He came in, sat down, smiled and... fell silent. A few seconds later there was a polite, interrogative “Well?...” “A good start,” I thought, “that’s exactly what I was almost going to tell him.”... The continuation of our “conversation” turned out to be worthy of its beginning: he introduced himself and said that he had problems No. To my silent surprise, he quickly answered that he came at the insistence of his wife, who herself goes to a psychotherapist because she has “problems” with Artem. There was nothing left to do but ask him how I could be useful to him. “I have no idea.” “, Artem answered and sat down more comfortably, and my mood completely deteriorated. I had a suspicion that he would walk, and the current situation would repeat itself more than once. My premonitions did not deceive me. Very slowly I managed to find out that his arrival was his wife’s condition for the continuation of their marriage, according to her, he had become very hot-tempered, and to live with him it became difficult. He himself considers his temper to be justified, he has such a character. (What a character: throwing phones out of windows! At the same time - a quiet voice, gentle manners...) He is not so much afraid of divorce as he does not want it: he has invested a lot of effort and time in this relationship, his life is settled, in principle, everything suits him. The wife believes that the psychologist can influence their relationship, he does not think so, and is going to prove to her that she is wrong. (It is always nice to hear from a client that he came to you only to prove your uselessness ...) I expressed my doubts regarding the prospects of our meetings. He smiled. Still, he asked me to work with him about his anger. He promised not to interfere with me “doing my job” and agreed on 10 meetings at once, citing curiosity. He expressed concerns about the “influence of psychologists” and did not hide his wariness regarding me personally (being a woman is already bad). He is socially successful, holds a good creative position, and previously had many hobbies and interests. I tried to explain to him what psychotherapy is and what it does different from "influence". Either I was unclear, or he was not interested, but the conversation did not work out. It all ended with a few indifferent nods and formal questions about the procedure of our meetings. We signed a contract and parted ways. To be honest, I didn’t draw any far-reaching conclusions: there’s a high probability that he won’t come at all. Thus, she noted obvious platitudes for herself: she is wary of women, does not understand questions about feelings, is stubborn (the situation in the family worsened not yesterday), impulsive, strives to appear independent, that is, very sensitive to the attitude of others. He is not aware of his needs, expects trouble from me, restrains himself - all the mechanisms for interrupting contact are in place. The main “hunger” is most likely for care and attention to one’s own person. Resentment, tension, revenge on the wife for “misunderstanding.” If there is a “treatment”, then the safety phase will be long, and feelings towards me will be ambivalent at best. Suppressed aggression can be expected in the form of devaluation. The defender of personal integrity of “all times and peoples” Erikson might have been interested in the problems of integrating ambivalences in the phase of autonomy - shame, doubt and disturbances in the functioning of the corresponding modes of retention - release (Artem was really very tense - himself restraint, did not give a single emotion out, his contract alone without asking is worth something!) But the main psychotherapeutic master S. Freud most likely would have diagnosed “fixation at the anal stage”, with its characterological features. And my gestalt position was very simple - “if there is a day, there will be food,” but if there is no day, there will be no trial either. He came to the next meeting and confirmed my assumptions. Although “confirmed” is a loud word, every word had to be “pulled” out of him with “pincers.” He is often dissatisfied with something, but never speaks about it right away, preferring to endure and punish his wife with rudeness and anger. After a quarrel, which he himself started, he takes offense for a long time and never approaches first. strivesemphasize your rightness and superiority. He believes that the wife herself should guess what he wants if she loves him. He lives in a chronically depressed, irritable mood, nothing makes him happy, he is tired of everything. He says that he tries not to feel anything at all, “it’s calmer,” and he distinguishes only those sensations that indicate pain. His wary resistance to therapy and distrust of women in general immediately became a figure. I was assigned the role of an unloved teacher who would teach an uninteresting, unnecessary subject and ask for assignments. At the same time, management and control, and the direction of the “educational process”, naturally, are determined by me. (There is also the prospect: either he will starve me out and I will “give up”, admit that I can’t help him in any way, and he can proudly take my “scalp” to his wife, or I will “rape” him and he will “split”, then is, he will discover his desecrated tender soul, requiring immediate salvation). In addition, judging by his distant - dissatisfied - tense position, I am also invited to master his favorite method of contact - guessing his desires. This, apparently, is necessary so that he does not accidentally ask for something that may be refused to him. And only he refuses his model, depending on the “trembling of his left calf,” and he is insured against all doubts and disappointments. Eh, I don’t like to start with negative transference! Why is a woman a source of tension and danger? Why is it so dangerous to express your