From the author: Many of my friends honestly say: I would go to a psychologist/psychotherapist if I didn’t have to pay for it. To this I usually answer: it means you are not ready to go to a psychotherapist. Why? Many of my friends honestly say: I would go to a psychologist/psychotherapist if I didn’t have to pay for it. To this I usually answer: it means you are not ready to go to a psychotherapist. Why? Are psychotherapists greedy? Are psychotherapists afraid that all clients will want to work for free? Are psychotherapists prohibited from accepting clients without payment? Everything is much simpler. Usually, if a person is not ready to pay for changes, this means that he is not ready for the changes themselves. From the point of view of professional ethics, it is impossible to accept clients for free. Not because it's dumping. But because this significantly reduces the efficiency of the process. And it’s not at all because the therapist lacks motivation if the client doesn’t leave a significant amount of money on the nightstand every time. My colleagues from European countries where psychotherapy is included in insurance said that those clients who pay out of their own pocket change more effectively than those for whom the insurance company pays. In both cases, the psychotherapist receives an agreed fee, in both cases it is important for the specialist to retain the client and achieve positive changes - but in the second case, the psychotherapist encounters much more resistance, much more refusal to work or self-sabotage on the part of the client. Psychotherapy is the responsibility of all participants, and the client bears his part of the responsibility - otherwise it turns out that the therapist literally “adopts” him and pulls him on himself, which means that the client himself makes no effort to change. Psychotherapy is serious internal work, and if the client himself does not want to take responsibility, the hours spent will never pay off. And monetary payment for a therapist’s work is not only income for a specialist, but also a symbolic expression of the client’s responsibility. In addition, each of us is much more careful about items purchased with some investment than what we got without effort (gifts from loved ones do not count). Well, and finally, the client values ​​his time much more if he pays for it: there is no point in being late, lying, talking “about something else” and generally sabotaging the process. If a person pays for the time spent in the office, he values ​​it and protects it, not wanting to “waste” it. In theory, psychotherapy should always be paid. But in reality, sometimes there are exceptions. First of all, these are training sessions necessary for a specialist to obtain certification or simply to gain practical experience. A barter exchange takes place here: the client agrees to become a kind of “test subject”, preparing in advance for the fact that the therapist may make a mistake. In addition, often in this situation the client knows that many people will hear and learn about his case, and not just his therapist’s supervisor (teachers, fellow students of the novice therapist). In this case, all the rules related to the scope of therapy change slightly in accordance with the contract. Thus, the client somehow pays for treatment with his safety and the absence of any guarantees. By the way, this is not at all as bad as it might seem. A student or novice therapist may be more attentive than his experienced colleague, he is highly motivated to do his work in the best possible way, and the recently acquired knowledge and skills are still fresh in his memory. Another situation is when a person turns to an experienced therapist who is accustomed to taking money for his services in a crisis situation, who, by all indications, really needs help, but is not able to pay for the services of a specialist. Different psychologists approach this practice differently, but most have encountered situations where “you can’t help but take it.” In such cases, payment is still needed: purely symbolic or, in extreme cases, in the form of tasks that the therapist sets for the client. Irving Yalom, one of.