Psychotherapy not helping? It turned out that human memory is reconstructive, and remembering an event is not reading a record about it from some subcortex, but reconstructing this event taking into account new data and fresh information. How it all started

09:42:00 Why does psychotherapy help some people and not others?

Today, many people face the relentless demands of a life that is changing too fast. The old ways of achieving inner harmony and wholeness, which worked so well in the old days, are becoming useless with terrifying speed. We are looking for answers - new or ancient - in various books, religions and types of psychotherapy.

A bit of history

• Why does psychotherapy help some people and not others?


• In cases where people manage to really and consciously change themselves and their lives, what exactly do they do?


• What do most of us miss out on when we fail at self-improvement?

First, they paid attention to what the therapists did during the sessions. Common sense told them that the success of therapy should be determined primarily by the behavior of the therapist. It has always been believed that in the case of successful therapy, therapists are to some extent more confident, more direct and quick-witted ... But it turned out that there were no obvious differences in the behavior of therapists. In both sets of records, the therapists were essentially the same. They tried to do everything possible, everything that was in their power - and yet, some clients got better, while others did not.

Then the researchers began to carefully study what the clients were doing in these records - and here they did something amazing and important discovery: There was a clear difference between successful and unsuccessful clients. And this difference could be heard on the very first recording or on a few initial sessions with them. It turned out that the audio recordings of successful clients mostly consisted of silence, i.e. the people there were silent for the most part. While the tapes of unsuccessful clients were full of sound, they talked a lot. Those. it became obvious that during the silence the client was doing something, it remains only to find out what. And Gendlin gradually figured out what they were doing, and wrote it down in the form of a technique, in the form of six steps. Gendlin doesn't think focusing is a technique or technique. Focusing is what any psychotherapy, whatever it may be, should be based on. And it is easy to show in practice.

Focusing is a natural skill that was discovered, not invented. It was discovered through observing what people are doing for successful change. The ability to focus is an innate ability of every person, everyone has it. However, for the majority, it is suppressed due to experiences of alienation and pain in childhood and upbringing in our culture, which causes people to lose confidence in their feelings. We need to relearn how to use this ability. Like any skill, the ability to focus can be developed.

primary sources

In the USA, the Focusing Institute has been founded and is successfully functioning (there is even a page in Russian), trainings are being held, and books in this area are being published. On the forum Ability, in the topic dedicated to focusing, you can find enough information in both Russian and English. In the same topic there is a description of the focusing algorithm. But in order to thoroughly understand what focusing is, it is better, of course, to be trained by an experienced leader.

Focusing in Russian

I am often asked if psychoanalytic psychotherapy helps? Will working with you help me?

As a rule, I avoid giving a direct answer, and I do so not only because of modesty))) Usually I ask how the client himself thinks or say: “Let's see” ... I do this in order not to give “excessive hope ", not to become a mission and a savior in his eyes.

High expectations at the beginning of work usually lead to idealization, and then, when the client is truly immersed in his inner world, to the deepest disappointment and feelings of despair and hopelessness. It often happens that these feelings cannot be experienced, and this leads to a break in therapy. Often this happens quite quickly, in the first sessions, when there is no deep trust yet, and the therapeutic relationship has not been formed, and the fear of sinking into the unconscious and beginning the transference is frightening. For many people, this is generally a habitual style of behavior: to be fascinated, carried away, inspired, and then disappointed, devalue and quit ...

So how is it possible to answer this question: “Does psychotherapy help?” Here, on paper, where there is enough time and space. On the one hand, it would seem that one could answer here: “Yes, it helps,” and explain why ... But this would be too simple an answer, and in psychoanalysis we cannot be satisfied with simple superficial answers, we need a deeper understanding. Therefore, I propose to reformulate the question a little, for example: “Will psychotherapy help me?” To the question: "Will you be able to accept psychotherapeutic help and use it." This question more accurately reflects the essence of what is happening.

Often, when people come to psychotherapy, they expect that they will be treated according to a certain method (as in classical medicine) and that they will be cured without internal consent and desire, literally “forcibly” relieved of tormenting symptoms. Indeed, in childhood, children are often forcibly treated when they want to get sick, hide in the disease from the difficulties of life ... The disease, both mental and physical, is usually a kind of mental refuge from the difficulties of life, or rather - from internal conflicts and experiencing the feelings that this life causes.

It is this model of interaction between a child and parents that clients often try to play, asking if psychotherapy will help them. But the task of our work in psychoanalytic psychotherapy is to avoid acting out and to approach the understanding of what is happening in the unconscious.

