From the author: An essay on the topic of contact with one’s subjectivity, published on my website and in the space of the blogosphere Leave me alone, “right people”! Status in a social network There is such a descriptive concept of a style of working with people - a directive approach. In principle, this concept is quite broad and applies to a variety of spheres of human life. This can manifest itself in the organization of the work of an enterprise, in the management of larger entities, and in any other area where there are relationships between people. Psychotherapy and psychological assistance here, of course, will not be an exception. A straightforward, no-doubt approach that contains clear, simple instructions on what is needed and what is not needed. What is useful and what is not useful. In which direction is it better to move in life, and in which direction is it not at all desirable? A psychotherapist or psychologist has some specific and specific understanding of exactly how his patient should get out of a life difficulty or cope with a symptom. In the world of martial arts they say: “It is not the martial arts that wins, it is the master who wins.” There is probably something similar here too. Simply, all people are different, with different personal traits and uniqueness, and specialists are no exception here either. Some people are simply destined by life development and history to be directive, and this has its strengths. Many patients, when they feel that there is a ready-made structure of meanings for them, a clear sequence of actions, experience significant relief - anxiety decreases precisely because they can finally trust themselves to someone for a while and throw off the burden of responsibility for their problems . Certainty always gives rise to calm. The philosopher Wittgenstein expressed himself on this topic something like this: “It is better to follow an erroneous system of development than not to follow any at all.” This is quite typical of human nature, and no one has the right to openly reproach anyone with this. Another thing is interesting. More and more people are beginning to take a directive approach to themselves without any direct influence from any doctors, psychologists or spiritual teachers. The very culture of society condemns and tries in every possible way to exclude any deviations from the conventional norm. Any deviation from good health or non-compliance with certain standards of existence in society is regarded as incorrect, as a manifestation of illness or moral failure. As one patient said at the first meeting when she formulated her expectations from psychotherapy: “I want to become more productive.” The wheel of life rotates, life does not stand still, life moves forward, and many people really don’t want to lose a certain average pace, fall out of the general process, feel or, even worse, let others see that something is wrong with you. Everyone has their own list of such secret weaknesses: someone is terrified of their sudden panic attacks, and is already catastrophically fantasizing about “going crazy,” “going downhill,” “being fired from work,” “not being able to cope.” ", etc. Someone doesn’t understand why their mood has dropped lately and why previously inspiring activities in life are not pleasing. And someone simply in a different situation does not even allow himself to cry alone, because from childhood he learned that this is “a clear sign of weakness.” The list, of course, is far from complete. All this is interpreted by people as signs of their own failure in some way, of misfortune. And, of course, we urgently need to get rid of such inconsistency. And, it is at this moment that a person who is accustomed to treating himself in a directive, commanding tone, without really going into the details of what is happening to him, begins to do the most accessible thing for himself. He begins to force himself. Naturally trying to pull himself by the scruff of the neck to happiness. As parents often do with their stubborn children when theyWe urgently need to take them somewhere. They just grab you by the scruff of the neck and drag you away. And then the person who first experienced panic attacks, having experienced the first shock and finding the strength to mobilize, begins to struggle intensely with himself. He begins to make a lot of efforts to prevent this from happening to him again. And, by some unfortunate coincidence, the more he tries to prevent this from happening, the more often this begins to happen to him. And then the one who, suddenly, has become unhappy and has lost interest and inspiration in many aspects of life, begins to make efforts “to pull himself together and somehow pull himself together.” And this “pull yourself together” also, as a rule, means force. And this method is also rarely successful, because a person, often, doing all this, stepping over himself, feels in the background some falseness and forcedness of all his undertakings. And it often becomes worse, not better, from such taking oneself into hands. To a greater extent, because what happens to these people has some roots in their unconscious, in their inner world. And for these panic attacks, and there are some internal reasons for apathy, slightly deeper than ordinary everyday life, something went wrong, something began to change inside, and people do not try to turn to themselves to explore it. , in order to understand what is going on with them inside, in order to finally begin to listen and listen to themselves, and they begin to unfold forced activities to bring themselves to the standards of the norm - “come to their senses”, “pull yourself together”. There are no internal reasons for this activity in such a situation. These reasons are, for the most part, external. As it was said - “There is such a word as ‘necessary’!” By the way, they often develop according to the same mechanism. sleep disturbances, and many types of erectile dysfunction. Because “MUST!” And if necessary, grab yourself by the scruff of the neck, and forward, fortunately! You definitely need to fall asleep right now, because tomorrow an important event/work/something else seems catastrophically important right now. And you have to: you have to be cheerful, you have to be prepared. Productive, again, as mentioned above. And this “should” spins and spins in the mind, not allowing it to relax and go into sleep mode. Or rather, to put it simply, a person does not give it to himself, of course. We must certainly make a colossal erotic impression on this woman! You have to show her who is the best in bed, you have to not lose face, you have to be on top, you have to be long and tedious, like in the movies, you have to, you have to, you have to... And it’s no longer noticeable that you’ve concentrated on all these “musts.” "Not on her, but on myself. But on myself it’s not enough to feel into myself - do I even want to be with her? Is there something really sparked between us? Is this my deep desire now or as in the song about Soviet sports heroes: “..And we must give all our proud records names!..”? And on yourself, as someone who is taking some important exam before a respected evaluation committee and has no right to make a mistake. I recently read from Rollo May, one of the founders of existential therapy, the idea that a wonderful lover is a potential impotent man. Dulls his feelings in order to show his best side. Treats intimacy like a performance. He perceives himself as a machine that needs to be properly adjusted before a performance. And as a result, he loses more and more feelings in intimacy. But the trend is still the same - you need to drag yourself by the scruff of the neck to happiness. Or, here, shy people. As soon as they haven’t tried to edit them and bring them into line with unwritten standards of communication. In some institutions, such standards are even assessed as one of the indicators of an employee’s success, and his promotion in the company’s hierarchy and income level depend on this. Just imagine, a software specialist, a person who is often characterized by a world in which he is immersed in himself for a significant part of the time, but by standards he must still be.