When she comes, I am sick for several days. What does it look like? It’s like in my youth - strong feelings that capture me completely. I can’t think about anything else, only her face is before my eyes - so beautiful, so delicate, so... Her black eyes, which hide under a strand of bangs and sometimes burn everything inside me with their lightning-fast gaze. I worry. I'm on fire. I want her. I'm afraid of her. I think I love her. What to do? Stop therapy? Stop therapy! Stop??? And I will no longer see her once a week... I will not talk to her... I will not experience moments of human intimacy with her, anxiety and excitement at chest level... This seems completely impossible. She came to me as an eighth-grader. I called the psychological center where I worked as a consulting psychologist and made an appointment through the secretary: - What is your name? What school are you from? And what is your problem?- I fell in love with a girl...-...(Pause).- I don’t know what to do. I want to die. Our secretary, Natalya Dmitrievna, a woman of retirement age, without any psychological education, but with a subtle soul, made a difficult, but the only decision in that situation: “Okay, I’ll try to enroll you without your parents.” So she came to see me. Only four years later, when our relationship went through insults and anger at each other, frankness and tears, partings and her return to me by home phone, she admitted: “I was sitting in front of the office, and for the first time in my life, without my parents, I came to ask for help from an adult who is called a psychologist. I couldn’t even imagine what this psychologist might look like. And I hoped... But not this young beautiful woman?!.. Lord! Not this young beautiful woman!! This one?!!!”And then I was completely amazed. Due to the nature of my work, I received teenagers who were brought to the center by their parents - they drink, smoke, inject drugs, do not spend the night at home, leave school... You can imagine what they looked like! And suddenly this miracle happened. A pretty excellent student, in whom everything - from a neat blouse to a correctly constructed speech - showed a good upbringing and a high level of intellectual development for her age. She was worried, blushed, restrained her anxiety, and yet a dead end life situation forced her to say: - I’m in love to a girl from my school. From the ninth grade... She is extraordinary. She is so beautiful, so smart, so good... Only she avoids me... - Would you like to be friends with her? - I understood that what I was asking was somehow stupid and not about the fact that under her excitement and embarrassment there was some kind of acute pain, and guilt, and a strong disturbing “wrongness.” But how should I ask about this?.. - Yes, I would like to be friends with her. But in a different way... I am in love not only with her soul, but also with her body... Nonsense! Rave! What does she say?! She herself understands - what is she saying?! Well, of course, this is just what she heard a lot about from the TV screen - the fashionable talk these days about blue and pink... She wants to stand out. He wants to solve his problems in contact with his parents. I wonder with whom? With father or mother? All this flashed through my head at breakneck speed. And she continued: “I have many friends.” Both boys and girls. There is a guy who is in love with me. But I'm only friends with him. I don't care about him. Well, you know, I don't care about my body. And I want her. I'm so drawn to her. I shake so much with excitement when I see her... I listened to her story, nodded, asked contact questions, and I kept calculating the versions in my head: Version one: She actually has problems in her relationship with her mother: there is no intimacy , warmth, love, so she is looking for all this in a relationship with this ideal girl. Version two: The problem is in the relationship with her father (or with her brother?). For example, psychological trauma that does not allow you to create intimacy with boys. Maybe in generalthere was never a father? Version three (not psychological at all): Or maybe this is that purely physiological case with the gene of homosexual love in the blood. And then... And then what??? But it was on my mind. For a Gestalt psychologist, this is the fifth thing. What is at my emotional level? And in this range something was happening... very exciting, capturing me entirely, rising in a hot wave from my stomach to my throat. But she continued: “I tried to approach her once, twice, tried to give her gifts, tried to write letters.” It's all useless - she's avoiding me. And I don't want to live. Everything becomes meaningless if... You see, I can’t even talk to anyone about this. You are the first person to whom I tell all this. Maybe I'm crazy? - everything was in her eyes: fear, pain, pleasure - at the same time. What about parents? It seems to me that I just turned into a mirror. Into the mirror, which reflected her, down to the last nuance of feelings. I experienced fear, pain, incredible warmth and compassion for her. And more understanding. I think this is also a feeling. This girl client of mine is alone with all her passions and fears. Completely alone. And I, an already experienced therapist, master of techniques and theory, did not find anything better at that moment than to simply tell her everything that happened to me twelve years ago, when I was experiencing the tragedy of my own love. After that, I already got married, lived through a lot in my relationship with my husband... Now I no longer remember how she listened to me, what expression she had on her face. When I finished, there was such a silence between us that only happens to people who trust each other so much that they are not afraid to feel in silence. What she took away from my office at that first meeting can hardly be called simply support. What I was left with after she left can be described with the words “shock” and “fear.” We talked about her parents later. At the next