That is, my task, as a psychotherapist, is to help the client see the spiritual forces that control him, consisting of both desires and unwillingnesses, protests, resistance, to create space for their study, understanding and reconciliation. Analysis helps to understand oneself, one's unconscious, one's inner motives, but only the client can change something...

There is a proverb in Russian: “A horse can be led to a watering hole, but it can only get drunk on its own.” This is one hundred percent effective in psychoanalysis. The success of psychotherapy largely depends on the client's willingness to accept help and change. And in fact, it's not as easy as it seems... After all, accepting help means facing your inner world, your feelings, your desires and protests coming from childhood.

This is usually not easy because the analyst usually refuses to play the role of an all-powerful parent, and instead of satisfying the client's desires, he interprets their origins. This can cause resentment and anger, which you need to have the courage to face and endure. We can get rid of any feelings only by experiencing them again, so to speak, “mastering them”, this is how our psyche is arranged.

The analyst “floats” next to the client along the waves of his experiences and helps to understand what is happening, is nearby, thereby giving support, but nothing more. He is not enough to save the client, give him advice, provide "effective" assistance, the client learns to sail the waves himself. This may seem cruel to some, but this is how real analytical work goes. We do not give the client not only fish, but we do not give a fishing rod either, but we help to make this fishing rod ourselves and catch the fish ourselves and cook it ourselves. And this is one side of the issue, and in the other part, the analyst literally feeds and nurtures the infant part of the client, sharing with him all the feelings and experiences. This is the difficult work to be done in psychoanalytic therapy.

Of course, a lot here depends on the relationship between the therapist and the client, on whether a working alliance will develop, and at the same time, a huge part of success depends on the client himself, on his readiness to understand, experience, change, endure, and in fact - withstand heartache. It is always difficult, and at the same time always leads to internal changes and thus improve the quality of life. It’s just that improvements are sometimes very difficult to accept, sometimes even more difficult than deterioration ...

Coming to the end of this article, it is important to highlight one more point. It may seem to some that I am generally taking out of brackets the responsibility of the psychoanalytic therapist for the result of joint work. But it's not. This responsibility, of course, exists, but, oddly enough, it is no longer before the client, but before oneself. In the analytic process, the therapist is responsible for the process itself, for its stability, for its scope and boundaries, for its analyticity, and most importantly, for its qualifications.

All of the above, of course, makes sense if the therapist meets his qualifications, that is, has enough hours of personal therapy (in analytical practice, this is from 500 hours personal experience) supervision and theoretical training…

Psychotherapy is a popular word, the real meaning of which is not clear to everyone. What can she give to a person who is looking for his place in the world?

No one knows what prompted our ancestors one day to escape from such an amusing and incomprehensible outside world and think about themselves. If you follow the Darwinian theory, then there could be only one reason for this - at some point, the inner world turned out to be much more promising (in the sense of possible acquisitions) or more dangerous (in the sense of devastating consequences) than the outside world.

We can find this phenomenon the most different names: spiritual practice, philosophy, religion, psychotherapy - the essence of this does not change. For many people, sooner or later there comes a moment when our own inner world becomes the most important thing in our lives. And we go into internal emigration, because we feel that only there we can find the answers we need so much.

Homo sapiens

It is said that God punished man by making him aware of his own mortality. Whether it's a punishment or a badge of distinction, we do have the ability to call it reflection. And since there is an ability, it means that it is needed for something, otherwise it would long ago have turned into a rudiment, like a tail. It is reflection that underlies all spiritual, religious and psychotherapeutic practices.

Let's try to figure out why humanity so carefully preserves and so consistently develops what contributes to a person's understanding of himself. I propose to think: what is the main strength of man? What allows us not only to survive as a species, but also to compete so successfully with all the other inhabitants of the planet? It is generally accepted that this is the mind. However, if we look around, we will see a sufficient number of examples when the mind does not really help to be happy or successful (take the saying “ good head, sorry, got the fool").

Try to remember all the people you know who give the impression of being happy, fulfilled and contented with life. And look at what they have in common. I bet it's not the IQ value! Surely everyone will get the same answer - the strength of a person is in his character, in knowing himself and his capabilities, in harmony with himself and the world. And the intellect is only a tool in the hands of the master. In my opinion, this is the most convincing explanation for the fact that from time immemorial to the present day, people have found a time, a place and a way not to lose contact with themselves, to put things in order in their thoughts and achieve peace in their souls.

