Psychology studies the inner world and behavior of not just a normal person, but a mentally healthy person. If a person is experiencing problems, mental pain, psychotherapy is already involved in this.
Psychotherapy in the narrow sense, as psychological treatment, providing situational mental assistance and support to a person in difficult life situations, is not something separate from psychology, but is one of the parts, namely, an important part of practical psychology, along with the psychology of learning and developmental psychology.
In psychological practice, psychotherapeutic, educational and developmental work are quite closely intertwined, sometimes used simultaneously. However, it is important to distinguish these approaches. When a patient who needs psychotherapy gets to developmental trainings, both the patient himself and the participants of the training next to him suffer. When a cheerful and healthy person gets into psychotherapy sessions (which can sometimes be inaccurately called personal growth trainings), he will either: get sick for a while. See →
When psychotherapy is understood as something much broader, when psychotherapy is understood as the most diverse activity aimed at ridding a person of problems (emotional, personal, social), including counseling, assistance in personal growth, philosophizing and mutual exploration of the human soul, then psychotherapy from section of practical psychology rises to the level of a contiguous science, relations with which psychology has yet to be clarified.
The relationship between psychology and psychotherapy is quite complex. In academic psychology, the place of psychotherapy is greatly underestimated, in practical psychology it is greatly exaggerated.
It seems that academic psychology, at least of the Soviet period, has always wanted to report to the government that our people are completely mentally healthy and have no special problems. Their thinking usually objectively reflects reality, their concepts quickly rise from everyday to scientific, and only emotions bring a subjective-personal component to this bright picture.
Paraphrasing the well-known saying “There is no sex in the Soviet Union!”, one can similarly formulate the unspoken thesis of academic psychology “In the Soviet Union, psychotherapy is irrelevant!”
As for the rapidly developing practical psychology, it was born out of psychotherapy and energetically promotes mainly psychotherapy. The more people are convinced that everyone needs psychotherapy, that 50 hours of individual psychotherapy is already a living wage, the more practical psychology will have clients … See →
In the field of practical psychology, you can work both as a consultant and as a trainer, while the main choice still remains: are you more of a psychotherapist or more of a teacher? Do you heal or do you teach? See →
The main choice of a practical psychologist: a psychotherapist or a psychologist-educator
In the field of practical psychology, you can work both as a consultant and as a trainer, while the main choice still remains: are you more of a psychotherapist or more of a teacher? Do you heal or do you teach? Most often today this choice is made in the direction of psychotherapy.
At first, this seems quite romantic: “I will help people in difficult situations,” soon a vision comes that the psychologist-consultant easily turns into a life service employee, hastily repairing rotting specimens.
However, every year there is a growing understanding that it is necessary to move from direct assistance to people with problems to prevention, preventing the appearance of problems. That it is necessary to deal with developmental psychology, that this is precisely the promising direction that will create a new person and a new society. A psychologist must learn to become a teacher. See →