Psychologists “did not help” many people. And more and more often there are complaints that “I tried it, tried it, but it didn’t help.” However, not everyone wants to find reasons why? Let's take a closer look at several examples when a psychologist “doesn’t help.” A mother calls: “Please help, accept my boy, he often has hysterics.” A boy comes. 22 years old. Lives with his parents, meets a girl. “I came because my mother said. I have outbursts of rage, sometimes to the point of assault, I want to get rid of them. But otherwise everything is fine.” So, what do we have available? At the very beginning, the client is not responsible for his appeal to a psychologist - another person (in this case, his mother) did it for him - that is, there is a high belief that the client himself does not need changes. Further - the client is ready to work only with the symptom: “Spare me from ..." Will the work of a psychologist be successful in this case? There is a high probability that not. Why? Because a psychologist does not have a magic wand - to wave his hand and get rid of attacks of rage. And even if there was, it would hardly have helped for long. A symptom is part of a common whole - a family system, a personality structure. This is a way for a given individual to adapt to the circumstances that have developed in her life, a way to resolve conflicts - internal and external. And often this method is the best possible. When “outbursts of rage” cease, psychosomatic illnesses or addictions begin. Here we can use a medical metaphor, for example: how a high temperature can accompany various types of inflammatory processes, and simply “bringing down the temperature” does not always mean finding the cause and achieving health, and in some cases (for example, with appendicitis) this can even be dangerous for the body. A person is an integral system, and a symptom is related to the whole, for example, to the internal structure of the individual, to the way of life, to self-attitude, to relationships with others, among whom this symptom manifests itself. Is this client willing to consider the whole picture? Is he ready to talk about himself, about his relationships, about his values? Is he ready to change anything in his life? Even if he has such a desire, there is a very high probability that there will be no changes after one or two meetings. In addition, there is a high probability that the changes that may occur in the client’s life - in his ability to express aggression, in his ability to defend his boundaries not through outbursts of rage, “will not suit” his mother, who, when sending her son to a psychologist, does not see problems in herself or in the family, sees problems in him - that is, she herself is satisfied with everything in the system that exists, everything except the “symptom.” (to be continued)