From the author: Cutlets separately, flies separately. Please wrap it up! Dear friends, in this article I would like to return again to important client questions about the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Why? Because just the other day I heard my colleagues once again discussing one of the eternal problems of psychologists and psychotherapists: friends and relatives are begging for professional psychological help, and they don’t know what to do about it. My answer is unequivocal: REFUSE! and at the same moment offer the contacts of another specialist. I think it’s clear why you offer a colleague’s contact - the person asked for help, therefore, he needs it. But we don’t abandon our own, right? Therefore, we help you find someone who will help. Why do we categorically refuse? Yes, because relationships are worth a lot. And under no circumstances should you mix personal and professional in one salad. Indigestion guaranteed. Of course, what makes close people dear to us is that they are close to us, and we can talk to them about our difficulties for free (although you and I know for sure that not about absolutely everyone). But this is a completely different matter. Relationships are just that, they presuppose an ATTITUDE towards YOU. That is, your loved one treats you somehow, and you have your own idea about it (which, by the way, is sometimes very different from the original). So, your loved one will listen and respond to your revelations unambiguously and irrevocably through the prism and experience of your relationship and through his ATTITUDE towards you. There is no other way. This is the truth of life. We are designed this way. What is the difference between a psychologist and a friend? Essentially, this is the same friend, but with whom you have no relationship, there is no common past, and his ATTITUDE towards you is non-judgmental. A psychologist thinks about his clients “in its purest form”; his ether of perception of you is not clouded by his own emotions about your shared stories and life adventures. Outwardly, a conversation with a psychologist looks like a conversation with a friend: frank, confidential, emotional, sincere... The difference in depth. If we compare it with medicine, then a friend is a pill for pain, and a psychologist is a medicine against an illness. Do you feel the difference? Despite all the sincerity and sincerity of communication, the psychologist does not lose vigilance for a minute, the client is always in the center of his attention, he does not look at his watch, does not stare at his mobile phone, he is really interested in everything that happens to you, because it EVERYTHING is important. To understand the content of everything that happens to the client and to find optimal unique ways to help YOU as the CLIENT. Do you want it to be exactly this way, of the highest quality? Then you, dear clients, will have to follow one more rule! – Do not receive psychological help, psychotherapy and consultation on the spot, on a windowsill in the hallway, at a party, when in a relaxed atmosphere you finally overtook a relaxed psychologist standing in the corner and looking at the starry sky with a glass of champagne in his hand. The point is not even that in this situation someone (ah-ah-ah!) may inadvertently violate the boundaries of the psychologist. The trouble is that this is a disdainful attitude towards oneself. You wouldn’t beg a surgeon you accidentally met at your matchmaker’s birthday to cut out your appendix (well, since fate brought it together so successfully)? You won’t, I believe in you)) It’s the same story with a psychologist. No need. Let everything be as it should be. You are unique and treated as you deserve and deserve. Let the psychotherapist do his job efficiently, so that your life sparkles with new colors, so that its quality improves. Do you promise? And then happiness is just a stone’s throw away. Comment, ask questions! Join the discussion! __________________ With respect to your client choice, your psychologist Olesya Volkova