About our interlocutor: Ivan Zamesin (zamesin) was responsible for the product at Yandex.Images, worked at chatfuel.com as a product manager. Now Ivan is an entrepreneur: he conducts courses on product thinking in IT companies, for example, Skyeng, Cian, HH.ru, Mail.ru, and develops the service for the selection of psychotherapists " Meta ", as its creator. Meta is a service that helps you take the first step to psychotherapy. He maintains a blog where he shares the results of the service.
Why is psychotherapy needed?
To put thoughts, feelings and health in order. For example, get rid of neuroses, phobias, panic attacks or insomnia.
In general, we have three types of work with problems: psychological, psychotherapeutic and psychiatric. They solve the same problems in different ways.
Psychological counseling works "here and now". She can help you deal with emotions or make an important decision. The psychologist examines the problems in relationships between people, teaches communication with oneself and with the world around. This is an analogue of "heart to heart".
Psychiatric care treats severe mental disorders that are dangerous to the patient and others. Often these disorders require the use of medication, for example, to treat depression or bipolar disorder.
Psychotherapy sits between psychological help and psychiatry. This process is more complicated than psychological counseling, but often does not require medication. This is a deep "examination" in oneself, therefore a person comes to a psychotherapist himself, realizing his condition.
Exaggeratedly, these three methods can be compared with renovating an apartment. Sometimes it is enough to paste new wallpaper and change the sofa, and sometimes you have to restore everything after a severe fire. Depends on the state.
What is a psychotherapist?
This is a doctor who treats borderline neuropsychiatric disorders. For example, sleep disorders, panic attacks, anxiety, neuroses and phobias. A psychotherapist helps to create conditions for solving life problems of clients in different states. Conditions can be both mild and severe, so they can be simultaneously observed by different specialists, including a psychiatrist.
In Russian legislation, “psychotherapist” refers to psychotherapists of various specializations, psychiatrists and psychologists with medical education. Meta adheres to international standards, according to which a psychotherapist must have:
- Higher psychological or medical education in psychiatry.
- 30 or more hours of supervision (one of the methods of continuing education) and at least 12 hours of supervision per year.
- Over 100 hours of personal therapy.
- At least 500 hours of additional long-term training in one of the areas of psychotherapy, for example, gestalt therapy or cognitive-behavioral therapy. In this case, a psychotherapist can become a psychoanalyst if he has been trained in the method of psychoanalysis.
You can read more about who a psychotherapist is according to Meta, how he helps and how he differs from psychiatrists and psychologists in a separate article on the service blog.
Why visit a psychotherapist?
For example, in 2010 my business was taken away. I was left without a business, but with psychological trauma. After he got rid of her with the help of psychotherapy, he launched Meta.
A psychotherapist will help if:
- character changed, aggression, irritability appeared;
- I don't want to do anything, start business and work;
- - ;
- ;
- , , .
With any of these problems, you can consult a specialist for advice. It can be both a psychologist and a psychiatrist. You can simultaneously see a psychiatrist and visit a psychotherapist. Each of these specialists will select their own solution to the problem, which will complement the other.
How to offer help to a loved one? Direct persuasion will not help. A trick will help. For example, if a loved one is constantly screaming, has not slept for a week or is afraid that “they will come for him,” focus on this. Do not talk about the reason, talk about the effect:
- Let's go to a specialist, he will help you to establish a dream.
It is not necessary to say that the loved one is sick. Say there is a problem and we will solve it. Nobody wants to be considered sick.
What prevents you from seeking help?
Myths. For example, prejudices about "registration" and other horrors of psychiatry. Now there is no such concept of "accounting" and terrible punitive mechanisms, but there is "dispensary observation". At the same time, the worst thing that can happen is to visit a psychiatrist once a month. For example, in case of suicidal attempts, only state institutions are put under supervision. But even if a person is under supervision, he can lead an ordinary life, for example, drive a car and work.
This is superimposed on the installation hailing from the Soviet past (and maybe earlier) - "You are a man, you can handle it yourself." This is the second most popularthe reason (according to FOM statistics) why people do not go to psychotherapists. If he asked for help - a weakling and a whiner. But this is not the case. It takes courage to acknowledge the problem and seek counseling.
To go to a psychotherapist, you need a person to know three successful stories from their environment. When a psychotherapist helped three of your friends or acquaintances, you too will go.
What does working with a psychotherapist look like?
Psychotherapists rarely prescribe medications and use talk therapy more often. The specialist asks questions about the past, present, experiences, feelings, emotions, state, problems that bother. Moreover, if the questions are uncomfortable, it is not necessary to answer them - the doctor will not press.
The doctor does not evaluate, criticize, condemn, and does not tell anyone about the sessions (medical confidentiality). A psychotherapist has faced dozens of types of problems many times and yours will not be new. To solve your problems, the specialist will select his type of therapy. For example, psychoanalysis, to find out the causes of today's problems in the past, or cognitive-behavioral, in which the patterns of behavior are broken.
Therapy also includes homework and practices, such as bodily.
What to expect from psychotherapy?
Liberation, for example, from unnecessary experiences. In psychotherapy, outcome metrics are subjective. If you feel calmer, sleep better, improve your appetite, then it works. For example, after the therapy several years ago, I somehow intuitively started the process of “trying” everything I could. I started trying a wild amount of everything: meditations, a vipassana course, public speaking, and even translated articles about interfaces.
