From the author: I present here my correspondence with a woman. Her questions yielded some ideas that might be useful to those seeking professional help. I am publishing with her permission from the author of the letter, with gratitude “Hello, Yuri Anatolyevich. Do you consult via video call on Skype? A personal meeting is not possible because we live in another city, and correspondence, as you yourself mentioned in your articles, and I agree with you, is not so effective. And one more thing: I would be grateful for advice on how to help a person understand that he needs a consultation with a psychologist if he thinks that he can handle it on his own. He definitely won't make it. Very deep problems, he does not realize them. He cannot admit what really motivates him. I also have problems, but for now I decided to try to sort them out with another psychologist. As a specialist, you inspire confidence in me, and it seems to me that the person I’m talking about could be helped. Yours sincerely,..."Hello. I worked at the Telephone Trust service for 10 years and after my dismissal I was involved in the issue of telephone counseling for a long time. Was involved in training telephone consultants and conducted supervision. Therefore, I am familiar with telephone counseling firsthand and consultation via Skype is possible in principle. For now, I have limited myself to audio communication and text format. Lately I like the text format even more, because it allows me to have a calm, thoughtful conversation, and in online mode, direct reactions are quite accessible. This is a kind of diary, the entries in which are always available and periodically replenished, including thanks to the participation of a psychologist, are jointly analyzed and pondered, decisions are made, which are then put into practice, tested by a person, the results are again discussed with the psychologist, actions are corrected, etc. d. This option is more suitable than face-to-face work for a person for whom leisurely and thoughtfulness, independence, and greater emphasis on analytics are preferable - after all, the main tool here is an idea, formalized in text, expressed in words. Expressive capabilities are more modest in comparison with face-to-face work, which complicates mutual understanding and this requires additional effort. Internet communication leaves its mark on communication - this is the weakness of the expression of the printed word, although flavored with exclamations and emoticons, and the ensuing difficulty of mutual understanding and, most importantly, the delay in responding to emerging experiences and ideas. And even when communicating online! The recipient understands the text as he understands it, and reacts according to the traces of his understanding, and only after time, and most importantly, after a lot of experiences, there is a chance, having clarified the understanding, clarifying what he meant interlocutor, react not to your understanding, but to what the interlocutor had in mind. But there’s a whole way to go! And you still need to want to go through it and go through it, but it often happens that you have neither the desire, nor the strength, nor the time... unfortunately. And if resentment clouds your eyes, then work can be interrupted at the most interesting place - at the most emotionally charged and this is the danger! In this, of course, the correspondence form is inferior to full-time work, in that in full-time work you can go deeper in research and experimentation with psychological conditions, do exercises, conduct psychological practices for emotional response, to find solutions in the current situation and in a broader context, establish connections between personal characteristics and emerging situations, psychological defense mechanisms and mental states, quality of life... Opportunities for direct support much higher in full-time work. Also, in face-to-face work, you can turn to what is dangerous to turn to in distant work - precisely because of the lack of opportunity for timely and immediate, direct influence, as well as long-term agreements. Psychotherapy, even its short-term forms -this is several months of weekly meetings and independent work between meetings. This work can rather be compared with classes with a tutor, with a coach, when the effect occurs with regularity of classes, diligence, perseverance, patience, courage in overcoming obstacles... And the differences, what is important, are that tutoring deals with an abstract subject - knowledge “about”, in the case of coaching it is work on one’s physical appearance, muscle development..., and in the case of psychological work - the most concrete subject is the actual psyche of a person, his movements souls, all experiences, including secret ones, hidden from oneself, doubts, anxieties, fears, dreams and fantasies, beliefs and prejudices, limitations and possibilities, creativity, decisions and desires to implement them, will and actions, life activity. On the one hand, this is a powerful resource, and at the same time, it can become a stupor in moving towards your dreams. There are many professional specialists in your city; you could try out a preliminary consultation with a chosen psychologist here in the forum, or for free in a demo consultation, in which you have the opportunity to feel the specialist’s style specifically in relation to the stated topic, to the person’s condition, to his situation. If it suits you, you can arrange an in-person meeting. There is no risk. Only time. But subsequent full-time work will justify it. You wrote that I inspire confidence in YOU, but there are no guarantees that the same attitude will be in the one who is causing you concern, whom you would like to support. “How to help a person understand that he needs a consultation with a psychologist if he thinks that he can handle it on his own.” Usually actively imposed help is perceived inadequately: - “Consult a psychologist” - “You need it, you get treatment!” Therefore, you can offer, but carefully, for example, offer to read about the possibilities of psychological practice, how a psychologist helps, what there is the essence of psychological help - some people believe that by turning to a psychologist, they will lose their independence, and this hurts their pride, shakes their self-esteem, so they deprive themselves of the opportunity to use the achievements of psychology. “It is not maybe.” Probably, it is precisely in order to clarify this that psychological help can be useful. “I also have problems, but for now I decided to try to sort them out with another psychologist.” Actually, it is your right to leave secret what you want to keep it a secret. And you can also tell him that when working with a psychologist, even if he opens up, it remains a secret between him and his psychologist. This is very important. In this sense, your recommendation for a specific specialist may work against him, due to the fact that he may think that you are in cahoots with this specialist behind his back and therefore act against him. Therefore, it is better to offer him the opportunity to independently choose from several people, even if helping him , then only in the selection criteria. For example, what did you focus on when choosing for yourself. And there may be something special that is important specifically for him. “He definitely won’t cope.” He will cope - and it is important to support him in this belief in his own strength. A bad psychologist is one who raises doubts in a person’s own abilities. It is important to make it clear that a psychologist helps, for example, by drawing a person’s attention to different aspects of experience, in particular those that a person misses when in a state of crisis, stress, and this is not his personal characteristic, but a general property, and psychologists themselves also resort to the help of their colleagues to resolve such difficulties. But it does not advise, does not deprive a person of his inalienable right to make decisions and act; on the contrary, he just supports and inspires a person to make independent choices and actions... That is. it’s not at all about who is better, smarter, more important, more significant... It’s only about experience in this type of activity - building helping relationships, relationships in which a person can come into contact with?