In the most severe illnesses We also need the strongest means, precisely applied.(Hippocrates)

Pain is something that everyone is familiar with. Pain can be different: physical and internal or mental (in psychology such pain is called psychalgia). Any pain is heaviness, torment, suffering. We perceive pain as cruel punishment, injustice, evil... This is what we want to stop.

So how can we stop it?

How to deal with pain?

First, let's admit that pain is not evil. Pain is our hardwired last resort to force us to take care of ourselves. We wouldn't live to see today if there was no pain.

If there was no pain, then we would not feel tooth decay, and then we would lose all our teeth.

If there were no pain, then no one would think of treating bruises, fractures, internal diseases. This means that we would only live until the first serious illness. If we didn’t feel pain, we wouldn’t understand that something was wrong with our body, and we wouldn’t go to specialists for help.

The pain is ours most faithful assistant, which protects our lives, our well-being. Pain prevents the worst consequences by drawing our attention to the fact that something is wrong with us and demands that we fix it.

How to react to pain?

What would you say if you saw a picture like this... A person who bought a new one expensive car, equipped with a good alarm system, wakes up at night because the alarm system is screaming throughout the entire yard. Without finding out the reason, he begins to scold the alarm. In his opinion, it is the alarm system that is to blame, which does not allow him to sleep. Not the thieves who break into the car, not he himself, who out of laziness does not want to go out and look or call the police, but the alarm system! Of course, we will consider such a person not particularly smart (to say the least).

Or another situation... A person suffers pain, despite the fact that everyone around him recommends urgently seeing a doctor. He himself believes that only pain bothers him. At first he tolerates it, then tries to drown it out with painkillers. The pain continues to intensify, but in the end it turns out that if he had contacted him right away, the doctor would have helped him avoid serious consequences for the body. Now unpleasant consequences is obvious. Is this person smart?

Oh, how we ourselves are like these characters when we suffer from mental pain! Unfortunately, we often do not want to see the reasons for our mental pain. For some reason, we stupidly endure, suffer, suffer, reach despair (even suicide), try in different ways to drown out the pain, we try to fight it, forget ourselves, but... we don’t hear its signal, we don’t correct its cause.

People whose mental pain is so great that they want to free themselves from this pain by committing suicide are like those who struggle with alarms and fuses, not with the real reason. They believe that one can be freed from mental pain by destroying the body. It’s not the body that hurts! It’s the same as if a person has a stomach ulcer and he tries to cure it by amputating his leg!..

So what's wrong when your soul hurts?

A normal person understands that it is not pain itself that prevents us from living, but the reason that causes this pain. Therefore, when something hurts in our body, we try to understand the location of the pain and find its cause. If there is hope that the cause can correct itself, we wait, endure, taking painkillers, and if we understand that the cause remains and the pain does not go away, then we go to the doctor and get treatment diagnostic test, and with the help of an appropriate specialist we correct this reason. If your kidney hurts, we go to a urologist, if your throat hurts, go to an otolaryngologist, if your stomach hurts, go to a gastroenterologist, if your heart hurts, go to a cardiologist. And who should you turn to if your soul hurts?

When the body hurts, we understand that from the nerve endings at the point where the disease is localized, a signal about trouble comes to the corresponding part of the brain.

Where and where does the signal come from in case of mental pain? Have you ever thought about this?

No? Why? This is worth thinking about carefully...

Maybe the signal arrives in the brain in an unknown way? Maybe it comes to the heart, because sometimes it hurts from worry? May be, solar plexus is the center of spiritual pain?

Alas. Science decisively and unequivocally states that human consciousness is not localized in the body. That is, no cluster of nerve cells, not even the brain, can and does not perform the function of what we call human consciousness. In the near future, our article on this topic will be posted on the website with links to many authoritative sources of high and impartial science.

Therefore, if you are a purely materialist and completely deny the existence of the soul, the invisible world and everything connected with it, we can make you happy: it means that nothing hurts you. Because according to science, there is no consciousness in the material body, which means there can be no mental pain. Therefore, you can now begin to rejoice - just as materially as you suffer - and finish reading this article.

Psychology - a science whose very name contains recognition of the existence of the soul (psyche - soul, logos - to know) - lost a lot when it abandoned the very concept of the soul. That is, it sets itself the task of treating the soul, which it has ceased to recognize, but has not introduced any other reasonable understanding of the soul. The situation is simply absurd. How can you treat an organ if you don’t recognize it and know nothing about it? Therefore, traditional psychology almost always throws up its hands in the case of mental pain. With the help of modern pharmacological drugs, you can reduce the intensity of the pain of the soul, with the help of psychotherapeutic techniques, distract from pain, learn to live with it, even drown out this pain for a certain time, but despite the vast experience accumulated over a century and a half, modern psychology does not have the opportunity to influence the eradication reasons leading to this severe pain.

Why does the soul hurt? (Let's say right away that we are not considering cases of severe mental illness - schizophrenia, etc. - which occur in suicide victims in approximately 20% of cases.)

Just as the body hurts because we damage it in some way or do not give it what it needs, so does the soul. What does the soul need?

One of the modern priests writes:

“It is well known that ignoring the deepest aspirations of the human spirit gives rise to that very distortion of human nature, which is traditionally called sin - the source of disease. Therefore, the most important thing for a sick person is reconciliation with God, restoration of trampled or lost manifestations of the human spirit. Reconciliation with God is repentance, this awareness of one’s sin, awareness of responsibility for one’s life, for the state into which a person has driven himself and the desire, the thirst to begin new life, reconciling with God and asking Him for forgiveness.

Since ancient times, the Church has always associated illness with the internal state of a person, with human sin. Therefore, the basis Church Sacrament Blessing of oil for the healing of the sick is a prayer for the forgiveness of sins. And regardless of whether we resort to the Sacrament of Anointing, or we are going to be treated, the first thing we must start with is awareness of our responsibility, awareness of our sin and the will of God for you to be healthy.”

Sin is not a fashionable word. Perhaps because people who are far from the Church understand by it a violation of some rules, the observance of which is required of us by God, and not at all by ourselves. After all, the motto of our time is “take everything from life.” And here for some reason they demand something from us. Of course, we can’t like this...

In fact, sin is a crime against own soul. If you compare it with the body, it’s like not feeding your body, like cutting it with a knife, hammering nails into it, pouring acid on it. In this case, God is like a good doctor who stands nearby, with medical instruments and drugs at the ready, and asks us to quickly stop self-torture and come to him so that he can cure us.

If you observe yourself, every person can notice how unpleasant it becomes in his soul when he does something bad. For example, he will get angry with someone, become cowardly, upset someone, take a bribe, not give someone what he asks for, or cheat on his wife. As such actions accumulate, it becomes harder and harder for the soul. And we forget what real, pure, childish joy is. We are trying to replace joy with primitive pleasures. But they don’t make you happy, they only dull you. And the soul dries out and hurts more and more...

And when something happens important event in our life - for example, some great loss, it does not even occur to us that the enormous pain that has befallen us is somehow connected with our mistakes. But that's exactly how it is. Pain in various crises of human relationships is caused by our vindictiveness, or hatred, or vanity. Pain when breaking love relationship would be many times less if the relationship itself were not overshadowed by resentment and selfishness. The pain of the death of a loved one is aggravated by murmuring against God. And so on.

The conclusion is the following: mental pain signals to us that something is wrong with the soul, perhaps we have wounded our soul somewhere and must correct ourselves.

Where is the pain of the soul treated?

If we have never dealt with our soul, believing that spiritual life consists of visiting theaters and reading novels, then we need help in treating mental pain, we cannot cope on our own.

Where to run when your soul hurts? Where to go for help?

Of course, it’s better to go to a place where you can definitely get treatment. This should be a place that has proven treatment traditions, tools and conditions for treatment, and most importantly, millions of cured patients.

In fact, we have already named the main and only Doctor of mental pain above. I have seen hundreds of people healed from heartache. And all of them were completely cured in only one place and only with a single Doctor. This hospital is the Church, and the Chief Doctor in it is the Lord God!

This Doctor, who does not treat for money, He does it selflessly and with great love. This Doctor is waiting for those who feel bad, because He is always ready to lend a helping hand. He doesn't have days off or lunch breaks. He is always ready to begin healing your soul.

This Doctor treats not with fake ones, but with eternally living, proven and very effective medications. He never refused to help anyone, but He will not force Himself on you, He will not persuade you to be treated by Him, because this Doctor respects your freedom and choice, and He does not need advertising. This Doctor simply sincerely wants to help you because he loves you. He is counting on your trust in Him and your fulfillment of His instructions.

If you still have little trust and therefore are still afraid to turn to Him, remember that you are not risking anything. You can commit suicide even after only a year of spiritual life. After all, you still have nothing to lose.

How does God heal heartache?

We have already found out that pain is caused by violations of the needs of the soul. This means that this pain must be treated by satisfying these needs.

Do not believe that the lists of human needs that are widely spread and practically canonized by populist psychologists (the most famous of them is Maslow’s pyramid), including self-realization, recognition, social status, communication, affection - this is really what a person needs. Even if you score 100 out of 100 according to this list, you will not be happy. Because happy is the one who satisfies the needs of the soul. And they differ from the mentioned list.

The main and only need of the soul is actually love. And God is love. Drawing closer to God increases love. Moving away from God through sins reduces love and increases mental pain.

This means that the soul does not need some little things. She needs God Himself. Only He can satisfy her needs.

And He is ready to give Himself to us. He wants to give himself to us and through this save us from pain and enlighten our souls with love.

