Every professional - psychologist, psychotherapist or psychoanalyst before working with a patient should ask himself certain questions and discuss with the potential patient several important things, on which the effectiveness of further work directly depends. One of the basic questions is that of request, whether he really wants to change his life and does so purposefully and voluntarily.
To what extent is a person aware of their mental suffering? It may seem obvious to us that the client is suffering - otherwise what is the point of going to a professional, but there are nuances we should think about. Some people seek psychological help because of pressure from other people. For example, an intimate partner may make it a condition that they will not continue the relationship unless the other person does 'something' to address their problems. Or the GP may advise to see a psychotherapist - this may happen when the patient is suffering from an illness of psychosomatic origin. Some people who have psychosomatic symptoms have no idea that they are experiencing psychological pain at all and deny any connection between physical suffering and unpleasant psychological experiences. In most cases, the joint exploration of symptoms by the psychotherapist and the client reveals to the latter various phenomena of his inner life of which he was unaware. At the same time, this exploration reduces the risk of psychosomatic symptoms in the future. But in the case where a person is alienated from his mental and physical processes, psychotherapy or psychoanalysis cannot help him. A similar situation may be present in people addicted to alcohol or drugs. The drug problem is not solved only at the level of body dependence. The specialist has to help the person to think about his unbearable experiences and thoughts from which he is running away in dependence. Only in this way does working with addicts make sense.
It is important to stress that whatever the reason for seeking counselling, the most important thing is the client's willingness to try to change themselves. When a person does not acknowledge his mental suffering, he cannot enter psychotherapy, although those around him may insist on it.
Besides, not everyone who needs psychological help is able to accept it. Regardless of the severity of the symptoms, a psychotherapist, no matter how hard he tries, cannot help a client who is unwilling to work through his problems. The client needs to share his experiences - whether he is experiencing anxiety, depression, frustration or confusion... Often he cannot see the way out of a difficult situation, he cannot understand the meaning of his symptoms. Or he finds that the same negative experience repeats itself in his life countless times.
Thus, when a potential client comes to me because he is making other people suffer by his actions and they are demanding that he change, we may need a few meetings just to determine that person's motives - the extent to which he wants to know himself and whether he is actually seeking to change his situation.
It can be assumed that the client is aware of his or her mental suffering and is not driven by someone else's desire, but this does not mean that the person understands that his or her suffering arises as a consequence of his or her own ulterior motives. Many clients who seek psychological help look for excuses for their problems in external circumstances, negative currents in society, family, poor heredity, their gender, etc. Although any of these factors may indeed be the cause of current problems, if the client does not want to understand why he continues to experience such external, objective, and very often unchangeable factors dramatically and severely, making his life unbearable, then this may be interpreted as a hidden refusal to take responsibility for his own life.
The desire for a deeper understanding, for clarification of the hidden meaning of unsatisfactory life situations or of unexplained symptoms, implies acceptance of the fact that the causes of psychological symptoms must ultimately be sought in the person himself.
In fact, any desire to relieve symptoms is always contradictory, because these symptoms are unconscious attempts at self-medication and are formed as a compromise, a way to relieve unbearable pain. Thus, in addition to the client's conscious desire to be rid of these symptoms, there is also a part of himself that is afraid of losing them, regardless of the suffering they in turn cause. This becomes a resistance to the psychotherapeutic process. The desire for a cure and the resistance to the process exist side by side. Resistance is a natural component of psychotherapeutic work, and it is different from the lack of desire for change.
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