As one of these methods, about 70 years ago, psychotherapy was invented. Because within the framework human civilization this phenomenon is not just young, but very young, the idea of ​​it for most of us is also quite vague and romantic. The word "psychotherapy" is still shrouded in a light veil of mystery. And behind it, everyone sees his own. For one - a wonderful panacea for troubles, for another - a frightening prospect of becoming a zombie, for a third - another fashionable toy.

Psychotherapy differs from other practices in that a person makes the path to himself and to his essence not alone, but in the company of a therapist. There is a certain paradox in this, since all the ways of knowing oneself known at the time of its appearance presupposed turning inward, solitude. And, oddly enough, it was Western culture, known for its individualism, that invented a profession that is designed to accompany a person in a purely personal search for his own path and happiness.

It's easy to explain. Man is a social being, and this is another fundamental difference from the rest of the living world of our planet. Only people have such a long period of complete dependence of children on adults. Any cub, except for a human, is able to follow its mother almost immediately after birth. Only a person needs a community of his own kind to form specific abilities, this is proved by a few but convincing examples of Mowgli children. So it is and only other people that make us human. As much as it hurts our individualistic pride, it is simply impossible to "become yourself" without the help of others.

And psychotherapy is just that section of the path when, in search of oneself, one has to go to someone else. It is busy with vital problems, without the solution of which it is often impossible to continue: it helps to restore contact with oneself, to realize feelings and desires, cultivates a culture of acceptance of the world and the ability to overcome obstacles. This is why people most often come to psychotherapists.

Soul Anatomy

Who are the people who are called "healers of souls"? What is in their power and what is not? First, let's clarify the concepts. The science of psychology itself separated from philosophy and physiology and acquired an independent status about 130 years ago. However, the word "psyche" came to us from the ancient world.

AT modern understanding psyche (from the Greek psychikos - mental) - a form of active reflection by a person of the objective world in the process of their interaction. That is, it is our internal reaction to the external environment. Emotions, thoughts, memory, perception, knowledge about the world, about people and about yourself, dreams and memories, experience and relationships. What is called the soul and intellect. The psyche arose in the course of evolution as the highest form of adaptation, allowing a person to respond as quickly and flexibly as possible to changes in the environment.

The translation of the word “therapy” (from the Greek therapeia) is interesting. It is generally accepted that this is a treatment, but it also has a second meaning, almost forgotten - care, care. So the word "psychotherapy" can be translated as "treatment of the soul" or "care of the soul" ("care for the soul"). And it is true. Psychotherapy was born as a medical tool and was aimed precisely at the treatment of mental disorders. And in modern society the resources of psychotherapy as care for the soul are becoming more and more in demand.

It is important not to confuse psychotherapy with psychiatry. There are several professions that are directly related to the human psyche. This is a psychiatrist, psychologist, neuropathologist and psychoneurologist. Psychiatrist, neuropathologist and psychoneurologist are doctors. They have a basic medical education, work in medical institutions and may appoint medications. Doctors identify and treat those disorders that are of endogenous (organic, physiological) origin.

The psychologist has a basic psychological education, he can work in any field of activity related to people. It is within his power to determine individual characteristics human, both congenital and acquired, to help develop certain traits of character and behavior, as well as intellectual abilities. Another psychologist can determine the cause of emotional difficulties and suggest ways to overcome them. His tools are diagnostic tests and various trainings.

Both the doctor and the psychologist can have additional psychotherapeutic training (it supplements the basic education and takes at least three years). Such a specialist can engage in psychotherapy, that is, correction psychological disorders that arose as a result of unfavorable external factors.

Training communicates new ways that a person does not yet know or does not know how to apply, and creates a special space in which he can explore, try and "try on" them. But the training does not solve the issues of “fighting oneself”, it does not work with internal obstacles and experiences that interfere with a person. For example, a girl has difficulty communicating with the opposite sex. They may well come from inexperience (for example, due to strict upbringing), and then the training can be very effective. But if at the same time the girl has a strong underlying confidence (usually unconscious) that one should not expect good from men, no training will relieve isolation and isolation. Psychotherapy is needed to remove the internal brakes that prevent a full life.

That is, a psychotherapist is needed when the difficulties are caused by feelings that "lie under the cloth." The fact is that the psyche is arranged very cunningly. She can't just throw away what has already happened to her. What happened, happened, cannot be undone. Therefore, she seeks to process all this into some useful product– in experience, knowledge, creation. In memories, communication and relationships, in decisions, ideas, creativity and dreams. And if she cannot cope with something now, then she postpones it "until better times." "I'll think about it tomorrow," Scarlett says in " Gone with the wind". The difference is that the girl makes this decision consciously, and the psyche does such a thing unnoticed by the person at the moment when the experiences turn out to be beyond and she cannot cope with them. The fuse works.

