What is happiness?
Aristotle gave the following definition: “Happiness is the activity of the soul in the fullness of virtue.” Nothing more serious appeared for a long time. But today there is another approach, according to which a happy person is one who feels himself so,
and happiness is more a matter of subjective opinion. At the same time, studies on the relationship between genetic factors indicate that their influence can vary in the range from 10 to 40%. There are a number of genes, each of which makes a small but statistically significant contribution. In total they make a fairly significant contribution.
As for the common question, is money the source of happiness, the answer is yes, but to a certain level. When basic needs are not satisfied, a person does not eat well, he has no confidence in his own safety, there is no roof over his head, no home, and so on, then frustration arises in his life, which prevents him from being happy. But as soon as a person reaches the level of satisfaction of basic needs that is characteristic of the middle class today, he reaches very specific limits of saturation.
We know that happiness cannot last long for a number of reasons. We are always doomed to move in the direction of what we want. Only for a very short time can we fully achieve this merger, and then we again live at some distance from what we want. And this distance creates tension, which leads to the fact that at certain moments in life we experience a state of happiness, and the rest of the time we try to find this state again. Happiness is not a destination, but a journey.
My husband and I want a child
I have already had 2 miscarriages. When is the best time to contact you? It is best to contact you outside of pregnancy and in advance, so that there is time to remove those psychological characteristics that prevent you from bearing a child. This work may take from 2 to 6 months or more, but everything is very individual. It's better to come sooner than later. Otherwise, a new failure is not excluded. In all cases of miscarriage, the psyche plays, if not the main, then not a secondary role. If you have enough time to work through psychological problems, you will be able to carry a child without pharmacological drugs. And this means that he will be healthy.
Do mentally healthy people exist?
Of course they exist.
However, there are different approaches to understanding normality and pathology. The psychoanalytic school believes that the most mentally healthy people are neurotics, people who have internal conflicts, experience some mental suffering and should visit a psychoanalyst. But at the same time, they have no problems understanding reality; they have mature defense mechanisms.
If we talk about the clinical interpretation of this problem, a normal psychological state is one that does not require a trip to the doctor. The existential-humanistic position is that health implies certain psychological characteristics of the individual that make him capable of self-development, creating close relationships, and capable of viewing life as a certain life project that has meaning.
When we talk about health and illness, we can think of it in dichotomous terms. If each of us is measured on a certain scale: depression, anxiety, hostility, aggressiveness, etc., then most likely, if a person answers honestly, each of us will be at some point on the depression scale, at some point on the anxiety scale. In a situation when this point begins to approach critical, you should think about how to help yourself and not bring the situation to clinical severity.
Verbal communication
Psychotherapy, regardless of methods or directions, is all built on verbal communication between the client, that is, you, and the psychotherapist. In simple words, this is just a conversation that is structured competently, and, as a result, brings you to awareness, understanding of the reasons, current circumstances, and a clear understanding of your inner mental state. All this is necessary in order to choose the right methods and ways to get out of a personal crisis or resolve the situation.
How to complete the gestalt?
An example from everyday life can explain what gestalt is: before starting a car trip, a person needs to determine the shortest route, and the navigator settings become a gestalt;
but if he notices the fuel indicator light coming on, anxiety and past experience will organize a new gestalt - he will start looking for a gas station. In the event of a call from his wife, his gestalt changes again. These gestalts will remain open during the trip, during which the person will be busy completing them: talking, refueling the car, driving, driving home - actions that satisfy the actualized needs. In the natural process of human life, gestalts are created as needs are actualized and destroyed as they are satisfied. If you want to complete the gestalt, become aware of it
, notice your need, regain your ability to creatively adapt, and either through direct or substitution action, consciously and spontaneously complete and destroy the existing gestalt.
Why does a person need to assert himself?
In everyday speech and everyday consciousness, “self-affirmation” is often associated with negative character traits, with behavior aimed at humiliating another person.
Indeed, one can come across many cases when a person is publicly ridiculed, insulted, humiliated, and not at all for the purpose of educating him, but to achieve a sense of self-worth. But self-affirmation is not limited to personal superiority over others. When asking the question of why a person needs to assert himself, we, first of all, associate this need with constructive superiority,
with a person’s desire to grow above himself.
What does your mood depend on?
There are external reasons - these are life events that are set from the outside and mediated through our internal characteristics.
This happens because different people have different attitudes to the situation and see different consequences and prospects in it. There are internal reasons - these are biological factors of mood, such as: the somatic role of health, the tone of the nervous system, biochemical balance, as well as mood fluctuations associated with seasonality or daily time. Psychological factors: when basic needs are satisfied, the mood is most often good. Firstly, it is security and predictability - what provides a person with the absence of anxiety. Secondly, it is the ability to experience pleasure and create situations for oneself in which it is experienced.
Feelings about yourself. A person cannot be in a good mood if he experiences negative emotions regarding his personality
. If he is dissatisfied with himself, cannot respect himself, if he has low self-esteem, then at every step he will encounter negative experiences that will affect his mood.
Self-realization, the understanding that your life is needed for something, that you leave a meaningful mark on this earth and that this is good not only for you, but for the whole world.
Is this your first therapy?
If you have had experience with a therapist in the past, it is likely that your former doctor gave you advice that did not help. Otherwise, why change it? This helps us understand which methods have been more effective in the past and which ones should be abandoned,” explains family therapist Danny Gibson from Los Angeles.