Prayer is compared to the breath of the soul or food for the soul. Those who prayed experienced the truth of these comparisons for themselves. Science has not been able to touch or measure the substance that enters the soul during prayer. The Church calls this substance grace. Prayer is the fastest healer of mental pain.

An equally necessary source of grace for a person is the communion of the body and Blood of Christ. This article is not theological. We only want to show you the only true way to heal your soul from its pain. Therefore, regarding the great miracle of communion, we will only say that the fruits of this miracle are undoubted and tangible. Many people I know got rid of severe psychological disorders, physical illnesses, despair, depression after taking communion, and once, almost before my eyes, a woman recovered from melanoma (very aggressive malignant tumor). Communion is preceded by the healing sacrament of repentance - confession. During confession, a person is forgiven all his confessed sins. It’s as if all the nails that he stuck into it are removed from his soul, and all the wounds he inflicts on himself are healed. A person's conscience becomes clear. Do you still remember how good it feels when your conscience is clear?

One can be satisfied with the short-term effect, the successful survival of a certain crisis. But then a new crisis will soon come. Perhaps heavier than before. If you do not want to experience pain, if you want to live in love and joy, you need to take care of your soul constantly.

You need to train yourself to give the soul what it needs and not do what hurts it. To do this you need to change your habits.

This is a long process that requires constant attention and effort. But as you, with the help of the Doctor, find your mistakes and correct them in the depths of your soul, the heaviness will leave you, a feeling of true joy will fill your soul.

The main work will be done not by you, but by this unappreciated, omniscient, loving Doctor. All you have to do is accept this wonderful gift of healing.

If you want to be physically healthy, you must follow the rules of hygiene. If you want to be mentally healthy, then you also need to observe your hygiene standards). As Professor Zurab Kekelidze, Deputy Director of the State scientific center social and forensic psychiatry named after V.P. Serbsky: “There is such a thing as mental hygiene. Don't do anything that harms your mental health! Read the Ten Commandments - everything is written there! We don’t know the laws, we do a lot of stupid things.”

This is evidenced by the experience of generations who lived before us. They understood this well, saw it, felt the results, and passed it on to their children.

And don’t scold the pain, don’t complain about it, don’t suffer, but go treat it.

 ( Pobedesh.ru 69 votes: 4.1 out of 5)

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A. Demkin
If your soul hurts... What to do if your soul feels bad?

© 2011-2015, Andrey Demkin, St. Petersburg.
Reprinting or other full or partial reproduction of the material is permitted only with the written permission of the author.

What to do if your soul hurts, if your soul feels bad?

10 steps to overcome the crisis.

10 steps of personal experience of overcoming a mental crisis. One of the possible solutions.

“Without sorrow there is no salvation, but the Kingdom of Heaven awaits those who endure.”
Venerable Seraphim of Sarov

Each of us has had, has and will have moments or periods when the soul feels unbearably bad, when the soul hurts and grieves. I don’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone. I don’t want to eat, I don’t want to move... At such moments, I can’t believe that someday my soul will get over the pain and learn to rejoice again. It is impossible to look into the future in such a state. You see only a blank wall in front of you and bitter losses or mistakes behind you. Can't sleep at night. There is no strength for anything... To get out of this state of mind very, very hard. My soul hurts, my soul feels bad...

Sometimes events happen in our lives that interrupt the emotionally calm flow of our lives. Whether we are losing people or our sense of self-worth, there is meaning in the turmoil of overwhelming experiences. own life suddenly becomes unclear, the emotional wounds are multiple, and the pain from them is unbearable. Mental pain, originating inside, penetrates through in search of a way out. What to do if your soul hurts? Let's look at the stages and methods of healing mental pain and emotional wounds. This article is about how to let pain go away through a wound, understanding its necessity and going through all the stages of transforming yourself in order to free yourself.

Why, when you feel pain, you shouldn’t try to get rid of it.

Being present while feeling pain is so simple, and yet it can be incredibly difficult.

It takes great courage to feel pain and not rush to heal it, dull it, avoid it, or cover it up with something. This is exactly the moment when you just need to give up. There comes a time in the healing process when all the books have been read, all the gurus have been consulted and all the cool techniques have been tried, and all that remains is what you least want to do - feel your painful emotions. The irony is that it is the presence and experience of pain that ultimately leads us to what we were looking for, avoiding feeling our pain.

The key to healing emotional wounds is the willingness to endure discomfort for the sake of transformation. This willingness is necessary to truly clear and heal childhood trauma.

Discomfort can be very different:

• Misunderstanding on the part of family members
• Being present and experiencing your pain, allowing this pain to be
• Going through a period of anger or grief without knowing when these unpleasant feelings will end
• Low energy or feeling lost and unsure
• Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and receive support from others
• Distancing from once close people

Our culture strongly supports the idea of ​​instant gratification and quick results. It takes incredible courage and strength to follow the long and unglamorous path of healing, which has its own deadline. In addition to the cultural aspect, it is also worth remembering our survival instincts, which tell us to fight or take a fight if we sense danger. This is why support is so important in the healing process.

Why traditional pain avoidance models don't work.

The wounded inner child seeks relief in the only way he knows - by following his inherent family patterns, which he uses to survive the pain, but usually it is these patterns that cause it. It turns out to be a vicious circle. The way out of this is to develop the skill of caring for and comforting your inner child, and at the same time make different choices that go beyond the usual model and better reflect our true desires and needs. Forming a connection between the inner mother and the inner child helps to effectively separate from family and cultural patterns that cause suffering.

Most of us, in the process of growing up, betrayed ourselves, that is, we found ourselves in a situation where there was no other choice but to create some kind of internal rift in order to survive. This rift usually means that we have suppressed our true feelings and rejected ourselves in order to be accepted by our loved ones. To heal, it is necessary to restore the ability to to the fullest to feel our feelings and thus feel and express our truth about who we are without a hint of shame.

Although we are surrounded by messages to avoid pain, coming both from the outside, from the cultural environment, and from within, from early coping mechanisms, healing occurs only when we are present in our pain, allowing our feelings to flow like a river.

Truth is outside the comfort zone. Where our comfort zone ends, the space of separation from our dysfunctional models instilled in us by culture or environment begins.

Stages of transformation of experiences.

To learn to endure discomfort for the sake of it, you need to go through two main stages. Sometimes they may overlap, but overall it is a movement from resistance to surrender.

1) RESISTANCE

At this stage there is usually a lot of aversion to the painful feelings being experienced and avoidance of looking at them. We can try in many different ways to drown out or suppress the truth of how we feel. Resistance can manifest itself through self-sabotage, forgetfulness, overwhelm and addiction. Sometimes resistance can be useful as an internal barrier, slowing things down until we are ready to see something. And sometimes it's just avoidance of what we know we need to face.

It takes careful self-examination to see what type of resistance is at work within us. Resistance may arise at each new level of healing, but as you grow, you can become better at recognizing resistance in yourself and moving through it more easily.

Most of us give up simply because the pain of resisting becomes too much.

Eventually we learn to trust that relief requires feeling the pain rather than running from it, and we fully enjoy the taste of joy and freedom that comes from being in touch with the present within ourselves. This is an incomparable feeling - after going through pain, immerse yourself in the joy of feeling unity within yourself. This is the peace of inner harmony - feeling and expressing your true feelings without having to defend them.

It is here that there is harmony between personal imperfections and the indispensable role of each of us in the great perfection of life.

Eventually, the longing and hunger to live one's truth overshadows all other desires, including the desire to be free from pain. This hunger is truthful in its truth and leads exactly where it is needed at each present moment. Sometimes the "need" is to experience the next level internal pain. The moments of relief and bliss that come after pain is definitely worth it. Over and over again, we learn that living our pain and being present when it hurts connects us to the deep truth about ourselves.

How willingness to accept painful feelings brings freedom from pain.

It seems to me that one of the reasons why the crucifix is ​​such a powerful and common symbol in the Western world is because it symbolizes what is most difficult - the willingness to accept and be present with your painful feelings.

When we allow ourselves to live from the present, a new inner space emerges.

When we do the inner work, commitment eventually arises: first exhilaration, then hunger and a fierce commitment to living our inner truth. A desire is formed to live every moment from the deep fire of your true self. Each moment begins to be seen as an opportunity to live from a simple open awareness of what is.

Pain brings us a message.

Many of us have nostalgia deep inside us. Nameless melancholy and aching grief. Many experienced this as children in their relationship with their mother - a feeling of having no ground under their feet and being left to the mercy of fate. Diving into this feeling of nostalgia in the mother wound eventually leads to the realization that we cannot be truly abandoned. This becomes possible when we cultivate a loving inner mother for our inner child, living her deepest despair.

This despair opens the door to our source - to the unified awareness in which everything is one.

In this way, our pain carries a message. This is a message that it is time to return home, to your original home within yourself, that is, to the awareness of your true identity - Consciousness, to the knowledge that we are spirit, and it is impossible to actually harm us or abandon us, because we are one with everything that exists .

I remember moments in my own healing process when I worked through the layers of grief in the mother wound, the feelings of worthlessness and the desire to die. And in the willingness to just feel the depth of this incredible despair and grief, I knew that I had reached rock bottom. There was no deeper pain than this. This pain was at the very foundation. And standing on that foundation, and being present with my deepest pain, I was free.

To free yourself from pain, you need to feel it.

By being present with our pain, we begin to realize that all the pain we feel is not the truth of who we really are. We begin to see that we are truly the open, loving presence that we embody when we are immersed in our pain. This is our true nature under all other masks.

