Psychotherapy (as part of psychological care), in the context of modern social transformations, has a vital and meaningful function – people’s mental health preservation and maintenance.
Traditionally, mental imbalances, stress and critical situations, which accompany a person practically all their lives, are dealt with by medication. In most cases, medication (tranquillizers, antidepressants, etc.) is a kind of relief for mental suffering.
At the same time, even medical professionals understand that pharmacological remedies do not solve the problem that triggered the emergence of human mental suffering and its social consequences.
In the context of overcoming and pre-empting life problems not solved by medication, the activities of the non-medically oriented psychotherapist must be considered.
When a person “encounters” a problem, it is always a “critical situation” for them. Moreover, the first steps of overcoming it are almost always unconscious but effective.
It so happens that the psyche itself, taking care of the person, successfully displaces everything that exceeds its capacity and resources in awareness (for example, experiencing the death of loved ones or the loss of something meaningful, where the person has invested a lot of their efforts and resources and many others).
It displaces (actively forgets) the situation and reactive ways of coping with it. Due to the situation and the reactivity displacement, an indefinite evaluation of the situation remains, always hyperbolized and affective.
Over time, this displacement will play havoc with the individual, producing a thinking strategy forming the basis of the symptom.
A SYMPTOM (in the context of a person’s mental activity and personal organization) is an unconscious thinking strategy that creates the corresponding forms of internal mental regulation of behaviour.
As a thinking strategy, the symptom peculiarly restructures the person’s self, forming a detached part of it.
As a result, this is a split-off part of the “I” also unconscious by the person himself. Its purpose is to overcome everything that in any way points to the situation that reproduced it. Even though this situation, which recreated symptomatic thinking, has long become a thing of the past.
In this context, Freud’s assertion that memory plays an essential role in shaping a person’s inner experience and form of experiences of situations, having a continuing influence on his character, needs no further confirmation. Memory (or rather the “trace” in the human psyche formed by it) is a significant factor for the subsequent formation of symptomatic thinking.
When medication is used to ‘relieve’ mental distress, people often complain of increased heart palpitations that do not go away even after the drugs are finished, or, for example, ‘anxiety does not go away’ even after taking tranquillizers or antidepressants for a long time.
It is obvious that if a person is bothered by symptoms, they are not amenable to medication. In such a case, it is wise to see a psychotherapist additionally. And maybe you need a WORD, not a “magic pill”…
Often the formation of persistent psychiatric symptoms (such as anxiety, which has taken the form of panic, phobia or obsessive-compulsive disorder) has occurred precisely because the wrong tools were used in dealing with them.
Let’s look at when it is worth seeing a psychotherapist, at least for an initial consultation.
Firstly, if a critical situation has taken place in your life and, over six months, symptoms have appeared in your mental health that are not ‘native’ to your standard behavioural reactions and thought process (the emergence of recurrent thoughts, images, heightened feelings of hurt and guilt) – in general anything that is new in yourself and brings additional anxiety and a sense of expectation of bad events and situations.
Secondly, against the overall relatively stable background of life, the emergence of suffering and seeking medication did not bring the expected relief.
Thirdly, changes in life activities are not accompanied by corresponding changes in forms of thought and behaviour; one is supposedly living in another ‘dimension’. For example, a couple has been living out of the marriage for a long time, but one of them continues to live as if nothing had happened.
Fourthly, the experience of social events that are not directly mediated by the person himself and his close people exhausts them too intensively.
Fifth, the appearance of fatigue, which is psychological rather than physical, and the means used in overcoming it are ineffective (sleeping out does not bring a sense of rest, travelling is tiring rather than bringing novelty to life, etc.).
Sixth, involvement in social events, in which various manipulations occur and where the individual is required to be part of a cohesive, group, idealized activity. Consequently, involvement and personal investment do not ensure participation in decision-making; one is disengaged from decision-making. As a result, there is a sense of abandonment, of being used and so on.
Seventh, if a person does not care about his mental health himself, others will take care of him, using him in various primitive ideas realization(equality, goodness, universal salvation, protection, etc.).
We must remember it is much easier and cheaper to prevent mental disorders than to overcome them. And sometimes this can take years…
Nataliia Makarchuk (c)
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