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“If the experience was positive, why? If not, why was it a negative experience? What would you like to do differently? The client controls the therapy session and I act as the guide.”
Why do we experience stress and should we avoid it?
Stress is a condition that occurs when the human body is exposed to stimuli to which it is difficult for it to adapt.
These may be the environmental conditions in which we live (polluted air, car noise), the large number of people we meet (in public transport or in a traffic jam), time limits, heavy physical activity, problems in the family and at work. All of this can cause stress. But stress is not always negative emotions. Euphoria is also stress, and therefore, unfortunately, you can die of joy. Stress is partly due to individual genetic characteristics. Carriers of certain gene variants react more strongly to stress or are slower to return to normal after a reaction and, as a result, are more likely to develop stress-related disorders. If we are talking about culture and upbringing, phenomena that are far from genetics, we cannot completely discount genes. It is the work of genes that allows us to record in the form of neural connections what life and parents teach children.
Stress affects the human condition both beneficially and detrimentally.
It can mobilize the body's strength and help increase human activity. But accumulated, cumulative stress is the result of experiencing many negative events. The consequences of such stress can be expressed in different ways: the normal level of wakefulness is disrupted, problems with sleep arise, somatic reactions appear, such as rapid heartbeat, breathing, etc. With such stress, problems with the gastrointestinal tract, various skin diseases and others may also occur. consequences.
How did you deal with the problem on your own that led you to therapy?
Many people ask this question to their clients to find out how they cope with stressful situations and difficult emotions. Are they doing something productive like meditation or spending time outdoors? Or are they relying on unhealthy habits?
“I find it helpful to learn about my client's strengths so that they can be used in future treatment,” says Kate. “Secondly, it allows me to understand whether the patient is using techniques that could aggravate the problem or potentially affect treatment.”
What is mental trauma?
Mental trauma, or, as psychologists say, mental trauma, is a condition that occurs as a result of a severe, extreme stressful event.
Such an event necessarily involves a threat to the life or physical integrity of both the individual himself and other people, for example his relatives. In everyday consciousness, trauma is often understood as negative everyday events: grievances, conflicts, insults or mental breakdowns. But often clients of psychotherapists and even experts in this field incorrectly define this concept.
There are two types of traumatic stressors. The first type is extreme single events: car accidents, robberies, assaults, single sexual assault. The impact of such stressors leads in the clinical version to classic PTSD with its main symptoms. The second type of traumatic situations is repeated traumatic exposures: military operations, living in the territory of military operations, repeated cases of sexual violence in the family. This is chronic traumatization, it is endured much more difficult by the individual, because in addition to the traumatic impact itself, the person also experiences its repetitions and lives in constant tension. Here the personality itself suffers, the system of its worldview suffers, the world for a person becomes hostile.
7. I'm afraid to see a psychologist
I know that I have psychological problems that bother me, but I’m embarrassed to contact a psychologist - I’m afraid that my friends will laugh. What should I do? If a tooth hurts, people do not hesitate to go to the dentist; if they are worried about hemorrhoids, they go to a proctologist; if they happen to get a venous disease, they go to a venereologist, etc. Because it has become quite commonplace, people have long been accustomed to it. Professionals dealing with mental problems have appeared here relatively recently, so turning to a psychologist has not yet become as common. But the process is going on, and quite quickly. Many have already tried to use the services of psychotherapists and experienced the results. You just need to overcome your fear a little and get there once. Then it won't be scary anymore. And you can tell the guys that turning to a psychologist is a civilized way to solve problems.
Why does depression occur?
The causes of depression are never clear-cut. The contribution of genetic factors is generally low, but there are disturbances in the metabolism of neurotransmitters. The main reasons are psychological, and first of all, these are violations of self-esteem and self-respect
, when a person has a certain idea of \u200b\u200bhis own self as unworthy of love and respect.
Psychological causes of depression also include problems in close relationships. When a person needs another person to feel alive and able to adapt to reality, he tends to merge with the other person and reduce the distance as much as possible. In such cases, a person experiences himself through another person, and the partner often feels suffocated. Such relationships often fall apart, and the person who needs this merger feels it as a loss of himself.
In addition, depression has social mechanisms. Here the cult of success, rationality, and well-being, which is inculcated through the media and parental education, comes to the fore. Social comparison mechanisms are activated, and when a person compares himself with other people, the comparison turns out to be not in his favor.
How to develop creativity?
Creativity is a collective term for a whole “bouquet” of abilities.
You can behave in very different ways to develop these creative abilities. Dancing, drawing, theatrical art, discussion of scientific problems, invention - all this in one form or another has a positive effect on creativity. The most well-known methods of developing these abilities are tied in our culture to relatively early ages, when they try to develop creativity in children. For adults it is much worse written and drawn. Developing creativity in adulthood requires non-trivial actions
, non-trivial words, actions. Any classical spheres - artistic creativity, theatrical creativity, dance, verbal games, painting - are suitable as a material where you can develop your creative abilities. However, it is very important to do this systematically; results cannot be achieved in 10 minutes.
Questions you will probably be asked
Before your first session, your therapist will likely send you some paperwork to fill out. One of these documents will likely be a questionnaire with your medical history (including any medications you are taking), mental health services you have received in the past, current problems or irritants, and what you hope to get out of therapy . The doctor will review your answers and may want you to discuss them in detail during your first session together. Here are some of the questions you may be asked and why.
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