When a person comes to a psychologist, they usually have certain ideas, fantasies or illusions about how the process should unfold. Partly the idea of a counseling/session is influenced by the broadcasts on TV, which are usually far from reality. I will try to show some of the pitfalls of the psychotherapeutic process and perhaps make it clearer.
I will not dwell in detail on how to choose a psychologist - this is quite a lot of writing on the Web. All the more so, that anyway, most often at the first stage the psychologist is chosen a) by appearance; b) by the level of payment; c) by recommendations. Only then, in the course of a face-to-face meeting, it becomes clear whether you made a wrong choice or not. Moreover, the specialist himself may be good, but... there is no contact. In order to understand this, you need 1-3 sessions. By the way, the psychologist can also decide at this time whether to work with you or not.
The only thing I emphasize is no esotericism. If a psychologist or psychotherapist pulls out a Tarot card, runes or suddenly starts talking about karma, astrological signs, "the forces of the universe", Vedic knowledge, Kabbalah and so on - it would be good to think about it properly. Esoterics and psychotherapy are difficult to combine.
So, you are with a psychologist or psychotherapist who is engaged in non-medicinal psychotherapy (and can work in collaboration with a psychiatrist if such a need arises - for example, in the case of psychosis or clinical depression). How long will you go to see him?
There are three forms of work: psychological counseling, short-term and long-term psychotherapy. Counseling is the provision of information by the psychologist that is not enough for the client to make a decision, and nothing more. For example, a mother comes and complains about a three-year-old child - he suddenly ceases to obey, gets stubborn, does everything against his parents and so on. What is wrong with him?! In this case, it may be enough to simply inform about the crisis for three years, when the specified features of behavior are observed. During the consultation, the psychologist does not touch upon any of the client's deep attitudes, and he or she does not have such a request, so it is enough to have one or two meetings.
Sometimes the consultation can be transferred to psychotherapy if the client realizes that in order to solve his problem, he needs not only to learn something but also to change something in himself. Then the question arises - in what time frame can it be done? I will say with full confidence - not in one or two meetings. But this is what many clients implicitly mean - I will come to the psychologist, share my problems, he will tell you what you need or can do, or at least push in the right direction. Yes, yes, we know that the psychologist does not give advice ... But he does something like that, which will make it clear to me what is happening ...
Nothing a psychologist or a therapist does. Waiting for a miracle - a manifestation of magical thinking - can lead to disappointment for the client. At the same time, it is forgotten that psychologists do not solve other people's problems. Depending on the psychotherapeutic school in which he works, he will have a different approach to your problem, but in any case - not to solve it, but to give you tools for self-study. Duration of work depends in many respects on how long in the course of joint search this toolkit is selected, then - whether you accept it, or flatly refuse to take in hands (it is called "psychological protection"), as long as you learn to work with the tool. This independent work can be done in cooperation with a psychotherapist, but you will not be able to transfer it to him/her.
The role of a "tool" can be techniques of working with one's own thinking (cognitive psychotherapy); increased awareness of one's own needs, emotions and behavioral strategies (gestalt therapy); skills of analyzing mental states (psychoanalysis), and so on. Cognitive therapists directly build psychotherapy through training; humanistically oriented psychologists through living together and gaining new experience of expressing feelings and interacting with other people; positive psychotherapists through searching for resources on which a person can rely. In any case, you acquire something new, and it always encounters resistance. "If you want to have something you didn't have before, do something you didn't do before. And it's very difficult - no experience. You have to buy it. Why, by the way, reading books on psychology and psychotherapy, even the best ones, as a rule, does not lead to serious changes in life? Because the biggest thing that a book can do is to give psychological advice. That is, it will simply provide information. And only a few can use this information independently. Not because the rest of us are worse in principle. But because everyone's experience is different.
to be continued in the next part