desires? To avoid having to worry about rejection? Who ignored his wishes or forbade him to express them? By the way, given his behavior and my feelings about this (irritation, confusion), is it any wonder that in the end women become shrews next to him... But the second meeting is not the right time for such interpretations and I kept silent. My plan was simple. Clarify the background of his current life, strive to distinguish his feelings and be aware of moments of dissatisfaction. This will help him understand what he wants and formulate a request for therapy. You will have to start work virtually without a request, and this is a thankless task, and just like that, you will get accused of wasting the client’s time and money. Moreover, such work requires more of my initiative and responsibility than his. However, I decided to do this for the following reasons. This position may reduce his anxiety that “women always want something from me.” Its neutrality can be maintained until he somehow expresses his “gender” " It’s interesting: will he show himself as a man or as a boy? Artem will only have to choose to agree or disagree with my proposals. This “last stronghold” of his ability to take risks and take initiative will protect him from both the “burdens of excessive responsibility” and the “delights of regression.” I hoped that such support would be enough for a working alliance. Whatever one may say, I’ll have to immediately be a “reasonably good mother”: both provide him with freedom and not overload him with responsibility. And how do I do this? No way. Any work requires an alliance, it is better if it is based on positive feelings. I hoped that my sensitivity to my safety would help me not to “drown” in my mother’s countertransference. Several subsequent meetings went in the same spirit: “I don’t know what I want,” “I don’t feel anything,” “I forget what we’re talking about,” “I don’t think about it and I don’t remember you.” For Artem to accept support, he had to try. Mistrust and devaluation. His attitude towards support from a woman became the main figure of the work in the security phase. Quite soon, I began to express my feelings to him (surprise, sympathy, irritation) and then gently but persistently defend the fact of their existence, confronting his attempts to devalue my experiences or ignore them. At the same time, it was very important to organize this confrontation in such a way that Artem could clearly distinguish between my negative attitude towards his way of behavior and sympathy for him personally as a person who does only what he can, whiledepriving yourself of the opportunity to get help. He allowed little into his personal history; there was almost nothing to “cross the context” of our work, so we worked “on the border of contact.” By the fourth meeting, I had an acute question: what is he paying money for? Most of the time we talked about how he evades my attempts to find out and understand something about him... Any of my “finds” (For example: “When you were talking about this just now, I noticed that you sighed. What is this for you means?”), he immediately questioned: “Really? I did not notice. I have no idea. Research it? Why?” These “moves” baffled me. Artem “didn’t back down”: “If you don’t know, then I don’t know,” or, even better: “What will change if I feel this? I want nothing but peace...” The question about money didn’t bother him at all: “Maybe later I’ll be able to evaluate what’s happening, while I don’t know what I’m paying for.” However, we found several problem areas: tension and uncertainty at work, lack of friends, interrupted relationship with my father, for whom I have strong ambivalent feelings (the father is a successful brilliant journalist, womanizer and tyrant), cold, withdrawn in his problems and grievances towards father, endlessly demanding mother. His parents were always busy with their relationships, Artem was raised in an atmosphere of strict demands and punishments, fatherly ridicule and motherly hysterics. It was impossible to approach any of these topics. To all the questions about his feelings then and now, when he remembers, Artem always answered “I don’t know” and “is this really necessary?” He told me with a smile, reluctantly, sometimes he asked my opinion and listened to it with disbelief. I “held out” for quite a long time. “I raked the background”, “worked with the merger”, lay in wait for his feelings in order to “get on the trail” of the need that led him to me. But he didn’t “give up” either: we didn’t move beyond brief biographical information and a discussion of his distrust of me (I’ve never trusted anyone, why are you better?) and therapy (where can all this lead?). Retroflection was in full bloom: he was tense, wary, sat in closed positions and looked from under his brows. Thoughts about his own incompetence began to come... This sobered me up somewhat and reduced my zeal. At the seventh session, I said that I was tired of “interrogating” him about life, and I don’t understand what he needs from me if he “needs nothing” from me (at the same time I’ll clarify the symbolic layer of the relationship...). He sincerely sympathized with me, almost for the first time I saw a manifestation of feelings on his part, he assured me that has nothing against me personally. Then I asked if he had anything to do with me, hoping to at least meet something living here, but in vain. I am a nice person who is trying to do something for him, but he doesn’t understand what. I asked how he felt in such a situation. He replied that it was a slight awkwardness, but he couldn’t help me. At the same time, he smiled coquettishly for the first time. For me, this was a sign of some “unfreezing” of him and I took a risk. I feel confused, as if it’s not you who want something from me, but I from you. And I can't seem to achieve this. You remain cold