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Many people have changed their lives through psychotherapy. But there are those who are disappointed in this process. Psychologist Alexandra Krimkova explains why there are such different impressions and whether everything depends on the specialist and the quality of his work.
Many things affect productive work: the qualifications of the specialist, the complexity of the request, and how the client and the psychologist fit together. Circumstances, the level of involvement in the task, internal readiness for change are also important. But the most important thing is expectations.
Let’s see what you should not expect from a psychologist. Perhaps, if you analyze the expectations carefully, you will notice that some of them are unrealistic. This means that psychotherapy will not bring the results you expect. If you review them from a different angle, you can shift your attention and begin to notice the value of those changes that occur right in the process of work.
1. Don’t Wait for Advice
— Enough already to take everything to heart, let them roll, huh?
“Are you sure you are a psychologist?” Although you know, it doesn’t matter, I like your advice.
If a psychologist gives advice right and left, one can doubt his competence. Advice (not recommendations, mind you, if it concerns some narrow area of expertise) is contrary to the main task of psychotherapy — to help a person find the solution that suits him. The answer is always born inside, and the psychologist helps to find it. The decision cannot be imposed from the outside, so it will not take root and after a while will be rejected as a foreign body.
A psychologist is, in a sense, an obstetrician who helps to give birth to exactly your thought, decision, idea, understanding, new vision. In fact, it is present at the birth of a new personality. Childbirth, you know, is not an easy process. Of course, a specialist can share his opinion on the situation, but in no case should this be taken as a guide to action.
2. Do not wait for quick results.
Everything that is born without great mental costs turns out to be nonsense …
Evgeny Leonov
Each person puts his understanding into the definition of «fast». But I will say unequivocally that in less than a year you will not come close to a deep understanding of internal processes. Of course, there is a short-term therapy that is aimed at working out a specific request. Its duration is at least 10 sessions, which take place once a week. She handles a range of issues effectively. But it is hardly possible to explore with its help what is happening in the deepest layers of the psyche. This is explained simply.
The more witnesses to the incident, the less likely someone will dare to help.
Between sessions once a week, a space for self-examination is organized — it is during these intervals that the main work takes place. New thoughts and reactions appear. You begin to listen to your body and explore your feelings. It takes time to analyze these processes and form a new reaction to the world around us. This is how sustainable change is created.
3. Don’t Wait for All Problems to Be Solved
“Sorry, but unfortunately I don’t want to help you.
(From the Internet)
As children, we turned to a parent for help and expected that he would decide everything for us. The psychologist, in a sense, enters into the role of a parent and helps us. But he does not give a fish, but a fishing rod. In the process of psychotherapy, we learn to separate from the parent, separate and organize our autonomy. Separation is very important, because only in this way can you find your own strength and rely on it.
In the last century, psychologists John Darley and Beebe Latane discovered an interesting phenomenon called the bystander effect. They began to investigate this effect after the high-profile murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. Scientists wondered why the people who witnessed the terrible incident did not try to help the victim. It has been established that the more witnesses to the incident, the less likely that someone will dare to help. In other words, each of the eyewitnesses believes that someone else should help, but not him. And vice versa, if there is only one eyewitness, then he acts much more decisively.
This is explained simply: a person understands that he cannot shift responsibility to anyone, so he takes it upon himself. This applies not only to helping others, but also to helping yourself. This is the only way to gain access to your own power. The goal of psychotherapy is to discover an inner resource and rely on it. This is possible only when a person realizes that only he is the author of his life.
4. Don’t Wait for a Diagnosis
Diagnosis: open tipping point with a shift in priorities as a result of falling from a height of illusion.
(From the Internet)
A psychologist is not a doctor (unless it is a medical psychologist). He cannot make a medical diagnosis. There is, of course, the concept of psychodiagnostics, but we are not talking about that now, but about a diagnosis that defines a person as sick or healthy.