meetings. A prosperous family - an intelligent mother and father, there is also a younger brother. No, there are no problems in the relationship. There are no big scandals or bans. It turns out to agree on everything. - It’s not about the parents, Elena Vladimirovna, I’m explaining to you. It's about me and my relationship with my girlfriend...And we worked for her perceived need. After we managed to overcome the problem of not understanding our “friend” during our sessions and between them, accepting ourselves with these strange feelings unlike others, and getting out of a depressive state, Arina disappeared. Spring, summer and autumn passed, and she appeared again me in the office. This time, what worried her most was herself: “I’m alone. I'm lonely not because I have no friends. Lonely because I feel different from all of them. Girls gossip about guys, have affairs, but I'm not interested. I tried to discuss this with my boyfriend, who is in love with me. She talked about her desires to love a woman. He was surprised. But, in my opinion, I understood. He promised to help me meet an adult woman, it seems a prostitute. This is not what I need. But I want to move at least somehow, to realize myself, to search... To understand what in my desires is true and what is made up...” For the second time I was surprised by this girl: she is in the ninth grade, but she thinks and feels on all twenty, and maybe thirty years - when does the true depth of experiencing oneself and one’s individuality in this world come? And we continued our psychological work. I again tried to research her childhood history, and again she did not see anything in it that would help her understand herself. However, now she had more courage, strength and patience to go step by step into the deep layers of her personality and her unconscious, where it is really painful, lonely, incomprehensible and scary. We drew, talked, played roles. She tried to implement new behavior strategies and the experience gainedexperiencing your feelings during the session. With enviable persistence, no matter how much I, as a therapist, problematized her, she increasingly came to feel like a lesbian. She accepted this part of herself more and more and became more and more calm about it. It seemed - indeed, it gave her so much energy, so much pleasure that it even surprised and frightened me. My firm inner conviction that this is her whim, a secondary benefit, a replacing need - “this will pass as soon as we manage to discover the true, basic, currently frustrated need...” - this therapeutic belief of mine increasingly seemed to me like a myth itself. I went all-in: I took supervision from Nifont Dolgopolov and Georgy Platonov - my colleagues, encouraged her to have relationships with boys, discussed the difficult prospects for her future life, ignored her lesbian part completely, working on something else - nothing helped. And this way and that it turned out that building a close, real, loving relationship with a woman was her true need. And then I came face to face with what is called in therapy “maternal countertransference” - fear and a feeling of powerlessness... - this is what I clearly felt at this stage of therapy. And I agreed with Nifont about a joint session. More precisely, for him to work with her, and I watched. Maybe I will be able to see something new from the outside? Anything I don't use in favor of her heterosexual behavior. She came to the meeting with the male therapist like a fighter. Wearing a leather jacket, almost in chains, it was clear that she was covering up her embarrassment with deliberate rudeness. “During these year and a half, she has changed even externally,” I thought. And she looked at Nifont. He was more relaxed than ever; cheerful and, in my opinion, excited. From the first minute he began to communicate with her as with an adult woman. That's what I was missing! Be a man. And by this bring into contact her feminine (in the sense of responding to men) part. I was already internally rubbing my palms with pleasure. I had already prepared a speech: “Nifont, after all, you are super!” Still, you are a professional from God, how you feel everything, how from the first minute you react unconsciously exactly as necessary... Exactly about what is needed...” But what is it? Where does this sexual tension between them disappear before our eyes? What's my client? And my Arina said with all her appearance: “All this is good, of course. I like that you like me, but I wouldn’t talk about it at all...” As a result, Nifont, in my opinion, can’t stand it: “You tell me straight - did you sleep with someone in reality, whether with a woman or with Is it all the same whether he is a man? No?! Here I look at you - a beautiful young woman... So cool, attractive... Why are you coming to us - are you suffering? Don’t you get acquainted and try out real sexual life?!!..” After this session, she disappeared for a year. I came again at the beginning of 11th grade. I didn't even recognize her at the door. Tall, with broad, seemingly pumped-up shoulders and with flowers in her hands. - Elena Vladimirovna, I came to congratulate you on your birthday and arrange a meeting. I really need to talk. My biggest regret is that I didn’t complete the work every time. As soon as relief appeared, she ran away. Now I am set for serious long-term therapy. I need help. I achieved what I wanted in my contacts. But this did not make her happy. ... I was shocked. No, I was sure that she would come. I often remembered her when I shared some Gestalt work techniques with my students. I was shocked not by how she had changed externally (a masculine young woman with a man’s haircut and jacket), not by how she had changed internally (at school she was still doing brilliantly, but in every word there was confidence, sharpness, intensity ). I was shocked by myself... I was shaking with small tremors... At first I pushed it into the background, fortunately, there was plenty of work with her this time - she really matured to the