to all my attempts. I'm becoming less and less confident in myself and every time you leave, I'm ready for this session to be my last. This is unpleasant. Smile. Sorry. You look like you're enjoying something right now. Surprise. Yes Yes. Could this be similar to any other relationship in your life? Probably. What's the beauty of it? I'm calm, I'm confident, I'm in control of the situation. Where have you failed? Well, now you don't always succeed with your wife, but in general I always felt the way you do now, with my mother and father. Now you really are in control of the situation, but I don’t want to stay in it. Pause. But I’ve never been able to just walk away when I didn’t like something... I happily “grabbed” at Artem’s “moment of weakness”: “We could work with this.” He immediately became wary: “Does this need to be changed? Is it possible?” I suggested that he think about it, perhaps his wife is not so similar to his mother,it seems to him that he can communicate with her differently, not just by “driving her into a corner” or punishing her if she does not go there of her own free will. He agreed to think about it. It would be nice if, for starters, he simply did not forget this conversation. It is clear that the situation with his mother is not completed, he repeats it again and again in the “hope” that either he will force the woman to do what he needs, or he will be indignant at her “non-compliance” with his requirements. But it is impossible to be indignant, so he continues to act with resentment, punishing women, repeating his mother’s way of influencing his father. It was bad to joke with my father: his own aggression was enough to suppress any indignation, but with the help of resentment it was possible to attract his attention. Then, however, he abandoned them anyway. So now the mother is reproducing all this with Artyom, confusing her husband and son and driving Artyom into a rage: every quarrel with his mother for him is a confirmation of her attachment to her father, and neglect of him, Artyom. Artyom’s behavior with women is a transformation of the experience of his powerlessness before maternal indifference into active action - forcing other women to seek his attention, feeling insecure, fearing a break in relations with him. If they don't do this, he punishes them the way his mother punished him: by devaluing them, by ignoring them. If they do, they have a chance to win his favor. For the first time, he showed personal sympathy for me and even allowed himself to be coquetry precisely when I became “weak” for him and recognized his superiority. This is how Artem’s problems manifested themselves in our relationship: the unresolved conflict between power and subordination, and underneath them - the need for love and recognition, the risk of losing an already fragile connection with his mother. He started the same game with me and is still in the phase of power and control. Actually, now he is regaining his power over a woman, lost with his wife. And he goes for it. She endured, endured, and suddenly did something that he could never allow himself: she left an unpleasant situation for her, broke off contact with him, became indignant... He was not yet convinced that acting like that with me was also not effective. But I had already cast doubts in him with my statement of dissatisfaction. Gradually, his wariness regarding support became clear: while I take care of him, I am strong and dangerous, it is difficult to “bend me under,” but I have power over his feelings. He is not confident in himself, “hides”, tries not to give himself away. As soon as I “give up” and admit my powerlessness, he noticeably relaxes, he manages to “defeat his mother”, force her to be what he needs. My plan worked in that it helped repair the tenuous alliance and restore some of his self-respect and sense of control over his life. What will he do about it? Of course, forget and smile. I didn’t remember about my mother, because it was unpleasant. At the same time, he noted that he became less hot-tempered, and I noted that he began to flirt with me. It is clear that it is easier to flirt with a woman who has already shown her weakness than to delve into relationships with my mother, who was what she was, and remains so. On the other hand, the figure changed, and along the “contact curve” we advanced almost to the projection, something like that, and he discerned his interest in me (although he didn’t really realize it...). His coquetry is a sign of increased self-confidence, and I decided that it was time to remind him about the contract and return to clarifying his request for therapy. Artem is clearly satisfied with his “victory” and, in principle, nothing prevents him from stopping there. Otherwise, if he continues to “heal” in the same spirit (on my enthusiasm and without touching his “sore spots”), I will have no choice but to return him again and again to the awareness of the way he interacts with me - constantly putting him under doubting my competence and devaluing my participation - and its futility: I don’t want to remain a “whipping girl” and if this is the only reason he comes, then I’m ready to admit my powerlessness to help him andsuspend our work until he decides to interact more productively. I’ll have to do what he’s so afraid of: I end the relationship when it doesn’t suit me, and go through the separation. It’s sad, of course, but I won’t satisfy his neurotic needs, especially since he barely “invests” in this satisfaction. Let's see how he reacts to this prospect and whether he can accept my reasons. That's what I did. I “complained” about my difficulties in such a situation, fatigue, the danger of an unproductive waste of his time and money and suggested focusing on this as a problem, or thinking about finishing the work. He agreed with my words and boasted! that he felt