Author: Vitaly Pichugin Source: http://www.nlplife.ru/ I often hear the opinions of quite reasonable people that psychologists are perceived by them, at best, as fortune-tellers, at worst - as scammers and obscurantists. One can dismiss such an opinion and say that people are not burdened with intelligence if they think so, but critics of modern psychologists have everything in order with intelligence and life experience. Of course, they generalize when they encounter specific people who call themselves psychologists. I have an assumption that many people’s opinion about psychology and psychologists also consists of articles, advertising “shills”, excerpts from videos, webinars and similar information. The market for psychological services is diverse: there are worthy organizations providing training, wonderful psychologists working in various areas of classical and modern psychology. Their services are based on science, or at least common sense. There are other people who call themselves psychologists, they also really want to sell their services, but what they write and show is beyond common sense. This is simply the bottom of the psychological services market, there is nowhere to fall further. I admit that it is from their activities that one gets the impression about all psychologists. For example, one young lady who calls herself a “Vedic psychologist” actively invites women to consultations, while, in all seriousness, she claims that a woman’s hair is an antenna for communication with the subtle world, so her hair should be long. This “Vedic psychologist” is most likely a patient who has not yet been examined by a psychiatrist, who is not receiving proper treatment, and therefore does not hesitate to insist on the reality of connections with the subtle world through hair. “Astrological psychologists”, “esoteric”, “occult” are not far behind - they all call themselves psychologists, some even have a diploma of higher education, which does not prevent them from living in their articles as some kind of parallel reality, beyond common sense. • After reading the articles of “Vedic” and other crazy people, a normal person will think “a plague on all this psychology of yours.” Those who have not delved into esotericism and connections with the subtle world entertain readers with monstrous self-promotion. One psychologist inserts the phrase in almost every paragraph of her printed works: “I am like a good psychologist, sexologist, psychotherapist,” and then there is a story about saving another client. I don't think she even understands what she's writing. That is, it turns out that she is not a “good psychologist”, but “like a good one.” Well, just in case, a sexologist is a medical specialty. A sexologist provides medical care like a gynecologist, surgeon, or dentist, that is, with a diploma of higher medical education. No one has yet abolished criminal liability for illegal medical activities. Someone loudly declares - come to me, I came up with an algorithm for solving all problems, and called myself “Pupkin’s algorithm” after it. And what? What research has been carried out, what books have been written on the topic, what is unique about the “Pupkin algorithm”? You won’t read the answer, it’s just another guest at the bottom of psychological services who wants to make himself known, well, as best he can. • These psychologists are strange people, an outside reader will think. I thought that such characters in the psychological services market had reached the bottom, but no, they knocked from below. I open the newspaper, and there is an advertisement: “Penis enlargement using NLP methods.” I realized that there is still room for improvement. What can be done about this? Nothing. For example, in the legal community, for advertising “contact me as the best lawyer” you can actually lose your lawyer status. In the psychological community, nothing is regulated by law. “Vedic psychologists” will continue to emerge from the bottom of the psychological services market, and citizens will trust less and less the important and necessary professional activity of a psychologist..