2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
How to find your therapist
There are two main ways. The first one is to ask for recommendations from those whom you trust in assessing (for example, a person had problems similar to yours and someone specific helped him a lot). The second is to look for yourself: read about different directions (gestalt, psychodrama, transactional analysis, cognitive-behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, systemic family therapy, etc. - there are many of them), then choose the one that seems closer. In the gestalt I work in, a lot of attention is paid to the client's feelings and emotions, and the contact. In transactional analysis, the basis is the Child + Parent + Adult model. In psychoanalysis there is a lot of work with the unconscious, the therapist mostly listens and is minimally active in the session. Etc. Having chosen a direction, it will be possible to choose a specific person - go to sites, look at reviews and photos, see what a person writes about himself, and with what words. Therapists who promise a quick effect, a new life, or guarantee a solution to problems should be avoided. Therapy is a journey along an unknown river, with an unknown date, unknown intermediate stations and unknown destination. But with you there will always be an experienced person, trained to pass the rapids. Somewhere I met a good phrase: psychotherapists are such slow bores, ready for months and years together with the client to move in small steps, as long as the client needs it. Choosing your therapist is pretty intuitive. Personally, it seems to me that people in general choose very accurately - mainly those who can really help them. Somehow it is amazing to feel that this particular therapist, right now, is working well with this problem. Sometimes the first chosen therapist does not fit - due to some fundamental discrepancy in the very first meetings. Then you can go to another, this is, in general, a normal process.
What happens in sessions
The sessions involve conversation and experiences - both for the client and the therapist. The client does not need to be able to do anything special. You don't even need to be able to formulate, and even more so, you don't have to clearly understand where and what the problem is. In principle, the very fact of contacting a consultant is already sufficient to recognize the reason for the request as significant. You just need to have a little honesty, courage and a desire to change. And in the process of the most ordinary conversation, enough information comes in to put forward hypotheses about the reasons, test them and offer options for work. What exactly is going on? What does this job look like? Differently. Sometimes I just listen. Sometimes I give feedback "I hear it as 1 … 2 … 3 …". Sometimes I tell a theory. Sometimes I throw thoughts on "think". Sometimes we act out situations from life. Sometimes objects are used - toys, furniture, things. Sometimes we draw, sometimes we write. Differently. I have a clear idea of what I am specifically doing at each moment of time, and for what. In general, all this has several main goals: - to create a safe space for a variety of manifestations; - to define the boundaries - both the therapist and the client; - be in contact with the client all the time during the session, hear him, see, capture his feelings and emotions; - show the client different ways to deal with the situation or problem, and help them learn; - restore the contact cycle if it is broken; - to give support, sympathy, help - within the framework in which the client agrees to take. Sometimes this all happens for the first time for the client. That is, the therapist is often the first person with whom it became possible to interact other than scenario. For example, he was the first to let the client "touch" and feel his border. Or he was the first one who was near at the time of the client's difficult experiences, he was simply there - and did not collapse, did not forbid anything, did not leave contact. After receiving the first experience, the client finally understands what is, in principle, possible, and can go with new knowledge into life. It is very important.
You should also touch on the issue of candor and shame. Of course, it is impossible to immediately lay out all the ins and outs to a stranger. Therefore, the psychotherapist does not "delve into life", he assists the client in the process of getting to know himself (so to speak) and in solving his problems independently. He is, rather, a mirror, and does not bring anything of his own into the therapy, no assessments. The degree of openness in this case is determined, of course, by the client. And honesty is necessary for the client, first of all, in front of himself - in that case, of course, if it is necessary to go, and not checkers (i.e. solve the problem, and not look ideal in the eyes of the psychotherapist).
On the other hand, the client is free to dispose of his money and the specialist's time within the session, and if he wants to dispose of ineffectively - for example, not to talk about the problem at all, but to talk about cats; or pay, but don't come; or to lie and dodge - his right. The client may resist the job - consciously or subconsciously. It often happens that it seems like you want to decide, but the "duck from an anecdote" mode is turned on: well, yes, of course, but … What then? Nothing. No, the therapist is not angry that a person is unable to quickly, beautifully and easily solve their problems. And from the fact that a person does not agree to options. It would be strange to be somehow angry about this, because the client does not owe the therapist anything, even - to take help or not to take, and then he decides for himself. That is, the therapist does not have any expectations regarding the client, he is only ready to follow how the person manifests himself, within the paid time and his knowledge and experience. Sometimes the client wants no other help from the therapist other than being the audience for the "tantrum" - and this is also possible. Perhaps this is the maximum help that the client can receive now. It's up to him to decide. Author: Ekaterina Sigitova
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