2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Sometimes my clients come to a psychotherapy meeting in such an emotional state that they literally cannot sit still.
They are nervous, excited about something in their life, or excited. And then I offer them a walk with a psychologist.
The main forms and places of work of a psychologist
I am always keenly interested in how my colleagues work, where they conduct their psychotherapeutic consultations and what forms of work they choose.
Their answers usually boil down to several options:
- Psychologist's office. The work format is sedentary. Sometimes using a hot extra stool. The maximum that a psychologist can offer a client during a 2-hour session is to stand up a couple of times, interacting with him in the paradigm of body therapy.
- Online session. The psychologist also works while sitting. The client also sits on the other end of the wire. And Skype correspondence and conversation with the client. The most that the client works with is with his hands, typing the next answer to a specialist's question.
- Consultation by phone. This is where the motion option comes in. A person, talking on the phone, if there is tension in the body, or confusion of thoughts, begins to walk around the room nervously. The limitation here is that the psychologist and the client do not see each other and cannot adjust physically.
- Other places for sessions with a psychologist. These are cafes, summer gazebos, a separate room in the apartment of a psychologist or his client. The form of interaction here is also sedentary.
- Walk with a psychologist. A rare form of psychotherapeutic work.
This is about the last form of psychotherapy in the form of joint movement, a walk for two, and I want to talk with you in more detail.
Walking with a psychologist as movement into a new life
A young man approached me, even on the phone, making an appointment, he spoke as a person who was in strong nervous excitement.
He insisted on seeing you soon
And after a couple of hours a man literally ran into my office, sat down on an armchair opposite me, blurted out: "My wife cheated on me, we have two kids and I don't know what to do!"
He sat nervously jumping up and down in his chair, as if finding no place for himself to find comfort.
And then, intuitively, I suggested that he immediately leave the office and go for a joint walk on one of the quiet embankments of the city of Vladivostok.
He agreed. And I decided not to limit the session time, realizing that my client needs my support here-and-now.
We walked for about three hours … already in about the middle of our joint movement-psychotherapy, his steps slowed down, and his intonation evened out.
Despite the complexity of the request, I was not emotionally tired at all, as is usually the case after armchair meetings.
How would you react to such a version of psychotherapy as a "walk with a psychologist"?
I agree as a psychologist
I would be glad if you take part in the survey - it would be interesting to know how the participants from both sides of the psychotherapeutic process relate to this form of work.
3 benefits of walking with a psychologist
Despite the limitations of this psychotherapy format due to windy or rainy weather, the walk has many useful features:
- The brain is active in movement. This seems to have been noticed by Pythagoras, inviting his students to stroll along the shores of the Aegean Sea and discussing philosophical and mathematical ideas on the go. Research by modern physiologists confirms that classrooms, classrooms and departments are the least suitable spaces for learning, change, and idea generation.
- Walking helps defuse the heat. Passions and nervous excitement subside best in movement. When a person thinks excitedly or emotionally tense, he spontaneously begins to rush and nervously walk from corner to corner.
- Environment as a metaphor for change. During a walk with a psychologist, a picture unfolds in front of the client's eyes with many objects: people, natural phenomena, cars, buildings. There are literally hundreds of roads open in front of him, and not a dead end, which is difficult to overcome while sitting in one place.
I could cite a dozen more advantages of such a psychotherapy format as a walk with a psychologist - but I won't.
because I want to hear your ideas and comments in the comments to this article.
I'm already wondering what kind of discussion will flare up between readers - I will gladly support your statements.
I would be glad if you share the material with colleagues and friends on the social network.
If this Post of mine gets 50 "Say thank you", I promise in the next article to tell you about the practice of changing when working with gait - as many as 2 options from the cycle "gold placers of psychotherapeutic techniques"!
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Author: Alexander Molyaruk
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