better, he began to take an interest in life and even achieved a solution to a long-hanging issue at work. And he suggested three more meetings! Out of emotion, I wanted to give him something as a souvenir. As a material sign of his strength and power. I agreed to this “torture with oranges”! I missed the next meeting, which was supposed to be in two weeks. But I forgot! By the way, for the first time in my life... What is my resistance? And I don’t want to be useless again. I began to get angry with him, but I liked him with his politeness and irony, and I simply sympathized with him. It was my sympathy that he did not accept in any way, he was simply surprised that it was me, but he himself did not feel anything during his stories. Moreover, it was precisely this rejection of my support that was support for him; he again proved to himself that he did not need anyone. Apparently, my omission was acting out; remaining at the mercy of introjects, I held back a fair amount of anger and fatigue. By skipping the session, I wanted to tell him that I could break up with him, that I didn’t need him enough to step on my feelings of fatigue and anger. And then came the “time of change.” At the next meeting, he talked about his father, a despot and psychopath, who was only busy competing with his mother and his professional “greatness.” He talked about the warm feelings he had for his mother, pity for her, which were restrained by the fear that she would start to “sit on her neck” if she felt his warmth, and he would not be able to refuse and would be forced to do more and more for her. At the same time, Artem is confident that his mother is ready to do anything for him and this adds to his shame and guilt before her, especially when he has to refuse her something. By the way, Artem does not accept anything from her and so far this readiness is only in words. I suggested that Artem agree to some of her proposals in order to test her promises, this will bring greater clarity and realism to his image of his mother. And he took it and agreed! His feelings and attitude towards his mother are ambivalent: he is angry with her and dissatisfied, but at the same time he has warmth for her, which is important to preserve. Moreover, neither one nor the other pole finds its expression in relations with her, which keeps him in a “neurotic tendency” - halfway both here and there. Artem noticed that this meeting was not the same as the previous ones. He is more accessible and open, we were able to touch on important topics in his life. He said that he was a little surprised at himself, but he was pleased... I was surprised and touched, which I did not hide. Artem was a little embarrassed and immediately offered to give me a ride. I refused: there is no point in confusing the boundaries of the relationship, especially since such “agility” is more likely a sign of attempts to “knock” me out of the therapeutic position into a “simply female” one, where he now feels more confident. This is the first signal that we are successfully living through the security phase in our relationship and moving on to the next phase, attachment. It seems that my omission “had an impact.” Artem was “scared” that I would “leave” him before he was ready to leave. He “decided” to “feed” me the “food” that I “like” in order to maintain our relationship until he was ready to end it. The risk of ending the relationship made him decide to discover affection, at least indirectly, overcoming doubts and shame. This is a really risky step for him, in his parentalto the family, such actions could be met in any way - from ridicule to obsessive “clinging” to him. Next meeting. Artem said that he began to think about his mother more often, noticing with pity and warmth that she was getting old. He complained that he mentally understood the groundlessness of her claims, but every time he felt guilty and was angry with her for it. He sadly admitted that guilt is his main feeling in his relationship with his mother, and he sees no point in delving into it, because it has always been this way. I drew his attention to the beginning of our session, to sadness and pity, he agreed that he started with this, but somehow habitually switched to guilt and anger. Then I asked what feelings were more difficult for him, and he was surprised to note that sadness and pity were more difficult than guilt. After a minute, he asked incredulously and somewhat grumpily if I wanted to say that he could choose his feelings. This is exactly what I wanted to say. I talked in more detail about my father, about the endless struggle for power between his parents, to whom Artem never turned with his difficulties or joys, he was used to figuring everything out with his own mind, constantly doubting whether he was right. It was a long and sad story, at the end of which he felt much less tense than usual. He asked me a couple of times if my attitude towards him was changing; he was not used to telling women about his family for fear that they would think he was a weakling. My attitude, of course, changed, but not at all in the direction of devaluing him, but in the direction of greater respect and sympathy for him. This answer upset him rather than pleased him; this is exactly how he sees the attitude towards a weakling. How do they treat a strong man? They are afraid of him. At this point I couldn’t restrain myself and answered directly that my attitude towards men is very different from his mother’s attitude towards them, and he, fortunately, is not nearly as similar to his father as he thinks. Artem perked up. And I really think that I am very similar to him, and it’s terrible. He is a scoundrel. However, with your wife you behave almost the same way as him. Exactly. How does this happen? To be honest, I always thought that there was no point in going back to the past - you can’t