The biggest misconceptions about psychologists

Thanks to their professional knowledge and skills, experience and values, psychologists and psychotherapists can help in a difficult situation. But this does not mean that they are wizards, healers or manipulators. What misconceptions exist around this profession?

A psychologist does not need a therapist, he will help himself

The psychologist, as a rule, is in personal therapy for a long time and regularly, attends weekly supervision, exchanges experience with colleagues, while maintaining the confidentiality of his clients. Supervision is not a personal therapy of a specialist, but the help of a professional community. In addition, the psychologist is constantly learning. In our profession, getting new knowledge all the time is a good form.

Psychologists work with unhealthy people, many of whom have mental disorders

Often a psychologist works in tandem with a psychiatrist. Depression, anxiety and other client conditions require medical treatment. Perhaps that is why psychologists and psychiatrists are often confused. Many put off a visit to a psychologist for many years, believing that they must cope on their own.

But turning to a psychologist is not weakness, but self-care. Each of us has periods of apathy, impotence, anxiety, intense stress and difficult life choices. Why not help yourself with this by contacting a specialist who will create space for all these feelings to be lived in an eco-friendly way?

Psychologist can manipulate people

Personal therapy is a conscious and voluntary choice of a person. And this is always the joint work of the client and the psychologist. It is important that the client and therapist meet and agree on what can be considered a good result of their joint journey.

Psychologists could manipulate people, but why? It is much more interesting when you don’t know where the conversation will go, how and what the client will react to. The conversation gets much deeper when two free people meet in the office, two personalities who go towards a common goal.

The psychologist will solve all my problems for me

Turning to a psychologist, people expect a quick result and a solution to their problems. Indeed, in the course of therapy, the client’s life situation changes, sometimes radically. But it is important to understand that no one, not even a psychologist, knows a short cut to solve your problem and will not solve it for you. A professional creates conditions in which you yourself can find a way out of the current situation, hear different sides of the internal conflict, live through repressed feelings, end significant conversations, answer the question “Who am I?” in a comfortable way for yourself.

After a meeting with a psychologist, you should be “good”

Before, after and during a consultation with a psychologist, a client may experience different emotions. Psychological consultation is a space in which all feelings can be manifested, there are no negative and positive feelings here, all emotions are natural and acceptable. There are no embarrassing things here.

A good meeting with a psychologist is one in which the client’s state changes slightly in 50 minutes of the session. Came one and left a little different. This does not mean that the client comes in apathy, but leaves in euphoria (although this happens). During the consultation, it becomes possible to somehow take a different look at your life, as if the horizon has expanded, and the angle of view has slightly shifted.

The task of a psychologist is to give the right advice

Unsolicited advice is useless – each of us knows this from our daily experience. They do not change our lives for the better. Psychologists can give recommendations to the client, inform him about something, offer different techniques, but the meaning of counseling is different: the psychologist initiates a person’s questions to himself, to society and the universe, and sometimes he is the first to hear the answers that are born from the client.

After all, if a question is born in us, then somewhere in the depths of the soul there is already an answer. It is important to hear it and say it out loud – give yourself the right to speak in full voice.

Psychology is expensive

Individual psychological counseling can be expensive. You pay for the attention of a professional and his presence, and not for a ready-made solution to the problem (although problems are also solved during meetings with a psychologist). In general, the price range is quite large. There are also budget options: helplines, social and anti-crisis centers and psychological support centers, the consultation in which is paid for by the state, a corporation or a charitable foundation.

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Myths about psychologists often prevent you from taking the first step and crossing the threshold of a psychological help office. Recognize that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. To see that its solution, like any other project, requires not only resources and an action plan, but also a space in which to discuss the first steps, strategy and tactics of this work. Ideally, a psychologist’s office is just such a space: confidential, comfortable, open to dialogue.