present,existential experience of oneself in this world. She so needed contact with me as a psychologist and already a close person in order to be sad about her loneliness, openly angry at her father, who puts a lot of pressure on her psyche, and finally remember her first five to seven years of life, when she felt abandoned by her parents. “It’s like I’m digging myself deeper and deeper,” she admitted. - No, you know - on the contrary, I’m digging myself out... Everything comes out, comes out... It’s as if I’m taking a weight off my shoulders. I feel better. But I don’t often allow myself to talk about my feelings. She was really ready not only to feel - deeply and strongly, but also to realize, pronounce and share with me everything that was happening in her soul. It's time to talk about our relationship. I prepared for this conversation for ten days - I listened to myself, checked my “countertransferences,” imagined how she might perceive certain words I said about myself. It was absolutely necessary to “uncover” that layer of experiences about which we talked little - or did not talk at all - about her excitement at our meetings, about my trembling and excitement. But the most important thing is about our fears to admit it. At least, my fear gripped me at the very thought of this conversation: “how will I talk about such “non-therapeutic” feelings? Will she, essentially just a girl, be able to understand me correctly, not be afraid and get through this delicate place in our therapeutic relationship?” For the first 7-10 minutes of our meeting, all these questions were still protecting me to start a conversation while I listened to what had been going on for her these days, since the last session. I was completely ready to escape into the emerging topic about the manifestation of her weakness, when the need arises to sort things out, when suddenly I connected this topic of hers with what I had in mind... And I began: - How do you feel now? - Quite calmly. True, it’s a little uncomfortable... Because of the lighting. It is bright. - What nonsense are you talking about! Why do you really feel uncomfortable? - In fact, I feel a desire in myself not to talk about anything... That’s why it probably turns out to be such nonsense. This happens - deep down in your soul you know that you need it, but something inside doesn’t give it... I wonder - what is it that suppresses my desire to talk?.. - I just wanted to talk to you about this today. She perked up, relaxed - now it will not be her who is the figure, and the tension has subsided. - I want to discuss our relationship with you. - Okay. - What do you think about this? - Long pause. Her breathing changes: “It’s just easier to think that our relationship with you is official—a psychologist, a patient.” This does not oblige you to anything. Any other relationship requires mutual dialogue. I often get burned by this... - Are you afraid? - Yes. This often crosses boundaries. I build a relationship with a person in which no one has the right to interfere. Just the two of us. And here I have no right to do this. I'm just a client. - Yes, it's safer. It's safer for those feelings we don't talk about. I've thought a lot about this and I want to tell you a lot now... I feel very afraid to talk about it, but my desire to discuss our feelings for each other is stronger than his. I want to tell you a few things. First: I thought that I couldn’t continue working with you, I needed to transfer you to some other psychologist, because I noticed that I often felt excited around you. I find myself unable to speak, that I’m afraid, that I’m speaking insincerely, that I’m not present as a person, completely... (My God! What did I experience at that moment! I was ready to sink into the ground from shame and fear, and I frantically wiped my wet palms with a handkerchief...) - On the one hand, this bothers me, on the other hand, I understand that everything you are talking about applies very strongly to me - in the sense that you are very similar to me ...And from this point of view, I understand you very well. I even discovered when I was thinking -to whom can I convey you - that I cannot find a psychologist known to me who would understand you the way I understand you. In moments of despair, I thought that I definitely had to do this - transfer you to another psychologist, so that you could do real therapeutic work for yourself. And at other moments it seemed to me that precisely the fact that I have all this in me, and that I can tell you about it, could be a chance for you to truly change your life... How do you perceive what I say ?...Of course, one could have guessed in advance - she did not react to my confessions about arousal (after all, somewhere deep down in her soul she knew all this!), She was offended by my idea of ​​​​transferring her to another psychologist: - Over these four years, I got attached to you. I know that none of the specialists can give me what you give... - But you don’t know... - I feel what you give me... Lord! She even answered here with words from my life at her age - the man, my first love, told me then: “No one will love you the way I do. Not because I know these people in advance. But because I know myself.” - I think that I will no longer trust anyone with what I entrusted to you. But if this is inconvenient for you, I can leave. I'll take care of myself. A start. Let this continue for many years... It was a lesson. She, this seventeen-year-old girl, taught it to me, a woman almost twice her age. I was afraid of “indecent”, not a bookish, but essentially a real feeling. Ashamed of my “wrongness”, fearing a violation of some mythical ethical code, I, like a typical “teacher,” began to intimidate her by breaking our contact. I didn't trust myself, her, or our human intimacy. And most likely, my fear overshadowed my trust. Tears came to my eyes, and I confessed to her my weakness - to give up on her in order to protect myself from strong feelings. And we began to talk about trust and distrust in