Professional Jazz

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

I remember my first clients.

Girl 12 years old. The only long-awaited child. Clever, beautiful, favorite in the family and among peers. She suffered from enuresis. And that was the tragedy of her little family. As I understood, years later, the only thing that united the family was enuresis. But then, I could not see so widely. I didn't know how.

Woman. Over fifty. Almost twice my age. I came to talk about my fear of losing my daughter. The eldest son committed suicide … I remember how scared I was to listen to her story. I felt helpless. As a result of the session, I was able to help her find peace in her heart. Even if not for long.

The boy is 11 years old. His class teacher brought him to me. He behaved defiantly. He went out for a walk in the winter in a jacket, but underneath he was not wearing anything. And it was one of the many "pranks". We worked with him for about a year. Periodically held meetings with his mother. I remember how in one of the sessions he killed his classmate in seven different ways, sculpted by him from plasticine (crushed with a tank, thrown off the table, cut with a knife, thrown against the wall …) She annoyed him only because she spoke with a Caucasian accent. I was frightened by his aggressive fantasies. Worried, thought about him between our sessions. But, a miracle happened. Soon after that session, the guy began to treat the Caucasian girl well, protecting her from other children. Became the formal class leader and began to enjoy learning. I didn't understand what had happened.

At the dawn of my psychotherapy practice, I worked more intuitively. Yes, back in 2002 there were not many books on Gestalt therapy. I was looking for experiments, invented a lot of things myself. I read and practiced a lot. I was very worried both before sessions with clients and before trainings (however, I am still worried). I remember how surprised and upset I was when I heard the phrase: “it takes at least 7-10 years of study and practice to become a professional psychologist.” I wanted everything at once! But my personal experience confirms this statistic. I think that there are similar numbers in the profession of a chef, doctor, captain of interplanetary ships and many other professions.

Why is that? After all, the rules of cooking and recipes for cooking are taught in educational institutions. But only the chef knows when and how to apply these rules and proportions, and when to modify or even violate.

At a pedagogical university, they teach how and what to say to children, what results should be among students at the end of their education. But, only a professional teacher is able to qualitatively capture the attention of the class and convey the material so that it is assimilated by the students.

Possession of wisdom is what separates the professional from the beginner. Metis (ancient Greek) - wisdom; savoir faire (fr.) - literally - "active knowledge", practical wisdom, tact, the ability to find a way out of a situation. It was wisdom that I lacked in those distant two thousandths. Wisdom, born of professional practice and personal experience, my mistakes and discoveries.

I remembered the parable of the wise mechanic: “In one of the ports a huge ship was preparing to sail. All passengers are already on board, it's time to sail away, but due to some mysterious breakdown, the ship cannot be started. Local craftsmen were tormented, tormented and decided to call for help from one well-known mechanic. As they said, very talented and expensive. He came. For a couple of minutes I walked among the huge mechanisms of the ship. I touched some parts, and then took a hammer and hit one of the engine tubes a couple of times. The ship has started!

- 1000 dollars - Said the mechanic.

- For what? The captain asked. - You only walked for two minutes and knocked on this pipe twice.

"$ 1 for the two minutes that I was here, and $ 999 for knowing where to hit."

Wisdom is a quality that cannot be taught. It can only be transmitted and perceived. Both the first and the second depend on the quality and quantity of practical knowledge and independently acquired information from an ever-changing environment. Wisdom is when you not only see, but also understand in detail what is happening. That is, you understand, as it were, from the inside, how this or that process works and how it happens.

Practical wisdom, like fish, is valuable if it is “first fresh”. It is born and exists only at the moment of use: at the moment, in a specific place and in a specific situation. Taken out of context and applied, even in a very similar situation, it may not bring results.

It is often difficult to verbalize your knowledge or technicalities. Because all this is built not only in the cortex of the cerebral hemispheres, but extends to the whole of nature. Over the years, an understanding of the dynamics of the process opens, knowledge of what is compatible and what is not, how to behave with one or another protective mechanism, how to react in an unforeseen situation. Over time, you get a sense of how to distinguish what is really important from a red herring.

Every time, expecting a meeting with a client, I do not know with what topic and in what mood he will come. Every meeting, even if it is one hundredth, is unpredictable. It is impossible to prepare for a session pointwise, as, for example, for a test on a given topic. And it turns out that my whole previous life is a preparation for a meeting. The richer my personal and professional experience, the wider and deeper my knowledge in psychology and outside it, the easier and better my work is. While I can technically do the same thing, I ask pretty much the same questions I did ten years ago.

The training is similar. Each group has its own unique energy and set of characteristics - pace, rhythm, life experience, demands, breadth of knowledge, etc. And besides, the group continues its life outside the training. And every time I come to the training, I don't know what we will be working with. Which group "figure" will rule. Therefore, I am ready for almost all the topics and reactions of the participants to me, to each other.

Conventionally, there are three styles of conducting groups: "pop", "chanson" and "jazz". I think this classification can be extended to other activities.

"Pops" - the content of the training and its structure does not depend on the needs of the group or on changes in the situation in the group. The coach reads his program and conducts the exercises prescribed by him or his mentor once and for all. Maybe by changing only those things that cannot be changed. So, if this is sales training, then the product that should be sold and the audience for whom is changing. If baby diapers are for young parents, if "Validol", then most likely for the elderly.

"Chanson" - the music is practically the same, but the words are different. Although the topic is quite predictable. Such a thriller song. In coaching, it looks a little livelier than pop music. There are glimpses of contact with the participants, but the group still goes where a trained coach leads it. Most often, towards a successful and rich future)

"Jazz" is a here-and-now work with what arises in this particular field. "Jazz" is something more than conducting training, it is following the rhythms and values of the life of the group's organism, the life that is born during the process. It is a continuous improvisation based on practical knowledge. This is working with shapes that protrude from the background and then, having changed in the process, return to the changed field. This is work outside of one-size-fits-all solutions. This is a job that welcomes different approaches in all their diversity. This is possible thanks to practical wisdom.

The English philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin OM in his essay "The Hedgehog and the Fox" wrote about wisdom in the following way: “it is a special sensitivity to the changing contours of the circumstances in which we find ourselves; it is the ability to live without violating the established state of affairs or factors that cannot not only be changed, but even how should be calculated or described”