Have you ever felt very awkward, constrained and rejected, or felt out of place among people? It’s amazing that the strongest and most self-sufficient people have such experiences. Ivan spoke about the feeling of inappropriateness that he experiences in the company of people, at business meetings. Sometimes he cannot express his opinion or sincerely share his feelings. I asked him when in his life he felt the most out of place. He remembered the scene where he was 10 years old. That day, Ivan got into a taxi with his mother and her lover, whose existence he had learned the day before. They were on their way to the plane that would take him and his mother to the other side of the country. His father received a new position there, and the family now had to live there. The mother's lover had his pants cracked at the crotch seam when he was lifting boxes to help load things. His mother was very happy about this and suggested that he take off his pants and she would sew them up. All this happened in a taxi when they had already sat down. Ivan did not understand what was happening, he was in terrible confusion. He was amazed by the words of his mother, who kept bothering this man. The two of them laughed, and the child was ready to fall through the ground. He used the word “whore”, that is, he thought that his mother was a whore. And he thought, how should he live now? When Ivan finished the story, something happened to the group, I heard the participants begin to breathe loudly and deeply. I don’t remember such an effect before; I heard the sound of exhaled air and felt the breath of the person sitting next to me on my hand. I looked around, most of the people leaned forward, opened their eyes wide and it seemed that everyone wanted to say something or even shout, but were holding back. We were silent for several moments, breathing, coming to our senses. I also caught myself in some confusion. I needed to decide what to do next, but for now I began to say what came to mind. I wondered what this story was about. Perhaps it goes back to culture, to the way it is customary in different cultures to deal with such experiences in life. I suggested that Ivan explore the situation dramatically, maybe we will understand what exactly became a block for him for many years. I asked what question he would like to receive an answer to as a result of our work. Ivan said: “I would like to know how to accept this situation. Or forget about her.” Also, at this moment, Ivan said that from the very beginning of the conversation he had been feeling very dizzy, maybe something to do with blood pressure, although this was unusual for him. I asked him to let me know how he felt, in case he needed to see a doctor, then we would take a break. Then he placed four chairs, as if they were seats in a car. We asked participants to sit in the roles of a taxi driver, a lover, a mother and themselves. Ivan needed to show what each character's internal monologues sound like. First he took on the role of the mother. She was sitting in the right back. She hugged her beloved man, who was sitting in front, laughed and said: “Well, why are you shy, let’s take off your pants already, I’ll sew them up, with great pleasure!” Then Ivan began to speak from the role of a lover: “Well, of course, I am incredibly pleased that you love me so much that you want to help me so much. At the same time, I’m somewhat embarrassed, there are strangers here... I don’t know how to speak in the presence of a boy.” Then, from the role of a lover, he said: “I don’t understand what’s happening at all! Who are these people, what are their relationships? At least they would be ashamed of me, an adult, and the guy sitting behind me. And who is this guy anyway? Is it his father or is it not his father, I don’t understand. Something is wrong here.” Finally, Ivan sat down in the role of his little self, sitting in the back seat on the left, and began to slide down from the chair. He covered his face with his hands and said: “How terrible this is all! Why, why is all this happening to me? What's happening to me? I’m ashamed, and I don’t understand how I could get into such a thing! It's impossible to believe! What should I do in such a situation? I want tofail.” Then each of those who played the roles said their lines again. I asked Ivan how he should see this. He said: There is one more thing that happens to me in this scene. “Can I sit there again?” He settled into his role and added: “I have a lot of interest in my mother now. I wonder what's going on with her? She's so happy and cheerful, I've never seen her like this." He added that only later, after saying goodbye to this man, on the plane he saw that his mother was gradually turning to stone, becoming a statue. And the moment she arrived to her father, she simply became like a wax doll. I thought what kind of strange story this was, in which all the characters spoke with such energy. Ivan acted like a real actor from within the roles, with great power of transformation, as if this was not a therapeutic group, but a professional theater. Apparently, in his psyche this was a very charged story. I asked Ivan, what did she do to you, this story? He said: “I now understand that this story gave me some kind of script that I carry out in my own life. And this is terrible for me. Because right now, when I am the same age as my mother, I have a beloved woman. Mistress. And it’s terrible because I have to say goodbye to my son, and it hurts me to realize that I can’t do otherwise.” I said: “It’s as if you have no freedom, and you act according to some given pattern.” He said, “Yes, it is.” Our research was coming to an end. I suggested that Ivan stage another scene, make a projection into the future. Imagine yourself in the future, who is free in his behavior. Free from the action of this scene, from the action of the mother's script. He responded to this readily. We removed the chairs representing the car. Ivan said, I guess I can imagine that I am the future - right here, next to my mother. We sit and look at each other. He sat down and put “mother” on this chair, and he began to look at her and said: “No, I don’t have a feeling of freedom.” He decided that he and his mother would sit differently, next to each other, but facing away from each other. They sat down and sat, and it was clear that he was breathing with holding his breath, like a person experiencing discomfort. “I don’t feel free here either.” I suggested making one last try. They say that we have different options for the development of life events, right from this point everything can develop completely differently. Go to this place. Imagine that this has become a fact of life. “You are free, you can breathe easily, you have a sense of relevance with the people who surround you.” Ivan removed the chairs set for himself and his mother, turned in the other direction and said: “Then I’ll just dance with my woman.” He approached one participant, they held hands and slow danced a little on the edge of the circle. They danced and we looked at them. After the drama, the participants said that they empathized with Ivan very much, and everyone had their own story. One man remembered how his father took him for a walk with some woman; he understood that something unusual was happening to his father. He was confused, did not know how to behave, he was embarrassed. One woman spoke of great pain from abandonment when her father left the family. Another participant was angry that it was as if this rule had been imposed on us: “You should be husbands and wives, and live with it as you want.” And the woman who danced with Ivan in a circle said: “Parents, they always pay with us, the children.” The thing is that we are all parents ourselves. And it’s up to us to decide whether we will “pay” with our children in situations of choice. In the finale, Ivan said that he was grateful to the group for listening to him, because he could not share this with anyone. And now he feels as if he drank water after not drinking for two days. He also said that surprisingly, his headache was completely gone and he felt good. Several weeks have passed since that group, and that picture is still in front of my eyes, and I.