I have heard more than once that the best psychologist is a bottle and a sincere conversation with a friend. Like, we sat down, drank and seemed to figure everything out - it seems to have become easier. But what do friends mostly do? Why is it getting easy? Because most of us hear from a friend what we want to hear. It confirms our subjective opinion about a difficult situation, agrees with our subjective assessment of another person, as if it were an objective truth. It is pleasant and profitable to listen to a friend. But does it really help to understand the situation? Not always.
The same thing is happening today with "popular psychology", which is found literally everywhere. It encourages a person to avoid reality, the truth about themselves and others, rather than helps to understand what is happening. For example, today they often talk about managing reality, they say, thinking in a positive way, you transform everything around in the same direction. In reality, this is a terrible thing. Winding himself up with “positive”, a person enters a slightly manic state, for some time he is convinced that life has sparkled with new colors, everything is fine and he is confidently moving towards his dream. But sooner or later, you will have to face reality, and it will be very painful against the background of contrast. Disappointment and intense anger will arise, and in the most unfavorable scenario, a person in this anger can do something to himself or to others. The realization that in fact we do not control reality, even though everything started so well, will be painful.
The Internet today is replete with demotivators, advice from homegrown "psychologists" who live on the positive, and invitations to courses "How to change your life in five steps." Business coaches who create numerous trainings hammer into your head: “Get it!”, “Step forward!”, “Succeed!”. Behind all this seemingly correct advice lies one big lie. You are not taught to rely on reality, they do not help you understand yourself and the root of your problems. You are taught to adjust reality to your, sometimes completely unjustified, expectations.
Realizing reality as it is, we reason using traditional, Aristotelian logic. And there is such a thing as symmetrical logic. To put it bluntly, if I love, then they love me. If I feel good, then the sun is shining. But these are completely unequal concepts, only unhealthy people can think like that. And with a variety of trainings to improve the quality of life, a person is driven into a slight madness when he ignores the laws of reality. Having received a “recipe for happiness”, some people really start, for example, to earn some money, since some complexes prevented them from doing this before. But for the most part it ends badly. The only winners are business coaches who pump people up with artificial positivity.
“You can do more”, “you are successful”, “you are stronger”, “you are a winner”, “the world around is created for you”. Behind all these slogans is the same friend with a bottle who tells you what you want to hear, and does not help you figure out the problem. It is possible to use drugs regularly for decades, but what kind of quality of life will that be? You are far from yourself and reality. Here the question is already in existence: what is better - to be yourself or a happy maniac?
Of course, from the point of view of society, people who are unrestrainedly striving for a goal, earning money and spreading positivity around them, look more successful. But is it really important for you to live your life for real, first of all, the opinion of society is important? It seems to me that people for whom the opinion of others is fundamental act from the position of a child who needs an assessment - he achieves something not for himself, but in order to be told: "You're done!" Personally, I want to live with the idea that the main censor of my success, the motivation of my actions, is me, and not those around me.
Success, efficiency, time management and other rationalization ideas are driving progress today. All these components are built on fairly aggressive technologies. Do you know why people are caught? First of all, for their wounds, their dislike. A person who boasts of his achievements expects to be admired. Having come to training and achieved something in the short term, he is increasingly dependent on admiration in the eyes of the coach.
A person does not love himself, he may have deep spiritual wounds, it is difficult for him to figure out what is happening, and sometimes it’s just scary to do it, taking skeletons out of cabinets. And then they say to him: “Come to us, and everything will work out! We will simply and painlessly change your life! Let's solve the problems that torment you! A person finds his vulnerabilities. This is how professional manipulators work.
Did you notice another detail? Business trainings, personal growth trainings are usually held en masse. From the point of view of psychology, everything is quite clear. There is a long-proven phenomenon: in a group a person sinks one step below his development. Being in the crowd, psychologically and emotionally, you and I can fall into the state of a child, a strong helplessness, an extreme admiration much easier. These are the simplest tools for managing a personality - it is leveled, and your critical thinking is dulled.
And then it seems to you that the coach is a real guru who knows everything about life. You don't notice that all of his tools are a set of twenty or thirty bright clichés, simple and interesting allegories with a certain theatrical touch. And behind all this is emptiness. Freud likened mass hypnosis to falling in love, and it is likely that group members who work with a "guru" of business or personal growth experience something similar. And falling in love always gives a surge of strength, and this is another effect of such trainings.
And most importantly, many people, no matter how they deny it, are waiting for such a “guru” to appear in their lives who will decide everything for them, simplify such difficult things as life and self-knowledge, down to a set of banal and outwardly effective recommendations.
To summarize: the flip side of "popular psychology" is that sooner or later a person is faced with reality and is disappointed, understands that for a long time he did not live his own life. Proof of this is the movement of downshifters, many of whom, having undergone modern training and fashionable motivation, were “mega-positive”, but one day they suddenly quit their careers, the way of existence “set up” by coaches and radically changed everything in their lives.
The classical psychotherapist is unpleasant to most potential patients precisely because he is not a "friend with a bottle", not a "successful trainer", but a person who professionally and impartially makes you understand yourself, without embellishing anything or distorting reality. He works consistently and sometimes for a very long time, not promising quick results. A person is frightened by both external reality and internal. Therefore, rather, he will choose a simple path - the pursuit of something magical, inspiring.
People do not want to admit and accept that life is dual: it is impossible for there to be joy without sadness; having fallen in love with a person, we must understand that sometimes he will anger us and even disappoint us. People are taught that it is comfortable to live only in ideal conditions, but by and large they do not exist.
Elena Karachun is a psychotherapist. Candidate of the European Federation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, candidate of the International Psychoanalytic Association.
