From the author: An episode from working with patients of a medical sanatorium (specific circumstances and personal data have been changed, published with the client’s permission) First session: - Help me decide whether to live with my husband or not... (Pleasant, quiet, calm, obedient...boring woman, 46 years old. Married for the second time. The first husband drank and was jealous, the second too. She never cheated, but she was constantly accused of it, and she always made excuses) Talking about husbands, about the first and about the one now, I actually painted a portrait of one person. Describing her attitude towards her drunken husband, she moved on to a story about her father: “My father drank and abused my mother.” One day, as a little girl, I saw one of these scenes and began to fear for my mother: “I stood quietly and watched until dad fell asleep.” Her mother, according to her, sometimes had nervous attacks during scandals with her father. An: “I was always afraid that something would happen to her, she would die, and my sisters and I would be left alone...” The client still had a fear of drunk people. Second session: “When my husband left for the last time, I was even happy, I calmed down and physically rested. There is no need to make excuses to anyone... Then something began to be missing. I wanted him to be with me.” (fear of loneliness, determined by a complete lack of identification with oneself... a ban on emotions, a ban on oneself - a victim...) Discussing her manner of making excuses for imperfect sins, we found out that the ability to show negative emotions (aggression, anger) is blocked. , then immediately, following this, a feeling arises towards the one who provoked it, designed to “block” the negative (pity, guilt, fear). If emotions are too strong, An faints (6th grade - during a parental scandal, later as an adult). When we made an analogy with the mother’s behavior, an insight occurred: “Exactly, exactly! Whenever I start to get nervous, I always think: now you’ll break up like a mother, you’ll die, what will happen to your daughter?!” By the end of the session, An began to “guess” why both her husbands were jealous of her. She finished with the words: “Thank you, I remembered, I am a Human!” Third session: (Looks confident and lively, not a trace of the former boring remains.) She began work with the question: “I need to decide, after all, to live with husband or without him...” (The good thing is that, unlike the beginning of work, she is going to solve this question herself, and does not ask a psychologist for an answer). I emphasize this, she readily supports a conversation about responsibility in general and her attitude towards it. We discuss that responsibility is freedom, and only free people can truly love. In the meantime, another insight occurs (from a prospective client!): “If I always behaved like a victim, my husbands were forced to behave accordingly...And what kind of husband, I wonder, is he really? What am I like?!” Fourth session: We talk about the fact that before making decisions, An will need to go through the path of getting to know oneself. With her desires, emotions that she always hid, even from herself. And only by recognizing yourself and accepting responsibility for your life can you make some decisions. We decide that for the next session she will work on a list entitled “Why I Love Myself.” An was inspired by this task, although she doubted that she could complete it: “I don’t think I can come up with a single item on such a list...” Fifth session : Some unusual person came to the session, immersed in herself, in her thoughts. I started the work with the words: “I completed the task, but I don’t want to read the list, I don’t think it’s necessary... I understood everything...” (Hurray, of course. It’s only the speed of what happened that confuses me, but this usually happens with promising clients) The need to talk about the end of the consultation, in connection with her discharge from the sanatorium, disappeared by itself. The work, in the amount of time we had, was done, and I must say, very successfully. An felt it, hence the changes in her. Those around us also noticed this: “She was beautiful with us, but now she’s really blossomed!..” -.