Why do people go to psychologists?

Each of us has our own relationship with the reality of the world around us. We are born absolutely "naked." Look at the baby - he lives solely with his bodily sensations. If the body is OK, the baby either sleeps or smiles - rejoices. Bodily discomfort causes displeasure and protest, which is immediately notified to all districts.

But for a full contact with the world, their bodily sensations must be somehow differentiated, determined. What do I want now? What do I feel? And for this in childhood, only one mentor is recognized first - the mother, and as he grows up - the father and other significant adults. The mother gives primary values and meanings to life's sensations and impressions. It forms the frame of perception. Determines what to look for. And how to convert. What is dangerous and what is not. In other words, we inherit points, through which we then practically all life we look at the world around us. And for sure, my mother also received her reality marks in the inheritance from those who determined in her childhood her impressions and reactions ...

You can live all your life in the holy faith, that your reality is identical to what is happening around. With a calm, cloudless childhood, it sometimes happens. We rely on the values and attitudes of the parent family, we develop according to a certain scenario, we arrange the usual priorities and feel quite happy in this map, indicated by three or five routes.

We compare everything that happens to us with our knowledge of life and easily identify events in the categories "good - bad", "mine - alien", "yes - no".

The problem begins when our automatic elections cease to satisfy us. When habitual "encodings" of sensations leave us bewildered. When we suddenly realize how flat and stuffy we are to live in this once and for all set circle of our choices and reactions.

Of course, we are interested in how all this is arranged by others. Our neighbors - friends - co-workers - friends. If our cards are more or less the same, we feel comfortable with this person. If they differ greatly - and this difference is traumatic for us for some reason - we avoid such people.

To our question to the Other as an attempt to understand ourselves we can at best get a copy of the experience of the Other. In the form of advice: "Do so, and everything will go well!" Sometimes seasoned with depreciation, sometimes quite neutral. And of course your card can be expanded by adding a couple of those foreign routes that are quite on the scale of our perception tags of reality.

But how often and without straining for ourselves and the Other can we talk at the meeting only about ourselves? And if the council was "at the time" how do we deal with a load of gratitude? Or irritation at the Benefactor? Or feel weak and helpless compared to the Other? What do we pay for the attention and support of an outsider?

Here and there may be a need for professional help. In an impartial view "from the side".

Of course, a psychologist is also a person. In their inherited in the family history of "glasses." With their values and priorities. But if this is really a professional, he worked hard and hard with his route map. Studying yourself and others. Learning to feel, think, feel in the "broad focus" of attention. Replenishing the treasury of tools for monitoring oneself, others, for the possibilities and limitations of human perception.

As the client pays, and the psychologist works, he provides such a quality of his presence, in which the client's vital realities are the central event of the meeting. In this case, the client is perceived "on an equal footing". If the client has earned money for therapy, then he certainly has adult stability. Professionalism. In some area of your own. Hardly anyone will come to mind to compare the accountant and the builder and say that professionalism in accounting is steeper and more worthy than in construction. So it is here. And more - if a client is willing to spend money, the strength and time to try to expand its horizon - it always causes respect.

So that's it. What happens at a therapeutic meeting?

One person comes to another and talks about his current difficulties. Of course, the psychologist is attentive to the content of the story. To the event series. But the most significant is how the customer processes his experience. What "filters" it uses when meeting with Life. What passes, on what habitually fixes his attention. And what really causes him grief and suffering.

For a psychologist, it is important to keep the view "from the outside", without dipping into the client's material. Remain an observer. In this case, sympathize. Support. Confirm the client's right to his life and his election. Help him in search of other choices and decisions. Without substituting his way for his. Without imposing your coordinate system. Remaining involved, but at the same time separate. To others.

This is sometimes difficult work. Often exciting. Learn this art - all your life. Good.

Each client - his own psychologist. Here, the choice can be based on your feelings from the first meetings. They are always difficult. Both for the client and for the psychologist. But for full-fledged work, you must trust. Feel the safety of contact and human comfort. Catch the feeling that your language is accepted and understood.

If you feel that you are difficult - dull - incomprehensible and "bad" with every meeting, it makes sense to risk discussing this with a psychologist before leaving the contact. Then to, perhaps, the habitual experience of escape from difficulties in communication, there is a chance to add the experience of clarifying your "gags" and misunderstandings. It is in contact. With whom they are relevant.

Choose your own psychologist yourself. Lean on yourself. After all, self-confidence is the cornerstone of fundamental trust in life.

Author - Irina Lopatuhina

Psychologist, Gestalt therapist

Website: lopatuhina.ru