Psychology is a relatively young, but, nevertheless, extremely relevant science today. The profession of a psychologist is in demand in any organization. Today, almost no institution can do without the help of such a specialist.

Of course, the mentality of our citizens does not yet allow one to turn to psychologists for help as freely as is customary in the West. Often, not understanding the very essence of psychology, people equate it with psychiatry, and going to a psychologist becomes something terrible. Our man is used to sharing joys and sorrows just the same with his acquaintances, rather than with qualified specialists. And often this goes sideways, because no one will provide the same effective assistance in solving a problem that a professional can provide.

What does a psychologist do

The main task of any psychologist is to assist in the adaptation of a person to a normal life, help in getting rid of negative emotions, solving problems, instilling faith in a good future.

A specialist of this profile can find a job in almost any organization, from educational and medical institutions to law enforcement agencies. It is also not uncommon for psychologists to start private practice after they have gained sufficient work experience. A good specialist will be happy to take on the position of a personnel manager, a psychological trainer. Most often, women study to be a psychologist, but in some areas that require tougher measures, males predominate. For example, in the political sphere.

Psychologists in elementary schools help students to adapt to the environment without problems, to establish communication with the team. They conduct various tests that help to identify bright qualities of character and decide on a future profession. In the hospital, the psychologist mainly deals with patients suffering from stress and nervous shocks. Specialists working in prisons prepare prisoners for an early release, help them return to normal life after they leave the prison walls.

Requirements for a psychologist

First of all, the profession of a psychologist implies that a specialist has a certain amount of knowledge in this area, which can be obtained at any higher educational institution engaged in specialized training. In addition to the theoretical base, a specialist must also have some personal qualities:

• optimism;
• self-confidence;
• the ability to feel the emotions of the patient;
• the same attitude towards all people, regardless of their individual characteristics;
• communication skills and the ability to convey information to a person;
• courtesy and care;
• friendliness and ability to relax the client;
• tolerance, mental balance.

The salary of a psychologist largely depends on the professionalism and the institution where the specialist works. In state organizations, you should not count on a large income, it is approximately equal to the average salary of a state employee in the region. In private practice, as such, there is no limit, a session can cost 30, 50 and even 100 dollars.

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Pros and cons of being a psychologist

Advantages:

• the opportunity to use professional skills in everyday life;
• helping people, you get moral satisfaction;
• development of a tolerant attitude;
• the ability to set realistic goals and achieve them;
• opportunity for unlimited personal growth.

Disadvantages:

• there is a desire to give advice to everyone with or without it;
• too close perception of the client's problems;
• projection of their own difficulties on the life of the client.

The career of a psychologist is reduced to the growth of the professional qualities of a specialist, his competence and demand. To succeed in this field, fundamental skills alone are not enough. It is necessary to constantly improve skills in trainings and seminars.

A psychologist can work both in specialized centers and in organizations where specialists of this profile are required (schools, universities, correctional institutions). Some work out of state in private practice.

A doctor who deals with the treatment of human mental disorders without the help of special medications, mainly by psychological methods.

Wage

20.000–100.000 rubles (worka.yandex.ru)

Place of work

Psychotherapists work in psychiatric hospitals, polyclinics and scientific and practical centers.

Responsibilities

The main difference between a psychotherapist and a psychologist is that he is, first of all, a doctor, and he deals with the treatment of mental illness. Psychotherapists understand human anatomy, have the right to prescribe medications, give directions for tests and diagnostics.

At the same time, the profession of a psychotherapist goes beyond medicine: the humanitarian component occupies a very large place in it. In the process of treatment, emotional contact between the doctor and the patient is important. To increase efficiency, the doctor creates a favorable mood.

Important qualities

In the profession of a psychotherapist, it is important to be sensitive to people's problems, to be attentive and friendly. It is obligatory to have such qualities as: a good memory, a broad outlook, a sense of humor, analytical thinking, the ability for continuous development.

