There is such a well-founded opinion in the professional community that psychotherapy helps people become more aware, independent and mature. That therapists provide people with support and support their desires. That in the therapeutic process a person begins to make his own, responsible decisions. Many of us have heard, and some have even experienced, that this is indeed true. It is also known that there is resistance in the therapeutic process. In the most general form, descriptively, without delving into the differences in approaches, we can say that resistance is when a person consciously strives for something, but unconsciously puts obstacles in front of him. He wants to talk, but doesn’t know what, everything has flown out of his head. He wants to come to sessions on time, but it turns out that he is half an hour late every time. He wants to act like an adult and responsible, but instead he cries like a little child and doesn’t remember anything that happened during the session. Different approaches offer different explanations for why this happens. The effect of resistance is associated with the structural features of speech, with transference, with the quality of contact between therapist and client, etc., etc. In ego psychology there is even a carefully developed specification of the theory of resistance in the form of a classification of psychological defenses, accompanied by detailed instructions that in what cases it is supposed to be done. Recently, an assumption occurred to me about why else clients might resist the actions and especially the statements of the therapist. The experience of my own work from both positions (therapeutic and client) tells me that there are parental messages that formally address us to the same values ​​that are realized in the therapeutic process. Here, for example, are a few common phrases that children hear from their parents in threatening and unsafe situations: “Do what you want” (desire) “It’s your business, it’s up to you to decide” (responsibility, authorship) “What do you think?” (independence, authorship) “Well done…” (support) “You are independent with us” (independence, responsibility) “You are already an adult” (maturity, independence) “Do you understand what you are doing?...” (awareness) If the therapist says, “You can say whatever you want,” and the client, due to the peculiarities of his family history, hears, “Say what you want, I’m not listening to you anyway,” it is quite expected that resistance will appear in the process. That is, simply put, you can expect that the client will not say what he wants. Or he will, but at the same time he will behave as if he is being raped. Or they reject it. Or something else bad. Even if you filter your speech very carefully, there will definitely be someone for whom what is filtered will be offensive and traumatic. It would seem that you can replace the phrase “Say what you want” with the classic formula “You can say whatever comes into your head.” But no. You might think that none of us have ever heard from our parents the phrase “How could such a thing even come into your head!”, after which nothing at all may well come to mind for some time. Traumatic meanings are potentially present in almost any utterance - and, of course, in the absence of an utterance too. It is very easy for a person to read the therapist's silence as disapproval if his parents punished him with silence as a child. At the same time, it seems to me that in the context that I am considering now, the universal aspect of the traumatic nature of statements is absent. That is, I assume that the presence of a traumatic factor and its strength are characteristics of each person’s unique story. In my opinion, the best way out of this situation for the client is to tell the therapist that certain of his (the therapist’s) words cause discomfort. There is nothing shameful or stupid about this; this is important and meaningful information about the history of your own relationships. As for the therapeutic position, then.