Psychological assistance is professional support and assistance provided to a person, family or social group in solving their psychological problems, social adaptation, self-development, self-realization, rehabilitation, overcoming a difficult psychological situation.
A difficult psychological situation is a situation that disrupts the normal life of a person, family or social group, which cannot be overcome by them on their own. The recipient of psychological assistance is a person who is in a difficult psychological situation, experiencing an unfavorable psychological state and who has turned to a person providing psychological assistance or a specialist psychologist. Regulatory documents: Law of the city of Moscow dated October 07.10.2009, 43 No. XNUMX “On psychological assistance to the population in the city of Moscow”
Psychological help can be everyday or professional. When Baba Shura mentally supported an upset neighbor, this is worldly psychological help. Professional psychological assistance is referred to when support and assistance was provided by a specialist psychologist: one who has a higher professional education or who has undergone professional retraining in the field of psychology. Whether this help was always more successful than the help of Baba Shura is another question …
It is a mistake to confuse psychological and psychotherapeutic help, calling any psychological help psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is the treatment of mental disorders by psychological means (as opposed to medical, biological or social), and psychological assistance is provided to people, including those without mental disorders, and is not limited to treatment. If a psychologist has provided spiritual support to a person in a difficult life situation, helped to better understand the situation and, in the mode of psychological consultation, gave competent tips on solving the situation, this is psychological assistance that is not psychotherapy and does not require psychotherapy.
Strictly speaking, even psychological assistance in a difficult life situation is not always required. When more than 2004 people were killed by the tsunami in Thailand in 300, Russia, as part of humanitarian aid, sent a group of psychologists and psychotherapists there to help people who had lost their loved ones overnight get out of a spiritual crisis. Soon they returned back to the situation of their own spiritual crisis: they were simply not needed there. Situation: a local peasant is sitting on his plot, where now instead of his house there is only dirt and debris. All died. To the psychologist’s question: “We understand your grief, you all died. Is there anything we can do to help you?» the peasant replies, “Yes, you can. Do you have a tractor? We need to take out the trash.» Psychologists are trying to explain that they are talking about other help, spiritual help, but local people do not understand them. In Thailand, the religion is Buddhism, and in Buddhism, death is grief, but the cessation of earthly suffering. For our psychologists and psychotherapists, this turned out to be a culture shock …
Another thing is that, in fact, psychological help is often sought by people who actually need psychotherapy: people with mental disorders who need this or that treatment, although not necessarily medical. The unexpected and tragic loss of loved ones, especially young children, provokes a rather serious condition in women and age regression, a violation of the adequacy and ability to reason sensibly, crying, complaints, accusations and self-accusations — the whole complex, characteristic of the state and position of the Victim. As long as the person is in this condition, as part of first aid, psychotherapy may be quite appropriate.
What’s next? In different ways, depending on the difficulty of the situation, on what a person wants and what a psychologist (psychotherapist) can do. Sometime and further, psychotherapy is needed in the regime of treatment of one or another duration, sometime training is more in demand so that a person is ready for future difficult situations. Unfortunately, people are more inclined to be treated than to study, and social organs are more willing to meet those who are accustomed to suffering and not accustomed to learning. The more funds are allocated for psychological assistance, the more people are willing to receive it, the more often they have to deal with a situation of learned helplessness.