Reviews about the profession

“A psychotherapist is a profession that brings real help to people, and, therefore, gives great moral satisfaction to the psychologist himself. It's so nice to feel like someone's savior. The need for constant professional improvement is a prerequisite for personal growth. Another advantage is the ability to apply professional knowledge in practice in real life, to help not only clients, but also relatives and friends. And of course, this is a creative profession that allows you to look at the world and at yourself from a different angle. Only a person with high intelligence, including emotional intelligence, as well as an emotionally stable and creative person, can work as a psychologist.”

Editor of the portal estplusi.ru.

stereotypes, humor

At the appointment with a family psychologist: - Let's do a test: imagine you are sitting in an armchair after a hard day, relaxing, reading a newspaper. Suddenly, you hear your wife's voice outside the front door, and at the same time, your dog barks behind the back door. Who will you let into the house first? - A dog, of course. - Why? She will stop barking when she enters.

Education

To work as a psychotherapist, you must be trained in the relevant specialty.

In St. Petersburg, you can study at such universities as: St. Petersburg State Chemical and Pharmaceutical Academy, North-Western State Medical University. I. I. Mechnikova, First St. Petersburg State Medical University named after academician I. P. Pavlov, St. Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University.

In Moscow: Moscow State University. Lomonosov, I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation, Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University.

Often there is confusion in terms and people do not understand how a psychologist differs from a psychotherapist, and a psychotherapist from a psychiatrist, for example.

If a person does not remember who he is, does not understand where he is, what time of the year and what time it is - this is a psychiatrist. They work with mentally ill people whose brains, blood vessels, and nervous system do not function properly, and this changes their character, hallucinations appear. In these cases, mainly only pills and injections help.

Psychologist and psychotherapist work only with healthy people. The main difference between them is that the first one can help you adapt to the situation that you have, and the second one can help you fundamentally change the situation for the better. A psychologist can call himself one who has received a higher psychological education and a certificate giving the right to conduct individual consultations. The psychologist can listen to you, nod your head and ask how you think to solve this problem. He mainly works with emotions: as practice shows, people do not know how to recognize them. For example, at trainings I included a recording in which the same phrase was pronounced with different emotions. And asked what kind of emotion now? All of them were wrong. Ideally, a psychologist is an assistant to a psychotherapist.

A psychotherapist is one of the highest paid professions in medicine, at the level of a dentist, a surgeon. It helps to correct the mistakes of upbringing, improve life, make a career, develop character, resolve difficult situations and get out of stress. To learn to be a psychotherapist, you need to spend 12 years of your life. This is if you study correctly: medical school, residency in psychiatry and psychology, internships. For comparison, it takes seven to eight years to become a neurosurgeon.

About stereotypes

The idea of ​​the work of a psychotherapist for many has developed under the influence of American films. A husband and wife are sitting on the couch and, interrupting each other, tell what infuriates them in each other, and the psychotherapist, as an arbiter, gives the floor to one or the other and makes the final verdict. This picture is far from Russian reality. Of course, sometimes married couples turn together, but very rarely. Basically, a person comes who is more interested in maintaining relationships and more mature personally.

We have a bad name for the profession and a low level of education of the population, although we do not want to admit it. But when urea and urine are the same for people, it is understandable why they do not distinguish between the concepts of "psycho" and "psychotherapist". For us, psychology is such a horoscope-psychic science. Psychology has never received enough attention in Russia, especially if you remember the Soviet times. In our country, the role of a psychologist is often performed by a random fellow traveler in transport or a neighbor in the stairwell. Emotional support provides temporary relief, but does not solve the problem. And at the same time you get emotional dependence.

According to statistics, one in three walks down the street with an anxiety-depressive disorder, that is, under stress, and tries to cope with a bad mood on their own, with willpower. And it doesn't go away on its own. In the West, people have more confidence in such specialists, they are more conscientious about recommendations and queues for a psychotherapist for six months ahead. There, for example, a video camera is installed in the client's apartment to record family conflicts, and then step by step to analyze the mistakes together with a psychologist. This is a good method, because people who are prone to causing suffering to others tend to overlook their mistakes.

