From the author: The article was first published on the website Since 2007, my colleagues and I have been running a training program for Gestalt therapists “Gestalt approach in psychology and psychotherapy” (Theory and practice of Gestalt therapy in Izhevsk ). This is a professional training program for practicing psychologists, psychotherapists, doctors, consultants, medical and social workers, teachers and senior students. During interviews, future program participants often ask me about how exactly the Gestalt therapy training will be conducted. Typically, when answering this question, I talk about the structure of the program, training formats, educational requirements, requirements for academic work, etc. But sometimes I forget to talk about what our approach to the very process of teaching psychotherapy and Gestalt therapy in particular is. I want to briefly talk about this here, using a specific story and contrasting the process of training Gestalt therapists with the “traditional” system of education in schools and universities. So: I’m sitting in a chair in my office, opposite me is a young woman, let’s call her Lena. She tells me that she has a lot of creative ideas, some of which involve writing. Lena really knows how to write well, expressing her thoughts clearly and captivatingly. I read some of her texts with pleasure. The problem is that as soon as she sits down at the computer, something strange begins to happen to her. She begins to feel anxious, irritated, cannot sit still for long, sometimes she feels nauseous and wants to get up and do other things. Most often this is exactly what happens. Lena goes to the computer with the desire to write a long-planned article, sits down, gets up, and leaves. Sometimes she still writes something, but she has to force herself to do it with almost heroic willpower, overcoming enormous internal resistance. Where does this resistance come from? Nobody forces Lena to write, this is her own desire, a creative impulse. Nobody pushes her with deadlines. Nobody asks her a topic. She knows how to express her thoughts. Why does she have to literally force herself to do this? In fact, this is not surprising. What is happening to Lena is a consequence of the so-called “traditional” education. Sometimes it is also called “development from the outside.” This is when there is an educational standard set from the outside that a person must master. A set of knowledge and skills that is given externally, relative to the personality of the person himself. I don't think there's anything wrong with traditional learning in and of itself. Still, the result most of all depends on teachers and parents (when it comes to school education). However, the vector of human development, focused on external standards, often provokes teachers and parents to repressive methods of stimulating learning. Sometimes a person is simply forced to learn one way or another. For example, Lena’s mother did not let her out of the room until she had completed all (!!!) homework, not even allowing her to rest until “the job was completed.” And in elementary school, Lena was transferred from a regular class to a lyceum class, at the insistence of the teachers, since she studied well. True, it was done in an interesting way. Lena was unexpectedly called from class, the teacher, without explaining anything to her, led her to the door of the lyceum class and said that now she would study here and this was a great honor for her. If she does not live up to the trust placed in her, she will be returned to the regular class in disgrace. Lena tried and complied, studied well, but the motivation for such learning was based on fear. Traditional education, with its idea of ​​development from the outside, often creates controversial motives for learning and activity. Often this is anxiety and fear in response to intimidation. For example, the now classic argument: “If you don’t study well, you’ll go to work as a janitor.” Guilt and shame in response to comparison with others, humiliation in front of the whole class and other “wonderful” “pedagogical” techniques. Result.