The culmination of living the “self” is living the “absence of self,” that is, the endless loving space that lovingly bears witness to our pain and completely embraces it. This is what a healthy mother does for her child. Rupert Spira once said that mindfulness is like the space of a room: it unconditionally accepts everything that happens in that room. Likewise, a child needs a mother who is unconditionally present and accepting for healthy development. However, the mother is a simple person with her own shortcomings, who is prone to making mistakes. We are all wounded to some degree by our mothers.

This primal sacred wound calls us to become that loving mother to ourselves. and for all life.

By embodying the unconditional love of the inner mother, we reconnect with life itself. We reconnect with the center where there is neither birth nor death, which is constantly being born and dying in countless forms. This is the stage of evolution that lies in the pain of maternal trauma.

We women grew up believing that divine powers were beyond us. In the process of healing, the realization comes that the most desirable for us, the most sacred, eternal and pure is within ourselves and has always been there. In fact, this is and there is We. Not one or some of us, but each of us equally, for each of us is life.

We are all connected, so every time you lovingly experience your own pain, you activate the power of unity in everyone.

If your soul hurts, patiently go through all the stages of healing mental pain. Don't bury emotional wounds in new experiences that you may not be ready for. For the pain to go away, it must go away.

Fragment of the book Mlodik I.Yu. Where you are not yet... Psychotherapy as liberation from illusions. - M.: Genesis, 2010

What to do when your soul hurts? You can go to friends, wise older adults, fortune tellers or priests. They will help, support with advice, and everything will be fine, you will feel better... But at each new stage, life poses new tasks that need to be solved. And then it turns out that the problem is not as simple as it seemed at first, and you cannot cope with it on your own. That's when a psychotherapist comes to the rescue.

Freeing yourself from illusions

If your soul hurts...

Every person has a toothache at least once in their life, well, at least once. And then he knows what to do - go to the dentist. He has no doubt that he cannot cope without the help of a specially trained person. He goes and gets help. It's simple.

But what to do if it’s not your teeth that hurt, but your soul? Or even the soul does not hurt, but there are problems, insomnia, everything is not as we would like. A person lives for himself, but there is no happiness, continuous troubles and melancholy. Then where to go? They often turn to friends, priests, and wise adults. They read books, go to fortune tellers to find out the future, to clairvoyants and psychics to remove damage. And it helps! And good.

All of the above will listen, share their experience with you, give advice, and remove the damage. You will feel better... until your next problem arises. And they will certainly come, not because there is something wrong with you, but because at every stage life presents us with new tasks that we all have to solve. And then what should you do, should you really run again to those who give advice regarding your unique situation and unique life?

A consultation usually takes an hour, and what the client who contacts us leaves with is a new vision of his problem, slightly expanded horizons, a slightly different, previously invisible focus. For some, this is quite enough. Now he will be able to move on with his life and try to approach his problem from completely different angles.

Sometimes a client who comes to us during a meeting understands that the problem is not as simple as it seemed to him at first, and without outside help, he is not able to solve it on his own. Need an accompanying person. And then both the psychologist and his client focus on the identified problem and begin to solve it. If a problem, symptom, request has recently arisen and does not have roots in deep childhood, then, most likely, several meetings will be quite enough. But if the client’s difficulties have a long history and are associated with many layers of his psyche, then methods aimed at short-term treatment can only bring temporary relief. In this case, longer-term and large-scale work will be required, which may take more than one month or even more than one year.

Psychotherapy is...

There is another type of psychological help, which I wrote this book about. In our country it is called psychotherapy, which, strictly speaking, is not entirely terminologically correct, since psychotherapy in the West involves medication support and is carried out by psychiatrists or psychotherapists, that is, people with medical education. This is not the case in our country. In our country, a psychotherapist is secretly called any psychologist who helps a person get to know himself and change his life.

People who have nothing to do with psychology often ask me, what is psychotherapy? Who needs it? What is it? Why spend so much time and money on this event? I periodically experience awkwardness and despair because I cannot simply describe what I have been doing for so long. What psychotherapy is cannot be explained in a few words. Helping someone in a difficult situation? No, not that, it’s rather about the processes that I described above. “Healing the soul” - if translated literally? Closer, but also not the same. “The path, the journey” - this is how many psychotherapists talk about it. Even warmer. But it's still not certain. I still can’t find one word to describe what it is.

Psychotherapy for me is, first of all, a decision once made. No, perhaps it all starts even earlier: with an honest look at your life. At some point you realize that you are not living exactly the way you want and could. And in all this, no one is to blame but yourself, you live this way because in your life you made many small and large decisions in order to now live this way. However, the understanding of this will not come to you right away; at first, like everyone else, it will seem to you that the world is unfair to you, that you have an unhappy fate, spoiled karma, that you were born under the wrong star. In addition, the people around you are evil and stupid if they don’t want to recognize your obvious talents and merits or for some reason don’t want to treat you like a human being.

And if at some very bright but difficult moment it becomes obvious to you that, it turns out, it is useless to wait until the world decides to restore justice and give you what you deserve, and you understand that, no matter how you look at it, you will have to start with yourself , that's when you find yourself in my office. So, in fact, it all begins with unspoken, but brewing questions somewhere deep: Who am I? Why does this happen to me? What needs to be done to prevent this from happening? What do I need to change in my life? And how to do this? And sometimes you are already in so much pain and bad that you have no doubt that you absolutely need to change your life and as quickly as possible.

So, the first stage of psychotherapy is still somehow connected with the presence of some level of discomfort in a person’s life. After all, if you feel good, then there is no motivation to change. So it turns out that crisis, suffering, worry, pain bring us to psychotherapy. And at that moment we hate this state, although in fact we should be grateful to it, because it is the discomfort that visits every person during the transition from one stage of life to another that gives us the impetus for development, movement, transformation.

Why do we need our problems?

Our life is cyclical. This is how everything works in nature: day gives way to night, summer to autumn, youth to maturity. Likewise, in our psyche there is a need for alternation. There are periods of calm, joy, contentment. But each of us knows that if we stay in them for a long time, then calm turns into boredom, joy gives way to satiety, and contentment turns into melancholy. And then we want something new in order to get at least a little out of balance and begin to fight again so that peace and security are restored.

As paradoxical as it may sound, we should be grateful for our problems and troubles. After all, crises, troubles, changes in our lives happen so that we have the opportunity to learn something new, to become a little different. But the trouble is that some people do not know how to use crises and problems for development. They are afraid of problems and spend a lot of effort and energy trying to avoid them, and ultimately avoid changes in themselves. But, as a rule, it is not possible to completely avoid problems, and then we most often react to crisis or difficult situations with a set of our previous behavior patterns, a set of our existing stereotypes. As a result, either the crisis is overcome with difficulty, or we are still forced to make some new decision for ourselves.

So, your life is painful, bad, or simply uncomfortable. This means that your previous patterns of behavior, views on life, methods of interaction, which were probably quite effective in childhood or adolescence, now do not save you, do not help, they simply do not work at the new stage of your life. Most likely not all, but some may be the most important at this moment. Very often you don’t even realize what these patterns are, how exactly you act and how else you can act in such situations. Moreover, the tougher your upbringing was, the firmer the beliefs of your parents, the narrower your idea of ​​how the world works will be. As a child, restrictions and restrictions were necessary to ensure your safety. But when you grow up, it is important for you to learn to look at the world more broadly. It is very difficult to do this without outside help, partly because you are already completely convinced that the world works exactly the way you are used to perceiving it. That if you work hard or help everyone, denying yourself everything, then you will be happy. Or if you are obedient, good, sacrifice yourself to an idea or a person, then you will certainly receive retribution or a reward.

But over time, you realize that so much effort has already been put into achieving all this, but it just doesn’t work out: your loved ones leave you, your parents are still dissatisfied with something, your bosses don’t recognize your happiness, rewards, or rewards. How so? You tried so hard! And how else can this be explained if not by global injustice? It is possible to explain. For example, your reluctance to say goodbye to childhood ideas and illusions. Moreover, for some time you will not be ready to even agree that these are illusions. And rightly so - this requires time and someone’s gaze that will help you see what your established ideas lead to in your present life.

At first, you may encounter such discoveries with resistance. And this is understandable. Since childhood, your psyche has built itself fortress walls and bastions in case of any surprises and troubles, and now it is not ready to so easily give you these walls to be torn to pieces. Who will protect you if you destroy all the walls? What if someone or something hurts or injures you? Are you without walls? And what will protect you then? This is precisely why the restructuring of your ideas and defenses will occur very gradually. After all, fortunately, a psychotherapist will not be able to quickly destroy old defenses: your psyche will stubbornly fight to maintain its internal ecology.

Example. As a child, the main value in your family was to be smart, to study a lot and constantly, to shine with erudition, to constantly improve your intellectual level. Therefore, you had no choice but to study a lot, demonstrate your knowledge all the time in order to be accepted and loved in your family, because it is almost impossible for an outcast child to survive. You did great at school and college - you knew how to study and share your knowledge to the delight of your teachers and parents. But here it comes new stage in your life: you come to work, and there you no longer need your ability to learn or demonstrate your intelligence, you need to be able to interact with people or make responsible choices or come up with non-standard solutions. And you continue to shine with erudition, and you don’t understand why your colleagues don’t respect you, and your bosses think that you’re not doing a good job. You are so smart! Smarter than them all! You try to be smarter even more, and for some reason this leads to even worse results...

