Today's piece of thoughts I have about the most interesting phenomenon of our psyche — its capacity for protection and self-preservation. In psychotherapy this is called resistance. Here comes a man with a problem in one place. And it's not prostoprom, and most likely not a Problem, but the PROBLEM or even PROBLEMISCHA. Prostoprom is at all, and that is no reason to disturb the psychologists, and so — yeah.

And here's the PROBLEM — it is quite another thing. It's not a scratch, "green" alone does not anoint, it is "festering sore" — to open only with the help of a specialist and be sure with antibiotics. In General, the "sore" that annoys, bothers, hurts, and strongly prevents to live to his master. And he brings it, the precious, the good doctor — let's say, to treat, tired. ...

And we certainly can. Only here (unfortunately) psychologists not surgeons, but living all sorts of different problems — not sore, although analogies suggest themselves. So do not get to make in one place the incision, to wash, to sew, to anoint and all will be well. Most of the requests (or issues) that apply to the psychologist, are symptoms not "festering abscess" in one particular place and the "disease" of the whole system.

And this system does not consist of one specific person, who came to the reception, and throughout his life, in all spheres of its activities and of all the people who surround him. More than just a "disease" is manifested through one or multiple symptoms, but that doesn't mean that eliminating them will lead to healing. In addition, not all the symptoms lend themselves to easy and painless elimination.

In the process, it turns out, what is behind the presented symptoms, the first change comes some relief. However, then there is often strong resistance, to overcome which is possible far not at once and not all ask for help from a specialist. Because it becomes clear (or does not become, but only vaguely felt) that get rid of the annoying symptom of finally and definitively only in one case starting to change where change was not planned.

At this point, there is a lot of anger, a lot of despair, and sometimes of impotence. Because think: well, why should I change jobs if I have a problem in your personal life? (Or Vice-versa. This is a very simplified example.) And there is a lot of fear. Because suddenly everything will change?! And even if it is those changes that you wanted and waited for, they still scare me.

And then you start to look for explanations to what's going on with you: a psychologist, some not so, psychology is nonsense and does not help, waste of time and money, etc. etc. In General, I want to drop all this your psychology to hell and forget how terrible dream. Living like the people hundreds of years without psychologists?! And nothing survived. So I will live.

it is important to understand that it is natural and normal to fear changes. This resistance occurs not just — included protective mechanisms of our psyche to maintain its integrity and functional state. They are included in everyday life, so regular and frequent that we don't even notice. It's our usual ways of responding to daily events.

the Process of psychotherapy is different from everyday life that it is full of new experiences. This experience is not always manages to harmoniously absorbed in sufficient quantity. As a result, our mind is not able to continue to accept new experiences more and more, and is developing resistance. Form of the manifestations of resistance and its strength depend on many factors — not only from current process but also from their previous experience.

This could be the depreciation (bad psychologist or psychology does not help), avoidance (being late for appointments, transfers, or cancellations of meetings, illness, forgetting, ignoring homework), rationalization (right is a small car and truck of the reasons "why we should stop going to counselling" from the "no money/time" to "it's all nonsense"). The resistance force can reach such proportions that you'll want to run only one mention of the word "psychologist" without looking back.

And yet, from the peculiarities of our nervous system. Type of nervous system (strength/weakness, lability/rigidity and steadiness of the processes) is a physiological reality. Same as 2 arms, 2 legs, the need for food or regular bowel movement. Excuse me toilet metaphor, but we are not responsible for the fact that they regularly want to write. We are responsible only for how to handle this need. Since it occurs before the sale we have some time during which you can look for the toilet. But unable to ignore his desire and in the end to relieve themselves in a not very suitable place or wet his pants. But if "to the pot" we are taught from childhood to notice more complex physiological processes and learn to treat them have on a whim. And resistance is a psycho-physiological entity.

it is said that therapy begins with resistance. This is true, but more often it resistance ends. Usually the strongest resistance occurs at the beginning of the therapeutic relationship, about 10-15 meetings. Many in this period decide to interrupt the work with a psychologist. For several reasons, the main one being the inability to notice my resistance and to talk about it with my therapist. Some go through this period alone and after some time decide to continue. Sometimes clients deliberately take a "vacation" and come back. And sometimes saying goodbye for good.

Full — text link.