each other. And even after that, there was some kind of wariness, some kind of apprehension in her. - It’s hard... - Can you say what exactly is hard for you? You sigh... - When two people become close, they become themselves. But they are getting there. It seems impossible to me. - What exactly? - I think it’s impossible - we become closer only by talking about our feelings. - Am I hearing you correctly? - What we talk about our relationship does not make our relationship closer? - Yes. - What then happens from what we say? What's happening to you now? It's like you're leaving... - Probably, yes. I leave with my body, but my soul remains here. - Are you scared? - I don’t know whether it’s scary or not. I just feel like a border is emerging. The border between the world of my feelings and the world of established norms. It's like two different lives. But to be honest, I’m inclined towards this - to have a boundary. - Unfortunately, I don’t want to help you with this. Because I just think that real life, authentic life, lies in living the way you want... - To allow yourself to satisfy your needs, you need to live life. I need to be obligated to someone to earn this right. At least a position in society where you can position yourself the way you want. - Are you talking about childhood? - Most likely, yes. I need to first unlearn, become someone, then I can live the way I want. - I understand you. There are many restrictions in childhood. But even in adulthood there are many restrictions. There are many things that I cannot fully afford. But still there is a lot, ninety percent of what I don’t even notice - what I don’t allow myself. I now changed my position and felt that my leg was completely numb. And I sat and didn’t even pay attention to how my body was living. - Probably, yes... - I get a truly real life for myself when I am in contact with my feelings, when I allow myself to experience them, allow myself to talk about them , at least with myself... - And I’m afraid for the consequences. I find myself thinking thatWhat will I have to go through for this? - Yes, this is called responsibility. If you choose something, you are responsible for it. It turns out that the choice lies in what responsibility you choose. There will still be responsibility. Or the responsibility is that you allowed yourself to live the way you want. Or the responsibility lies in the fact that you remained unhappy, in the fact that you did not allow yourself to do so, but did everything “right.” “Basically, this is how it works out for me...” she exhaled deeply. “Do you feel better now?” “I feel better.” because we talked everything out. But only... But it’s just not clear what to do about it now? We said a lot to each other. I'm glad that you like me. But what to do now? I understood what she was trying to say, what scared her and at the same time attracted her - the possibility of our sexual relationship. And I said what I had to say clearly and definitely. “The fact that I confessed to you my feelings, my excitement and my fear, does not mean, does not mean at all, that I am offering you any other relationship than therapeutic. This does not mean that I am offering you a love relationship. I just want to be sincere and open with you. Until the end. - What should we do with our feelings? - We will talk about them when we experience them in our contact. Talk and worry together. - Yes. I got it. - She sighed. It seemed to me that it was a sigh of relief and regret at the same time. I felt the same way. So we did it! We went through this conversation - we experienced shame, awkwardness, fear, and remained in therapeutic contact. We remained close. - What happened now... This is what usually happens to my women. Only this happens to me without words, without conversations. In action. And now we were just talking... - she was soft, sweet, gentle as ever, open and... a real woman, if you want. - I feel that our sessions have become much more sincere... - Probably you and me became more ready for intimacy. Human, spiritual... We both became more mature over these four years... We began to allow ourselves to feel and talk about it more. But that was only the beginning. We separated for ten days. “I want to spend more time with what happened. I’ll have to live with this one more time,” she said as she left. I believe that everything that happens between people is material. This is what is called experience. And after several meetings “about nothing” (such as protecting her boundaries among friends), she herself returned to real experiences: - You know, but I never had anything real with anyone. I slept with a guy once, many times with women - but with them I was only a body. I have never had any soul, communication, or conversation with them. Even, maybe, on purpose. It was as if I was afraid all this time to meet the whole person - everything that is in me. Both the one and the other half... I am afraid that I will give myself completely to a person, for the rest of my life and... and I will make a mistake. Then I will truly be alone and alone. I’m really afraid of this...” she was confused. “I understand your fear, it’s familiar to me.” Yes, you may be wrong. No one is immune from this. But if you don’t take risks, then you generally lose the chance to experience real intimacy, you know? - and I cried. Tears rolled down my cheeks and treacherously did not stop. Why was I crying? I sympathized with her immensely. I felt so sorry for her, and at the same time I felt so much warmth and love for her, so much tenderness that these intense feelings did not stop my tears. I told her all this. And also that I really want to take her hand, hug her and convey all these feelings. And when she overcame her fear, and we held each other’s hands, there were tears in her eyes: “No one has ever held me like that.” I've never felt this before... I really want to cry. Sobbing out loud. But I can not. Once as a child, when I cried, my parents told me “you need to deal with everything on your own.” WITH.