About clients

Mostly people with an income much higher than the average come. These are top managers, business owners, officials, these are people who have two higher educations, postgraduate studies and three foreign languages. They understand that the word "psychotherapy" is not the same as "psycho". The higher the financial level, the more a person is willing to spend on psychotherapy, because he understands how much it affects life. Among my clients there are very famous people, they have the same problems as everyone else. But they are harder to trust. It is harder for them morally due to the fact that they are an order of magnitude more educated, more successful in some areas and less likely to encounter sincerity and decency in their lives than others.

For example, just by talking with any person for two or three minutes, I can almost accurately determine whether he has problems and what. Every word, gesture and facial expression, every slip of the tongue, even how a person sits, how he reacts to words - all this is a story about what happened to him. Psychology is a mathematically exact science, its algorithms are very complex, but they exist.

About incompetence

There was a scandal when a man decided that he was a dentist, bought a chair, wire, building cement for himself at home, and began to offer his services to all the neighbors in the entrance. He was sued. You’ll get to this - then you won’t believe in dentists at all. We now have a lot of such people with wire in the profession. 90% of people who called themselves psychotherapists are those who went to two-month courses for no one knows where, they were given a piece of paper that they were psychologists, and for greater persuasiveness they called themselves a psychologist-therapist.

A few years ago, there was a law according to which any doctor - no matter if a urologist, gynecologist or therapist - could take short courses and become a psychotherapist. Now, thank God, the law has been changed and you still need to have a basic psychotherapeutic education. It is not customary for us to check diplomas. If you come to me, I will get you a pack of 36 certificates, among them there will be from King's College in London, a certificate of completion of residency, which, by the way, must be renewed every five years.

A person pays you not for the time when they sat with him, but for the fact that you have not kissed for 12 years
at the entrance, and crammed textbooks

A person does not pay you for the time when they sat with him and nodded their heads. He pays for the fact that you didn’t kiss at the entrance for 12 years, but crammed textbooks and know all the work algorithms. You must give the person several options for solving the problem and say which one will lead to which result. For example, a person went to a psychotherapist for a year, talked, the specialist listened to him, but did not say anything, because he supposedly had to approach the solution of the problem himself. This is what incompetence is. People who got to such people say later that psychologists themselves are crazy and this science is not clear about what.

People who got to professionals, then their phone is passed from hand to hand. The result of working with a competent psychotherapist: you get a well-paid job, you improve your personal life, your relationship with your parents normalizes, you become more emotionally open, capable of intimacy. This is the result of 10-20 hours of work, no more. What is there to smear for years? Only if there are very serious injuries, when violence was committed against a person - then yes. And so, it happens that you go to a psychologist, and he told you all his problems, and you paid him more money.

About Methods

The human psyche has a structure, like programs in a computer: they are complex, there are signs of breakage at every level, methods of repair. The task of the psychotherapist is to determine the levels where a person has a failure, give a program and work strictly according to it: a certain sequence of questions and answers, exercises. For example, people fought for years, and after several hours of working with a competent specialist, they stopped taking out each other's brains, because they saw the relationship between what they were doing and what their parents were doing.

When people begin to realize that they are constantly copying patterns of behavior, they understand the full value of our science. We are like computers: the way we are programmed is the way we work. If we were given DOS, and we want Windows, then we need to go to a psychotherapist. If you have been told many times that you are stupid and incapable of anything, you will, even being talented, sit and think why I earn so little. Because you have such a program - "do not succeed, do not stick out, do not bring the matter to the end." My task is for a person to notice this in himself and correct it.

Each session with a psychotherapist is strictly scheduled. The specialist has a work protocol, the topic of the lesson, exercises in a given sequence and exercises that a person should do at home. There are two tests that can be used to determine the status of a new client: the Zung test and the Sheehan test. The first determines the presence and level of depression, the second - the state of anxiety. Severe anxiety, for example, is when it is difficult to fall asleep, you scroll in your head who said what and how offended you, when your legs are wadded and your palms are sweating, when it is difficult to breathe and there is emptiness in your head. If a person has less than 48 points on the Zung test and less than 50 on the Shihan test, everything is not so neglected, you can also consult via Skype. If the indicators go off scale, I work only full-time.

