Today I understand: professionally I am very lucky. From the very beginning of independent work, I dealt exclusively with a “street” client who perceives the psychotherapist more like a magician (good or evil depending on his attitudes towards the world in general), who moves his hands, says a magic word, or, in extreme cases, gives some kind of love potion (or lapel) and “everything will pass.” This client has a very vague idea of ​​how they can help him here, strongly doubts whether he has come there, and all he wants is “so that it doesn’t hurt.” He doesn’t know how to “be a client,” he doesn’t always talk about himself willingly, and only what, in his opinion, is relevant to the matter, and the very first questions of the therapist can confuse him or cause irritation: “What does this have to do with ...?". You can often find the following reaction: “I’ve lived like this all my life and nothing. So do it the way it was before.” Working with such a client is difficult. It seems that he wants simple and clear things: “so that he doesn’t get sick,” “so that his husband doesn’t cheat,” “so that the child obeys and respects,” “so that his soul doesn’t feel so bad,” but you start working and feel: no, that’s not it , does not accept your help, he needs something else from you, he does not want to “be treated,” especially for a long time. A “street client” who came to a psychotherapist out of hopelessness, having already tried all possible and impossible means, having consulted with different specialists, wants to get something right away, to feel relief from this “something” that he himself cannot really define. And often it goes away, leaving the therapist in vague irritation and doubts about his own competence. (Of course, not everyone who comes to us “from the street” is like this, but while working in a regular city clinic (paid), I most often encountered this “type” of client and it is this one I want to talk about.) Why? What do they want, after all? I asked myself these questions during the first year of work, tried to answer them this way and that, until something began to become clearer and at the same time “the work began”: the client began to “linger” in therapy. I think a lot depends on clashes between the client’s vague (even for himself) expectations and the therapist’s ideas about himself and his work. Our therapists are educated people who have read a lot of smart books, and experience tells them how, what and with which clients to do, “what” to work on. In addition, everyone has their own idea of ​​what psychotherapy is, how it should be carried out and how it should not be carried out, what the therapist’s position is, and so on. And the client, although simple, is cunning: maybe he doesn’t know what he wants, but as soon as the therapist starts doing something (in accordance with the basic ideals of “change” and “novelty”), the client immediately understands , which he definitely doesn’t want, and to the surprise, even chagrin of the therapist, it turns out to be precisely these very changes and novelty. The therapist knows that since the client has arrived, he must work, change and move forward (together with the client, of course, not instead of him), complete the gestalts... And it turns out that only the therapist began to unfold, enjoy his work, and the client I had already completed my gestalt with him and quietly left the office. But it happens the other way around. It seems like you’re not doing anything, you’re definitely not doing therapy, but the client goes from session to session and goes, and even attempts to “clarify your relationship” cannot “put him off.” If you “don’t touch him,” he can walk for a long time and leave satisfied, while reporting that he “obviously feels better.” To be honest, I was very interested in this phenomenon. Everything would be fine, but such a client often causes boredom, a feeling that you, the therapist, were simply not noticed, and it is generally not clear why you were needed there, and after the client leaves, a vague dissatisfaction remains: they were not allowed to “work.” There is another a “type” of a client that interferes with the work. In the therapist’s opinion, the client does not see any movement towards changes and change, his life is not changing, however, this does not bother him much anymore, all the client’s activitycenters around your relationship, moreover, all the therapist’s attempts to “work” with the transference and find out who you are for him and why he needs you are met with sharp resistance. The same resistance can be caused by the therapist's attempts to return the client to his real life. The therapist's imposition of a certain role in his life and the "clinging" to this role can be so strong that if the confrontation with the transference continues, the client will simply leave. He needs you in this role. And period. This is what he will now pay for. Repeated from time to time, this situation is also fraught for the therapist with disappointment, doubts about his competence and boredom. Especially if the client stubbornly refuses to acknowledge (or admit to you) who you are to him. You can, however, get rid of it: become bad, stop performing for the client those functions for which he does not have a suitable figure in life, but the implementation of which is so necessary for him. Realize the ideals of psychotherapy. Or just finally take care of yourself. (I don’t argue, there are clients to whom you won’t sell for any money; it will cost you more.) It turns out that in fact, in both cases, the client wants nothing to be done to his life and to himself; rather, he himself will make it clear , how he should be treated so that he feels better, which, in fact, is “transfer,” that is, the manifestation of the client’s need for certain relationships that he cannot build in his life. And the client wants precisely such a relationship, and not the “changes” so beloved by therapists. And no balance of frustration and support will force a person to change who does not want it, who is afraid, who has not yet been truly “warmed up”. By the way, there is a phenomenon of a “dying” client, who seems to be completely “fucked up”, but he still cannot move here or there, despite all your efforts. The thing is simple, the majority are terribly afraid of change, they are not ready for heroic deeds either in the name of themselves or in the name of the therapist, but, nevertheless, everyone wants to live better and easier. And they are ready to pay for it. There is, of course, a gracious client who moves, and works, and changes, just a “birthday of the heart” for the therapist, but he, unfortunately, is a minority. Thus, in order for work with the client to begin and continue, a slightly different classification of requests turned out to work for me. At the very initial stage of work, I want to understand the client’s goal: he came to me for human support, simply to be pitied, to be given a break, the opportunity to “sit out” somewhere safe and irresponsible, or for the opportunity with my help to stabilize his life in in the form in which it is now, find himself something like a psychological prosthesis, and an “empty” place in his life is already ready for me, or he is already ready to change something in his world and he needs assistance in unlocking your resources. Most often, before the client is ready for real changes in his life, he must go through the first two stages, and there is a high probability that he will stop at one of them, deciding that he has had enough. And here I want to talk about , why are situations where the therapist is not “allowed to work” as it should be from his point of view, that is, to promote changes right here-and-now, turn out to be so difficult, requiring special internal costs, and often simply exhausting. The therapist tries to cope with his feelings by turning to the supervisor, expressing his feelings to the client, frustrating him in one way or another, even to the point of inventing sophisticated ways of forcing the client to leave himself. On the one hand, there seems to be nothing surprising: who wants to be not themselves, but to play someone’s role, or supporting another person, “investing” a lot of yourself in him and not feeling adequate return, and thus simply depleting yourself. But on the other hand, the client is willing to pay for what he so badly needs and what he unconsciously expects to receive from the therapist, regardless of whether the therapist likes it or not. So why not.2001