What is psychological help, who needs it and when?

Psychological assistance is support and assistance to a person or social group in a psychologically difficult life situation. The goal of psychological assistance is to relieve psycho-emotional stress, improve the quality of life and social adaptation, increase personal efficiency, and bring harmony into relationships with oneself and with the world around us.

Psychological assistance can be every day and professional. When a mother consoles her daughter after an unsuccessful first love, this is everyday help. Professional support is provided by a specialist psychologist who has a medical or psychological education, has undergone psychological retraining, has received a license for the right to consult, and a certificate of a psychotherapist. True, this is in theory. In practice, there is still no legislative filter that would help distinguish a real psychologist from a fraudster.

Psychological help is:

• Children, teenagers, age – depending on the age of the client.
• Individual, group – depending on the number of clients.
• Personal, family – depending on the needs and relationships of clients.
• One-time, long-term – depending on the number of sessions.
• Planned, emergency – depending on the severity or urgency of the problem.

The opinion that psychological and psychotherapeutic assistance are one and the same is erroneous. Psychotherapy is one of the types of assistance. In addition to it, there are other types that differ in goals, methods of exposure, duration, scope, and also the degree of professionalism.

Types of psychological assistance.

Let’s make a reservation that there is no clear distinction between the forms and types of psychological assistance. The division is rather arbitrary, but it helps to navigate the complex intricacies of forms and types of interaction between the psychologist and the client.

By the way of rendering assistance.

• Consulting. It is focused on helping a client in a specific life situation – it helps to make a decision about changing jobs, choosing a profession, improving relationships, and overcoming a personal crisis.
• Psychocorrection. This is a targeted psychological impact to correct personal or behavioral characteristics that lead to psycho-emotional problems.
• Prevention. Designed to prevent and prevent possible violations of personality and relationships.
• Enlightenment. It is intended to increase the literacy and awareness of people, as well as the general culture of the society in the field of psychology.
• Crisis intervention. This is helpful to a person who is in a state of acute, prolonged or complicated crisis after the loss of a loved one, a catastrophe, participation in hostilities.
• Rehabilitation. It is aimed at restoring psychological and physical health: intellectual functions, self-regulation or communication skills, a tendency to form healthy self-esteem.
• Psychodiagnostics. These are all specific means for measuring and assessing the individual characteristics of a person (tests, questionnaires).
• Psychotherapy. It is a special kind of soul treatment that does not aim to eliminate a serious mental illness, but helps in the treatment of psychological problems.

By specialization.

One and the same psychologist can engage in counseling or psychotherapy, and additionally, educate those who wish about new directions in psychology. But most psychologists choose a narrow specialization in order to accumulate knowledge and experience in one area.

So, what format or specialization can a psychologist practice:

Personal – works with the client individually, helps to deal with internal conflicts, unlived situations, self-esteem, self-control.

Family – consults families, works with partnerships, deals with gender psychology, generational conflicts.

Children’s – works with children’s mental disorders and psychosomatics, helps to remove fears or find talent, is engaged in career guidance.

Teenage – works with a reduced assessment and shyness of adolescents, with difficulties in communication, with a decrease in academic performance, prevents deviant or addictive behavior of adolescents.

Sexologist – helps to establish a sex life for people without experience or clients with sufficient family experience, identifies and helps to eliminate the causes of disorders, corrects sexual behavior, engages in sex education.

Body-oriented – works with posture, body cramps, muscle tension, regular physical injuries, helps the client to deal with psychosomatics.

Sports – studies the patterns of the psyche of athletes, the psychology of interaction in a team, conducts psychological training of athletes before competitions, helps to reveal their potential.

Social – deals with thinking, emotions, human behavior in a social group.

Crisis or emergency – travels to disaster sites, provides support to relatives of the victims, participants in accidents, hostages.

Psychotherapist – provides the necessary types of psychotherapeutic assistance that correspond to his specialization ( gestalt therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, art therapy, psychodrama, system-vector therapy).

A psychotherapist with medical education – works with manifestations and symptoms, features and mental problems, psychological trauma, if necessary, writes out a medical opinion and prescribes pharmacological treatment.

