Nothing weakens a person’s strength more than the hope of finding salvation and goodness in something other than one’s own effort. L.N. Tolstoy The conversation about the timing of psychological help can be made more productive, and both sides have this opportunity. The timing is directly related to the goals of contacting a psychologist. Therefore, it is advisable to try to understand what result you expect. If you come for relief from your current emotional state, then one or two consultations and a short course may be enough. For example, if a person is going through a breakup or divorce, then he may need a little space to calm down, a little support. If you want to understand what your contribution to this divorce is, then you need to figure it out. And if in the end we come to the conclusion that the cause of failures in our personal lives is trauma or character traits, then a course of psychotherapy is already needed. That is, the duration of your communication with a psychologist is directly related to how far and deep you want to go in your changes. When they ask me when to expect results, sometimes I answer that psychotherapy (like our whole life) is not a run to finish, but rather conquest and advancement every day, every session gives something. This is always a new experience, and sometimes a person needs such an experience when there is a feeling of stagnation, anxiety, uselessness, and here it is especially important for the therapist to maintain hope for two and continue to endure and try to find meaning. For example, one of my clients literally tormented me session after session, saying that nothing was helping, calculating how much money I was “taking out of him,” threatening me that he would “give me a few more sessions,” and then leaving, and so on. Only when we came to the end did he admit that no one had ever been so close to him and he would never forget it. Psychotherapy is sometimes not at all what it seems... What could be behind the talk about timing? I am convinced that at the epicenter of this topic is always separation anxiety and fear of attachment. The more time passes, the more feelings become and the more valuable the therapist is - this is how the unconscious whispers. It is important to understand what the danger is, because this is the key to this person’s problems. These experiences have many colors and shades. To properly understand and discuss them, it is important to listen as much as possible to the client and your countertransference. The key may be some word or image that comes to the client or therapist. This will help to partially relieve tension and live his story with the client. Maybe he talks about deadlines because he is afraid of being just a means of making money for the therapist, then the therapist will stall for time and use him. Did they do this to him often? Why does he feel like just a wallet and does not believe in the sincerity of feelings for him? Maybe it is important for the client to feel his power over the situation and the therapist? He makes decisions, controls what is happening. Is it probably very unsafe to be in a relationship with someone you have no leverage over? What is the threat? Sometimes questions about deadlines come into the process because the client is tormented by some unbearable feeling that is extremely difficult to endure. Maybe he already came with such a wound, but it very often happens that therapy opens old wounds and this happens faster than it is possible to realize these experiences. Sometimes the very presence of a therapist, this accepting and sympathetic figure, works as a detonator for the unconscious, which stores a lot of pain from those times when such a person was not around, although he was really needed. This also becomes a frequent cause of early terminations of therapy. The client feels pain, but the reasons for it are not realized and he simply moves away from the source of this pain. Discussion of deadlines can refer to a feeling of severe exhaustion, when it seems that every day and every effort is irrevocably taking something away and there is a fear that one day the client will not have nothing will remain. It is a difficult experience when the relationship does not feel like an exchange, cooperation and.