And if there are a lot of such postponed “for tomorrow” cases? You won't want to get up in the morning! Psychotherapy is a way to make “tomorrow” still come, and a psychotherapist is an assistant in raking this inner trashy corner. The task of psychotherapy is to help turn a vile “tomorrow” into a difficult “yesterday” and teach a person to deal with his life in such a way that difficult-to-sort blockages simply do not form. As you know, it is much easier to maintain a moderate order in the apartment every day than to spend emergency subbotniks in search of a hairpin that “just put here”.

Don't stay alone

Why should a psychotherapist be an assistant? First, he knows some of the laws of the very process of "pulling out from under the cloth" and imagines what difficulties we may face after liberation. All the feelings and desires that have accumulated often turn out to be strangers to a person, with whom it is not clear how to deal with. If they are simply released, they can do a lot of trouble. They have been locked up for so long that even if they were initially very peaceful, they have already gone “brutalized”. And our task is not to let them frolic with unpredictable consequences, but to tame them, assign them to our service. Secondly, a psychotherapist can support a person in difficult moments of life. After all, those experiences that once turned out to be unbearable or dangerous are being repressed. In order to believe that they were unbearable and dangerous only then, one must again approach this barrier of fear and pain, at which they once stopped. And walk behind him, revealing the world that lies behind him. Anesthesia is impossible here, because a person can live his life only by himself. But "self" does not mean "alone". When he himself becomes the main enemy of a person, it is very difficult to be at the same time your savior. Usually people feel very well that they are latently engaged in "self-harm".

There are some very simple signs:

• we walk in a circle that we don't like, but we can't get out;
• we understand very well what we need to do, and make informed decisions, but at the right moment we do everything the other way around, and then we are full of bewilderment and indignation;
• we are in again we step on the same rake, and the thought creeps in: “Maybe I carry them with me?”;
• finally, we just feel bad: anxious, meaningless, hard. And worldly helpers - friends, books, meditation, travel, shopping - do not cope.

For example, young beautiful girl- let's call her Elena - cannot enter into close relationships with men. She wants it, men want it even more. Her few loves are mutual, her novels are bright, dramatic, filled with feelings and dreams, but there are always some insurmountable obstacles that prevent lovers from becoming close both in soul and body. The girl is desperate because she feels that she is missing something important in life, and she has absolutely no idea what needs to be done to change it.

How can psychotherapy help her in this case? In fact, the process is very simple, consists of three stages and is described in many fairy tales. Only here the whole fairy-tale world is placed in one person. So, first you need to find the hut of Baba Yaga and find out from her about the villains who bewitched the heroine. Then, having acquired names, passwords and appearances, go in search and fight the enemy. And then live happily until the next burnt skin. In psychotherapy, this is called "working through the problem."

What will calm the heart

What does it look like in practice? In this story, both to me, as a psychotherapist, and Elena, as a sane person, it is obvious that the reason is somewhere in her. Only I know a little more - that some experiences spoil her life, which she has long and well forgotten. Here we go in search. In our case, we found one enemy first. These are sudden and long separations from loved ones and important people in childhood, for which the girl could not prepare and which she could not survive then. That is, the people who made up the meaning of her life and ensured her safety suddenly disappeared. Not for a day, but for a year. Then they appeared. Then they disappeared again. Some are forever. And so several times. Can you imagine how a girl at two, five, seven years old could feel at the same time? The girl is emotional and warm by nature, who loved disappearing relatives and is loved by them. These experiences for her were, as they say, "too much." Even in adulthood they are not sugar.

What can be done with such an enemy? Only survive - and pain, and fear, and abandonment, and anger. And when everything is cried out and expressed, it is already easy to understand and forgive both the departing parents and the deceased grandparents.

Then we found the second enemy. They turned out to be the obsessive attention of young people in adolescence: the girl did not know how to defend herself from him and could not ask for protection from adults. Here the tactics were different. We have found everything possible ways struggle and protection, both external and internal. Along the way, of course, overcoming barriers such as “you can’t offend other people”, “a girl should be nice”.

After all this, we talked about how disgusting this life is and what a pity that we were kicked out of Eden. The entire job required 15 meetings.