When a client comes to me for the first time, I ask him to bring the results of these tests to the consultation, take a test for social phobia, a personality questionnaire, and more. It takes me four minutes to analyze this data, after which I know how a person will react to stress, what profession suits him best, whether he is in a pre-divorce situation. By the way, according to the vector of contact attraction, you can predict a divorce in four years.

Real changes in life come in a few months, on average - in six months. Clients call, invite to restaurants, ask if we can recommend you to everyone. We have all the laws in the psyche, as well as in the body, are gradually increasing to a critical point, and then - the transition to a new level.

About earnings

The first thing they ask when they find out that I am a psychotherapist: is it true that you earn so much? The cost in Moscow today ranges from 500 to 20,000 rubles for a consultation. The session lasts about an hour, sometimes longer. It all depends on the complexity of the request and on the method of work itself. The entire course is a minimum of 10 sessions, an average of 10-20, a maximum of 50-60. My consultation is expensive - $ 500, because I work for the result and solve the problem in a maximum of 20 hours. But I know that it also happens that if a psychotherapist does not have many clients, he can stretch everything out for a year.

About rules and ethics

There are two main rules in psychotherapy. First, never work with relatives and friends. Second - go through personal therapy, without this you do not have the right to advise. Relatives and friends are a system close to you, and professionalism implies detachment.

People often ask, are you okay? You say no, not everything, because I am also a living person, but I have ways, I can solve my problems more efficiently and faster. “Didn’t you have anything at all as a child?” You tell the truth: you went through psychotherapy, there was garbage, you healed, so this does not affect your work.

Ideally, a psychotherapist should go through two to three thousand hours of personal therapy so as not to project his problems onto the client, and only then he can be allowed to practice. To get so many hours of personal therapy, you have to be a rich man, a poor man cannot afford it. People who have not undergone personal psychotherapy, clients begin to annoy after six months.

We are taught how not to get involved in emotional contact so that there is no burnout. You communicate emotionally, but you are not touched by the client's problems. During work, I constantly monitor the state of my muscles, and if they are tensed, then the problem has caught on and I have to undergo a personal therapy session. This allows you to lead ten clients a day and not burn out.

There are words that hurt, hurt, there are words that heal. A professional should not say “you should”, “you should”, “this is wrong”, “you must” or start blaming. A professional does not use abstruse terms, he can explain complex terms simply. For example, a man comes to me for a consultation and says: he went to a psychologist, told the whole family situation, gave advice: “Reflect the archetypal prototype of the great-grandmother.” A man with two higher educations did not understand anything, but was ashamed to look like an idiot. In principle, the specialist correctly identified the problem: a man copies the same models that he inherited from his maternal great-grandmother. But the main sign of professionalism is when a person explains everything in a language that is understandable to you.

About problems and their solutions

When we start a family, we must agree on 40 points. Everyone has their own ideas about what a family should be like. For example, he has an idea - to travel a lot together, and she has to stay at home. He has a wife to peel potatoes, and she has a husband. When we agree on a relationship, we must understand whether we are suitable for each other sexually. Everyone has their own quirks.

Both are always to blame for family problems: if one creates a problem, then the second suffers it and does not know what to do, which means that it maintains an unhealthy relationship. As a rule, it is the wife who brings the family to the psychotherapist's office, because women are less likely to consider themselves right and more prone to introspection. Men often tend to think that they are right, even when they are clearly wrong.

When you teach people emotion management techniques, they are afraid they will be like robots.

