Good day, Dear readers. I would like to tell you about my vision of who a psychologist consultant is. And how it can be useful to you. Since it has become possible in Russia to openly say that a person may need psychological help not only when he suffers from a mental illness, but also when his soul literally “hurts,” that is, he cannot cope with difficulties , losses, loneliness, cannot be at peace with oneself, find inner harmony, psychologists appeared who began to provide psychological assistance to all people, at certain periods of their lives, in connection with their diverse needs. When a person found himself in a difficult situation, faced with a complex problem and first tries to solve this problem himself by all available means. A person, in search of a way out, turns to friends, does everything possible, but to no avail. Then he decides to take an unusual step for himself - to go to a psychologist, to this, in general, alien and obscure specialist. Of course, a person, already going to a psychological consultation, is worried, nervous and worried about how everything will turn out. As a result, he has questions: What important and significant should happen at this meeting? What issues need to be resolved? What is the significance of this event in the holistic process of psychological counseling? The psychologist cannot know what the client came with, what he wants, what his expectations are and what he sees as the role of the specialist. Without clarifying this for himself, the psychologist cannot answer the question of whether he can be professionally useful to this person. Psychological counseling is a process of interaction between two people - the client and the consultant, the goal-setting factor of which is the client’s desire to change something in his life. Suppose the reason for the difficulties that the client experiences is his loss of contact with himself, with internal resources, then, developing the metaphor of James Bugental, who compared psychological counseling with a journey, we can say that the client’s day is a journey to himself. He goes there to get to know himself better and restore contact with internal resources. The goal of counseling is to give a person the opportunity to see and touch this source. Every person has a need for self-realization, revealing his human essence, his soul, and everyone has a need for relationships in society. When relationships are formed in a special way, they can become a helping tool. A consultant is a specialist in the field of building helping relationships. A professional psychologist has a range of methods that have been tested in practice and are effective (the effect has been proven by science and research). These are the methods the consultant offers clients to solve problems. For example, there may be the following methods: - Gelstalt therapy - Ericksonian therapy and hypnosis - Psychodrama and role-playing game - System constellations - Procedural psychology - Cognitive behavioral therapy - Psychoanalysis, Transactional and many others... A professional consultant chooses a method suitable for the client based on several factors: - Is the psychologist himself trained in this method - Will this method be useful for this particular person in solving his specific problems. For example, if the client has prejudices towards any method, then the consultant’s task is to understand what this prejudice is connected with and convey to client why he should still try this method in solving his problems. If the negative attitude does not go away, then the consultant chooses either a different method, or he can offer the client to use the services of another consultant. As you can see from this example, the consultation welcomes open information from the client . The psychologist’s task is to do everything to ensure that the client acquires the knowledge that he needs. The further consultation process resembles, on the one hand, research, and on the other hand.