What To Pay A Psychologist For

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

Every time I hear that psychologists make money on someone else's grief, my eye twitches. And no amount of personal therapy will change that. Because this is as unfair as accusing the doctor who saves your life that he, the bastard, also receives a salary for it. A psychologist, of course, is not a doctor, but mental health and well-being, believe me, requires no less attention than legs and heads.

In short, I want to tell you about the hard lot of a psychologist. Only this is not any whining. This is happiness, in fact. But happiness is gained through suffering. And you just need to understand the scale of labor and investments - both temporary and emotional, and financial.

Psychologists, on the other hand, are those who, having plowed 4-5 years for their first diploma, choose a modality or specialization and plow the same amount in order to master as many techniques as possible. Psychoanalysis - roughly 3 years of training alone, gestalt - 3 steps (up to 10 years of training), CBT is one of the fastest, but still not less than a year. Clinical Psychologists - Master's degree plus 2 years of specialized specialization. Medical psychotherapists and psychiatrists - compulsory complete medical education. And if in Russia the activities of psychologists are not yet licensed, then state license boards, accreditation rules, laws regulating the provision of services, professional exams and requirements to confirm qualifications every few years have long existed abroad. In addition to specialized education, add here a couple of years of supervising work (when you pay a more experienced and qualified colleague to review their work) and hundreds of hours of personal therapy. Professional associations, trainings, additional courses - it never ends. To keep up with the times, you need to constantly study and improve your qualifications. This, by the way, does not only apply to psychologists. Representatives of any profession work in this mode, if they want to succeed in them.

A psychologist is not a call girl to play with in the kitchen. Professional specialists work strictly on demand, within the framework of certain algorithms and ethical restrictions. Psychologists do not advise, teach, impose, or devalue. They do not diagnose by avatars and do not hang labels on your opponents, they do not advise in absentia, do not brand offenders as psychopaths and narcissists, and are not able to cure your uncle in Tambov with the power of thought. Psychology, of course, is a specific science, but still a science. And, accordingly, it has a fairly clear structure and gradation of processes. The Emergencies Ministry psychologist, organizational psychologist, crisis psychologist, profiler, family counselor, neuropsychologist and clinical psychologist - all of these people deal with completely different topics and use different skills and techniques. Before you bring your problems to one of them, take the trouble to understand at least a little. Of course, no one requires you to fully understand the nuances, but it's still good to go to an ophthalmologist with your eyes, and to a proctologist with your ass.

If we talk about the narrow specialization of a counselor psychologist, which most clients face, then it is important to understand the following:

- a psychologist works with healthy people in a difficult situation. He does not treat borderline conditions or prescribe medications.

- no psychologist will solve your problems for you, and will not change your life without your participation. All the main work will be done by you. There are no magic pills, alas.

- the psychologist is obliged to create a safe and comfortable environment where the client can relax and open up as much as possible

- the psychologist is obliged to clarify in advance all possible aspects of interaction with the client. This includes not only the financial side of the issue and a description of the approach (modality), but also the construction of boundaries (is it possible to write outside the sessions, for example), the explanation of the ethical side of the issue (the client often takes the transfer, including the erotic one, for “personal relationships”), responsibility of the parties, etc.

- the psychologist should not include himself in the process - that is, no "and I, and I, but in your place, but from my personal experience." A psychologist is a tool that is used to achieve a goal. He asks questions, it is convenient to think about him, he is able to "turn" the lost client in the other direction and pay attention to possible other ways of solving the issue. But he does not humiliate, offend, does not manipulate, does not impose anything, and certainly does not solve his personal problems through the client.

And another key point. For some reason, it is believed that a psychologist must necessarily be a Zen guru. Not at all. Well-developed - yes, definitely. But this is not something that can be acquired once and for all. Like any antivirus, mindfulness must be renewed - and for this there is supervision and personal therapy.

As part of this post, I, perhaps, will stop, but I suspect that I will gladly answer your questions in the comments and urge my colleagues to note what I missed, and to supplement the post if they wish.