You're A Psychologist! Myths About The Psychotherapist. The Meaning Of Therapy

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

What is a psychotherapist? What is it for? What does he give? In everyday life, I often come across people who have no personal experience of undergoing psychotherapy, and I am often impressed by what they think about psychotherapy and the personality of the psychotherapist. I have compiled a list of common myths about my profession, and now I would really like to dispel them at least a little. Why? Probably because I think that meetings with a psychotherapist will definitely not harm anyone. It doesn't require some mega compelling reason. And if this were the norm in the culture of our society, then the society would be healthier, relations between people would be more honest and transparent. No no. I am not campaigning. I am sure that the decision to enter therapy should be made by a person himself and only himself. Here are just common myths often become an obstacle to making an important decision, or, conversely, create false motives for making it.

And so, psychologist / psychotherapist:

• knows how "right" and how "wrong";
• will teach how "right";
• observing a person will make his psychological portrait / make a diagnosis;
• knows psychological "tricks" and with the help of them skillfully manipulates people, achieving their own selfish goals;
• will endlessly delve into your childhood in search of the cause of your today's problems;
• lives his life exclusively “right”.

These ideas about the work and personality of a psychotherapist are common to most people who have not encountered psychotherapy in their lives. At the same time, different people may have a different attitude to these ideas, which, as a result, forms his personal answer to the question "to be or not to be" in the psychologist's office. Someone stops themselves from visiting a psychotherapist due to the fact that they do not want to be taught, told "how to", they do not want to become an object of manipulation, worries about being labeled, worries about that, in the end, one of the acquaintances will find out about it. After all, it is a shame to need help for an adult. At the same time, the other, on the contrary, comes to a specialist for advice on what to do with his life or how to act in a certain situation. Someone writes off all their life difficulties on their childhood, wanting to find the cause of everything there, and, realizing it, automatically correct it. "Bug" of the system.

Depending on your attitude towards the points mentioned, I will please or disappoint you.

The psychotherapist does not know how to live or act "right", therefore he himself does not live "right". Simply because there are no right / wrong categories in this area. The therapist is not a judge or bearer of objective truth. And therapy is not focused on how to live and how not to. The therapist tries not to put labels or diagnoses. This attitude towards the client makes it impossible for the client-therapeutic alliance - the core of the therapy process. The therapist is only as interested in your past as it is important to you. Learning psychotherapy is not in order to manage people or get others to fulfill their wishes.

It seems that this is the place where the questions "So what is a psychotherapist for?", "What does he do?"

This may be news to some of you, but the therapist is an ordinary person. He, like you, has his fears, every day he faces life difficulties and his own confusion, has the same difficulties as you have at work, in a family who is angry, sad, happy, sometimes falls into despair. And can you imagine? Most therapists have their own psychotherapists, and all without exception have extensive experience in personal psychotherapy in the past!

So what is the difference between two people who are located in the psychologist's office opposite each other? Probably, first of all, it is attention and awareness. Over the years, the future therapist has been learning to be attentive to himself and his clients. This means that the specialist notices more. What people are used to not noticing turns out to be seen by the psychotherapist. At the same time, he does not endow the noticed with his meaning. He just draws your attention to what he saw, and you, as it turns out, did not notice in yourself before. And this, at first glance, trifle often works "miracles", because in the area of the unnoticed, in the area of the unconscious, as a rule, the answers to the questions posed are hidden. When working with you, the therapist is attentive to himself, to his feelings that arise in the process of work. Feelings arising in the therapist's soul in relation to you, your stories and manifestations - this is another pillar on which the therapeutic process rests. When faced with the human reaction of a therapist who remains utterly honest with you, you will learn something important about yourself.

And one more important point - to see you, this does not mean to appreciate at all. It is really impossible to see that you are successful / unsuccessful, smart / stupid, beautiful / ugly. You will now say that I am lying. "How so? This is how the world and the people around us work! " Of course, psychotherapists can do that too. We have all been taught this since childhood. But when you see yourself or someone else stupid or ugly, think about whether you see a person in front of you as he is, or look through an invisible filter inside yourself, dressing another or yourself in someone carefully tailored, high-quality suit …

By and large, the goal of psychotherapy is to notice more: about yourself and about the world around you, get out every meeting, what was hidden inside, take responsibility and learn to live with it. Of course, living this way is more difficult and, often, more painful. Not everyone around you will like your new way of life. And the path of self-knowledge does not have an end station. But once you've learned to see and understand yourself, most likely you won't want to stop.