Then a new stage in your life begins. All your peers have already fallen in love more than once, some have already gotten married, and the especially gifted ones have even divorced. And you never had a normal long-term relationship. And it’s clear why, firstly, all girls are terrible fools. It's boring with them. And if you start telling them about some new theory, their gaze glazes over and further conversation loses all meaning. They are interested in you, but not for long, because they cannot keep the meaning of what you are telling them in focus for a long time. There is no way you can catch that they want to hear something else instead of your theories. But what?

And now you are in crisis. Discontent is beginning to accumulate on all fronts. At the same time, you don’t understand at all why? After all, you did everything right: you studied, you know a lot, then why is everything like this?

Friends, if you have them, of course, will say: “Keep it simple and that’s all. Don't be smart. Relax. Be your own guy." And thereby they will encroach on your protection. Not only do you not know what it’s like to be simpler? So you still don’t understand what it’s like to give up measuring the world with your intellectual ruler. And then what? Why are not the smartest people successful? And why don’t they receive the most money and, in general, all earthly goods? How to live then? What to start from?

Therefore, you cannot be simpler, no matter how hard you try. Yes, that's good. Because in reality you are no longer simple. You don’t need to become simpler, but wider, bigger, deeper. It’s not to remove the mind, but to build up other abilities, skills, models. Learn to listen to yourself, for example, and trust not only knowledge and logic, but also intuition, master the language of feelings that is difficult for you, accept your own possible stupidity and limitations, then it will be easier to accept someone else’s, get to know yourself and begin to appreciate your unusual personality without only for high intelligence.

You won't change

Psychotherapy will not take away your previous way of living; you can always use your previous models if you want to return to them, or if at some stage of your life they best suit it. But with its help, you will learn about numerous options, among which there will be those that are much more suitable for the new situation than the previous, established and proven ones. From some beginning clients, I have heard more than once about such a popular “horror story”: psychotherapy can change you, you will become completely different and stop being yourself. I admit, I was once afraid of this too. But my own client and psychotherapeutic experience suggests the opposite: you will remain yourself, even if you very much want to become someone else. There is something very deep and unchanging inside that will not change in you for the rest of your life, no matter how much effort you put into it. But what is almost guaranteed to happen to you at meetings with a psychologist is that you will become even more yourself than you were before.

While you were growing and maturing, people around you saw you, as a rule, from one side, well, at most from two, and very soon you yourself began to consider yourself that way. And if it weren’t for the crisis and psychotherapy, you might never have known what else you were capable of. After all, in fact, every person is a huge world, an entire universe, huge, vast, unknowable. But most people are accustomed to perceiving themselves as a small city, a tiny village, a small foggy island, not wanting to come into contact with their own greatness and incomprehensibility. Their reluctance is understandable. After all, if you get even a little in touch with your own depth and power, then it will no longer be possible to pretend that you don’t know how talented you are and what potential you have. And then your knowledge will demand from you, demand implementation, development, growth. Do we need it? - that part of you that wants comfort, peace, stability will always ask this.

Therefore, psychotherapy is certainly a risk. The risk of not returning to your previous childish and illusory ideas about the world, the risk of losing the idea of ​​your former self, the risk of greater knowledge about yourself, which you will somehow have to deal with. And the person going on this is not at all fun, but extremely exciting journey in your own universe - a real hero. A hero in every sense of the word, now regularly and planned (like the famous baron) accomplishing his feat.

More than once during this journey you will want to stop or stop everything. This is also understandable and even normal: it is expensive, and it is wrong to open your internal territories all the time. Having opened them, they still need to be explored, mastered, and inhabited. Without this, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to move on. Therefore, if sometimes it seems to you that your psychotherapy is “stalling”, or you really want to take a break, then, as a rule, there are reasons for this. And one of these reasons will be the desire to live with what you have learned, to master what has been revealed, to accept it, to make it yours. A healthy body requires alternating periods of calm and satisfaction with periods of change, development and growth. A psychotherapist will help you notice at what period your psyche is stuck for some reason. Since the need for security is basic, and the need for growth and development is more high level, then most often we choose safety at the expense of everything else. This is understandable if a person does not feel strong, deep, and self-confident.

One of the goals of psychotherapy will be to return your integrity to you, and therefore the more you learn about yourself, the more actively you assign it to yourself, the more strength, interest, confidence and desire to develop you will have. Psychotherapy is a self-inducing process. The more you take care of yourself, the more desires and opportunities you have to discover more and more in yourself. Is there a finality to this process? Everything will depend on your life goals, needs and intentions. How long can you recognize the universe? As much as you want.

Psychotherapy doesn't make people happier

This is true. She makes them more mature. If our clients come to us for happiness, they will be greatly disappointed. Once upon a time as children, the world generously gave us big spoonfuls of happiness, at least for some of us. It was so easy to amaze, please, impress us, but the older we got, the less opportunities the world had to do this, and from year to year we lost the childish acuity of impressions. At some point, we began to feel how what had previously belonged to us by right was flowing away from us, and we certainly had a subconscious desire to return all the positive and magical things that we experienced at the time when the trees were big. How difficult it is to come to terms with the fact that this is also an illusion. Because it is impossible to return it. Psychotherapy will help you understand this simple truth. And you will be sad from this realization, I assure you. But at the same time, you will stop spending a lot of time, effort and energy trying to return what is irrevocable.

Paradoxically, despite the fact that we develop and grow, something in us always wants to go back - to the good things that were. We - not always consciously - want to regain our childhood feeling of security, joy, inclusion in life, which is perhaps why we hold on so tightly to our childhood illusions and defenses. But we are getting older, and life at each next stage presents us with more and more new challenges, which often cannot be answered using previous models, means and ways of living.

Perhaps, therefore, one of the tasks of psychotherapy will be to help you grow up, that is, to bring your real age into line with your psychological age. Not many people in our country match the dates of birth indicated in their passports. It is even considered fashionable to appear younger. But you will always feel the difference between “being young,” “looking young,” and “looking young,” that is, for some reason, running away from your real age, pretending that it doesn’t really concern you. This looks, you see, at least sad.

Some people, having received psychological trauma at a certain point in their lives, remain at the psychological age at which this trauma was received, or return to this age at those moments when something similar to that childhood psychological trauma occurs. I have seen a lot of very middle-aged people who behave like five-year-old children, many whose behavior “pulls” only on primary school, and countless numbers of those who never “passed” the peak teenage crisis. What's bad? - you ask. At a minimum, because you lose the opportunity to live through all other ages.

A grandmother who behaves like a scared, insecure little girl forever loses the opportunity to live life like a young girl, adult woman, a mature and wise representative of the human race, of course, if she refuses to even begin this fascinating journey called “psychotherapy”. But this grandmother, no matter how small she was inside, still had to solve adult problems: giving birth and raising children, running a house, making a career. And it is quite obvious that doing all this is terribly difficult with an immature, undeveloped psyche. It is not at all easy for little girls to cope with adult affairs. Therefore, such a grandmother, as a rule, by the age of sixty will already have a bunch of diseases, not only because she is entitled to it by age, but to a greater extent because her body is already tired of withstanding the overstrain that she has experienced all her life.

Whether it’s good or bad, even without any psychotherapy you will be able to solve most of the problems life has set for you; the only question is what price you have to pay for it. How much energy will you spend, how will this affect your health... In addition, it is important to understand that those who still managed to grow up and those whose passport and psychological age are brought into line will always be more successful, richer, more fruitful than those with whom this didn't happen. Just because they won't spend as much vital energy to maintain children's illusions.

So your life will not become happier with the help of psychotherapy. In any case, I wouldn’t write you a guarantee card for happiness, but it will definitely become more and more qualitative, interesting, and fulfilling. This does not mean that there will no longer be problems or difficulties. They will be if you do not live in a fairy tale that you have invented for yourself. But you will cope with them much easier, each time learning something new about yourself and the world, mastering new abilities and opportunities.

Those who tried with all their might to avoid some kind of internal catastrophe, learned only how to avoid. The one who experienced it and comprehended it realized how strong, wise and persistent he was. He is no longer afraid of such catastrophes. He has the opportunity to meet everything new that life presents to him. And all because he has more and more experience in coping with a variety of problems and situations, while becoming more voluminous and multifaceted.

Those who live in childish fear of disasters spend their lives anxiously waiting, building their lives under the paranoid motto “as if nothing would happen.” And in this sense, they are already living in their inner catastrophe, from which they so painfully run away, wasting days of their precious life on it. It’s scary to change apartments, change jobs, go to another country, meet new people, give up old habits. It may be bad, you may not like it, it may even torment you, it may bring you suffering, but it is familiar, known, predictable. It is ironic that the tombstone inscription “Nothing ever happened to him” would be the worst possible way to live your life.

Why grow up anyway?

This is truly unprofitable, especially for those who manage you. When you were a child, your parents were responsible for you, they showed with all their behavior: life is like this, we live according to these laws, and you will live the same way. And you agreed, because the child needs to be guided by someone. Perhaps you protested as a teenager, that is, you did the opposite, no matter whether you really wanted to or not. But no matter what you do, it doesn’t matter if you are over thirty, then you may be surprised to notice that in some ways you are repeating the life of your parents, even if you firmly swore as a child never to do this.

We must consist of something. So we consist of the flesh and blood of our parents, which carries their own genotype, and our psyche consists of their attitudes, models, principles, outlook on life. And whether you like it or not, it’s worth admitting: we are mediated and conditioned by the fact that we are someone else’s continuation. And while we were children, we did not have many opportunities to resist the attitudes of the adult world, to challenge them, to question them, to do it our own way. In some ways we had to submit simply because the power was in the hands of adults.

