I know that I have never done psychotherapy and do not plan to do it, and this is what raises many questions from those who are familiar with my already quarter-century experience. “Is what you do not psychotherapy? After all, you help people who are hurt and bad in their souls! — True, I have been helping a lot and for a long time, but psychotherapy has nothing to do with it. I would like to understand this, but I will start — from afar.
Earlier, in my childhood, many children’s voices were always heard in the courtyard under the window, life was in full swing in the courtyard. Today, games in the yard seem to be increasingly replaced by computer games, the yards have quieted down, but I want you to remember or imagine a typical life situation: many children of different ages play in your yard, and among the children there is a hooligan boy Vasya. Vasya beats and offends children. Vasya is the problem of the yard.
Çi bikin?
- “You remove the hooligan Vasya, and the children will play normally!” shout the outraged women. The appeal is kind, only Vasya is registered here, this yard is his, and he will walk here, but it is useless to contact his parents. The parents of this Vasya are not much different from him and simply cannot cope with him on their own. Vasya — you can’t just remove it.
- «Call the policeman!» — Yes. Vasya is a minor, he does not fall under the Criminal Code, you cannot put him in jail or for 15 days, the policeman’s hands are tied. Past.
- “Let’s call the teacher, he will talk to Vasya!” — Call … And how would you rate the effectiveness of pedagogical conversations with cheerful Vasya?
Billy Novick. This is a complete Vasya!
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These are all wrong strategies. To eradicate Vasya, to deal with impudent Vasyas, to eliminate the influence of such Vasyas on other normal children are negative strategies and therefore ineffective. You can deal with this area for a long time: to create a whole staff of social workers and juvenile inspectors to solve such problems, spend years of time and huge sums of money on this, but you won’t be able to cope with Vasya in this way. Vasya will grow up, perhaps he will calm down a little over time, but new Vasyas will appear in his place, and this will always be the case with you.
Why always? And is it possible to change something here?
It will always be like this, because you are doing the wrong thing, in the wrong direction. Is it possible to change the situation? — can. The situation will begin to change when psychologists and teachers begin to work not only with «rotten apples», not only with Vasya, but to a greater extent begin to create a healthy core of domestic and social life. So that there are no sick people, it is necessary to deal with healthy people before they get sick. It is necessary to strengthen the health of society — only this direction is truly promising.
And now let’s move from the space of the courtyard to the space of the human soul. The space of the human soul also has its own characters and its own, very different forces. Forces are healthy and sick, forces are light and dark. We have interest and caring, there are kind smiles and love, but we have our Vasyas — irritability, fears, resentment. And what to do with them?
My position: “What I do is not psychotherapy, even when I work with patients. A sick person is not totally sick, just as usually a healthy person is not totally healthy. In each of us there is a healthy and sick beginning, a healthy and sick part. I always work with the healthy part, even if it is the healthy part of a sick person. I strengthen it, and soon health becomes the main content of a person’s life.
If there is a hooligan Vasya in the yard and there are good guys, you can deal with a hooligan, re-educate him. Or you can make a strong and active group out of good guys, which will change the situation in the yard so that soon the hooligan Vasya will stop showing himself in any way. And after some time, perhaps, he will join this healthy group. «Timur and his team» is not a fairy tale, this is what the best teachers and psychologists really did and do. This is what really solves the problem. The solution is not cheap, not fast — but the only effective one.
Healthy psychology, the psychology of life and development, is where the psychologist works with a healthy beginning in a person, with a healthy part of his soul, even if the person was (considered himself) rather sick. Psychotherapy is where a psychologist works with a sick part of the soul, even if the person was generally healthy.
What will you order for yourself?