7 Rules For Communicating With A Psychologist At A Consultation:

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

7 rules for communicating with a psychologist at a consultation:

- First, you must completely trust the psychologist. (It is best if you apply for someone else's recommendation, read reviews about a person, are sure that the specialist has a higher professional education, scientific degrees, titles, practical work experience, read his articles or books, some interviews or publications, saw him on television, etc. You know that the psychologist himself has taken place in life as a specialist, husband or wife, father or mother, etc.).

- Secondly, you must be completely sincere with the psychologist and not hide anything that may be important in your situation. (For example: It is difficult to help a married couple overcome intimate disharmony if the wife does not report that she became a victim of a rapist in her youth. Or we will never understand the irritability of the husband if he hides that he has been using drugs for a long time. Or we will not understand the rudeness of the spouse if he will hide his criminal record from his wife and the psychologist, etc.)

- Thirdly, you must rethink your past and present life, based on the assessments of a specialist and formulate new positive goals for the future. It makes no sense to go to a psychologist if you only want to change another person, not yourself, your thinking and behavior.

If you think that everyone around you is to blame, the psychologist is powerless. He can only wish you to immediately stop all communication and personal contacts with your environment. But if you do not change yourself, where is the guarantee that your new environment will suit you too?

- Fourthly, you must put into practice everything that will be suggested to you by a specialist as correct actions, making every effort to do this and having patience. (The effect of working with a psychologist can come within a few weeks or even months. After all, those mistakes that have been accumulating for years and decades are technically impossible to fix in hours or days. Unfortunately, there is a certain psychological inertia).

- Fifth, you yourself must exclude a new repetition of all those mistakes in life and your behavior, because of which you were forced to turn to a psychologist.

- Sixth, you should not be offended by the psychologist if the conclusions drawn by him will not cause you great joy. When a traumatologist tells you at an appointment that you have a bone fracture, and you hoped that it would only be a severe bruise, when a therapist diagnoses you with pneumonia or bronchitis, and you hoped to get off with a light cold, how badly you it did not upset, the doctor was not guilty of what happened. You came to the appointment in the same state in which you came. So in the situation with the psychologist: he did not make out of his visitors poor students, parasites, uneducated, losers in life, alcoholics, drug addicts, gambling addicts, codependents, sadists, masochists, cheaters, etc. But with all this he has to work! And without honestly naming things out loud, without finding out whether you agree with the vision of the situation that the specialist came to, a psychologist simply cannot work. After all, it is impossible to heal a broken bone if the patient or the doctor does not take it for granted and play with a slight bruise. Therefore, one should apologize in advance for the fact that an honest and frank dialogue with a psychologist may not always resemble that idyllic picture of a “psychologist on a white couch” that is formed in the public consciousness by Hollywood films.

- Seventh, when talking with a psychologist, you shouldn't be ashamed of something. And you should tell and ask absolutely everything. I especially emphasize: not only to tell, but also to ask! Having asked for help, you should find out everything that is important and necessary for you, and there is absolutely nothing to be modest about. It's about the same as if you came to the dentist's appointment, talked to him about teeth, and left him without curing the tooth that worries you, but after talking a lot. Engaging in any activity, people should get a specific result. This principle also applies to a visit to a psychologist. And to implement it, you need the activity of not only a specialist, but also you personally.

To help a suffering person, it is not enough to make a correct diagnosis and make quick efforts to eliminate the serious consequences.

It is necessary for a person to draw the correct conclusions from the situation, changed and improved his approaches to life, and in the future he himself avoided getting into the same or essentially similar troubles.

And further. Anyone who turns to a psychologist must clearly understand the degree of possible effectiveness of counseling. With my approaches to work, a person should leave me, having a clear understanding of their problems, the causes of these problems, the possibilities and prospects for overcoming them, based on my assessment of the psychotype of this person, the specifics of his Personality (as well as from the specifics of his close people, husband, wife, children, etc.), having a clear "road map", a step-by-step plan of their actions for the near future, in the future as a whole. As a rule, I offer several models for overcoming personal, family and everyday problems at once. However, the psychologist does not have the moral right to decide for a person how he will live further. If an alcoholic stubbornly refuses to admit that he is an alcoholic, wants to continue drinking and transfer his life into the hands of Chance, unfortunately, the psychologist cannot put his brain into his head. If a man or woman does not believe that hemp, naswai, spice or hookah are narcotic drugs, it is difficult to stop them from committing various stupidities and crimes, it is almost impossible to save their family. If a gambling addict does not consider his regular night sitting at the computer an addiction, it is incredibly difficult to provide him with a strong family or career. If a man is fundamentally sure that if he earns a lot of money, then it is possible to beat his wife, it is difficult for him to guarantee family happiness. If a woman is hysterical in life and refuses to see herself from the outside, it is difficult for her to explain why her husband avoids intimacy with her, and the children run away from home. If a girl believes that the main task of a successful woman is not to work and to be the kept woman of wealthy men, it is difficult for her to convey that not all men and women share her opinion. Etc. etc.

The same applies to those people who, after listening to the opinion of a psychologist and even agreeing with him, still do nothing in the future. How can you help someone who does not want to help himself? The question is rhetorical! Here the situation is the same as in the tram station. So you turned to a traumatologist with a complaint of pain in your arm. The specialist will make you an ultrasound or X-ray, reveal that you have a fracture, the surgeon will suggest an operation to install the wires and plaster. If you refuse these manipulations, or begin to carry weights with a plaster cast, the doctor will definitely not be to blame for what is happening to you. Blame that your hand will grow crookedly, only you will be! Or if you suffer from allergies, the doctor treats you, but you do not inform him that you work in an environmentally hazardous production and do not want to change the problematic place of work, it is simply useless to treat you. An allergist will also be powerless here with all his sincere desire to help you and his professionalism.