If we analyze this activity with scientific point view, it is clear that the following lessons have been learned from traumatic situations: loved ones always leave, and men are uncontrollable and dangerous. And as soon as the relationship approached the threatening phase of rapprochement, and even with a man, a subconscious warning worked: it’s dangerous, painful, bad, don’t go there. The girl did not go. And after working through these situations, the "tolerance" was received. Perhaps the warning has changed to permission: it can be dangerous, painful and bad there - but you can handle it, and besides, it can be good, warm and happy there - and you can accept this gift. There can be anything, and if you want, you can take a chance.

We do not know exactly what relationship exists between being and consciousness, but they are definitely closely interconnected. Therefore, changes in being lead to inevitable changes in consciousness. And vice versa. The most visible effect of psychotherapy is real changes in the lives of clients. Relationships that have not yet been built. Children who were never born to perfectly healthy spouses. Favorite work that could not be found or built.

We do not invade what is the essence of a person, his individual uniqueness (and this is impossible - even under hypnosis, people do not do what contradicts their value system). We help a person to get on the path that is intended for him, and live the life that he is intended for.

Recently, for the first time in my life, I swam in a kayak - a two-person plastic boat, where each rower controls a paddle with two blades. The paddle is taken in the middle in both hands (elbows at right angles shoulder width apart) and alternate strokes are performed synchronously with the partner ("left", "right", "left", "right"...). In order to correct the course, you need to make a few strokes on one side only (if you want to turn right, you row left, and vice versa).

Since we were sailing along the rocks, the waves periodically carried us to the dangerous shore and it became necessary to turn the kayak a little. As soon as I saw that the rocks were getting a little closer, I began to actively rake away from them, but the boat didn’t seem to obey me and continued to rush towards the shore. I was silently angry at my partner, who seemed not to notice my efforts and dangerous course and continued to rhythmically alternate strokes. It seemed to me that it was because of him that it was so hard for me to try to turn. My shoulders were already aching from the unaccustomed load, and the rocks were getting closer. In desperation, I was about to shout to my partner to start turning too, but then suddenly the bow of the boat changed direction, and now we were being carried out to the open sea. Probably, if someone looked at us from above, the zigzag trajectory of our movement looked ridiculous.

On the shore, in response to my surprised complaints, “She doesn’t seem to obey me, I don’t understand at all if I’m rowing correctly! It turns as if by itself!” the partner explained to me that even such a small vessel has its own inertia: our acceleration plus the density of the water and the sea current. The effect of my efforts was, it just did not become visible immediately. It turns out, expecting a quick result (like on a scooter I’m used to on city asphalt), I made a lot of extra strokes, losing hope and the feeling that something depends on me here, and then this impotence was reinforced by a sudden (for me) sharp turn boats in opposite side and the need to correct course again.

The feeling of complete disorientation, my own impotence, despair and exhaustion reminded me of a state that often visits a client in the process of psychotherapy. "What is happening and is anything changing?!" - a familiar question that sounds periodically in the head of a person who once again leaves the therapist's office. "What am I doing here? What's the point? I just walk, talk, spend money, and nothing changes in my life!"

The therapist, familiar with these devaluing complaints first hand, will sigh in sympathy. Sometimes, even knowing that many processes are going on in the depths and hidden from view, you lose patience and hope - changes are happening so slowly and subtly, and sometimes everything is changing in the wrong place and in the wrong place, as expected. Why is this happening?

Here, the well-known metaphor of the psyche as an iceberg in the boundless ocean seems quite appropriate to me (although the image of the client as a person trying to row on an iceberg raises separate questions). And yet, try to imagine the degree of resistance and inertia (delayed result) when trying to move such a mass hidden under water.

A person who denies or is not aware of what percentage of his mental material is hidden from awareness and how powerful an influence it has on his life, is doomed to rush about in despair, constantly abandoning what he has begun or being in the illusion of complete control.

If this image is developed, the best thing a client can do for himself in therapy is:

• If possible, stroke evenly in one direction, giving yourself the right to rest, but not forgetting about original purpose(say, not to freeze alone on your block of ice). That is, patiently and regularly go to sessions, making efforts to inner work;
• Accompanied by a more experienced instructor (therapist), dive carefully and explore the extent and characteristics of the underwater part of your iceberg (psyche). Of course, you won’t dive especially deep, but it’s possible to get some idea;
• Come to terms with reality: the iceberg is not a Ferrari, it will swim slowly and with great effort; it will often seem like nothing is changing, and that's okay.
• Trust the ocean and your own intuitive (unconscious) power. That is, do not try to feverishly control everything with a superficial mind, accepting that there is something much deeper and wiser;
• To notice that life is not only "when we sail", but also here and now. Moreover, our iceberg is with us forever. See how beautiful.