From skepticism to healing: the story of a patient who gained mental health through psychotherapy

Psychotherapy today is like a snowman. Everyone has heard about it, but few have directly encountered it. Many believe that it can improve the quality of life, but are wary of trying. For some, this is an expensive pleasure, while others consider this trick inappropriate, preferring self-help to outside intervention.

I was alternately guided by these considerations until I heard the story of one of my acquaintances, who overcame her skepticism about psychotherapy and decided to seek help from a corporate psychologist to break the Gordian knot of doubts about breaking up an unsuccessful marriage. A small spoiler: the woman’s distrust of psychology and the caste of psychotherapists changed to admiration after the first sessions.

Expectations vs reality

I think most ordinary people are familiar with such psychotherapeutic approaches as psychoanalysis and transactional analysis. Having dared to consult a psychotherapist, my friend was sure that her mentor would turn out to be a representative of one of these mainstream theories. The surprise of my heroine was all the stronger when, instead of laying on the couch and asking questions about childhood traumas, relationships with parents, unrealized will to power and broken ambitions (which would make him a follower of grandfather Freud or grandfather Adler), the psychologist allowed the flow of his consciousness to move freely. female patients

After 40 minutes of active listening, the psychologist clarified which of her identities she prefers. According to the heroine, sincere interest was evident in his questions. He refrained from comments and evaluations and allowed the patient to open up as much as possible and begin to hear herself. It is not for nothing that they say that a woman solves many of her problems simply by voicing them.

Karpman’s triangle, is it always necessary to save a drowning person?

In my opinion, the therapist’s professionalism is also evidenced by the lack of an urge to save the patient. They say that inexperienced psychologists may not be able to resist the temptation to save where they just need to help, guide, while keeping a cool head.

In everyday life, we often assign the role of savior (I’m sure you’ve heard about Karpman’s triangle) to loved ones in those situations where, in our inner cinema, we find ourselves in the role of a victim, undeservedly offended by an aggressor, from whom – according to the laws of the genre – the savior selflessly protects us.  But – paradoxically – precisely by not succumbing to the temptation to start saving, the therapist gives the patient a chance for self-actualization and a way out of the disastrous scenario in which the latter, like a stable horse, has been circling for years.

Yazhemat, or Blind spots of the soul through the eyes of a psychologist

When asked by a psychotherapist about the identity of the heroine of this story, she identified her role as a mother as the main one and shared her fear of letting her teenage daughter into adulthood and being alone.

“The conscious part of you understands that the separation from the child is inevitable and natural, and is necessary for a teenager to move independently in life, and your Shadow – maternal egoism – prevents this separation from happening. It is obvious that the main evil is codependency, your inability to feel the fullness of life without a loved one”, – a friend sins by self-diagnosis and shares this with a psychologist.

A typical situation – for many years in a row you explain your psychological problems with your codependency and are sure that you just need to become self-sufficient, find the main pleasure in communicating with yourself, lead an independent lifestyle. Psychologists are clamoring about this from all social networks, and this idea is, in fact, undeniable. And already with the question of how to achieve this Nirvana and self-sufficiency, you come to a psychotherapist.

The main evil is the lack of self-identity

An experienced psychologist does not allow himself to impose this self-verdict and digs deeper: codependency is only one of the sprouts on the tree, the root of which is the patient’s lack of a way of seeing herself, of self-identity.

In my eyes, such a heuristic of a connoisseur of the human soul immediately adds many points to him. In half an hour, to understand about a person what he did not understand about himself during his life – isn’t this a sign of insight and professionalism?!

By the way, experienced people recommend trusting your intuition, which will tell you from the first or second meeting whether this is your psychotherapist or not, based on how quickly you get along.

So, the diagnosis is made. A friend in tandem with her mentor begins the search for her self-identity. As she predicted, the approaches and tools in this therapy are taken from Viktor Frankl’s existential philosophy and logotherapy. The method suffered by a former prisoner of the concentration camp deserves special piety. Logotherapy is suitable primarily for neurotics, those who are bored, and those who have reached a dead end in life.

Basic provisions of Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy

Meaning of life

The main motivation of a person is the search for meaning in his life.

Meaning is unique to each person and can be found in all aspects of life.

Freedom of will

Despite external circumstances, people always have the freedom to choose their attitude and actions.

The responsibility for finding meaning lies with the people themselves.

Will to content

The desire for meaning is an innate human need.

The will to meaning pushes people to overcome difficulties and find purpose in their lives.

Noogenic orientation

Human beings have a noogenic orientation, which means they are motivated by spiritual and existential questions.

Logotherapy focuses on human noogenic needs.

Self-transcendence

The meaning of life is often beyond the limits of one’s “I”.

Self-transcendence is going beyond the limits of one’s selfish interests and devoting oneself to a greater goal or to other people.

From rumination to self-identification

Somewhat unexpectedly, during the second session, not a single word was mentioned about the destructive relationship and the need for a divorce, which, in fact, became the reason to turn to a psychotherapist. Yes, as if this problem has receded into the background. Something else became important – to better understand yourself, to find your self-image and self-support. New thinking will attract new people and new circumstances.

So, the friend diligently completes the task in a school-like way – she fills the formula “I am a person who engages in a certain activity and feels satisfaction from a certain result” with her content. She should find 10-15 such facets of her self-identity.

And so she blurted out something like: “I am the kind of person who, learning new things about the working mechanisms of the human psyche, feels heuristic satisfaction from the opportunity to rethink this knowledge and popularize it in my circle of communication.”

When the “home” is ready, my friend and the psychologist will add up the common denominator under all the facets of her self-identity and hope to get an answer in which she will find support in herself and learn to be happy not because of it, but in spite of it. Whether she is in a relationship or single.

And with this approach, Viktor Frankl – the founder of the third Viennese school of psychotherapy, who tested the effectiveness of his theory not only in peaceful life, but primarily on himself and other prisoners of fascist concentration camps, will give a head start to his predecessors – the Viennas Freud and Adler, who bet on pleasure and the will to power.

Somewhat paradoxically, according to Frankl, psychological recovery for a mature personality can come in the paradigm not “what I want to get from life”, but “what I am ready to give to life”. Agree, a valuable perspective of world perception, the ability to which is difficult to overestimate today…

Tatyana Morarash