"You don’t give advice and how many clients do you have who come “just to talk?” – a psychologist friend of mine asked the other day. “I stopped giving advice and clients stopped coming for follow-up therapy,” another despaired - it was these statements that made me write this article. At the beginning of my work, my advice flew left and right in all directions. My importance grew, my self-esteem increased, I asserted myself through clients. They “lived in me,” my thoughts returned to them, solving the question “what to do and how to do it right/wrong.” And since the world reciprocates, professional burnout began. At the moment, having sufficient experience in counseling, having undergone long-term training in various schools and areas, personal therapy, I can say: “I don’t give advice.” Because it doesn’t help! In addition, I don’t know how a person came to an agreement up there with the Lord God about his life, and I haven’t read the book of Fates either. It is important for the client to decide what to do in a given life situation, based on its value system. And only then is the decision made valuable for the client! Most often, a person seeks psychological help when something worries him, worries him in himself, in his thoughts, feelings and behavior, when he is not able to understand the actions and motives of the people around him. According to psychoanalyst R.A. Chesnokov, " Behind the phrase “What should I do?”, which is often heard in a psychologist’s office, lies the unconscious conviction “I, as such, am absolutely fine, I’m doing something wrong.” A person views the way out of his psychological impasse as the solution to a certain puzzle. there is a correct answer and which can be seen at the end of the book. A psychologist does not have such a “correct” answer in his head, because he understands that a person’s “wrong” behavior does not arise out of nowhere: it has deep reasons, it is rooted in a person’s character , in his usual patterns of reacting, feeling and thinking. And then the psychologist and the client explore the problem together, the psychologist helps to track the client’s emotions, feelings, thoughts and patterns of behavior in the situation, helps to change the perspective of the problem, find resources to solve it, metaphorically one can say , that this is the process of “orienting in an unfamiliar area with drawing up a map.” I remember the words of Gestalt therapist Nina Rubshtein: “If a person turns to me, offering to examine his internal structure and space of life, and also pays money for it - this is the greatest act of trust. If I start to prove to him who he is and what’s wrong with him, this is an act of vandalism. If I also do this without a request, this is a professional abuse of knowledge in order to satisfy my need for self-affirmation.” Today there is strong competition among psychologists. Just as a psychologist chooses/does not choose a more directive style of counseling, giving/not giving advice, so the client chooses whether he is ready to act “according to someone else’s orders” and, in the event of negative consequences of the advice, to blame the psychologist, a loved one, the state... or find your right decision and take responsibility for the changes that will occur as a result of its implementation. In this article, I do not consider advice when it comes to referring a person to a therapist, neurologist, endocrinologist or psychiatrist. And to the question about “just talking,” it would seem that the psychologist just “sits and listens,” I would like to remind you that the psychologist works every minute of his time, he carefully monitors not only what the client is saying, but also the progress his associations, behind changes in his speech, facial expressions, bodily manifestations. The psychologist is involved in the client, monitors transference and countertransference, works with the client’s defenses, which, on the one hand, are important to bypass, on the other hand, not to break them together with the person; in addition, clients often share very unhappy events and this is “simple listening” - a large energetic and emotional contribution. My task as a psychologist is “not to drag.