Nothing new
Another common prejudice is "what can he tell me that I don't know myself?". In another way it can be formulated as "I'm smarter than this psychologist."
Yes, it is possible that in some areas you really surpass the psychologist. But right now you need professional psychological help, and if you combine your desire to cope with a painful situation and the knowledge of a psychologist, you can get good results from such cooperation.
Of course, sometimes there are prone to self-knowledge, introspection, reflection clients, well-read and erudite clients, clients with psychological education or with an interest in psychology. They can figure out a lot on their own. Well, one head is good, two heads are better! The psychologist does not have long to build for yourself your picture of the world and the picture of your problem — because you and so tell him all about yourself, and you can quickly begin to work constructively.
Confirmation of abnormality (weakness)
We should also highlight the group fears: an appeal to the psychologist is a sign of weakness, abnormality, hopelessness, etc. In fact, it is rather a sign of rationality. It seems to us that our inner world is so close to us and understandable, within ourselves we are so close to ourselves. Therefore, it seems to be worth nothing to understand some problem yourself. However, as life shows, this is not so. If this were true, the world would be populated by happy, joyful, carefree people. There would be no divorces, resentment, depression, phobias, problematic relationships with loved ones, other difficult life situations. So it's not so easy to figure yourself out? Or is it just that everyone's a wimp and I'm the only one in white? :)
Theoretically, each of us can buy a processor, memory, all sorts of loops and controllers on the radio market, and try to assemble a working computer from all this stuff. After all, it would seem that we use it every day, we know it so well, we can do a lot on it, we can even disassemble and see how it works inside. So why not build a working computer? Why so few people do, and in most cases go and buy already assembled by experts? Because, firstly, it's easier, and secondly, it's better. Unless the address to the service center at breakage of the computer means weakness, abnormality and hopelessness of its owner? It's not like that at all.
Fear of trust
And the last thing I would like to talk about is the fear of admitting my innermost secrets, the fear of learning something new, difficult and unpleasant about myself, in a word, the reluctance to let anyone inside me, because it will be painful and uncomfortable. As if a psychologist is such a specially trained person to tell you unpleasant things. As if he would see right through you, like a clairvoyant, and then immediately tell you something nasty.
I can assure you that no one is going to do anything like this to you without your desire, and in General it is hardly possible. You will set the permissible limits for you frankness.
As for the possible negative assessment of you — and these fears contain such a moment! a psychologist evaluates it. He accepts as is. If you remember the allegory about repairing the computer in the service center, you can bring it and silently give the master. On a question "Than on the system block beat?"you don't have to answer, you can still see the dent. And coffee spilled into the keyboard, too, he found himself, and deposits of dust on the fan. But a good master does not have the task to scold you for it, he understands that his goal is to ask you what is bothering you, if possible to remove the dust, wash the coffee and fix what you are complaining about. And offer you to insert additional memory, for example, to improve performance. If it turns out that the repair is impossible, for example, the hard drive needs to be changed, then offer you options on how to deal with it. Yes, it will be unpleasant, but rather expected novelty, otherwise you would not have taken the computer to the service center, is not it? At least you'll know what to do next.
Concluding this article, I really hope that it will help a little dot the i as to what actually do psychologists and psychotherapists. Perhaps someone will receive additional arguments in favor of recourse to a professional psychologist. Still, it is important to find a suitable psychologist for yourself, because you can talk for as long as you want about how it is really great and wonderful to undergo psychotherapy, but I know from personal experience that some specialists have more personal effect, and some, unfortunately, less.