To Go Or Not To Go To A Psychologist?

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

If you have never been to a psychologist, and you have a desire to turn to him, or even just a thought on this topic, but you hesitate or delay the start of action, then perhaps you need to find out what is happening to you, and what will happen if you decide and take the first step.

A guide to the senses

Feelings can be both an excuse and a complicating factor in visiting a psychologist. There may be too many of them to figure out on your own. Either they may be unclear, or they may seem not to be. One way or another, not everyone is able to meet with them. Moreover, many avoid them, displace them, replace them with false ones, suppress them, instead of allowing themselves to live them. And then the feelings, remaining out of contact with consciousness, turn into a residue, a load, a burden, and bodily can be felt as pain, insensitivity, anxiety, discomfort, a desire to be free, to be relieved.

If strong feelings are experienced, it can be difficult to make an intelligent decision about seeking help from a specialist. Although often - this is exactly the case when he would help to get out of the existing emotional state as safely as possible and teach him to competently deal with them in the future.

Feelings are often negative: anger, distrust, negativism, pessimism, etc., and can be directed both at someone from the outside and at oneself. You can be irritated by your neighbor from above, or your own powerlessness. But whatever you say, and these feelings can become the engine towards a positive goal. The main thing to remember is that negative feelings are only part of the entire emotional spectrum inherent in everyone.

With regard to states of doubt, indecision, anxiety, powerlessness due to the need to do something in the context of therapeutic work, psychologists call resistance and consider it a good sign. After all, as a rule, the one who has overcome his own resistance, having stepped forward, despite the difficulties, goes to a new level of development.

Guide to thoughts

Usually, those who are thinking about finding a specialist for themselves have two types of thoughts:

a) What if something is wrong with him (the specialist)? (He will not be the best in the world / not the best for me; he will be wrong, or will not do what is needed, etc.)

b) What if something is wrong with me? (All my problems are fiction, everything should go by itself, I will manage, I usually have no luck with specialists, etc.)

One way or another, these thoughts mean the beginning of a search, a willingness to undertake something and a desire to be vigilant in your steps. When they are there, listen to your feelings (like or dislike) that arise at the first, possibly in absentia, acquaintance and subsequent steps on the way to meeting with a specialist. They will help you make the best choice. In general, the path to the best specialist in the world (if there is such a task) is not close - you have to try to find out.

Psychological problems are often fictional, but such assumptions are not particularly effective and do not relieve suffering. A person has a complex structure, does not always understand himself, at first he does not really understand himself. Psychologists are specialists in the human, trained to work, including with those who believe that something is wrong with them.

What to do with a psychologist?

Before meeting with the selected specialist, it is always better to determine for yourself the range of your problems that you would like to deal with (work out). But it's okay if you find it difficult to understand what you need from a psychologist. Then this will become the topic for the first meeting with a specialist, during which your request can be clarified. This may require more than one meeting. Such cases are common and normal.

During meetings, you can and should talk about your thoughts, feelings - including to a psychologist. A good specialist is distinguished by the fact that he is able to offer a qualitatively new type of relationship, which in a psychotherapeutic context is essentially the main healing factor. If you have a need to find out a relationship with someone, then the best way to start is to do it with your own psychologist.

Working with a psychologist is always a movement towards each other. You can go through the stages of distrust, to defend yourself, but this does not cancel your movement towards the person to whom you entrusted your inner world with everything that requires healing, renewal or change. This requires some human effort, but both are responsible for success in work (of course, to varying degrees at different stages).