2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
At the request of readers, I continue to analyze the most common myths about psychotherapy. For it looks like the topic is very relevant, and over these two weeks my list has been replenished with several more. So let's go.
- "A psychotherapist will solve your problems for you."
Magical thinking is especially characteristic of our civilization. For a long time, people believed about the power of nature and various gods. It was believed that the larger the lamb is slaughtered, the better the harvest will be, the faster the son will continue the race and the better the wound from the mammoth will heal. The world has largely changed since then, but the way most people perceive it, alas, no. For the same reason, fortune-tellers in our country are still more popular than psychotherapists. Because the fortuneteller promises to solve your problems with a simple wave of the egg, and the therapist promises to return you responsibility for your own life. The fortune teller looks for the causes of your unhappiness in curses and evil eyes, while the therapist focuses on your needs and desires. The fortune-teller talks about how you should live, and the therapist helps you start living your own life. Therefore, the therapist will not decide something for you, the maximum efficiency here is 200%: 100% of the therapist's contribution and 100% of the client's contribution.
- "The psychotherapist sees right through the person."
Ever since university, until recently, I did not like to talk about my profession when I met. In response to the magic word, the psychologist usually sounded the sacred "Tell me something about me." Since then, little has changed - often clients expect colossal insights from the therapist already at the first meeting. They are not excluded, but since the therapist is also a person, it takes some time for him to get to know you, gather information and, in the end, build a client-therapeutic relationship with you.
- "There is no need to go to a therapist - I can read books myself and cope alone. I'm strong."
It so happened historically that people are social beings. We survived as a species through our division of labor and our ability to communicate. Developed their own brains in order to communicate with each other as best as possible. In a number of psychological experiments, it turned out that babies who do not have interaction with adults do not develop and die at an early age. Because for development a person needs the Other. It is difficult for us to see ourselves "from the outside" on our own, to notice new ways for us to solve the problem, to express our own emotions and feelings, to get support and empathy (especially if there was no previous experience of support from loved ones). The psychotherapist has been learning for many years to be that Other for the client, able to satisfy these needs.
Pies: Of course, this is just my subjective vision of the issue, based on my own observations, discussions, conversations with colleagues and the prism of the approach in which I practice (gestalt therapy).
To be continued.
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