People look for a specialist when they are faced with difficult and complex life situations: finding their place in life, communication difficulties, difficult relationships with loved ones, dependent behavior, sexual difficulties, complex painful mental health conditions - anxiety, insomnia, fears, incontinence, impatience, anger, irritability, laziness, apathy, stuttering, obsessive behavior, impulsiveness, panic attacks, palpitations, sweating, increased blood pressure, dizziness and more. At some point, a person says to himself: “That’s it, I can’t, I need to find someone who can help me...” He casually or directly asks his acquaintances and friends whether they know any psychologists or psychotherapists, he searches in advertisements in newspapers and magazines, of course, searches on the Internet, reads articles, visits forums, studies information about practicing psychologists. And here's a call or an email. A voice answers on the other end of the virtual connection. A dialogue begins. If a person is already sufficiently informed, then he simply asks to make an appointment. Some people try a little to find out over the phone about the time, cost, experience and education of the specialist they are contacting. Although they don’t always dare to ask about the latter. It is indeed difficult to ask a person over the phone about his experience and education, because he has already declared himself as a psychologist, which means he must have experience and appropriate education. But life itself suggests that not all specialists have the appropriate diploma and the experience may not be successful. Most people looking for a psychologist completely trust the information that a person declares about himself. I will say, for example, that I am a hairdresser, I will open a hairdresser, and people cannot even imagine that I have neither experience nor education. The same goes for psychologists. Some person advertises that he is a psychologist and has experience in working with some problems. Everyone believes him. Sometimes, of course, a thought creeps into the head, but criticism in a person experiencing a complex mental state is impaired. He wants to believe that they will help him and he will again become as cheerful and carefree as he was before. Therefore, he will convince himself that a person who calls himself a specialist - a psychologist - will really help him. In Kaliningrad, if you look on the Internet, there are many excellent and competent psychologists and psychotherapists working. Maybe for starters, separate these two concepts: psychologist and psychotherapist. Confusion between psychotherapists and psychologists came from other countries. There they often call a psychiatrist - a psychoanalyst. A psychotherapist is a psychologist who has mastered the practice of some psychotherapeutic area of ​​work: cognitive psychotherapy, behavioral psychotherapy, existential psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy and others. Strictly speaking, a psychotherapist is a doctor, a specialist in the field of medicine, and he will prescribe the necessary medications to a person in need. If a psychotherapist conducts any psychological work with a patient, it is important to understand that the psychotherapist’s knowledge of psychology is not at the level of a graduate of a humanitarian university. A psychiatrist can become a psychotherapist-doctor. Of course, they study mental illness, but this is their minus, not a plus, because the person looking for a psychologist is healthy, but if you look carefully through the eyes of a psychiatrist, you can find some signs. This phenomenon in social psychology is called attribution, i.e. interpretation of the reasons and motives of other people’s behavior based on one’s own knowledge and experience. But at the same time, there are psychotherapists among psychologists. This is a specialist who has completed a course of training in a certain type of psychotherapy as part of long-term training programs for at least 3 years. The difference between a psychotherapist and a psychologist-psychotherapist is as follows: 1. A psychotherapist has a basic medical education. The psychologist-psychotherapist has