fix anything anyway. But it turns out it’s not such a past after all? Unfortunately... At parting, he complained that he was becoming somehow sentimental. What’s wrong with that? This is strange and not like me. What if I stay like this? Maybe this is influence? Well, of course influence. I don’t hide my feelings around you, I’m attentive to what you say and how you feel, and you begin to reveal your feelings. Everything is in your power: if you don’t want to, you’ll shut down again. And that’s true. He became cheerful. Our time was up, and he left in thought. My hope came to life again that he would “chew on it all” between sessions. Early on, I began to hope for “working through the parent-child relationship.” The next meeting took place on the one hand, in continuous “I didn’t think” and “I don’t know” about mom-dad-loneliness-wife, and on the other hand, Artem flirted with me recklessly and suggested extending the therapy for three more sessions. If we translate this into professional language, then at this stage I was able to support his childish part with my attention and sympathy, which allowed his adult male part to strengthen and manifest itself in his relationship with me. Artyom gradually emerges from the merger, the petrification passes, he even takes the initiative in his relationship with me. The woman turned out to be not as dangerous for him as he expected. I think several factors were at play. First, my patience with his withdrawal and wariness, accepting him as “uncomfortable” as he now is. Secondly, disclosing my feelings of fatigue and irritation, and giving him freedom of choice regarding the continuation - ending of our relationship, my willingness to stop when I “get bored”. Thirdly, dosed responsibility, which increased gradually, in proportion to his readiness to enter into a relationship with me. Fourth, my openness to powerlessness and recognition of his control over the situation, which contributed to the restoration of hisself-confidence and, finally, the threat of rupture and repetition of the traumatic situation, which forced him to risk coming into contact with his feelings, as a result of which he was able to accept support and his “fears” regarding contact with me (whether I will begin to humiliate him or demand something for myself) did not materialize. It was precisely this experience that he was deprived of in childhood, when, from the weakness of childhood, he found himself immediately faced with the demands of adulthood, inappropriate for his age, which led to failures and constant doubts about himself and his actions and shame for possible failure. And failure in such a situation was simply guaranteed to him. This experience served to develop a positive transference, which replaced the negative and ambivalent one in the previous phase. On the other hand, he managed to come into contact with feelings that had long been “buried”, and this happened somewhat unexpectedly for him; moreover, he realized that it was precisely “these experiences” that psychotherapy deals with. This increased his anxiety and set us back. He expressed concern that he would not be able to talk about his feelings the way he “needed,” much less “work” with them. The fear of experiencing shame in a relationship with me has returned. His stop at the attachment phase is quite understandable, especially in the perspective of long-term work, that is, a long-term relationship, and his reluctance to allow me closer to his life. When the relationship becomes stable and its development is planned, he loses freedom, gets angry with himself and strives to look independent, to the point of devaluing the woman and the relationship with her. This creates a strong ambivalence in him, a tension that he wants to avoid with me. He already has such a relationship with his wife and at the same time he does not want to “delay” two relationships. Perhaps in our relationship he feels some temptation, which is dangerous for him to succumb to, a temptation that threatens to repeat his chronic trauma of instability and unreliability of a woman’s attachment. The relationship with his wife continues insofar as he has already experienced disappointment in her as a maternal figure and has taken a counter-dependent vindictive position, which he acts out. He has not yet been disappointed in me, so he is afraid of a continuation that threatens him with the risk of disappointment and the risk of further charm and actualization his frustrated needs for protection and affection. Over the next three meetings we made no progress. He did not return to the topics of his wife and parents, mostly “he didn’t know anything,” but he flirted with me a lot, to which I drew his attention. He admitted that he is interested in me, he is happy to receive my attention, but this is not something for which he is willing to pay money. He admitted that he needed time to check whether he was free enough and whether his life was prosperous. Everything is fine, the check satisfied him. In parting, Artem thanked me and said that he could contact me again if necessary, but he suspected that there would be no such need. Well, what can I say... In the end, my task is not to examine the client for the quality of awareness of what is happening, but to help improve his condition. And this has been achieved. I was able to respond to the client’s unspoken message, “feed” his “hungry” and, by the time of our meeting, embittered childish part, which made his temper and tension in his relationship with his wife less relevant. He did not want to go in the direction of clarifying what was happening in his family and changes in their life together. I did everything I could without violating the client’s boundaries and without replacing his desires with mine. Neurotics are good for their patience, the ability to withstand prolonged stress, their defenses