How is friendly support different from psychological support, and why can no friend, no matter how loving, empathetic, and sincere, be able to replace a professional psychologist? But first, after all , about the benefits of friendly support, and its similarities with the psychotherapeutic process. One of the functions of psychological counseling is the ability to perceive the experiences of another person non-judgmentally, empathizing. Those. when they listen to us, practically without interrupting, sympathetically, and most importantly, understanding what is happening to us, we partly get rid of unpleasant feelings, as if placing them in another person. And in this sense, if a person is lucky to have an empathetic friend who is not prone to self-assertion. This is precisely why good friends are valued. However, this is where the similarities between psychological help and friendly support end. Friends cannot carry out other functions of psychotherapy under any circumstances, no matter how brilliant and wonderful they are. Firstly, one of the functions of psychological help is to encourage a person to change his personality. How is this achieved? Apart from all other factors, the answer is simply simple - due to material payment. Moreover, payment should be a fairly significant part of the client’s overall budget, that is, the client confirms the seriousness of his intentions. Only material, time, and moral costs can motivate a person to undertake such serious work as changing one’s personality. Secondly, help the client realize his erroneous behavior patterns. This means that the therapist is recognized not only to listen and support, but with the help of special techniques to show the client what the client is doing in his life that leads him to failure in different areas of life. But the psychotherapist does this in a special way. He never says directly “you don’t know how to listen to others, that’s why your wife left you” - he organizes the space of conversation in such a way that the client himself realizes what makes him unhappy. Friends are usually limited to a set of advice that can be read in any magazine, and this advice often boils down to something like “be more tolerant of people,” “you’re too shy,” “you need to lose weight.” It’s just that our friends usually don’t have the knowledge that psychologists have, and even if they do, their advice remains at a superficial level. Thirdly, to help change happen at a deep, unconscious level. Usually, when a client comes to a psychotherapist, he already realizes that he is “too shy, too unsure of himself,” etc. and so on. And he had already tried various advice from friends on auto training, bright clothes, making money... But this could not solve the problem. Communication with friends always occurs on a cognitive level. And on an unconscious level there may be complex negative attitudes and complexes, which will certainly affect communication with others. Because those around us read the attitudes that are in our unconscious. But in order for the client to gain access to his own unconscious, at least two mandatory conditions must occur. And these are 2 more reasons why a friend cannot help him with this: - the psychotherapist must represent a very authoritative figure for the client. This is achieved in therapy with several conditions. Firstly, distance (usually psychotherapeutic sessions have strict regulations, time restrictions, and contacts with a psychotherapist outside of sessions are difficult). Secondly, the process of psychotherapy itself is structured in such a way that the client reveals much more than the psychotherapist. And this is very different from friendly communication, in which there is practically no distance. Friendships are relationships of equals. And this is their minus; - the psychotherapist, despite his authority, should be perceived as a very safe figure who can be trusted with everything. The process of psychotherapy is in many ways similar to the process of removing the client’s protective layers in front of a psychologist, exposing.