The main thing I teach families is to express their expectations, desires, dissatisfaction directly, to talk to each other in a positive, reinforcing, constructive manner about how to reach a compromise in the family. Women often try to decide whether to endure betrayal, drunkenness, humiliation of their husband if they are financially dependent on him. Another often asked: remake him or her so that he or she loves me the way I want. When you teach people emotion management techniques, they are afraid they will be like robots. But not at all, you will feel the same, only you can choose whether to yell at you at a person or say calmly about what does not suit you.

I have been counseling families for 12 years and more and more often I meet with the question of how to maintain relationships and be financially successful, provided that a man is not ready to accept the success and independence of a woman.

And finally, my “favorite” request from the client: give me a pill so that I don’t see or hear anything that’s going on at home and at work, and I don’t have to do anything, because it’s difficult. I refuse to work with clients who abdicate responsibility for their lives and wait for the psychologist to do everything for them. This is infantilism, when a person does not want to change himself, but requires changes from a partner.

Interview: Svetlana Gavrilova

Psychology is an applied and fundamental science of mental life, behavior and human activity. It studies the various mechanisms, patterns and manifestations of the psyche of people in various conditions and at various stages of the life path. The profession of a psychologist includes the scientific study of the human psyche, its description. The main task of a specialist is to help a person to understand the situation on an emotional level, understand intellectual abilities, get rid of the circle of repetitive mistakes and direct them forward in order to change their life.

Why go to the Faculty of Psychology

Psychology is in great demand among young people and is perceived by many as an interesting and rather simple science, therefore a large number of entrants go to study as a psychologist. But having entered a university and started studying, students are faced with disappointment, because as soon as everyday experience, they will not be able to pass the exams. Their course does not include the usual books on psychology, suitable for light reading. For the first few years, students study such serious disciplines and areas as “physiology of higher nervous activity”, “general psychology”, etc.

Another common reason for entering the Faculty of Psychology is the desire to know yourself and deal with your subconscious. It is possible that further a person will be sincerely interested in science and continue building a career, but if this is the only motive, it is worth choosing another profession.

To become a counseling psychologist, or rather a psychotherapist, you need to take your training quite seriously, and studying at a university alone does not end there. A psychologist has the right to provide psychological assistance only after completing additional training and obtaining the necessary certificates, studying at the university only gives a direction for further development. Therefore, he never stops learning.

Psychology as a profession requires a lot of dedication from a person, but most importantly, in order to be a good specialist, you must first understand your personality.

Where can you get an education

To become a psychologist, you must have a higher education in one of the following areas:

• psychology,
• clinical psychology,
• conflictology,
• psychological counseling,
• preschool psychology and pedagogy.

A degree in psychology can be obtained at many universities in the country. To be a highly qualified specialist after basic training, it is necessary to take additional courses and continuously improve qualifications.

Necessary personal qualities of a future specialist

Contrary to cinematic images, the profession of a psychologist does not make a specialist omnipotent or omnipotent, therefore, without the participation of the client himself, it is impossible to solve all problems.

The essence of the activity of a psychologist is to help with the search for internal resources in order to direct them to change life for the better. Its main task is to help a person understand that he himself, his attitude to life, and his worldview are to blame for most of the failures in his life. A good psychologist will help you look at the problem from a different angle and find solutions through internal changes.

To carry out such delicate work and provide psychological assistance, a specialist must himself possess such personal qualities as:

• the ability to listen and understand a person,
• the ability to empathize (but at the same time he should not take everything to heart),
• the ability to isolate oneself from other people's problems,
• tact,
• high intellectual ability
• ability to analyze and draw conclusions,
• observation,
• responsibility,
• stress tolerance,
• tolerance,
• logical thinking,
• be confident in your abilities.

If a person has chosen the right direction in his life and decided to devote himself to psychology, then he must learn and improve day by day.

Place of work

A big plus: this profession is quite in demand and popular in the market. A specialist in the field of psychology can become an employee of both an educational institution and law enforcement agencies or, for example, a prison. Quite often, specialists in this area choose private practice. Having a degree in psychology, you can become a recruiting manager or a psychological coach. This specialty is most in demand among women.