Psychologist-healer – works with bioenergetics, parapsychology, esotericism, is engaged in healing practice.

Career guidance consultant – works with people of different ages and helps to choose or change a profession, avoid burnout at work, helps the client navigate new professions, or change jobs.

Personal growth coach (coach) – teaches specific skills that help increase personal efficiency, achieve goals, increase motivation.

Clinical – a specialty that allows you to work in hospitals, clinics, clinics with clients with various “borderline” deviations – where there is still no pathology, but there are personality disorders.

Psychiatrist – works with patients: collects the history of the disease, forms the clinical picture of the disease, treats psychopathology and mental disorders with medication.

Who May Need Psychological Help?

Many people need the help of a psychologist, but not everyone. Although at some stage in life, the support of a psychologist may be needed by every person, regardless of age, education, or the amount on the payroll.

Reason for visiting a psychologist:

• Problems with daily activities. When it is difficult to do what others find easy to do.
• Painful experience. If the memory of a long-term or recent event causes mental pain, tremors, a fast pulse, or an attack of panic.
• Experiencing grief. When the loss of a loved one is burned off, a catastrophe or accident cannot be done on its own.
• Age crisis. Sometimes you don’t want to come to terms with your passport age, but you have to – and this will require the help of a psychologist.
• Addiction. If the influence of someone or something becomes so strong that it deprives of freedom and dignity.
• Codependency. If parting “in an amicable way” does not work, and “tearing up on the living” is too painful.
• Anxiety. If doubts or anxiety constantly interfere with action or completely paralyze.
• Low self-esteem. If failure has crippled you so much that you stop believing in yourself or do not respect yourself at all.
• Unclear health problems. When it hurts somewhere inside, and doctors cannot make a specific diagnosis.
• Bad mood. If nothing pleases at all, and irritation only intensifies and reflects on loved ones.
• Family troubles. When conflicts in the family become unbearable, it is not the person who needs to be changed, but the entire family system.
• Favorite rake. When similar problems lie in wait at work or at home, even if this work or house is periodically replaced with new ones.

How to prepare for working with a psychologist?

Psychological assistance is provided by the state, private, staff psychologists. The first work in government agencies – kindergartens, schools, clinics, hospitals, social counseling services, emergency services, employment centers. Staff psychologists can work in public or private companies (in banks, in enterprises) – wherever they are concerned about the psycho-emotional health of employees. State psychologists receive state salaries, staff salaries are appointed by the employing organization.

A private psychologist is a businessman who independently builds and promotes his business, takes a fee for his services (for a consultation). Therefore, in addition to the traditional fear of psychologists, many are deterred by the high cost of psychotherapy. Especially if you need a lot of meetings with a psychotherapist.

But you can reduce the required number of visits, and at the same time make work with a psychologist more effective – prepare in advance for the meeting:

1. Think in what composition you need to go to the appointment. For example, if problems concern a child, decide whether to take him with you or not. Perhaps, during the first session, the psychologist will only talk to the parent, and the child will be bored or distracted.
2. Try to formulate the problem in advance. If you come to a session with the words “ everything is bad ” or “ nobody loves me ”, the request will be too vague, and the psychologist will have to spend time to find the subject of interest. It is better to write the request on paper in advance, correct it several times. Go to the session with notes, so as not to forget anything from excitement.
3. Clarify what additional papers, certificates, or items to bring with you. A psychologist may need a medical record (if we are talking about neurological problems), photographs of incomprehensible handicrafts of the child, or his drawings – if the child draws scary pictures.
4. Do not expect miracles from psychotherapy. Often, clients see a psychologist as a sorcerer who will not only conduct a therapy session, but at once solve the life problems accumulated over the years. But working with a psychologist is also the client’s area of ​​responsibility. To change, the client must also work, try, experiment.

What is psychological help? Psychological assistance differs from the usual medical topics, the client here is assigned the same active role as the psychotherapist. At the reception, you will not have to passively sit and listen to the instructions “this is necessary”, and “it is not necessary” – you will need to work. The main thing is to find a psychologist who inspires confidence and a desire to make contact. www.lovepsychologys.com