As we grew older, we had more and more opportunities to decide something for ourselves, to choose how to act, what to do. We became freer, not noticing how, having tried everything that was forbidden to us, we returned to what we grew up in, not realizing that we were surrounding ourselves with what would implicitly remind us of our childhood times. Have you ever wondered why some men live with women who suppress them or endlessly make scandals, criticize them, and devalue them? Why don’t women leave men who humiliate, insult, or beat them? What causes them to remain in apparent misery? Not only the fear of change and the fear of starting over, but also a hidden desire to organize the situation of childhood for yourself, reproducing what has already happened to you before. And the saddest thing is that most people are not even ready to admit to themselves that everything is repeating itself: they walk in a circle, around which invisible rakes are densely scattered.

Well, if your parents were “bad”, and your childhood was traumatic and unimportant, then it’s probably worth getting treatment, you say. But if your parents were wonderful and your childhood was happy, then it’s quite possible to become just like them - rich, healthy, successful. It's possible, but it won't work. Because you won’t become like them anyway. They went their own way in their time, but you have to go through yours, and you cannot do this by stepping foot after foot. Yes, and you are not their clone, but a separate and unique personality, which you would still do well to recognize, because in any case, you live in a slightly different time, at least with a twenty-year gap. Of course, adults, harmoniously developed parents, can help their child find himself and his path. But help, and not do it for him.

Do you tremble when your boss scolds you, are you afraid of your mother-in-law, do you tense up when someone older than you addresses you? Of course, you don’t believe in Santa Claus, but for some reason you really want to believe in the good “Father Tsar”, a good president, or at least in the existence of world justice? This means that you are still there, on children's land. I hear your outrage. I make responsible decisions! I make difficult choices, make money! I have children myself! I believe. “Children” can also be responsible, make decisions and even earn money.

An adult is one who creates his own life, one who lives authentically, that is, according to himself. The way he likes it, the way it suits him, in accordance with the values ​​he chooses. An adult is his own legislator and judge. Even if he does something that is contrary to the laws of the state, he is aware that the consequences will certainly come. Therefore, he makes any choices and decisions himself, and is ready to pay a certain price for them. An adult does not feel shame because there is no finger from above that can point at him and say: “What a bad boy! You're doing everything wrong! Shame on you!”, since he is right or wrong, good or bad - now only he decides.

And before you understand how you should build your life, you should decide who you are. What is unchangeable about you, what you have to come to terms with, and what you really want, and most importantly, can change. Which parental ideas and attitudes suit you personally, and which ones only interfere with your life. Realize what you should thank your parents for and what is difficult to forget and forgive. Get angry for what they did wrong to you by “showing bills” and realizing that no one will pay you for them. And after all this, forgive them, realizing that they were not ideal gods who came to earth to make your life happy, but simply people living their lives and making mistakes, like all mortals. Like you yourself, now raising your own children. And, having become acquainted with your childhood expectations, illusions, ideas about the world, reviewing them and choosing those that suit you for a given period of life, you move on, moving along the age scale, completing at each age what at one time according to what - for some reason it was not possible to finish, completing what for some reason could not be completed.

Have you noticed that old people are different? If we roughly divide them into two subspecies, then there are those who exude wisdom and peace - it is pleasant to be with them, young people are drawn to them, because next to them you feel accepted, understood, good. They accept their old age, they know a lot about life, but they will never offer advice and guidance unless you ask. They know and accept themselves, so it is easy for them to accept the people around them, the life they live, and even death, which becomes closer every day they live.

And there are those who did not allow themselves much of what they wanted in life, and therefore envy the young people who still have everything ahead of them. Their ideas about life are rigid, and therefore they panic or become angry when changes come or events occur that do not fit well with their usual views. They are bitter, demanding, critical, dissatisfied with everyone around them, largely because they are dissatisfied with themselves and the way their lives have turned out. They are afraid of death, because it is the end of everything, and “they never had time to live for themselves.” This second subspecies is the same old people who, for some reason, never matured.

So, in my opinion, it’s still worth growing up. At least in order to live your life, and not someone else’s. And also, perhaps, in order to live with the feeling that you are discovering an unknown land, creating your own destiny, weaving your own unique carpet of actions and events, and not just every day your most valuable and only life you try to do everything in such a way as to avoid trouble, condemnation and punishment from someone who decides that he has the right to know how to live, manage you and judge you.

Waste of time and money?

Psychotherapy is expensive. Even in our country. And it is not surprising that this is so. Not only because psychotherapists themselves also undergo their own psychotherapy, take supervision from more experienced colleagues, and constantly train, spending a lot of time, money and effort on this. But also because this is a difficult profession, requiring not only a good education, high qualifications, but also the ability to withstand the emotions of clients, their transferences, feelings directed towards us, but not directly related to us. This is a profession that requires us to have great psychological stability combined with high receptivity, responsibility and spiritual strength combined with fine mental organization, excellent analytical abilities and the ability to sense the slightest shades of feelings. We must be able to help and sympathize with other people, but not let them violate our personal boundaries, not transfer our own problems and difficulties onto our clients, be able to endure other people’s aggression, be guardian of our own interests, while remaining humanistic, accepting, and effective.

A person is kind by nature, and when his loved one or even not so close close person gets into trouble, the desire to help and save is as obvious as it is natural. Not even three tears from the unfortunate victim have been shed before almost every kind person like this begins to enthusiastically play the role of rescuer.

What do true girlfriends do if one of them has just been left by her husband? They immediately gather a council. And they suggest: “quickly stop crying”, “immediately forget this bastard”, put on your best dress, go unwind and find someone else right this evening. All these tips and suggestions will be exactly the opposite of what a woman experiencing stress and loss should do from a professional point of view. And if the unfortunate woman begins to resist and does not want to do all this, then her friends will definitely be disappointed, and their rescue ardor will very quickly subside. In this case, the poor woman will remain not only “abandoned” by her husband, but also misunderstood by her own friends.

Let's return to the metaphor with the dentist: you have a toothache, and instead of the doctor with his medicines, drills and fillings, you go to a friend and tell him:

The tooth hurts, can you imagine, this is already the second day!

And he tells you this:

Yes, forget it, think about it! Yesterday my head was spinning! And you are a tooth!

Does your tooth hurt? Go eat something sweet and take your mind off it...

It’s a pity that it’s rare that anyone can send a person with mental problems exactly where they need to go: to a psychologist or psychotherapist. And the point, of course, is not only that our profession is perceived by ignorant people as emotionally loaded, unsafe, with fear of ruining our reputation. But also the fact that people have little idea of ​​what kind of process this is. Psychotherapy is not a rescue, as it might seem at first glance, it is a method of professional help and support.

This is what I'm paying for if my therapist just sits and listens to me? - I often hear from people who are not very involved in psychology. But, firstly, you probably don’t even notice how rarely they listen to you carefully. Indeed, in ordinary life, not in a psychotherapist’s office, many people like to talk more about themselves than to listen. They love to give advice, even when you don't ask for it at all. They offer you solutions that are easy from their point of view, for which you are not at all ready, they push their own experience and mind, instead of helping you acquire your own. They will stop your feelings: don’t cry, don’t be afraid, spit, forget, quit, start all over again. Instead of helping you discover and live what has not been lived and is preventing you from living on. Help you understand yourself and make the only right decision from your point of view. While helping you, they will unconsciously think about themselves, and not about you, about how generous and kind they are, saving someone who is in trouble. And if you don’t get out of trouble soon, then they may begin to actively push you, and if you still do poorly, they may lose interest in you, because they want to be directly involved in someone’s salvation.

Rescue makes a dependent victim out of a person, psychotherapy helps to become personally richer from what has been experienced, smarter from what has been revealed, clearer from an honest look at oneself and more confident from the awareness of the ability to survive difficulties, becoming even wiser and more holistic.

Therefore, to the suggestion “Why should I go to a psychotherapist, I can drink vodka with my friends?” I answer: “You can.” It’s up to you to decide what to do and what to spend your time and money on.” I tell my clients: “Psychotherapy is not a waste of money, it is an investment, an investment in the most important and responsible project: in your own life, in yourself.” I think the same about my personal psychotherapy and I know for sure that my investments continue to pay off with interest.

We know them, these psychotherapists!

I have repeatedly encountered with fears And misconceptions potential and actual clients regarding how things are going. The most common of them are:

A therapist has the superpower of seeing right through you. He somehow finds out about you even what you don’t want to know at all, much less reveal to someone else. You are afraid that someone will see through you and take advantage of you.

There is some basis for this fear. When you were little, your parents, having certain intentions, could see you in full view and easily read your feelings, including those that you would like to hide. It is possible that one of them used this for their own purposes. And now it’s hard for you to believe that the person who is able to “see through” you will not use his knowledge.

In fact, even an experienced therapist with empathy and the ability to read your body's signals can only guess what is happening to you. A good psychologist will do exactly this - ask you what is really happening to you, as a last resort, put forward your versions. It is important for a good professional not to be right or great by “seeing through” your ins and outs, but to lead you to an honest look at yourself and how you live. And then it’s up to you to decide what to do with what has been revealed to you. You may well say: “It’s not like that. I don't agree!

The therapist will make you a completely different person at his own discretion.

