The other day I was reading one of the topics on the forum “So what does a psychologist do” and decided to write about how I see it. I watched the film “The Man Without a Face” with Mel Gibson and thought that The relationship between a boy and a teacher, presented in this film, very clearly demonstrates the psychological process of the emergence and development of a therapeutic relationship. Especially the initial stage of interaction between the patient and the therapist. Briefly about the content of the film: There is a boy of about 10 years old, he lives with his mother and two stepsisters. The relationship between them is not built. He blames his mother, hates his older sister and despises his younger sister. Something strange happened to my dad. And, on top of that, the boy is inhibited and periodically suffers from nightmares. The only thing he wants is to escape from this family. He will have such an opportunity if he can enter a special school (a certain cadet corps), but he has already failed the exam there once. In their family, all three women (mother and sisters) only mock about this. He has only a few months to try to learn what he had not learned before and prepare for the exam. One day, having gone with friends to the other side of the harbor, he ends up in the house of a scary man, disfigured in an accident. And he sees a cup in the house, on which it is written that the person is a teacher. The desire to go to school, the understanding that he himself will not be able to prepare well enough, the realization that it is important for him that someone studies with him, overpowers the inner fear and disgust. And the boy turns to this man with a request to teach him and prepare him for exams. The teacher has his own drama: he really was a very good teacher, but 10 years ago he had an accident in which one of his students died and he himself received terrible burns on the body and face. In addition, he was sentenced to 3 years for manslaughter and was deprived of the right to teach. And for the last 7 years he has been living as a hermit. But there, behind this terrible mask, he is still the same Teacher. And when the boy asks him to work out with him, the teacher invites him to work and dig a hole. Essentially, this is a test of motivation. The teacher understands that the student must first “give” before “taking.” Otherwise, they take it poorly and don’t appreciate it. The boy finishes digging and comes into the house. The teacher asks him to write an essay. On any topic. He freaks out and leaves, arguing that this won’t happen on the exam, and he hates writing. Here for the first time we come across the fact that the boy wants to be taught the way he sees and understands it. If we draw a parallel with a psychologist, then “You help here, don’t touch the rest,” “so what if penmanship is one of the foundations of knowledge, I don’t like it...” Until this stage in long-term therapy is passed, the client may experience feelings of uselessness, the feeling that the therapist does not understand him, is digging in the wrong place, there are no results, and so on. Time passes, the boy writes an essay and returns to the teacher - he again invites him to dig a hole. That is. pay for his work. After the next pit, having handed over the essay to the teacher, the boy is finally waiting for normal studies. The teacher calmly asks questions about the essay and it turns out that it is someone else’s. The teacher turns around and calmly leaves. The boy freaks out again, wants to run away, but then sits down and writes his own essay. If we translate into the psychological process: “Okay, psychologist, you want me to talk to you about what I don’t want to talk about, I’ll talk, but not absolutely about that and not quite the way you want.” This is a rather painful process when the client needs to trust and, even without fully understanding why you need to do this, go where you don’t want to go. Go to the very center of the situation and take responsibility for it. And only by writing his own essay does the boy take responsibility for his dream, overcoming his reluctance. This is another basic point on which he internally relies. Further, the development of their relationship is shown - the boy trusts his?