2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Therapy fails when ideas about therapy and, as a result, expectations from it do not coincide with some reality. This concerns both the therapist's ideas about his professional activity and the client's ideas about the possibilities of psychotherapy.
I like the statement of J. Franchesetti: "Psychotherapy does not relieve pain, it makes this pain bearable." It outlines the boundaries and possibilities of therapy regarding the expectation of relief from mental pain. I would expand this statement to other expectations from therapy, which are often present among potential clients.
Often these ideas / expectations are far from reality and paint the image of therapy as some kind of magic that can relieve a person of his problems. And there are reasons for this.
It is known that our consciousness is arranged in a polar manner: there is - no, good - bad, plus - minus …
The client also often thinks polarized: "I have a heartache - I will go to therapy and get rid of this pain." "It hurts, it doesn't hurt" - these are polarities.
Here are some more of these polarities:
- I have some fear. I will go to therapy, get rid of him and become fearless;
- I'm insecure. I will go to therapy and become confident;
- There is a lot of apathy and boredom in my life, I will go to therapy and become energetic and cheerful;
- I have no joy in my life. I will go to therapy and my life will be filled with joy."
There is illusionthat therapy has something to offer. Replace one thing with another. To the opposite. For the positive. This is consciousness trap: "Therapy will relieve me of problems, therapy will give me joy, make me happy, relieve fear …".
BUT REALITY is such that:
Psychotherapy
- Psychotherapy will not relieve you of problems, it will teach you how to solve them;
- Psychotherapy will not rid you of fear, it will teach you how to overcome it;
- Psychotherapy will not give you joy, it will teach you how to discover it;
- Psychotherapy will not make you happy, it will show you that happiness is possible, and you yourself can organize it for yourself;
- Psychotherapy will not show you your correct path in life, it will tell you how to find it …
Psychotherapist
The psychotherapist is not a Guru or a Teacher. He does not teach the client how to live correctly, but helps to find with him his true self and his true path. He does not manipulate and does not impose his own version of the path on him, guided by "good" intentions "To do him good and to do him kindness." The client's requests with such an attitude to the psychotherapist as to the Teacher often sound like "How can I live?", "What should I do?", "What should I choose?" etc.
The psychotherapist is not a Magician. He does not promise the client a magical solution to his problems, but teaches the client to be the magician of his life and his own destiny. The client's requests in this case are of the following plan: "Do something with me, with my life."
The psychotherapist is not an anesthesiologist. It does not relieve the client of pain, does not freeze it, but allows him to face the pain and change it in the meeting. Pain is a marker of sensitivity and therefore life. Heartache is a sign that this soul is still alive. In some situations (for example, the consequences of trauma), the soul loses its sensitivity, "freezes". And its "reanimation", the return of sensitivity occurs through the emergence and living of previously frozen pain. The therapy requests are as follows: "I want to get rid of pain without changing anything in my life."
The psychotherapist is not a Surgeon. He does not delete what is unnecessary, in the opinion of the client, but tries to find a resource in what seems to the client unnecessary and interfering. Psychotherapy is healing. And HEALING, in my opinion, is the return of INTEGRITY, the return to a person of his rejected "territories" of his soul. This is how I understand the purpose of psychotherapy. The requests in this case are as follows: "Deliver me from something superfluous in me."An extreme version of such a request sounds like this: "I want to become not-I".
The reality is that Potential client for the most part - dependent, infantile, with a pronounced external locus - unwillingness to take responsibility for their lives. In his mind, Magical thinking with faith in Miracle prevails. He expects a miracle from the therapist and therapy, trying to shift the responsibility onto him habitually. He wants to change without changing anything in his life, in himself and his relationships with Others. Especially such a magical consciousness is actualized in times of crisis, when anxiety grows and stability and confidence fall. Remember at least the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the then popular mass sessions of Kashpirovsky and Chumak.
We can disagree with this state of affairs, scold our clients for such features, want them to be different, but this is also about rejection of reality as it is. We live and work at this specific time, with such specific clients with their peculiarities of consciousness and ideas about the world in general and about psychotherapy in particular.
And the client is entitled to their illusions. That's why he is a client
But a professional therapist, if he really is a professional, is not. He must clearly understand the limits of the possibilities of psychotherapy and his professional capabilities in this profession and not support illusory ideas about this among his clients.
I think the therapist maintains the client's illusions in two ways:
1. If he is not stable and professional enough and his self-esteem directly depends on the client's approval.
2. If he uses the client's illusions for his own selfish purposes.
A professional therapist with a stable self-esteem does not support the client's illusions, promising him openly or tacitly to satisfy his unrealistic needs, but coordinates these requests with reality and his own capabilities.
A professional therapist with a stable ethical position does not support the client's illusions of using his ignorance for his own selfish purposes, but clearly indicates to the client the limits of his capabilities and the limitations of psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is not violence or manipulation. These, in my opinion, are the basic axioms and immutable values of psychotherapy.
Each psychotherapist makes this choice for himself - to maintain the client's illusions or stay within the real possibilities of his profession. And this is a choice between populism and charlatanism on the one hand and professionalism and responsibility on the other.
I think that every psychotherapist needs to be very clear and honest about the boundaries of their professional capabilities. Both his professional future and the future of our profession in general depend on this. Otherwise, we will be "confused" for a long time with psychiatrists, psychics, sorcerers, etc
However, I believe Psychotherapy is Magic … But not in the sense that she can solve all the client's problems, and the psychotherapist is a person with magic. The magic of psychotherapy lies in the possibility for the client to learn how to use the magical knowledge that is contained in psychotherapy.
And the task of the psychotherapist is to show that the magic of psychotherapy is not in the fact that you can use it upon request, turning to a specialist, but in becoming the magician of your own life yourself.
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