Maybe, if he really wants to, he will violate all possible ethical standards. In general, your psychological defenses reliably protect you from the interference of another person. You will experience resistance when faced with something that is difficult for you or something that you are not yet ready for. A good psychotherapist works correctly with your resistance until you become aware of it and decide what to do with it: resist further or try something difficult, unusual, but new for you, expand your horizons. Fortunately, the human psyche is sufficiently protected even from the most “friendly” invasion. No one has the power to completely change you or even just change you even a little against your will, of course, unless you start doing it maliciously. And even then, there must be a strong hole, a trauma, in your psyche to allow this to be done to you.

Most psychotherapists still do not have this malicious intent, although in our country, and in any other, you can always end up with a not very strong professional. If you had a bad tooth treatment once, you don’t put the thought in your head: never go to the dentist again. You're just looking for someone else.

The psychotherapist makes you dependent on himself, wanting to extract more money from you. You will certainly develop some emotional connection with your therapist, and perhaps even an addiction. A certain stage of psychotherapy may be accompanied by the emergence of a variety of feelings for your psychologist: from fierce hatred to great love. Fierce hatred will strongly provoke you to immediately quit everything (although this is often so ineffective, because with a high degree of probability it means that you have approached an important part of the work - negative transference!), and then the therapist will suggest that you still stay in relationships to understand this difficult but absolutely necessary process for you. You may mistake his persistence for a manipulative desire to pursue only his own interests, but this is not always the case. Rather, on the contrary, the less experienced the psychotherapist, the more joyfully he will let you go, unwilling or unable to withstand your strong negative feelings, and the more experience he has, the more willing he will be to go through all this with you in order for you to find yourself, psychologically separated from parental figures.

“Great love” is most often also explained by transference, that is, you love a not entirely real person - your psychologist, you personally don’t know him that well, you love a certain image: parental, rescue, or some other. This love is absolutely necessary for you - you trust someone else with something very personal, reverent, and important. And you need to believe in your therapist, just as children believe that their mother is the best. Without this it is very difficult to grow and develop. A good specialist always understands this and does not use your love for his own purposes, knowing that as you grow older, you will gradually stop depending so much on him and begin to see him as real.

Psychotherapy is only needed for mentally ill people.

This is certainly not the case. Mentally ill people also receive psychotherapeutic help because they too have problems that are difficult for them to cope with. But this process will also be very useful for a mentally healthy person. Since the life of any person is a series of a wide variety of crises, from natural age-related ones to unplanned eventual ones, not everyone can be able to go through them as efficiently and adequately as possible. No person has lived his life twice in a row, and therefore no one can be prepared in advance for what a new age or new situation will bring him. Other people's experience, as a rule, has little application to your life. In addition, it is almost impossible to live through your childhood and adolescence without receiving a single injury. It is quite difficult to have exclusively healthy people around you who have not caused you any harm.

Of course, there are people who achieve maturity and enlightenment in other ways. And it’s great that these methods exist! It's better for you - you can choose the one that suits you best.

Who needs this?

Anyone who has problems and difficulties, who does not live the way they would like. Anyone who is interested in people and himself, who wants to understand himself and his loved ones: children, spouses, parents. For those who want to live a quality life, and I’m not afraid of this word, effectively. Those who don’t want to get sick, but want to listen to their body and not abuse it by placing it in such intense psychological conditions that will make any body writhe and wither. For those who are ready to ask questions and not swallow other people's answers. Who at least somewhat believes that he is unique, complex, inimitable. This means it is worthy of study, at least by itself.

For children This is necessary in order to correct in time those unexpected mistakes or unconscious harm that adults have inflicted on them. Sometimes they just need help to adapt to the environment and life in which they are forced to live. Some of them need to be supported, talent recognized, and helped to open up. Some of them simply lack sympathetic and non-exploitative attention, interest in their lives beyond the usual roles of “student”, “son”, “well-mannered boy”.

For men - in order to learn to recognize your fears and become calmer and more confident from this, to understand your feelings in order to better understand the feelings of the people around you: women, children, colleagues, bosses. In order to understand that the woman with whom he shares the days of his life is not a savior, not a mother or a servant, but a loved one, very different from himself, ready to love and care, but also living with his own goals and objectives. In order to begin to respect yourself and your business and in the most natural way receive the appropriate money for it. Real, and not compensatory, self-confidence will help him respect any person, even those very different from himself.

Women - to recognize your beauty and strength. Discover in yourself the ability not only to understand everyone, get into a position, smooth out corners and avoid conflicts, but also the need and opportunity to protect your personal boundaries, sense your prospects and talents. To consider motherhood a happiness, and not a punishment due to the constantly induced feelings of guilt and anxiety, and your marriage as a union in which everyone can embody their best selves. To believe in your charm and ability to win hearts, regardless of the number of wrinkles or gray hair. So that wisdom is the assistant that will help her cope with everything that life brings.

Param - to her and to him, when the two of them can’t come to an agreement. When it seems to them that everyone is right in their own way, but for some reason they still can’t live together joyfully. In order to still have the opportunity to hear each other, to see reality behind the veil of expectations and fantasies hung on each other. In order to preserve and nurture the love that once happened to them. Or break up, realizing the reasons and contributions of each, so as not to repeat old mistakes in a new relationship.

For families - special complex system where people live every day. And every day something happens in it according to established laws and rules, from which they may suffer, but they are not able to realize and change it. Because if they begin to change something in it, the whole system begins to move and returns everything to its previous, long-established equilibrium. And then all they have to do is reconcile, or... come to psychotherapy with the whole family, so that each of these close people, united by kinship and common traditions, can live as well as they want, without losing sacred ties and a super-important union called "family".

Young - in order to understand yourself from youth and not waste your precious youth on anxieties, fears, uncertainty and worries, instead of getting carried away, taking risks, trying, getting to know the world in all its manifestations. In order to, having fallen in love, retain love, turning it year after year into strong, mutually nourishing relationships. So that the children they have will not carry on their weak shoulders the burden of parental problems, unresolved psychological problems, emotional difficulties, “troubles,” but can be proud of their young parents: the bravest and fairest father and the most loving and attentive mother.

Elderly - to understand your life story, admit what has not been admitted, think about what you haven’t gotten around to, forgive someone who has been difficult to forgive for many years. Enter into a partnership with your conscience and free yourself from the burden of guilt accumulated over the years. Having learned to trust young people, get rid of worries about children and grandchildren. Find new meaning in this “autumn season” of your unique life, turning your accumulated experience into wisdom that will always be in demand.

Poor - in order to understand that poverty is not a vice, but a malfunction of vital energy, lack of development of the topic of money, ancestral messages, socialist heritage or previous traumatic experience. To organize your life in such a way that financial solvency will be a natural result of professional fulfillment, in which money will be a natural result of personal success.

Rich - in order to understand what vital things they might have missed while they were earning their capital. In order to survive the crisis of dissatisfaction and emptiness, which is easy to create for yourself by treating yourself and others in a functional and one-sided way. To fill your life not only with what has not truly brought satisfaction for a long time: bills, houses, cars, yachts, travel. And to realize and arrange your life so that making money does not turn into an escape from parental dissatisfaction or a traumatically poor childhood, so that bank accounts are not a compensation for uncertainty and anxiety, a desire to take everything under control in order to avoid repeating some of your childhood stories . To make your life not a race for power and achievements, but interesting journey, in which you can be truly happy, passionate and fruitful.

What will you get?

In the process of upbringing, many people have formed certain ideas about themselves and the world. In most cases, the ideas were rigid and unambiguous with a clear set of actions and judgments, with logical reward or punishment at the end. If you are a good boy, which means studying well, doing your homework, being polite to your elders, helping your mother around the house, being friends with your class, being kind and neat, then when you grow up you will become a good engineer and family man. And if you are a bad boy as a child, you will grow up to be a bandit, you will be sent to prison, or you will die under a fence, in principle there are some options.

As children, we were given a set of stereotypes and rules to make our lives easier. After all, as it seemed to adults, it is not easy for a child’s consciousness to accommodate all the diversity of the world, its polysemy. That’s why they explained to us “what is good and what is bad,” dividing the world into black and white, simple polarity, to make it easier. Having divided the world in our minds into two tunnels - “good” and “bad” - we were encouraged to choose the one along which we should go, and without a doubt, they inclined us towards that very “white” tunnel, towards a good life good boy. So what's wrong? - you ask. After all, every parent wants their child to have a successful life, to be happy. It’s so natural for us, who have lived, to arrange a safe and understandable life for him. We want all the best for him!

Of course, parents can be understood. Life in a tunnel is much safer - the walls protect you, and you don’t have to think and choose where to go, because there are only two directions: forward and backward. And with the received instruction “just forward!” and even more so, just one. Living in a black and white world is also much easier: you can immediately see whether it is black or white. True, sometimes a gray color still appears, and then it is difficult to decide which of the previous two it belongs to... But this can be done by eye.

When solving the problems of our childhood, it was possible to cope with a black-and-white world and a tunnel to our happy future, but when we begin to grow up and life presents us with more difficult tasks than “twice two,” the child’s idea of ​​“good and bad” ceases to help us as efficiently as before.

In the process of psychotherapy, you may realize that being kind and responding to other people’s requests is, of course, good, but only gradually will you begin to notice that some people simply take advantage of your kindness, someone manipulates you deliberately, trying to get their way, that sometimes you are simply They don’t respect you because you can’t refuse, that you are always busy solving other people’s problems, and who will solve yours? In addition, you will have a chance to notice that your good deeds are often not really good, because they strengthen, for example, infantilism in others, develop in them psychological dependency, a sacrificial position, and manipulative behavior patterns. And then you will have to reconsider the usual scheme “being kind is good” or at least abandon its unambiguity and simplicity.

