Good warm evening! Today, on the day of the psychologist, which has almost passed (and on which I congratulate all my colleagues), I wanted to write a short article about what, in my opinion, should be guided by when choosing a specialist in our profession. Well, actually, I would like to start with voices of the heart... Not so long ago, in one of my publications, I already mentioned that people, as a rule, go to psychologists and psychotherapists with something very difficult and often painful. And in order to be able to trust and confide in a specialist, build effective working relationships with him and together open the way to your true self - in my opinion, the qualifications of a specialist and his professional qualities are not enough. We will definitely talk about the latter a little lower, but for now - still about the voice of the heart. I think that for successful psychological work, the future client/patient must have some kind of internal feeling “This is MY psychologist/MY therapist.” It is difficult to explain in words, but almost everyone says that when you really meet “your” specialist, a similar feeling, a response appears inside - and one way or another it becomes possible to recognize it. For many, it develops already at the moment of “correspondence acquaintance” - when reading a specialist’s profile on a professional website, viewing his publications on a social network, etc. Others are able to feel something similar only at the first face-to-face meeting... So, if the choice of the heart has been made, and you feel in your gut that you could entrust your secret to this psychologist - it would be good at this stage to clarify some more details so that the mind can also be satisfied with the decision you made. So, if the voice of the heart is difficult to explain and is not very logical, then the criteria for selecting a quality specialist at the level of the mind are quite simple and easily structured. What factors should be taken into account to make a final decision: 1. Basic education of a specialist. Medical or psychological. Moreover, it is extremely desirable that basic education be precisely basic - higher. And not just one-year professional retraining courses on the basis of another higher education with a completely different focus. 2. Continuing the topic of professional retraining)) Regular advanced training. A psychologist is not a profession where you can study once and use the acquired knowledge and skills throughout your life. In order to be a high-quality specialist and effectively help people, a specialist needs constant professional growth, as well as personal growth, however. Good advanced training courses usually combine both. 3. Personal therapy. It is not for nothing that almost any serious professional development program for psychotherapists or training for one contains a minimum number of hours of personal therapy completed as a critical requirement for obtaining a certificate. As a rule, at least a hundred. Only with a sufficient level of personal development will the specialist be able to truly descend with the client into his sea of ​​​​pain, and then help him find his way back. And not just “combing the bushes”, making the picture of the client’s situation more presentable and decent looking somewhere on the surface. 4. Supervision. In order to continue professional development, therapists need high-quality communication in order to discuss difficult client cases, receive “feedback” from colleagues on their actions, etc. According to the ethical principles of the work of a psychotherapist, he never has the right to discuss client cases with anyone (the principle of confidentiality) - except for his own supervisor. Therefore, in countries where the activities of psychologists are licensed and more strictly controlled, regular supervision of practice is a prerequisite for obtaining a license and maintaining it. For any person (and psychologists are people too 😊) is much stronger when he does not act alone, but is able to rely on someone. 5. Specialization and approach to work. Before going to your chosen specialist,)))