A child psychologist in educational institutions helps to get used to a new place and with the team. He also conducts testing to identify bright personal qualities and.

In medical institutions, psychologists often meet people who are subject to severe stress and nervous impulses. Specialists in places of detention prepare prisoners for release and help them return to a decent life after release.

Profession benefits

Undoubtedly, the work of a psychologist has its advantages, in which you can help people who are faced with difficulties. Profession benefits:

• the main advantage is the opportunity to participate in solving real problems of people,
• creative work,
• the need for continuous development and professional development,
• the opportunity to use the acquired knowledge in everyday life,
• development of tolerance and tolerance.

All these advantages make specialists feel happy while working in this field.

Disadvantages in the profession

While working as a psychologist has its advantages, it also has its disadvantages. In it, you may encounter the following problems:

• you may face the main problem and the main disadvantage of this profession - emotional burnout,
• too close to the client's problems,
• stop separating life and work.

If these disadvantages do not scare away from the profession, then the chosen direction of activity is really your vocation.

Not a single job has only pluses, in each there are also minuses. The choice whether to continue your work or not in this direction depends only on what you meet more - pluses or minuses. At the same time, learning and gaining new knowledge is always necessary.

Career prospects

The main prospect in work is the possibility of endless self-improvement and, as a result, the achievement of the level of a highly qualified specialist with the possibility of private practice. Constant trainings and seminars provide an opportunity to learn new techniques, and then apply them in your work. A high-level specialist can open his personal account or a company providing psychological assistance to people who find themselves in various difficult situations in life.

The psychologist receives the highest rating from people whose lives have changed for the better, whom he helped to overcome personal fears and achieve heights in their careers or personal lives.

The profession of a psychologist is quite popular and in demand. The level of wages in it directly depends on the place of work and on the services provided. Private practice is considered the most profitable, but the level of income also depends on the number of people who apply. Despite all the difficulties and disadvantages, a good psychologist learns only positive aspects from this experience.

Psychoanalysis in our country long time remained banned. Scientists worked with Freud's books only after receiving special permission. Psychoanalytic teaching was considered "bourgeois", alien to the Soviet people.

But now everything has changed. And this doctrine can not only be studied independently, freely reading the works of such masters as Freud, Jung, Lacan and others, but even become a professional psychoanalyst, having received the appropriate education.

There are not many higher educational institutions in Russia that train specialists in the field of the unconscious, drives and similar things.

First, among them is the Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis (http://www.inpsycho.ru/). He offers to receive additional professional education in the discipline that is indicated in its very title. A feature of the university is a two-stage training program for psychoanalysts. Among the teachers are well-known Russian and foreign psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, authors of textbooks and various methods.

Secondly, this is the Eastern European Institute of Psychoanalysis (http://veip.oedipus.ru/), located in the city of St. Petersburg. Perhaps this is the most famous university of its kind. VEIP offers three forms of education: full-time, part-time and distance learning. It trains students from the CIS countries and far abroad.

The Institute of Psychoanalysis and Social Management (http://www.ipisu.ru/) is a prestigious educational institution located in Moscow. It trains psychologists, there are professional retraining courses in depth psychology. Among others, there is a specialization in Child Psychoanalysis.

The Institute of Practical Psychology and Psychoanalysis (http://psychol.ru/index.php), like the universities listed above, has state accreditation and issues state diplomas. Provides persons with a higher psychological or medical education with professional retraining, including Jung's analytical psychology.

Again, special courses for people who already have an appropriate higher education are provided by the Faculty of Psychology of Lomonosov Moscow State University (http://www.psy.msu.ru/educat/dopoln/analiz.html). Specialization of additional education: "Psychoanalysis of personality and interpersonal relations".

Thus, in Russia the number of educational institutions that train psychoanalysts is not that great. In addition, to acquire this profession, you need to invest a lot of money in your education. Nevertheless, psychoanalysis has great prospects in our country, and the number of specialists is still very small. Don't waste time. If you're really interested, go ahead!