Previously, when your boss scolded you, at first you felt frightened, and then you felt offended, because bosses always scold very unfairly. You sulked and discussed your nasty boss with your co-workers. All this, at a minimum, annoyed the boss, and at a maximum, provoked him to be dissatisfied with you again. If you deal with your usual childhood reactions, you will gradually develop a wider range of feelings, and, accordingly, actions to the same event. Your boss is scolding you, and you can:

• get upset, because it’s always unpleasant when you are scolded, analyze and try to take into account what happened to you;
• ask your boss to explain exactly what he sees as your mistake or wrong;
• admit your mistake, apologize and correct it;
• take time for yourself, understand the situation and understand that you were right, not him, and try to respectfully convey your position to him;
• If the issue is important, and your boss still doesn’t hear you, then you can enter into a constructive confrontation with him about this issue.

In any case, all these actions of yours will cause only respect from others and the boss himself. And you will feel not like a victim, but a person with certain rights, position and personal boundaries.

This is how psychotherapy works: instead of one habitual way of reacting to a situation (which you will always have), several more may appear, often much better suited.

Instead of a black and white world, not only colors will appear, but also shades. Yes, life will be more difficult, because you will no longer be able to say: is “green” good or bad? You will say: depending on what combination, in what place, and in general - it’s neither good nor bad, it’s just “green”, and more likely “emerald”, or “herbal”, or “pistachio”.

Instead of one direction in a “only forward” tunnel, you will have the opportunity to walk, swim, fly wherever you want. Where your feet take you, where fate or your destiny calls.

And also, if you had psychological traumas and for some reason you were unable to cope with them, then the trauma in your life will be reproduced again and again, because in the psyche there is an intention to complete what was not completed. And if your trauma has not been processed and closed, then, completely unwillingly, you will attract people and events that will “help” you get into this trauma again and again. And without outside help, it will be difficult for you to even understand what exactly and why something happens to you again and again, and even more difficult to overcome it.

There is a phrase “fight with yourself.” This is considered good. This implies that there is something bad and wrong in us that is worth fighting. Struggle implies someone's victory or defeat. In this case, you - the “right” one - will defeat the “wrong” one. What do you do with the “wrong” one? Exterminate? Will you go to jail? Such a struggle leads to the fact that you do not become better, you become smaller, weaker, narrower. Man is only similar to God, but he is not God, which means he is imperfect by nature. It has everything - and a person’s task is not to destroy one thing in himself for the sake of something else, but to know as much as possible about himself, to discover and appropriate his most diverse abilities and qualities, how those that are considered “good” in everyday life, as well as those that someone might call “bad.” After all, it is not a “good” person who is happy and harmonious, but a holistic one. The one who knows his “shortcomings” accepts them and considers them to be his peculiarity, who is aware of his advantages and knows how to use them, who does not evaluate or condemn either one or the other, either in himself or in other people.

If you know and accept your “flaws”, you cannot be hurt. They will tell you: “You are fat,” and you respond with a smile and slight surprise: “Well, yes, I am aware.” If you take credit for your strengths, you will not be knocked down: no matter what happens, you know what within you you can rely on.

Your relationships with other people will be mediated by your relationships with yourself, psychologists say. This is true. If you know and accept yourself, then other people will be interesting to you; if you harshly evaluate and criticize, struggling with something in yourself, then other people will cause you irritation, a desire to criticize and redo. And you will do this to them, and in return they will do the same to those around you, including you, of course.

Words, words, words. It's sad, but nothing you read now will actually help you. Simply because what I’m talking about in this chapter is not enough to just read and understand with your head, it must be lived, because a conversation about psychotherapy differs from the process of psychotherapy itself, just as someone’s story about a journey differs from the path that you we walked step by step, kilometer by kilometer.

What is the difference between professional psychotherapy and “everyday” psychotherapy?

IN education. In our country, everyone loves to self-medicate, self-educate, and self-consolate. Everyone, it seems to them, knows how to be treated if you get sick, how to raise and teach children, how to help in case of mental problems. It is clear that we developed such a misconception not because of a good life, but because it didn’t matter with professionalism in the country, and with money too. But still, a professional differs from an amateur, first of all, by the presence of special education, which in the case of medicine, psychology, pedagogy (and in other cases too) will be systematic, that is, it will consider a person and the process in which he is located in a certain way. system integrity. This is important. If you hurt your hand, then you can anoint the wound with brilliant green, cover it with a band-aid, and everything will be fine. But if suddenly your hand begins to swell or turn red, chills begin, and the temperature rises, then it is quite obvious that your minor problem has become systemic. Your body needs to be saved as a whole, which is what the doctor will have to do. If you continue to self-medicate, you risk getting more big problems maybe even lose your life.

It’s the same in psychotherapy. In your unprofessional opinion, the problem may seem insignificant, and you may give advice that is not consistent with the situation and personality of the person you want to help. And then in best case scenario you will do no harm. And when it comes to children or people who depend on you, then your unprofessional actions may cause aggravation of psychological trauma.

In the special position of a psychotherapist. I have already written about how rescue differs from professional psychological assistance. I want to say this again. Rescue is, as a rule, an unconscious desire to solve one’s own problems and tasks at the expense of another person. A rescuer always has some bonuses for saving other people. For example, he feels kind, generous, strong (while the person being saved feels weak, dependent, subordinate, obligated). Or he fills his life with meaning, and then the person being saved often becomes a hostage to the meaning of his rescuer’s life, and that is why it can be so difficult for him to be saved. Or the rescuer begins to become enthusiastically involved in other people's lives and other people's problems, so as not to solve his own. Lack of awareness of intentions makes this event very unclear and blurry. Ingratitude, dependence, disappointment, guilt, obligation - not only these difficult-to-digest emotions begin to “walk” in the space between these two people. And yet, according to the theory, there is a third one - a “pursuer” or “tyrant”, without which this couple quickly loses energy. And then everything becomes so complicated that soon you will no longer be able to tell who is tyrannizing whom, saving whom, or counting on salvation.

The rescuer is positionally always a little on top at first, the “victim” is on the bottom, this allows one to feel strong and resourceful, and the other to use their traditional childhood manifesto. In this case, no one is truly saved. Because the “victim” only hones his infantile ways of behavior, and the “rescuer” feeds his own grandiosity, essentially elevating himself due to the implicit humiliation of the other.

The position of a psychotherapist does not imply rescue. The psychotherapist teaches his client to sense his own resources and, relying on them, solve his problems. It expands the client's view of the world and of himself, and this expansion gives him the possibility of other choices. The position of the psychologist is the appeal of equal to equal. The psychologist knows about people in general, knows the laws of mental development, the peculiarities of the course of certain mental processes, but he does not know about the peculiarities of the client’s life, about his personal history, about the uniqueness of his contact with his deepest emotional experiences. Only the client who comes to us has this knowledge. And then these two people create a field woven from this knowledge, feelings and emotions arising towards each other, which allows you to discover patterns, see the previously invisible, hidden in the deep layers of the psyche, find the root causes, remove obstacles, reveal the unrevealed.

There are clear boundaries. Often, rescuers feel “eaten up” if their charges do not begin to cope on their own, if they are endlessly on the phone, demanding attention, participation, and support. No matter how much time the rescuer has already spent on rescue, as soon as he begins to get irritated or hint at fatigue, refuse help, or go into his own affairs and problems, their unfortunate charges will begin to feel abandoned, deceived, and undeservedly offended. And instead of gratitude, which should have nourished the fading strength of the rescuer, he will receive resentment, anger, and disappointment. And this will not be at all what the rescuer subconsciously expected!

Therefore, psychotherapy sets certain boundaries. There is a certain time - an hour, two hours, fifty, forty minutes (each therapist determines this period for himself) that a psychotherapeutic meeting lasts. This time is given to the client, his life, his manifestation, history, tears. Time that he can manage. But it is defined, not unlimited. And the presence of a quick finality of the meeting pushes the client to use this time as efficiently as possible.

Another boundary is the money that the client pays to the psychologist. Money actualizes the responsibility of both. In addition, they are in a simple way measure and reimburse the therapist's costs for this process. This frees the client from obligation; he does not feel obligated to somehow compensate the psychologist for his time and troubles. While the “victim” of the classical rescuer is eternally obliged and owed to him, neither she herself nor her patron can measure and do not know how to compensate for the time and participation aimed at solving her problems.

In the features of the ongoing processes. An oral or written contract is concluded between the client and the psychotherapist, which implies and describes the extent of responsibility of each, and terms and conditions are specified. In accordance with this, the psychotherapist cannot say to the client: “Listen, I’m tired of sorting out all your problems” or “I have no time for you now, my mouth is full of worries.” The client has the right to expect that they will be with him as long as necessary. As a last resort, the psychotherapist can transfer his client to a colleague if for some reason he cannot continue working.

The field itself, in the event of a good working alliance between these two people, creates a situation of immersion, transference, the correct handling of which leads to the client discovering and working through his previous models that have ceased to be effective.

In the process of psychotherapy, the client does exactly what he does in ordinary life, manifesting himself in exactly the same way as he manifests himself with other important figures for him: parents, husbands, wives, children. And if the “rescuer” can react to the client’s anger, resentment, criticism, and devaluation with reciprocal criticism, anger, or self-destruction, then the therapist’s task will be to withstand any client storm, respectfully demonstrate to the client his characteristics and ongoing processes, search for the origins of such behavior, and heal “ old wounds,” which led to the fact that now, for some reason, he reacts this way. Gradually, when the wounds heal, and inside the client becomes more flexible, multifaceted and the degree of his self-acceptance increases, he will stop reacting destructively. But this requires knowledge, time and effort, which a “household rescuer” is simply not capable of.

