Psychological games: how to fulfill a dream?

Psychologies: It seems that today we are much less likely to say: “I have a dream.” Do you notice such a trend? Is there some depreciation of the dream and what is it connected with?

Alla Chugueva: Everyone dreams. The question is how they feel about it. Clients come to my appointment with a specific task, problem, whether it is a quarrel with their husband, infidelity, divorce, or a desire to increase their income.

The pace of life is high, so there is no time to sit, as in the last century, long evenings and languidly think about life. And it is not common for our culture to dream about something far away, for many years to come, and then go to a psychotherapist with this dream.

If something happens, you need a quick solution to the problem. Like an ambulance.

Perhaps we ourselves sometimes do not know very well what we want. You create and host transformational games. Can they help you hear your deepest desires?

With the help of games, you can determine desires and tune in to them. Indeed, some adults simply do not know what to want. Because they lived in the established system and used its patterns and settings. On the one hand, it cannot be said that patterns and attitudes are bad, and one should only live “as I want.”

We live in a society where there should be rules so that we do not kill each other, so that we can communicate with each other. But when there are too many rules and a person limits himself too much, you can crush your own desires, not hear them. The game is good because there are no restrictions, social settings, no real time, space, political and economic laws, nothing, there are only rules of the game.

That is, the game is a free field. If you want to earn a million – please, if you want to meet a man – please, in the game you can do it, although in life it has not yet worked out.

The game gets rid of stereotypes, helps to get rid of the usual patterns of thinking and behavior. At least for as long as it lasts. A person can open up in it and allow himself to desire what he wants.

But can’t he open up in psychotherapy or just in conversation?

This is completely different. When I ask clients: “What would you like?”, they immediately begin to limit themselves. They say: “I want an apartment …”, and I ask: “What apartment do you want?” – “Two-room”. – “Why two-room, why not three-?” – “Well, you can have a three-room apartment” … – “Where?” – “In the sleeping area.” – “And why in the bedroom, why not in the center of Moscow, you can wish what you want.”

If you ask a person what he wants without restrictions, it will be difficult for him, because these restrictions are already built into our lives. This is not in the game, no one presses and says: “No, you will never earn an apartment.” Please, wish anything, even fly to Mars! A person allows himself to open up and can awaken something in himself, find out what he really wants.

But then the question arises: “What is the meaning of my desire?”. So I guess an apartment in the center of Moscow, play, and then what? I will return to reality again.

The game helps to see the path to the fulfillment of a dream, to find resources that can be used. A person can want and achieve anything. It’s a cost issue. It is possible to fly to Mars, but the question is how much time and resources will be required to prepare for astronauts. I usually encourage clients to formulate a more realistic request.

There are people who are unrealistically tuned, they say: “I want my own business”, but they never tried to create it, they always worked in the office. But at the same time they want a business and an income of 500 thousand rubles in three months. Here it is appropriate to ask: do you have the money that you are going to invest, do you have sponsors? How do you plan to achieve this in three months?

And then people think. Maybe they will push back the deadline, but at least they begin to imagine what they need to start this business.

It happens that they come to you with one request (for example: “I want to get married within a year”), and during the game it turns out that there is another desire behind this: not to get married, but to improve relations with your mother, change jobs, or move to another city?

It happens often. In systemic family therapy, there is such a thing as a symptom. Let’s say a partner cheated on a person, he wants to deal with this so that he no longer cheats. But betrayal did not occur by chance, but as a result of actions, events that preceded it. And you need to deal with it.

Or, say, a child misbehaves, a situation that is also familiar to everyone. In fact, he misbehaves as a result of the fact that the husband and wife do not have intimacy. When we analyze this in a consultation or in a game, the client sees what the true causes of his difficulties are. And then he weighs whether he is ready to invest resources in order to improve relations with a partner, or not ready. And so it is in almost everything.

Why can’t I make money? The reason may be that a person is busy with his family and he simply does not have internal resources for anything else.

The game provides an opportunity not only to change our circumstances, but also to change ourselves. How does it work in practice?

The game focuses on one topic. First, the participant builds his dream, formulates a goal. In the process, he plays “about it”: about earnings or about relationships, the goal can be anything. See how to reach this dream. Finds out what qualities you need to show in order to achieve a dream. And he often sees that he already has these qualities, he just does not show them, because he is in his limited, narrow sphere.

The game allows you to go beyond these limits. In addition, there is excitement in the game. A person does not need to resist what is happening.

In a classical consultation, time must pass before the client admits to himself that he has properties that interfere with him. He needs to come to terms with it. You can see them in the game right away. Both other players and hosts can show him this: look, you are taking away chips from everyone, or, on the contrary, you are giving too much, you yourself are not getting anything.

The game is good because the participant lives the situation. We don’t just talk like in a consultation. Here he dives right into his story. “I’m here, it turns out, I’m losing my game chips” or “it turns out I’m gaining, which means I have this ability.”

At the end of the game, he will reveal his key abilities that are already there or that need to be shown a little stronger in order to achieve the goal.

The interview was recorded for the joint project of Psychologies magazine “Status: in a relationship” and radio “Culture” in December 2016.