are rigid but reliable. Unfortunately, it is precisely these wonderful qualities that often force them to finish their work halfway, having achieved the first improvement, or to develop strong resistance to any interference in their internal space, albeit uncomfortable, but stable and familiar. Working with a neurotic who is not “locked in” is almost hopeless. No motivation for you, no cooperation. Considering all this, I don'tI tried to “drag Artem into happiness” and was quite satisfied with our work. I also had a vague suspicion that changes in his life were inevitable, and I did not rule out resuming therapy. And so it happened. He showed up three months later, completely lost and desperate. Not a trace remained of the former closed, ironic, physically constrained and sedentary Artyom. She left him. She just came and said - go live with your mother, I’m divorcing you. The two main questions he wanted answered were what he should do now and how it happened. For a whole hour he spoke quickly and confusingly, however, in the end we managed to formulate a version of what happened. The impossible happened. His control didn't work. The way his mother always kept him close - demanding and devaluing - did not justify itself. His wife did what he could not do: take care of herself and leave a relationship that did not satisfy her, rather than continue to earn his favor through self-denial. After that, he calmed down a little, and I was once again amazed at the ability of neurotics to maintain contact with reality even at critical moments. Artem feels bad, he wants to do something about this condition, and he agrees to everything, as long as I help him. He doesn’t understand anything, doesn’t know what to do and asks for some recommendations on how he can withstand all this. The moment of breaking the merger is always difficult. Feelings are in complete disarray, resentment, anger, despair are mixed into one ball, the sense of one’s own integrity and continuity is lost. We scheduled the next meeting in three days. During this time, I asked him not to remain alone as much as possible, to write down his feelings as they change within him, and with necessary contacts with his wife, not to try to involve her in clarifying the relationship. It is clear that analyzing the causes of what happened and living through past traumas is now completely inappropriate. The first step is to somehow accept what happened, find a way to coexist with your feelings and express them. Such work will also be a form of caring for Artem, since it will be focused on his experiences and filled with attention to him. Indeed, several sessions were spent consistently passing through conflicting feelings and listening to his complaints, active approval and support of all his attempts at self-help. When his wife’s departure became irreversible reality, we were faced with several questions. What should we work for: a breakup or attempts to reunite with my wife. Which of them will make this decision, how long will he wait for her return, what will be a sign for him that further waiting is useless. How can he cope with sadness, anger, resentment, shame, loneliness. How could this happen, what did he not do? so how to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The end of our work will come when he finishes “chasing thoughts” about his wife and learning to build relationships with women differently. The plan is grandiose. Its implementation began with clarification of the same questions: what he wants and what he expects from the resumption of our meetings. Well, of course he doesn't know! The “new development” was his direct requests to me to do something with him so that his life would be “easier,” and his willingness to “do what I recommend.” The result of our second meeting was a “life plan without a wife” and the designation of the request: “to understand what I want - to break up with her or get her back.” He spent the next few meetings trying to figure out for himself what traumatized him the most and why. Found it out. For Lena, she herself turned out to be more important than he. Her choice of her own well-being is a forbidden action for him, and her ability to survive without him is a complete surprise. By the time Artem gave some meaning to his suffering, his wife began to communicate with him a little and this clearly “improved” him: there was less anxiety, he began to get angry with her, and not just sink into depression. Around this time, he realized that he would not do anything to get her back, however, and break off relations with herIt won’t happen on its own initiative either. She wants my help in organizing contact with her in the least traumatic way for herself. We must pay tribute to his grief: Artem became “accommodating” and “honestly” implemented all the plans that he outlined at the sessions, that is, he accepted and used help. It is curious that during this period of work he almost did not torment me with his powerlessness and despair, he behaved like a “good obedient boy”, no coquetry or “sabotage”. By session 7 he had “gotten stronger” and got a little used to his new state. And so it began. I'm not a wife. How can I support him? How can I be useful to him? Complete depreciation - as if there was no previous work. Here we first touched on his sense of shame: a woman should not show weakness. Strengthening his boundaries led to the revival of projections and the restoration of ambivalence towards me, especially towards me - supportive. I reminded him that our contract involves helping him identify his needs, and this is how I can be useful. If this issue has ceased to interest him, then it is really worth discussing what I can do for him. I was aware that such a response was quite a severe frustration for the suffering person, but his return to the narcissistic way of interacting with me was a