The era of romanticism, from my point of view, which existed since the beginning of the development of the psychotherapy market in our country 20-25 years ago, has ended. What period was this? We all studied with inspiration - there was no money, we paid in kind and barter. They absorbed, wrote down, copied, considered themselves outstanding psychotherapists after a year of attending educational trainings. It seemed that everything was possible - this method could do anything - solve any human problem. Moreover, it doesn’t matter whether he’s neurotic or psychotic. We took on any client, promising a fundamental change in his life. And clients believed in this - that in 5 meetings it was possible to get rid of fears, stuttering, and enuresis combined. Or lose weight, get married and have a child after undergoing 10 sessions of psychotherapy. And it seemed to us that this was all real and possible. You just need to master the miraculous technique. We all learned everything that existed, that came to us from abroad - NLP, Gestalt therapy, psychosynthesis, psychodrama. There was just no point in studying psychoanalysis - for some reason it took an idiotically long time - 10 years. We learned something that quickly helps. In addition, everyone who considered themselves a psychologist studied. Teachers, engineers, people without higher education...What next? Everyone who has trained has a job, clients, income?! Can you imagine how many people became psychologists and learned specific methods of psychotherapy during this time?! But not everyone stayed in the profession and with clients. Why? ü The personality qualities of the therapist are the defining thing on the psychotherapy market today. It turns out that not everyone has been cured. Those. not everyone managed to cope with the level of their problems, which, in fact, led everyone to study. Those who became professionals, i.e. those who earn their living through professional psychotherapy? From my point of view, those who have or have formed in themselves such qualities as: - the ability to accept without judgment, first of all, themselves. A lot originally came into the psychology of teachers - they taught the client. As honestly as they can. And they were frustrated that the client no longer needed it. After all, the most valuable thing in therapy is acceptance for who you are. We don’t know ourselves because we don’t have this space at all - we are used to adapting to assessment, adjusting, maybe confronting, but we depend on it. Behind this absorbing activity there is no time to explore - who am I as such? And for this non-judgmental space for themselves, first of all, the client is ready to pay. A wonderful anecdote about a French woman choosing a hat tells us what the client pays for - A French woman choosing a hat in a store. She is served with a feather and the price is called - 100 euros. She asks for something more modest, with a buckle. They bring it to her and tell her the price of 150 euros. She asks for the simplest hat, black, without any frills. They bring it to her and tell her the price - 200 euros. "For what?". They answer her - “Madam, you pay for restraint!”... In order to accept a client, the therapist must accept himself, with all his characteristics and deficits... “There is no task to solve all problems, there is a task to live through everything that arises in the process of life,” Rimantas Kaciunas once said at a seminar organized by our psychological Center “Here and Now.” - ability to live in plain sight. Associated with the previous quality of self-acceptance, i.e. the amount of self-shame that still allows one to be visible—to clients, to groups, to the community. After all, therapists are under constant scrutiny - each of their clients fantasizes about them. And you often hear such things about yourself that your hair is moving... Without self-acceptance it is very difficult to bear.ü - the ability to have long-term relationships. After it was discovered that temperament is unchangeable, and character in very rare cases cannot be changed, in fact, what the client is complaining about, the question arose - why psychotherapy then? Often we cannot set the task of coping in therapy. But just learn to live with it. For example, stuttering, too much demand, excitability,infertility, as in the famous psychotherapeutic joke - enuresis... When the client learns to live with it, he gets relief. But how does he learn? Like a child in a relationship with his parents, in psychotherapy with his therapist. In a relationship with a therapist, in a relationship that heals. But not everyone is ready or capable of a long-term relationship. First meetings are one thing - introductions, questions, first responses. Another thing is long-term clarification of relations at the border of contact, which drags into negative transference. Mistrust, revenge, anger, seduction, acting out... Who would like it? How much capacity for masochism does one need to have in order to withstand this? How much faith, emotional stability, love... And if the therapist has all this, another trap awaits him.ü Free help for people or psychotherapy? Seduction for free help. In the early years of psychotherapy in our country, one of the constantly discussed topics was “How much free therapy should a therapist have, i.e. How many clients should he or can he take for free?” Those. Psychotherapy was not immediately considered as a professional activity. And if such a therapist, who has this reserve of patience and love, followed this path, he quickly burned out. And he left the profession. It is impossible to provide therapeutic assistance professionally without receiving money back. As many. To recover. We have a very expensive profession. As soon as you don’t receive enough for restoration, you can’t help, because you yourself end up. As Yalom writes, “You are moving too far away from the source of helping people without helping yourself.” And this is probably the biggest loss of a romantic - selfless help to people is one thing, but professional therapy is another. The era of romanticism has also ended in the feelings of the community of colleagues. Romantic ideas like “all psychotherapists are brothers” fell to pieces more than once in situations where a colleague or employee of your organization considered it normal to steal clients or use someone else’s client base. Clients entrust their contacts to a therapist or organization, but it turns out that in the wild business market it is normal to take these contacts away, as if the clients entrusted them to you. As in other areas of Russian reality, in psychotherapy the struggle for the market gradually acquired the character of a raider takeover. And this is considered the norm in our country - there are no laws protecting therapists and their intellectual property as in civilized countries. The principle is “Customers are common” and ethical principles do not apply. For example, each therapist understands that a client can leave a therapist on a negative transference for another. Devaluing the therapist and interrupting your therapy. However, most therapists enter into a relationship with this client not only without discussing the issue of ending the previous relationship, but also join in the devaluation of the previous therapist's client. Pragmatism is more important than ethical principles. ü Personal qualities of today's client. Today's client has also changed - from my practice and the practice of the Center, he no longer believes in a miraculous cure in one meeting. Today's client has the idea from literature, feature films, articles and good books that a Western person has his own psychologist, psychoanalyst, as a doctor, family doctor, dentist, massage therapist, hairdresser. And using the example of his relationship with a dentist or cosmetologist, he chooses a psychotherapist for long-term therapy. Of course, first of all, for your child. Secondly, for yourself. Today's client imagines the relationship between an analyst and a patient, a psychologist and a client - constant meetings from 1 to 5 times a week for several years. And even if you have to talk about this when concluding a contract, it does not cause amazement, as it did 10 years ago. The client usually approaches this pragmatically - he considers his future expenses for therapy and compares them with his income and motivation. He wants guarantees of results for the money. Today's client is committed to a long-term relationship with his therapist. But.