing and about the founder of Gestalt therapy Fritz Perls,” recalls psychologist Dmitry Leontiev. “But these features did not interfere with their professional life, rather they helped.”
Psychotherapist Vladimir Baskakov agrees with this: “Recently, my colleagues and I discussed our own illnesses and sufferings. And we came to the conclusion that thanks to this we can more sensitively feel our client, we have a common space of experience with him.
Psychologists and psychotherapists are no more protected from mental trauma and vicissitudes of fate. But some of them manage through the profession to find their own way to cope with adversity, and they can share this experience with clients.
More free
“Free” is the word that often (more often than “happiness”) comes to mind when we think about the personal lives of psychotherapists. Many of those who stood at the origins of psychoanalysis tried to comprehend and consolidate in theory that personal freedom from rules and conventions that they defended in practice.
The fate of the daughter of a Russian general, student of Freud, writer and psychotherapist Lou Salome is noteworthy. Already at an early age, she became the femme fatale (“femme fatale” – translated from French) of the Western intellectual elite. She knew how to be for men both a unique intellectual partner and a “vague object of desire.”
Lou Salome did not particularly consider the ethical requirements of her time. Her sex life began only at the age of 35 – after experiences of friendly and creative cohabitation with men and many years of marriage. As the philosopher Larisa Garmash writes, “her whole life was a kind of unique experiment – she seemed to test the elasticity of the border between the masculine and the feminine: how much “masculine” she is able to absorb without compromising her femininity” (collection Erotica, Cultural revolution, 2012).
We don’t know if Lou Salome was happy, but she was definitely free and knew how to free her patients.
Knowledge of psychology does not eliminate conflicts, but it makes it possible to see more clearly the mental organization of others and it is easier to go for reconciliation.
“The profession of a Gestalt therapist gave me freedom,” says psychotherapist Marina Baskakova, “first of all, freedom of thought. You cannot be a psychologist without learning to recognize and accept yourself. And such acceptance creates support within one’s own “I”: trust in oneself, a feeling that one can rely on oneself.
This, in turn, leads to autonomy, independence. Hence the freedom of thought and the opportunity to live according to one’s own aspirations, not following the stereotypes dictated by society, and not striving to live up to expectations.
“My profession gave me permission to be who I am,” continues Marina Baskakova. And act accordingly. A simple example: I can take care of myself, fall asleep if I’m tired, pause in conversation if I need to think. Before, this was a great difficulty for me: I, like many, considered it wrong, unacceptable. And in terms of bodily manifestations, I also became freer: I do not feel like a prisoner of ideas about the appearance of a woman.
And yet, a lot depends on the professional beliefs of the psychologist, notes Dmitry Leontiev: “There are areas that deny freedom, such as behaviorism. Behaviorists are less free because they don’t believe in freedom. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
More insightful
Psychologists (compared to us) understand themselves better, and therefore they see their relationships with other people more clearly.
“Knowledge of psychology does not eliminate conflicts,” says psychologist and sex therapist Maria Eril, “but I have become more aware of the mental organization of others, so it’s easier for me to go to reconciliation. I used to take offense longer, attributing hostile motives to others, but now I see how fragile and vulnerable others are.
Sometimes the conflict suggests that there are deep value differences between us, because of which each will go his own way. But even in this case, I prefer to leave peacefully. And if the relationship is long, a lot of emotions are invested in them, then I am ready to work on myself in order to save them.
The most difficult person for me to communicate with is my closest friend. But the fact that we went through together speaks of the value of our relationship and that they can become more harmonious.
Happiness is not “stop, a moment!”, But the alternation of events that are filled not only with delight, but also with bitterness
Knowledge of the human psyche does not provide a universal key to all situations, but vocational training trains specific communication skills. Therefore, Dmitry Leontiev believes that it is more correct to speak not about the insight of psychotherapists, but about their sensitivity.
“The very concept of insight comes from the fact that there is a hidden essence in everyone. You just need to get to the bottom of it, and she will explain everything, – says Dmitry Lenotiev. This is the Aristotelian way of looking at things. Aristotle talked about the inner essence that defines a person. If you know it, you can predict his behavior.
It is assumed that man is always equal to this inner essence and to himself. But modern psychology believes that a person is not always equal to himself. Moreover, just where we do not strive to be equal to ourselves, development occurs. And sensitivity to this dynamic makes it easier to understand what is happening every minute and constantly making adjustments to our understanding of the other and ourselves.
More open
Obviously, heightened perception, the ability to feel subtly does not promise personal happiness to their owners, including psychologists. And some of them generally find it difficult to answer when it comes to happiness. After all, it has so many different aspects that are difficult to put together.
“There are moments, flashes, flashes of experiencing happiness … – admits Vladimir Baskakov. – Often we talk about happiness when we enter into a relationship – at this time we feel filled, as if inhaling, and we call it happiness. But there are not only inhalations, but also exhalations. And there cannot be more inhalations than exhalations – you can’t breathe like that.
Psychology helps to understand and accept this, not to panic, for example, when the time to exhale comes in family life. Happiness is not “stop, a moment!”, But the alternation of events that are filled not only with delight, but also with bitterness. And all this together gives life.
Perhaps the main thing is not to stagnate in one place, always be aware of your own desires, go your own way. And do not be deceived by entering into other people’s ways.