There is a big difference between medical and non-medical approaches to psychotherapy. Medicine always goes through the diagnosis, through the basic idea that there is either health or a disease that needs to be treated. If a person is healthy, then he does not need medical help.
The non-medical approach to psychotherapy is somewhat different. The basic idea is this: we are healthy. Why do we feel bad? Because we don’t know how we function. What to do? Learn and learn to live in accordance with their characteristics. This is what non-medical psychotherapy does.
Of course, such an approach will be disastrous for those clients or patients who are really unwell, who need medical help. Therefore, a psychologist often works in tandem with a psychiatrist or medical psychotherapist (psychologist). To do this, the specialist must be aware of the clinical manifestations of the disease and, having noticed these symptoms, be sure to refer the client to a doctor. Another special attention should be paid to the requests of the psychosomatic spectrum. Somatic diseases, even if their cause is psychological, are difficult to correct with non-drug therapy alone.
5. Don’t Wait for a Psychologist to Become a Friend
A lonely psychologist wants to get acquainted in order to create a strong psychotherapeutic relationship.
Vladislav Bozheday
In the process of therapy, you reveal the inner world layer by layer. At this point, it may seem like you have a best friend. After all, you did not trust some personal stories even to the closest people. It happens that you want to spend more time with a psychologist, delay sessions, meet more often. You may want to invite a specialist for a cup of coffee and transfer the relationship to a different format.
For the purity and effectiveness of psychotherapy, it is not necessary to confuse friendship and client-therapeutic relationships. At least until the end of the course of therapy.
Friendly relations imply personal, not professional involvement of both parties. In a psychologist-client alliance, on the contrary, there is a professional task that the participants in the process have agreed to solve together. The fact that this task is directly related to feelings and experiences can create a false impression that you have these feelings for a psychologist. Partly yes, but not quite.
The psychologist is not a magician, he does not know how to brew magical potions and whisper spells
The client always puts projections of other significant people on the psychologist, because it is the relationship with them that he will explore in psychotherapy. If you complicate the already difficult relationship between the psychologist and the client with friendship, then the very process of such therapy loses its meaning and completely confuses the client.
6. Don’t wait for instructions to take action.
I will not go to a psychologist, because this charlatan will again say that the responsibility for my life lies only with me.
(From the Internet)
We come to therapy because we are confused, disoriented, and don’t know what to do next. We are looking for a hint from the outside, because we simply do not have enough strength to rely on ourselves. Hoping to get a clear plan of action and permission to implement it, we go to a specialist. Session after session, not getting a ready plan, we are disappointed and we can conclude that the psychologist is incompetent. But in vain.
The longer the specialist endures our uncertainty and throwing in search of his own algorithm, the more likely it is that we will create this plan. And it will be special, unique, belonging only to us. And then you will no longer need permission to implement it. It will be born in our hearts.
7. Don’t expect miracles or a magic pill.
Announcement. All-seeing psychologist. I guess according to Luscher, I remove damage according to MMRI, I predict my betrothed according to Rorschach.
Perhaps you waited a long time, endured something, put up with something, but expected that you could handle it yourself. And then the moment came when you despaired and decided to seek help. You agreed to pay money to get a miracle. They came to a psychologist and … They were disappointed, because the miracle did not happen, all life’s difficulties remained in the same places. And a clear awareness was added to all this — it is you who will have to deal with this blockage. And why did you have to pay money?
The psychologist is not a magician, he does not know how to brew magic potions, whisper spells and does not remove damage. He sits down with you and slowly, but methodically and regularly, helps to sort out your blockages, from which it is literally hard to breathe. Something will need to say goodbye, something to wash, and much will simply have to be thrown away.
It can be painful and unpleasant, therapy will not be much like magic. You will have to roll up your sleeves and put things in order in your life on your own. Often this is difficult to do without support, because the mountain can be so great that feelings of powerlessness and despair simply will not let you move. That’s what a psychologist is for. You pay money so that step by step, methodically, tirelessly, but not exhausted completely, continue to create your life. In order to eventually add up the word «happiness» from the available cubes.