For what?

And really, why am I writing about this? When people have conviction, they preach their truth, their way of living. The chiropractor will convince you that all the problems are from your back problems, the immunologist is from your weak immunity, nutritionist - from poor nutrition. I can also say that all your illnesses and difficulties, as people say, are “from nerves.” But I won't tell. Because man is too complex to give simple and unambiguous answers. But psychotherapy is a way. In any case, one of the many ways to get to know yourself and those around you. And it seems to me very important that people take advantage of this opportunity. This is my very definite “selfish” interest.

And it is not at all that after reading my book you come to me. This motive is perhaps the least important, since I do not have the opportunity to accept everyone who is already ready to do this, and I look with anxiety and anguish at the list of those who have signed up in the queue. It's important to me that you just come. Psychotherapy in Moscow and the leading cities of Russia is now rapidly developing and is replenished with personnel who are becoming more and more qualified from year to year. There are already many talented and experienced psychotherapists who can help you.

So why do I need to advocate psychotherapy with such conviction? I know that a self-aware, truly adult person will not be so blindly controlled by various structures and forces, ranging from political to spiritual. I want to live in this country, but I don’t want to live under a totalitarian or authoritarian regime. And in this sense, I am interested in ensuring that the society in which I live is as healthy as possible. I have no illusions about this, but I see how with the change political regime, moving away from the childhood communist-socialist paradise, people in general are becoming more mature, realizing that simply being a convinced Leninist is not enough for a successful life in this new world. The modern world poses a new challenge, and only those who are at least somehow ready for it respond positively.

I also know that a doctor, teacher, educator who has undergone psychotherapy will cause less trauma to children, as well as to my child and grandchildren when they appear. I know for sure that if people start going to psychotherapy, then there will be more interesting and enthusiastic people around me and less manipulation and self-destructive tendencies: alcoholism, drug addiction, cars rushing at breakneck speed in the yards where children play. Husbands will beat their wives less, and their wives will harass them less. Parents will be happy with their children, and children will be happy with their lives. Idealism? Children's dreams of heaven? Well, let's say. Can I allow myself to leave at least some illusion? Let it be called: “psychotherapy can help everyone who wants it.” She has already helped me.

Why did I write this story

(for those for whom it is important to understand how one thing is related to the other)

It is impossible to explain what psychotherapy is in one article, even after describing in detail the stages, phenomena, and processes. The soul has its own language, and in different directions psychotherapy, the language of the soul will be traced through different manifestations of a person. In body-oriented therapy, the language will be the symptoms and signals of your body, in the cognitive direction - your mental constructs, in Jungian psychoanalysis - your dreams, symbols, your life reflected in myths. The language of the soul is diverse. And there is no one true one. Any manifestation of you is you, and there is nothing secondary or unimportant.

Having listened over the years to many of the most different stories(Anna's story is traditional in some ways and unlike all the others in some ways), I realized that much of what happens in my office and in the lives of my clients is actually happening somewhere else, on some other, symbolic level of existence. Perhaps on a distant island, tightly hidden from the rest of the world by fog.

Our life as children is somewhat similar to the life of Hans from my symbolic story. Being good children, we did our simple but useful work on an island with clear rules called “childhood.” We were saved from real adult life by fairy tales about “ dangerous world outside the island”, upon meeting whom anything can happen.

As a child, we needed our parents so much; their care and protection helped us grow up. But, growing up, we gradually got out from under the controlling tutelage of our mother's eyes. It is not obvious to everyone in our symbolic, foggy City that the Board - in some ways a prototype of parental figures - can hide behind concern for its people only the need to maintain control and power. And not everyone realizes that the price they pay for imaginary security is freedom.

"Who am I?" - This is a question everyone asks from time to time. Like my hero, any person can be overwhelmed by the imaginary simplicity of the question, since the answer is not at all obvious. Moreover, with the search for this answer, Hans’s path to other shores and to another life begins. The path of my clients in psychotherapy, of course, did not always begin with this question, but symbolically it sounds in our meetings constantly, since our knowledge about ourselves and others, in fact, is as fragmentary and incomplete as the knowledge of the inhabitants of the City about themselves and the world beyond the island.

Just as Hans dreams of the sun, wanting to see this special light again, so many of my clients dream of a life filled with completely different colors and feelings. They don't remember her well. Perhaps this only happened to them in very early childhood... They dream about those times, dreaming of once again experiencing that acuteness of feelings, the brightness of desires and the fullness of being. But instead there is only fog. Safe, but blurring the boundaries, eating away at perspective, the ability to see more than three steps ahead. The unconsciousness of my clients who have just come to therapy is very similar to living in a fog: they are visited by thoughts, feelings, sensations that they often cannot connect into the whole picture of their existence. It is also impossible to see the whole landscape in the fog; it will appear as parts, depriving the completeness of perception.

Only a real hero could want to leave the island in my story, much less risk his life for the illusory possibility of freedom and new discoveries. It is the hero archetype in Jungian psychology that exists within each of us that allows us all at some moments to neglect safety for the sake of development. It is the hero who takes risks, leaving a known and well-established life in order to go beyond the boundaries of the known. It is he who leaves everything he had in order to acquire immeasurably more - his destiny and his own life.

To leave a reliable and well-recognized craft requires courage and determination, and also the realization that you can do something more - for example, like Hans, build ships. In addition, you need inner confidence, bordering on an unshakable conviction in the need to do this - to start the search. Like Hans, my clients usually go through a lot of doubt as their inner hero begins to argue with other subpersonalities accustomed to a vague but simple existence. Doubts go away only with the awareness of the scarcity and stuffiness of the previous existence, limitations and total dependence on internal parental figures. And only relying on your inner hero, who is always ready to answer life’s challenges, no matter how impossible the dream may seem, no matter how difficult the path turns out to be, allows you to overcome all doubts.

But just as our Hans has to defend the right to find his purpose and overcome many obstacles before setting out on a journey, my clients often have to enter into confrontations with their loved ones. After all, most of them perceive psychotherapy as a threat to their own existence, since changes in clients unbalance the entire system of previous relationships. And unfortunately for loved ones (temporarily!), many clients, like Hans, have no way back. Realizing that they have been living on a foggy island all their lives, most of my clients do not want to stay there and are willing to go through a lot to see the sun and other lands. Over time, loved ones come to terms with life in such unpredictable relationships, and then begin to be proud, admire, and recognize. As a result, some also come to the desire to start their own psychotherapy, to begin their search, moving towards their shores.

But Hans still has everything ahead: the joy of discovery and the bitterness of loss. And when they finally manage to escape the captivity of annoying symptoms, many clients feel relief, and the temptation to quit psychotherapy comes to them in the same way as Hans did - the temptation to stay in the pine forest, escaping from the captivity of the City. And only a talisman given by a little girl and the protests of a friend return him to his previous intentions. Likewise, the different sides of our clients, helping in their search and development, do not allow them to deviate from the difficult path. After all, you have to not only understand the system of parental rules, traumas and prohibitions, break out of them, passing through your terrible swamp (J. Hollis, the famous Jungian psychoanalyst, this is what he calls our “spiritual whirlpools”, which cannot be avoided, you can only go through), but and find out who you are by building your own special ship.

How difficult and dangerous the journey can be is described without exaggeration in Hans’s first voyage. The feeling of freedom and meeting the inner sun alternate with severe storms and the death of something very dear, close, but past. For many clients this is a very difficult subjective experience. Many people say: “I won’t survive this. It's too hard. The old is gone, the new is not yet there. How to live? What to rely on? But breaking away from one’s childhood land and sailing to new worlds cannot happen otherwise: clinging to the old supports, it would be difficult to move forward.

Forgiveness and cooperation with Jacob, former internal parental figures, allows you to enlist support from the past, use the ancestral resource and continue to “build the ship.” The need for the old fisherman to guide Hans in his quest is gradually disappearing by this time. Reliance on external knowledge must be replaced by one's own creativity and creation.

But when the ship is built, it is not the end of the journey or the end of the story. The voyage itself, so dangerous due to storms and losses, still awaits. Thus, in the process of psychotherapy, my clients are overwhelmed by strong feelings that, according to their subjective perception, threaten to “sink” them. So, in the process of therapy and swimming, they lose their previous, childhood illusions, increasingly encountering adult existential loneliness, with anxiety and fear of never seeing a new land, not coping with this new adult life. So they sometimes cease to feel the beauty and grandeur of the sea and their own life, because they begin to think about the result or plunge into an anxious expectation of disaster.

However, a new land is already on the horizon, and it cannot be avoided, and its acquisition is only a matter of time, special for each client and each journey. How much will it take? Months? No less. Years? Maybe. Your whole life? It's possible. After all, after your ship has moored to new and different shores, you still have to explore new lands, build your new home, search for a new destination, and perhaps a new, and even more than one, journey. Only over time you will learn to do all this without the help of a psychotherapist. Because you will know this complex answer to a simple question: “Who am I?” And believe me, this answer is worth making a heroic journey and seeing the sun.

© Mlodik I.Yu. Where you are not yet... Psychotherapy as liberation from illusions. - M.: Genesis, 2010.
© Published with permission from the publisher