Landmarks of the search … yourself

Eugene, 29 years:

“About three years ago, I suddenly realized how meaningless my life is. I wandered around the city, and I was struck by something that I had not noticed before – the word “Why?” which someone wrote on the walls of houses. This person must have been going through the same thing as me. The ideas that my friends and I had: change jobs, get married, go abroad, go to a psychologist – sounded so stupid that I didn’t even want to seriously think about it. I still went to a psychologist – it was the easiest option available. At first I did not want to talk to him, I just sat and played for time. But, starting to answer some question of the psychotherapist, I suddenly realized that I was talking and could not stop: I was talking about how much I had already achieved, that I had experienced both happiness and loss, but now I feel only boredom. The psychotherapist suggested that I remember some moment from the time when I still saw meaning in life. I sat with my eyes closed for a long time, and then for some reason I remembered how, at the last bell at school, I carried a first-grader on my shoulder. She rang the bell, the sound was sharp, piercing, and I suddenly became emotional: I thought about how this girl would go to school, about what a wonderful life awaits me myself … Talking about this, I seemed to have fallen into the very center of my own feelings : memories of the then naive dreams and the opposite sound of the bell made me feel that in life a lot ends, but a lot begins. And I still have time.”

Client-centered therapy: accept yourself and others

Purpose: to create conditions for positive changes in a person, a more complete realization of his potential.

The most popular system of psychotherapeutic and counseling work in the world (after psychoanalysis) was developed in the middle of the last century by the American psychologist Carl Rogers. He was convinced that the essence of every person is positive, constructive and social. But this inner potential is manifested only in an atmosphere of unconditional positive acceptance, empathic understanding and openness to one’s feelings.

To better understand another person, Carl Rogers used empathy – an emotional state that allows you to accurately perceive the feelings of other people, understand and accept them, feel the pain and pleasure of another as he himself feels them, and treat the reasons that gave rise to them in the same way.

How does this happen. Therapy takes the form of a dialogue between the client and the therapist. The most important thing in it is the psychological atmosphere of trust, respect and unconditional acceptance by the therapist of the client’s personality. It allows the client to feel that they are accepted for who they are. He can talk about anything without fear of judgment or disapproval. In a supportive atmosphere, a person who asked for help discovers in himself the means and ways to solve his problems. As a result of therapy, the client begins to express his feelings more freely, he develops a stable positive self-esteem, which allows him to treat the world with greater confidence. He becomes more realistic and objective, and also less vulnerable – he trusts himself more and understands others better.

Maxim, 25 years:

“My girlfriend tormented me. Wherever we went, whoever we met, she always focused on the children. “Look how pretty!” I did not know where to hide my eyes: at such moments, she – smart, energetic, serious – seemed to me a real fool. When she said that it was time for us to have a baby, I just felt bad. I came to a psychologist with a question: what can I do so that she stops imposing her stupid motherly scenarios on me? After listening to my monologue, the psychologist asked about my relationship with my father. At first I was even confused: what do I have to do with it – after all, it’s not with me, but with her. However, I decided that the specialist knows better, and told about my childhood. I did not have a father – one stepfather replaced another, in principle, I myself was a father for my younger sisters, because these coming people could not be relied upon. The psychologist listened attentively, and then asked a new question: “What does the word “father” mean to you?” To be honest, I got pissed off – I said it didn’t mean anything because I had no idea what it was. I never had it… And at that moment, shocked, I realized that I was mortally afraid of everything connected with children. I’m afraid that something will happen to me and the children will grow up just like me – without a father. And this fear poisons all my serious relationships. I met with a psychologist several more times, began to better understand my girlfriend, and our relationship became closer.

Existential Therapy: Recognizing Your Uniqueness

Purpose: help a person understand how his life works, what factors influence it, what paradoxes and dilemmas it contains, and how he can find purpose and meaning in his existence.

This psychotherapeutic direction is based on the ideas of the philosophy of existentialism. The original concept of “existence” was first used by the Danish religious philosopher Seren Kierkegaard. He understood it as the individual experience of man, his true inner existence. These basic ideas are developed within several areas of existential psychotherapy, the main representatives of which are the Swiss psychologist Ludwig Binswanger, American psychotherapists Rollo May , James Bugental, Irvin Yalom , Austrian psychologist Alfried Langle (Alfried Langle).

The inner essence of a person can come into conflict with external circumstances, and then the main source of problems becomes the rejection of one’s own life and those aspects of it that cannot be changed. Existential therapy does not set a person up for change – it is aimed at a deep understanding of existence as such, solving the problems of time, life and death; freedom, responsibility and choice; problems of communication, love and loneliness; meaning and meaninglessness of existence.

How does this happen. The basis of the work of an existential therapist is an open dialogue with the client. The style of communication, the depth of the topics and issues discussed, leave the client feeling that he is understood. In the process of therapy, listening to oneself and thinking about oneself, a person finds a balance between himself and the world and comes to harmony between his existence and his own inner nature.

Olga, 31 years old:

“Once, while reading a popular science magazine, I felt that my breath was taken away: the article was about cancer. My grandparents and uncle died from this disease, and the thought struck me: the same thing could happen to me. I began to sleep badly, felt myself all the time, and ate tomatoes in incredible quantities: someone told me that they remove carcinogens from the body. I so exhausted myself and my loved ones that they almost sent me to a psychotherapist by force. She listened, and I, like a broken record, repeated: “I’m afraid of cancer, I’m afraid of cancer …” And suddenly the therapist said: “My mother died of cancer when I was twenty years old, and I was afraid that I would also die from this disease. And now sometimes I think about it”… I was taken aback: can psychologists be afraid of something? But immediately a feeling of peace came: I am not alone – there is a person who understands me nearby. At the next meetings, we talked about fear and death, and I began to think that someday I would have to leave, and it hardly matters how. I managed to accept the fact that death is real and my life will end someday, but as long as it goes on, I will live, not die.