Popular psychology has armed many armchair critics with buzzwords. Clinical depression, neurosis, phobia — all these words have crept into our everyday life. Why doesn’t this knowledge help us «tune» our own lives? Maybe it’s not the terms?
In the XNUMXth century, writers and poets were considered connoisseurs of the human soul. And now, on the contrary, fiction and cinema are borrowing discoveries from the psychology, building plot moves and molding types according to the model of clinical vignettes described in special literature.
Ideas about the connection between the inner life of a person, his unconscious impulses and external behavior penetrate into the mass consciousness. The behavior of adults is increasingly explained by childhood traumas, criminal behavior — by the pathopsychology of the characters.
Where previously they would have said “poorly brought up”, now they will more likely pick up a diagnosis. Knowledge is popularized and becomes the property of all. Like any phenomenon, there are pros and cons here: on the one hand, it enlightens, on the other, it can interfere with understanding your own life.
As a rule, people with good and even very good education come to therapy. High intelligence, familiarity with popular, and even scientific literature on psychology help to “name” what is happening. The client often brings these names to the reception.
However, the real work begins when the therapist succeeds in helping the client to meet deep feelings. It can be pain, preserved in the soul for many years, tears, suppressed sobs, furious anger, a feeling of defenselessness, tenderness, gratitude, love …
It can be difficult to discover your most diverse manifestations, to be accepted in all these manifestations and to accept them yourself. But this is precisely the road to the present self, in all its integrity. If I know how I feel, I can consciously choose appropriate behavior. Feelings and experiences that were not given attention will no longer gradually guide my actions.
The “social face”, which we, for the most part, have been trained to “keep” since childhood, sometimes steals from us — ourselves: alive, real, feeling. Knowledge of professional terminology can also lead us away from internal integrity and depth — into the world of exclusively rational constructions. Anything can be explained in popular terms.
Karpman’s triangle, toxic parents, boundary issues are common terms. With their help, you can designate entire layers of your life. So there are plates with the names of plants somewhere in the botanical garden. But a sign is just a sign! And we are not limited to intellectual activity alone.
It is very difficult to talk about what is happening in the soul if there is no habit of paying attention to it. But we are talking about living processes, where there is no place for the frozen. One feeling is replaced by another, an honestly lived experience makes room for another. This is a constant, like life itself, a change that is difficult to reduce to definitions. In that case, of course, if there is a desire to deal with their own, one of a kind, unique life.