Can a friend replace a psychologist?

The young woman is very excited: “Yesterday he made a terrible scandal again, I can’t do this anymore … Well, what should I do?” The interlocutor pauses, and then confidently says: “It will be like this until you finally analyze your relationship!”

Many of us tend to act as if we know better than anyone what our friends need and why they act the way they do. It seems that it is not at all difficult to listen and say something in response, we have seen how psychotherapists do this in films and television programs more than once.

Confidence is also given by the feeling that we are saving loved ones from depression, an irreparable mistake, or just stupidity. But in fact, we are only playing psychologist, which means we are deceiving: after all, it is impossible to become a psychotherapist or psychoanalyst without receiving a special education.

Looking from the outside

“Friendly help, that is, sympathy and participation, reduces our suffering, pain and anxiety,” says psychotherapist Alexander Orlov. “But after a while, a new problem arises, and we again turn to our friends for help. In psychotherapy, things are different.”

“We strive to ensure that the client has a sense of process, movement, gradual change,” explains psychotherapist Ekaterina Mikhailova. “And we are building a complex system of interaction so that those who come to us for help, sooner or later could refuse it.”

The task of psychotherapists is to help us look at our own life in a different way. And the meaning of friendly participation is to console, sympathize and support at the present moment. At the same time, understanding the limits of their capabilities, so that (non) intervention does not cause additional injury to a friend.

Learn empathy

We comfort our friends during difficult times in their lives. And we hope that they will also be attentive to us: they will let us talk without interrupting, they will listen, they will understand. “Friendship is impossible without emotional involvement with each other,” continues Alexander Orlov.

– The psychotherapist for successful work needs a distance in relations with the client. It allows you to have an open dialogue, thanks to which a person feels that he is accepted for who he is, and you can talk about everything without fear of judgment or disapproval.

The work of psychologists requires great effort and skill, and it is paid. Friendship is selfless. Psychotherapists learn to feel another person, master the technique of empathic listening, non-judgmental empathy with the emotional state of another person.

“Of course, for those who have chosen this profession out of empathy for people, and not out of a desire to manipulate and control them, it is easier to master the ability to communicate without judging, without judging others, without diagnosing them,” explains Alexander Orlov.

– But it is also unusual for them to listen to another (even if he talks about something completely insignificant) with the attention and diligence that they are only capable of. Therefore, the first experiences of psychological counseling are under the supervision of a supervisor, an experienced psychotherapist.

What to do if we were an unwitting witness to how a friend is increasingly plunging into depression? “Being a true friend in this case means insisting that she turn to professionals for help,” Alexander Orlov is convinced.

dangerous addiction

Two twenty-year-old girls are sitting in a cafe. One of them, with difficulty holding back tears, talks about an unsuccessful romance. Why is she always unlucky – maybe something is wrong with her?

“In fact, you would like to be left alone, it suits you, and you yourself do everything to be abandoned. You are too infantile to take responsibility for your relationship, ”a friend replies to her in an impassive tone of an expert.

Such judgments can be called “naive psychoanalysis” (or non-professional counseling): they contain a lot of personal, peremptory assessments and advice that satisfy the desire for superiority of those who utter them.

“The position of a particularly trusted person, to whom others turn to solve their personal or family problems, increases self-esteem,” explains psychotherapist Ekaterina Mikhailova. – And a person quickly gets used to being “the one who knows best” and begins (often unconsciously) to play the savior. Thus, he asserts himself and forgets about his personal problems.

So, next to 52-year-old Olga there are always a lot of friends who need support. She tells them little about what worries and excites her, but she can endlessly discuss the details of the life stories of her “wards”.

“Such people cultivate someone else’s vulnerability in order not to think about their own,” comments Ekaterina Mikhailova. “Olga is afraid of losing control over what is happening in her life and in a sense depends on her friends: as long as there is someone who feels bad, she will feel good.”

Born Listeners

And yet there are those among us who are especially conducive to frankness. Naturally, without any benefit for themselves. They have no desire to be therapists for their friends. They say about such people – “Yes, he is a born psychologist!”.

“These are those who know how to listen, which is especially valuable, since there are many more people around us who actively interfere in our lives,” says Alexander Orlov. “This is the very “friendly vest” in which you can comfortably and safely cry.”

By choosing words carefully or simply by listening carefully, they help us understand ourselves better. We seem to see in them images of an approving father or a comforting mother. And such people do often become good psychotherapists if they decide to get a special education.

Is it possible to distinguish a born psychologist from one who, albeit unconsciously, builds a circle of “addicts” around himself? “The former most often treat professionals without jealousy,” says Ekaterina Mikhailova. – And a person who claims a special role in his environment perceives professional help painfully. Any attempt by friends to solve their problems without him causes a desire to immediately return the “apostate” under their wing.

The existence of other possibilities seems to be a threat to his special position. Try to say that you coped with the problem yourself or that you are going to go to psychological training. A born psychologist will be happy about this, and the “guru” will do everything possible to devalue what is being done without his knowledge and participation.

different relationships

“A true friend is the one with whom I feel better. This is the one with whom I can laugh at myself and with whom I can be silent, ”says 32-year-old Sergey. “When I get too carried away, my best friend brings me back to earth,” admits 29-year-old Nadezhda. “She helps me not to get confused in novels, because I am so prone to wishful thinking. She says: “Let’s see what you really have, open your eyes at last,” and the ability to think clearly returns to me.”

Psychologists themselves never engage in psychotherapy with friends. “We are obliged to avoid dual relationships, that is, those where relationships of kinship, power, friendship or love are added to psychotherapeutic ones,” explains Alexander Orlov. “They make it difficult to build a therapeutic relationship that is free from judgment. Psychotherapy in this case cannot be effective.

Therefore, even for a psychotherapist, a friend should remain only a friend. The best thing he can do for him is to comfort, support and, if necessary, give the phone number of his professional colleague. As paradoxical as this conclusion may seem, the better our friends refrain from playing psychologist, the stronger the understanding and mutual acceptance that unites us becomes. And all the more healing is our friendship!