bad prognosis for doing “grief work” and working through the trauma of separation. It helped. He admitted that my actions have value for him, that I am generally the only person who is “next to him” now. With this confession, his sadness and anger towards his wife returned. He admitted that he wanted to look good in my eyes, was surprised at my non-judgmental position, and began to express his anger more boldly. He told me that he was torturing his dog and cruelly demanding obedience from it. It turned out that in this he was like his father, who never missed an opportunity to show his power. The father was proud of his cruelty, and constantly reproached Artyom for being too soft. Artyom still hates him for this and it is an unpleasant surprise for him to see his own behavior, so similar to his father’s behavior. Talking about this, he felt guilt and pleasure from his cruelty. So the other pole of his relationship with his father became available to him - admiration for his perseverance and achievements. The next step, Artyom realized that it was his father’s strength that he now lacked: his father would never suffer because of a woman, instead he would find a way to punish her. As disgusting as it is (for him now), he needs his father and his support. Thus began a new long-term topic. In the next session we talked about episodes of unfair punishment by the father. The deployment of retroflection made it possible to express a lot of anger at the father, to feel one’s strength through accepting anger and to establish one’s own values ​​that are different from the father’s. The father’s figure became less powerful and ominous, and it became possible to see his positive qualities: intelligence, determination, determination. The father turned out to be the person whose advice would be most valuable. In general, the “hot chair” work, which turned out to be very effective as a result, moved extremely slowly. Artyom found it difficult to identify himself with his father, so alien and incomprehensible; it took a lot of effort to turn to him, causing, first of all, a feeling of fear, and then shame. Artyom’s question to his father sounded like “What should I do?” It’s very difficult to find words in the father’s place, there is a lot of anger at his son for not being what his father wants. The father himself doesn’t know what Artem should be like, but clearly not the way he is. The father is outraged: “How dare you ask me about this, you should know it yourself, get down to business.” Artem feels small and helpless, and feels a strong anger that he suppresses. Suddenly all feelings disappeared. He also doesn’t understand what he feels for me, he’s a little embarrassed and confused, a vague feeling of guilt. It seems that it is not safe for him to express his anger in front of me after all. He is merging again, now with his fantasies about me and my attitude towards his anger. At the next session, Artem was again confronted with his resemblance to his father. Managed to assignfeelings of anger, irritation, lack of restraint and intolerance towards another person, and discover that behind the aggression there is weakness and fear. Artem said that his father would never have dared to admit this to anyone, not even himself. My father always considered such confessions as weakness and denied everything that he did not like about himself. I asked Artem about his feelings for his father. “He’s dangerous, but at the same time he’s kind of pitiful and seemingly unstable.” Unexpectedly, Artem felt stronger. It turned out that now he had much more regrets about the impossibility of closeness with his father than anger and resentment towards him. A few days later he called and said that he had stopped torturing his puppy. Simple and beautiful: appropriation of the rejected feelings makes a person more holistic and gives access to new resources, including love. The mitigation of the internal conflict associated with his father reduced Artyom’s overall stress. He began to communicate more with colleagues and provoke his wife less into quarrels, and finally moved to live with his mother. Naturally, the topic of relations with his mother came to the fore. What irritated Artem most of all was her detachment, combined with cruel nagging and accusations that arose unexpectedly and unpredictably. It generally seemed to him that his mother did not distinguish between him and his father; her accusations contained claims that had nothing to do with Artem and demands that he was unable to satisfy. This causes anger and resentment in him, which he himself called childish. Sometimes he loses patience and yells at her, after which he feels acute pity for her, guilt, and then resentment again. It was difficult to work with this resentment. Artem firmly “sat down” in the “children’s place” and insisted on his right to “get a good mother”, and not this “witch”. All my efforts to discover the other pole in resentment, other than anger, ran into his “I have the right!” and “The worst one!”, “I don’t even want to imagine what she might feel.” Promotion became possible after I was able to join his anger and confirm its justice. It seems that this is exactly what he never received: the right to decide what is fair for him and what is not, based on his feelings. As soon as he did this, his anger melted away, turning into regrets and deep sadness. I told Artem about my sympathy. He became wary and asked why I was saying this, what it obliges him to do. (At this point I really felt sorry for him, what a childhood experience - not a single affection “for free”! I kept silent about this so as not to frighten or embarrass him even more). I replied that it is important for me to share what I have, this does not oblige him to anything, I myself am responsible for my feelings. He breathed a sigh of relief and thanked him. The next time he