It was scary. For example, in 2014 I could hardly communicate with people due to fear, and every time before the performances I did not sleep at night - my brain exploded. Some wise part of me encouraged me: "You have to - just be patient." Therefore, most of the cases I did with a fierce fear. But the brain retrained, the amygdala (responsible for fear) retrained, and each time the fear became less. But thanks to this, I now make money on trainings.
Psychotherapy helps, because most of the limitations in solving complex problems, both in hiring and in entrepreneurship, in the psyche. For example, in some disorders, intelligence decreases. One of the consequences of depression is cognitive impairment: memory and attention deteriorate. All this affects the ability to think.
Some injuries also affect intelligence, because it decreases sensitively. Antonio Damasio , professor of neurobiology, psychology and philosophy at the University of Southern California , spoke about this in the book "The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and Creating Cultures." He argued that trauma affects intelligence because it can be affected by sensitivity.
I noticed this on myself, because in the course of therapy my computing power "increased". When the injuries left, the brain stopped doing bullshit, unnecessary processes were closed, and the brain's resources were freed.
How does therapy affect work?
Apart from the fact that I was able to cope with the loss of my business with therapy, it helped me to eliminate the weaknesses of my product. We always make our mark in our work. We are individuals, we have our own "cockroaches" and attitudes in the head. Ilya Krasinsky expressed the idea: "The blind spots of the company are the blind spots of the founder." I have a weak side - operational activities. For example, carelessness about hiring was costly. I almost unconsciously avoided the boring parts of the company and it suffered for 1.5 years.
By the way, entrepreneurship helps in working with "bugs" of consciousness. It highlights blind spots because things are changing rapidly. You need to solve large-scale tasks and problems several times faster than when you work for hire, even in complex roles, for example, team leads or product managers. At the same time, you often make mistakes and see what to pay attention to.
How quickly to wait for the result? Nobody will answer here. Sometimes it is enough to meet six months once a month. Sometimes once a week for a couple of years. To understand how long the treatment will last, you need to discuss with your doctor. But no matter how long it takes, psychotherapy will change your life for the better.
In this case, the result may be delayed and appear after treatment. For example, only a year after the treatment and the launch of Meta, my psyche 100% accepted that it was working on the service. It is like living in an apartment where one room is normal and the other is always closed. Her "as if" does not exist. You walk in and don't even see the door - I also had it.
Useful materials
« How people change: relationships and neuroplasticity in psychoterapy ». It is a collection of research by several authors, curated by Daniel Siegel and Marion Solomon. The book contains a lot of interesting things about the brain, psychotherapy and how people change.
The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. This is a book about the current state of physics, but not a set of laws, but a description of ways to apply current knowledge of physics to understanding the world and yourself. From this book, I understood one concept - all knowledge about the universe is created through one single process:
- put forward a hypothesis;
- set up an experiment;
- watch the results;
- improve the hypothesis based on the results of the experiment;
- repeat.
There is no other way.
Deutsch devoted half of the book to proving the claim. For example, evolution also creates knowledge - hypothesizes and experiments. If one of the crocodiles accidentally has legs longer than usual, and he survives, he will pass on his trait to descendants. Evolution will create knowledge and transmit it through DNA, which will contain data on how the limb should look and function in order for the limb carrier to be maximally adapted to transfer DNA in the current life context of the environment.
Scott Adams, " How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big ." Translation in Russian is terrible - take the original.
Max Tegmark, " Live 3.0". Life 1.0 is simple biological, like bacteria. Life 2.0 is a person. Life 3.0 has not yet appeared on Earth, but it will be able to quickly change itself bypassing evolution.
I recently understood a concept or hypothesis from this book. The hypothesis is that life is an agent of entropy that helps to split energy more efficiently. According to one of the formulations of the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of a closed system increases. As a consequence, the first organic molecules emerged as a way for the universe to split energy more efficiently and bring the heat death of the universe closer.
Man is a difficult life, but with the same goal. For example, a person extracts hydrocarbons from underground and breaks them down, producing heat. Business seems to be doing the same. For example, UBER organizes cars to have more and drive longer, moving people long distances where they can expend even more energy.
“ The Systems Bible: The Beginner's Guide to Systems Large and Small, ” John Gal. A funny book that almost entirely consists of abstracts. For instance:
- "The efficiency of a complex system rarely exceeds 5%." A system can mean any complex entity, even the Pension Fund.
- "The army is completely ready for war when it's over." This is an example when in France after the First World War they built a defense against the Germans, and they just took and bypassed it.
- "The temporary solution is highly likely to become permanent."
All Nassim Taleb . He is wonderful with the rationality of thinking.
The coolest book is the one you want to read right now, even if it is "The Adventures of Cipollino" or a collection of problems on the theory of probability. Therefore, every day, when there is time, I start reading a new book. If you like the first 50 pages, I will continue. If not, I go to sleep.
I read everything that interests me, even if I don't understand. The more I read different books, the more likely it is to find an interesting topic. For example, this is how I discovered physics. If you read 50-100 pages of different books every day for six months, the brain will perceive the world differently. It will build new relationships, patterns and conclusions, because you added a lot of new data to it. If you don't read, then there will be no data on which the brain can build new patterns. This is an excellent long-term investment with multiple return on investment.
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