I have always had the warmest sympathy for characters experiencing painful shyness and trying to overcome it, such as Pierre Bezukhov, Greek teacher Belikov or Captain Horatio Hornblower. And now my attention is focused on the very moment of painful awkwardness. Lida came to the session, silently sat down in front of me and quickly raised and lowered her eyes several times. She couldn't stop looking at me. Lida looked somewhat harried, and this surprised me: in previous sessions we had worked on her relationships with different people, and the last time she left, she seemed strong and confident to me. Having coped with her anxiety, Lida told me what she was doing in her studies something happened: the teacher was giving an interesting lecture, and one listener asked him a question. And then Lida had a wild desire to answer that, well, I know what we’re talking about! She was overwhelmed with a feeling of delight, a clear understanding that instantly pierced her - and she exclaimed and joined in the conversation. And the next moment I was terribly, painfully embarrassed. Now it seems to her that she should have remained silent. But the event has already happened, and remembering it is so painful for her that she still shrinks all over. My shoulders and arms also tightened for a second when she said this. I thought that I knew very well how it happens when you exclaim something without thinking, and then you feel terrible awkwardness. I told Lida about this. “When you say that, it makes me feel better,” she answered and sighed. I asked her to tell me in more detail how everything happened. Lida said that she addressed the listener, although it would be more appropriate to speak to the teacher, because she is at a lecture. But she wanted to say so much, to share, that she didn’t even have time to get her bearings. I shared it and almost immediately realized that I had not acted according to the rules. The word “rule” caught my attention. I began to think that rules are usually a cultural phenomenon: in which culture this or that action is correct, accepted, appropriate, and in which it is inappropriate. This does not necessarily mean “big” national culture, but local, family, professional culture. And I invited Lida to fantasize, to imagine cultures in which it would be appropriate and correct to express such hyper-excitement. She said that she could not imagine anything now, that she was thinking about ancient cultures, about the Greeks and Romans, and did not know how they fared with the expression of excitement. And I remembered an example from screenwriting culture: in screenwriting groups, when plots for TV series are being developed, it is customary to gather for brainstorming sessions, during which everyone says or exclaims what comes to their mind, and sometimes these exclamations are very effective. Lida agreed that the example was good, but there was no lecturer, and parallel communications were possible and even desirable. And she had a lecturer, and a very respected one at that. Then I remembered an example that I heard from my colleague about shamanic healing. There is such a ritual: when a person becomes seriously ill, a shaman is called to the sick person’s house. The shaman sits next to him for several days and tells some kind of Big myth, say, about the creation of the world (every culture has its own such myth), or myths about the exploits of heroes, or about people and gods. Listening to the shaman, the patient empathizes with one of the heroes, begins to associate himself with someone - and after four or five days of such listening, he completely recovers. Or dies if the disease is fatal. And I thought that the patient can express his affective outbursts if something delights or frightens him, or evokes some other strong emotion; and for the shaman these reactions are good because they show that the patient is in contact with the myth. I finished my story and asked: how do you like hearing this? Lida replied that she was calming down. We have already gone through a certain number of cultural analogues, and I asked her: tell me, how did you learn this - to punish yourself for the violent expression of emotions? She thought a little, raised her head, and replied: “Yes, this is not one.