Firstly, it all depends on the specific problem you come with. For example, if you are worried about your relationship with a colleague at work, with whom you have always been friends, and then suddenly dissatisfaction and resentment begin, while your desks stand together opposite each other, and you look into each other’s eyes all day long... and you cannot understand, why did the person change so much? The psychologist will explain to you the reason that led you to this situation. It won’t take much time; one consultation will be enough to clarify for yourself what happened and how to proceed, and, sometimes, a second consultation to adjust your new actions. In a situation of problematic relationships: with the opposite sex, with children, with parents, you will need more time to develop a different model of behavior. First, the psychologist-consultant will offer you to clarify the situation, then he will help you find the reason for its occurrence and find new ways to interact with people in the future. Such work, for example for me, takes 10–15 consultations (once a week for 1 hour). Why so long? – A person just needs time to develop a new habit and consolidate it in practice. Let me give you a simple example: remember how you brush your teeth - the actions are practiced to the point of automaticity, right? You take the brush with one hand, squeeze out the toothpaste with the other, then brush your teeth with practiced movements - it's a habit. Now imagine, you injured your hand and while you can’t use it in this process, you do everything with one hand, it’s hard, right? Brushing your teeth began to take more time and became inconvenient - this is a process of changing habits, it really does not feel very comfortable, but after a week you manage to do it faster, and after a couple of weeks you can easily handle the brush and paste and get by just fine with one hand – an old habit is replaced by a new one. The only difference from mental habits is that they are not consolidated as quickly as physical ones, but they also eventually become automatisms. Therefore, get ready, you will have to work for these 10 - 15 weeks. If this is a crisis situation - divorce, travel, depression, loss of a loved one, then get ready to work longer! An analogy with medical practice is appropriate here: when you go to the doctor in a serious condition, one or two weeks will not be enough for you to fully recover. This process is gradual and cannot happen with the wave of a magic wand, especially since a psychologist or doctor is not a magician! They do their job by helping you: a doctor with your physical body, a psychologist with mental conditions, and it’s up to you whether you want to recover or not. The second important aspect that influences the duration of therapy is the direction in which the psychologist-consultant works. There are a huge number of directions in modern psychology - these are Gestalt and psychoanalysis, behavioral and body-oriented therapy, humanistic direction and integrated approach, etc. They differ in approaches to therapy and methods of work, and the duration of counseling varies greatly: for example, psychoanalysis is a rather long process, and behavioral therapy is shorter, but this does not mean that one method is worse, the other is better, they are simply aimed at solving different problems. When contacting a specialist, you can always ask in which area of ​​psychology he works, and how, in his opinion, it compares favorably with others. A good specialist will always explain his methods and approaches, and tell you what results you can actually achieve. The third aspect, perhaps the most important: you yourself must clearly understand what results you want to achieve as a result of therapy. So how can you understand what result you want? First, answer yourself two questions: - What doesn’t suit me in life now or what makes me feel bad? - What do I want to get as a result of psychological consultations? Let's take a simple example: The girl's.