spoke about his guilt towards Lena and gratitude to her. His guilt diminished in proportion to his gratitude. (For a neurotic, it is common and easy to experience guilt, especially since guilt holds on to relationships that are ready to collapse without it: while you are guilty, you continue to either wait for punishment or deserve forgiveness). For Artem, the experience of gratitude has always been difficult. This is understandable: the experience of gratitude “warms” relationships, strengthens the internal connection with another, and this is fraught with dependence and suffering if a person does not know how to “go away” when he needs to, take care of himself, express his displeasure. Along with the return of his aggression, Artem restored and the experience of gratitude. And suddenly I discovered that it was gratitude that allows me to “let go” of Lena, reduces tension and softens resentment towards her. We continued working on the relationship with my mother. Artem has the feeling that she is “keeping him tied up.” We made a “sculpture” - a model of his relationship with her, and it turned out that he was uncomfortable being so close to his mother, but warm and he did not want to change anything. He is compressed, warm and very lonely. Our positions were symmetrical and I assumed that his mother felt the same way next to him. Artem was surprised. Then I suggested changing something and he turned me to face him. In this position, we both felt more confident and calm.At the end of the session, Artem noted that it was easier for him to think about his mother, she had somehow become more humane and he felt sorry for her. I suggested that he simply remember this feeling and approach his mother with it. And then he acutely felt the desire to call Lena. Of course it's easier. Only in this case it is useless. Interestingly, we made no progress in the subsequent session. He whined again and complained that Lena didn’t love him, that he was lonely and didn’t know how to live. It turned out that the day before Lena called him and asked for something, that is, she made him understand that she needed him. Of course, if he receives support from Lena, why does he need me with my difficult work. My voicing of this observation “brought him to his senses”: he “remembered” that the divorce had already taken place, Lena would not return, and he needed to get over it, and in such a way as not to repeat the same thing with other women. Artem has already become “conscious” enough to feel the similarity of his relationship with his mother and with Lena. This scares him and forces him to move towards resolving the internal conflict with his parents. We're back to work. This session turned out to be a turning point. Artyom managed to identify with his mother, “to be her” when little Artyom turns to her for love and consolation. In his mother's place, he felt only annoyance and embarrassment. The child’s complaints were unpleasant to him and he tried to quickly end the conversation with him. He directly said on behalf of his mother, “I have nothing for you.” Returning to his little self, he experienced acute disappointment, resentment and fear. These are exactly the feelings with which he remained after communicating with his mother throughout his childhood. I touched him and asked him to linger a little in these feelings. Artem cried. He cried for quite a long time and said that hope was leaving him, and as he said goodbye to the childish image of a kind mother who just needed to be “awakened,” he came to realize that he was an adult, independent, surrounded by different people, including those who were ready support him if he himself does not drive them away and offend them. At the end of the session, Artem said that he realized in what loneliness his mother lives and lived all her life, busy with fruitless attempts to win her cold and harsh father, how much despair there is in her and how little “mother” she has. This is sad, but it is understandable. Several subsequent sessions were devoted to the assimilation of new experience: the recognition of his need for his mother, her alienation and unavailability, the fear of returning to dependence on her, the acceptance of his love for her, despite all the insults that she inflicted on him. The work was far from smooth, with anger, backlashes to grievances and demands, however, I could not leave the feeling that he had already taken the main step, he was able to accept ambivalent feelings for his mother, which allowed him to restore empathy for her and say goodbye to his childhood hope for the “return of a good mother,” which can be earned through your suffering and patience. From this moment the last, third stage of our work began. He said he was returning to his old self, who he was after the army. We began to work on what is in his life today: relationships with colleagues, his fear of looking bad and his inconvenience of being good all the time, his haste in contact and the loss of sensitivity from this haste. Ordinary, detailed work on the border of contact, with attempts to slow down his internal rush and distinguish his own feelings at the current moment. The work bore fruit: at some point, Artem said that he felt sympathy and interest in the woman, and tried not to rush into a conversation with her and not to rush the development of the relationship. He said that it was calmer and somehow more reliable, as if he had time to look around and understand what he wanted. At one of the meetings, he started talking about breaking up. It was both professionally and humanly pleasant that Artem himself proposed a couple of sessions to conclude and say goodbye, to sum up the results and plans for the future. Our work was approaching completion. Artem, having lived through his painful “internal phenomena,” again became interested in current life, and our relationship