-The store is yours. -I'll take a walk, and you take a closer look. -Ok. -This! -Zorro? -No. -An astronaut? -No, this. - Monsieur? -Yes. -No, no... we can't give it to you, dear. -Why? -Well... because... it's Monsieur! We can't give it to you. -Why? -Let's go, let's choose the best toy for you! -I want it! (from the movie “Toy”) Ah, adults, they are also like children. They also love toys, and sometimes, like the boy Eric, they confuse living things with non-living things. Especially if an adult lives according to the principle of permissiveness. Well, this happens. An accomplished, wealthy person can afford a lot. For example, he can buy himself a living person, say a slave. Or a living “doll” to satisfy your desires. He gives her (as in the joke) a fur coat and a muff, and she gives him any whim. A servant who will serve him for his money. And so on. But! There is one profession in the world for which it is a priori impossible to buy a specialist. This is a psychologist. Perhaps I will open America for someone if I say that a psychologist, unlike the cinematic French journalist Francois Perrenay, is not a toy. Even for your money. Even at your request. It is impossible to play with a psychologist. He is not Francois, not a wind-up doll (like Suok from “Three Fat Men”), which you can wind up with a key, turn it off when you get tired of it with its “buzzing”, stuff it into a shoebox, and put it aside indefinitely. And then, when you want to take it out of the dusty box again, “Let’s continue to play”...... “I want THIS!” - a person chooses a psychologist and goes to him with confidence that the psychologist, after listening to the problem, will mirror his subjective reality and provide him with the product he expects. It will teach you how to manipulate ex-spouses, influence “children who have lost their grip,” influence “out-of-mind parents,” take responsibility for someone else’s life and other people’s decisions, and God knows what other non-psychological services we might be talking about. But when the expected does not coincide with reality, the “doll” becomes uninteresting and bad. “This is not what I wanted,” the adult thinks, and, embracing his problems, goes in search of a new “doll.” The person does not realize that the problem is not in the “toy,” but in himself. When you see a psychologist, you shouldn’t count on “I’ll come and catch you.” A psychologist is not an all-forgiving interlocutor, not a “tuning fork” that responds in unison with your mental torment. We must consciously approach “and they will cure me,” that is, be ready to receive answers to questions, not listen, but hear the proposed ways and means of solving your problems, and yes, be responsible for these decisions yourself! And then follow the path that will definitely lead you to the world of harmonious sound. After all, this is precisely why you come to a psychologist. Yes, the work of a psychologist, like any other work, is paid. “Payment is the key to the client’s independence,” it is not me who says, but Nifont Dolgopolov, “it helps him free himself from the sense of duty towards the psychotherapist.” However, your payment does not in any way make the psychotherapist your debtor. You enter into a contract, then the specialist’s work begins. In order not to experience a sense of lost illusions when you see a specialist in psychological work, learn to accept (!) his effective help, for which, by the way, you came to him, and not he came to impose it on you . Your ideas about psychological help may not coincide with your imagination and subjective reality. The work of a psychologist on your problem is not to “smear honey on your back”, to “hug, sigh and cry”, but to remove the unnecessary stickiness of problems from the subconscious, thereby exposing the root of “evil”, showing the true picture misconceptions in yourself, about yourself and in the world around you... And here's another thing. Psychologist does not provide services. Don’t forget – services are provided to you at the “Service Bureau”, and they are served in the bathhouse. In a psychologist's office you get the help you were looking for. And if you are still inclined to think that a psychologist is a yes-ying, purchased “girlfriend,” it’s better to buy yourself a toy. From the series “Francois...