From the author: The article will help you navigate the initial stage of choosing a psychologist. The question of how to choose a psychologist, how to distinguish a charlatan from a professional psychologist is not at all idle. After all, in Russia at the moment there are no documents licensing the activities of a psychologist. I have highlighted the main signs that you can rely on. It is clear that these signs are quite conditional. I am sure that there are good psychologists who do not fit one or more of these characteristics. There are, for example, excellent psychologists who do not have a basic higher education, but acquire theoretical knowledge from books and additional courses, and there are those who have, but skipped all 5 years of study. Nevertheless, these points can give some guidelines in choosing and I hope that they will allow us to weed out very obvious charlatans. 1) Education - it is important that the psychologist has a higher education from a good university, a state one - this at least somehow guarantees the quality of education (ratings of leading psychological universities are easy to find on the Internet). At least a year and a half of retraining courses, if there is another basic education - pedagogy, medicine, for example. 2) In addition to higher education, it is very desirable that there be additional courses, training programs in psychotherapy (psychoanalysis, gestalt therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, family therapy) - because They teach practical work there. 3) One of the most important points is work experience - this, of course, is not always possible to accurately determine - after all, you can write anything. However, the psychologist’s affiliation with some psychological center, work experience in a public or private institution provide certain guarantees that he is not a charlatan.4) Specialization of a psychologist - psychologists are different - some are better at working with children, others with questions of choosing a profession, for example, personal choice, someone specializes in working with injuries, for example. A competent psychologist knows about his limitations - those areas where he has little experience or, due to personal characteristics, it is difficult for him to work. If a psychologist works with everyone indiscriminately, this is a reason to think - is he really so cool that he can help everyone in all areas? 5) Personal therapy by a psychologist. A truly good specialist, before working with clients, must undergo his own personal psychotherapy, so as not to inadvertently transmit his own problems to the client. Also, a true professional, during his practice, must regularly attend psychotherapy in order to maintain clarity of consciousness, work through feelings that arise during the work process and his own difficult life circumstances, so that they do not interfere with work. 6) Supervision by a psychologist. A real professional, not a charlatan, regularly takes supervision of his work. That is, he turns to another psychologist (usually a more experienced one) so that he can see from the outside those aspects that the psychologist does not notice. With a supervisor, the psychologist sorts out the difficulties and dead ends that arise in long-term work. The presence of a supervisor for a psychologist indicates his serious approach to his own activities and guarantees that the psychologist will not harm the client.6) Articles by a psychologist - allow you to get to know the psychologist in absentia, understand how deeply the psychologist understands the problems, see his thinking style and evaluate the depth of his thoughts.7 ) I always pay attention to the photograph - it is important that the psychologist is attractive to you in appearance - although here, of course, you can make a mistake - there are simply not photogenic people. 8) Telephone conversation - you can talk and ask the psychologist about his experience, specialization - often through conversation , style and tempo of speech, timbre of voice, you can already understand a lot. At a minimum, whether you like him as a person or not. 9) Reviews - there are usually reviews on the psychologist’s website. Based on reviews, you can understand exactly how the psychologist helped other people, how effective his help was. These criteria are very formal, but they allow?