Solve My Problem In Two Days! Is It Possible?

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

Such requests from people who are not familiar with psychotherapy are heard quite often. People find out that you are a psychologist and immediately try to get a universal recommendation on the problem they are interested in. I believe that explaining to interested people that psychotherapy does not work in this way and that there are no universal answers is an educational task of psychotherapy. This is where it most often begins.

But in the aforementioned request, I was surprised and, perhaps, outraged by the number of replies from supposedly professionals: "Contact us, we will do it." I don’t know what manages such specialists - unprofessionalism and a complete lack of understanding of the psychotherapeutic process, or a simple desire to make money in any way - a person wants a “magic pill” - please, if only he paid and no remorse.

But psychotherapy is not a quick process, much less work with different kinds of attitudes. Attitudes are formed over many years, starting from a very early age, one can say: they are absorbed with mother's milk, and most often they are not realized. The very process of realizing them is a long process, and if you have done it, this is already a big step towards changes, but not enough. For a start, you are aware of what is happening on a rational level, but this does little to change your behavior and your feelings of self. In order for the process of changes to start, it is necessary to understand the new setting on an emotional level, to accept it. And to understand where the old one came from and for what purposes it served. After all, not a single installation arises out of the blue. Yes, obviously, it is passed on to us from our parents (or grandparents), but they also did not have it by chance - initially it probably served some good purpose.

Take, for example, such a common attitude "Money is evil". It is impossible to say to yourself: “Yes, I realized, I had the“Money is evil”attitude and therefore I could never earn enough. Now I know that this is not so, now I say to myself: "Money is a resource" and everything will be ok. " Such an attitude could well serve as protection for your parents during periods when it was possible to pay for wealth with your life. Or perhaps some of your ancestors really did not have the potential for earning, and this attitude served to preserve his self-esteem. And you inherited it. And these are just a couple of possible options.

There are attitudes (and, as a consequence, methods of adaptation that arose from these attitudes) that are not inherited, but that have arisen in your psyche (I repeat, as a rule, at a very early age). And if they formed, then exactly then they were necessary and helped you to adapt or even survive. Consider, for example, a situation where an overly active child interfered with his parents and made them angry or angry because they had a hard time coping with him. And as a result, for any activity the child was punished, not necessarily even physically, but maybe by silence, ignorance, etc. But for children and for their prosperous development, the emotional involvement of parents is as important as food. And, gradually, the child may develop approximately the following attitude: activity and initiative will be punished / or I will be deprived of love. And a very passive person grows up. Or, on the contrary, the child was paid attention only when he falls, gets hurt, crippled, gets sick. And then a person grows up with the installation: You are loved only when you are suffering.

There can be an infinite number of examples, as well as attitudes formed as a result of growing up (by the way, another reason why their elaboration cannot be quick - each installation is unique, was formed under unique circumstances and there are no universal attitudes with a universal way of working them out). It's important to understand that they were responsive.

For a child, his family is the whole world. At the age when attitudes are being formed, the child still does not see anything other than this microcosm, cannot compare and understand what happens in different ways. And the whole world does not live by the same principles as his family. In adulthood, a person continues to rely on the same attitudes, because they still worked. And, before you "take away" something, you need to offer something new. But if you have been using the same adaptation mechanisms for 30 years, you cannot replace them at once: too scary, lack of experience, etc.

An important resource in the process of processing is the safe space of the psychotherapy room, in which we can explore what we have (what attitudes and methods of adaptation), where they came from, how they helped and how they hindered, what other methods of adaptation exist, which of them are suitable for me, and finally to gain new experience - first, try to act differently in a relationship with a therapist, and then bring this experience into your life. And, of course, all this will take a lot of time: first, to make sure that it is really safe here, and then for everything else.

And will two days be enough for this process? Or even two months? The answer seems to be obvious.