Two people in their sixties are having sex. Both are overweight. Let us add that each of them, at the same time, divorced a year ago, leaving the family in which he lived a long unhappy life in order to live with his loved one, who met so late. For some reason, I'm sure that most Belarusians will characterize such a couple as "perverts." I will say that they finally found their sexuality.
In our country, baths with common steam rooms are wary, a few official nudist beaches become the subject of bashful curiosity, and wild ones become a place of increased interest from law enforcement agencies. Elderly couples kissing in public are censured, and in especially neglected cases, even just a keen interest in sex after fifty is considered something unhealthy.
I am sure that the majority of Belarusian moralists, let them walk through the streets of Rome, to the Prado Museum or to a couple of exhibitions of contemporary photography, where male and female sexuality are the object of serious study by the artist, would simply explode with indignation: “Shame! Perverts! By the way, it is precisely such frantic fighters for morality that have a keen, one might even say, painful interest in the topic of sex.
At the same time, living in a marriage for twenty years and ten of them not having sex is considered quite the norm. It is permissible and even reasonable to have sex not at will, but because it is a generally accepted way to keep a loved one. To endure moral or even physical violence on the part of a husband or wife is an ordinary story.
But there is nothing normal in all this.
In fact, many people cannot figure out how sexuality differs from perversion, and such confusion creates a lot of problems. On the one hand, we are afraid of our innocent desires, and on the other hand, with a clear conscience, we commit acts that we cannot be proud of.
Perversion (or, in scientific terms, perversion) often outwardly looks like a manifestation of sexuality, but at the same time it differs in the essence of what is happening: in such a relationship, one person does not care about the feelings and desires of a partner, only control, submission and humiliation are important.
And sexuality is a special kind of relationship that implies not only sex, but also intimacy with another person - necessarily mutual.
A pervert is not the kind of man who likes to look at erotic photographs "with a living spouse": the ability to enjoy art without possessing an object of sexual attraction is one of the signs of a civilized person. A pervert is a husband who forces his wife to do her marital duty without her wanting to. And this is just one of the examples of perversions that have long been approved by society, which are usually ignored.
But deep sexual illiteracy comes to us not only from the censored and restricted Soviet era, where, as you know, sex did not exist at all, storks brought children to proletarian families, and instead of mistresses, comrades-in-arms and fighting girlfriends lay in beds.
Our society, instead of getting rid of chimeras, continues to create new ones with enviable constancy.
An example of a modern substitution of concepts is a pickup truck. At first glance, this is a modern phenomenon, healthy sex for pleasure. In fact, behind the cynical face of a pick-up artist hides the fear of his human nature. With their sports and sexual achievements, they seek to fence themselves off from the fact that, falling in love, they can become vulnerable, lose or be rejected. Instead, they manipulate, exploit, dominate...
Have you noticed that some coaches are already in all seriousness declaring that being alive, feeling is a pathology? For example, it is considered a good option to deprive a girl or guy of all humanity and, hiding behind sex, just use them. So there are stories about sex for health, about polygamy, which the ancestors bequeathed to men, about techniques of seduction and victories over the opposite sex. It turns out that people are not just encouraged to engage in perversions, but they are also told in detail how to do it as efficiently as possible.
A kind of “sex drug” appears, which in its manifestation behind external lightness and carelessness hides the opportunity to escape from loneliness and is no different from alcoholic binges or bouts of overeating. And speaking of coaches, the only courses I would teach would be teaching how to understand the otherness of another person. But instead, as in the dense Middle Ages, we are in a hurry to hang the label of perversion on our individuality, courage in the manifestation of feelings is branded with incontinence, and honesty in judgments about sex is denounced as impudence and vulgarity.
At the same time, true sexual freedom is the ability to understand and accept each other's needs, as well as responsibility for one's desires and how they are realized. It's like with freedom of opinion and the ability to conduct a conversation without interrupting the interlocutor at every word - only self-confident and independent people who do not suspect a pervert in each of their opponents are capable of this.
Elena Karachun - psychotherapist at the Paracelsus Medical Center, candidate of the European Federation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, candidate of the International Psychoanalytic Association.
Many jokes of modern comedians are associated with situations in which there is a grumpy wife and a henpecked husband. If we treat a joke as a way to legally speak out on a taboo topic, then we have a public collusion. Everyone laughs and understands, in fact, what it is about, but they cannot openly say. And the harsh reality is that women have begun to destroy masculinity.
If we study the data on addictions and divorces in our country, then the following average family portrait will be drawn: an irresponsible alcoholic husband and a morally strong wife.
When did this terrifying change take place and the strong half became not even weak, but helpless, if you like - castrated?
We see how women and wives dictate to men how to be men, how to be husbands, how to be fathers. Going beyond the family, we observe that boys are also brought up in kindergartens, schools, and universities by women. And in general, now women quite boldly talk about what men should be, and determine the rules of behavior for them. Let me remind you that quite recently the situation looked somewhat different.
At the same time, the attitude of women towards masculine nature and typically masculine traits is negative. Men are initially more aggressive, they need to realize their exploratory inclinations, craving for adventure, and their sexual behavior is open and active.
From an early age, mothers are afraid of this in a boy, and education consists in the fact that instead of raising a boy with his opposite nature, they raise just a convenient child, without contributing to the formation of his psychological sex. Aggression and activity are suppressed and condemned. Here the father should come forward, who will guide and help, will become an example, but he does not exist. He, too, is beaten and depressed. So far, this is such an unpleasant vicious circle.
But what happens next? Men are increasingly doubting their masculinity, while women, meanwhile, are becoming more and more indignant and angry. And now we are already hearing that men are goats and they only need one thing, that they are weaklings and crooked hands.
Women want alpha males, male leaders, male hunters, creators, but at the same time they constantly castrate them psychologically with their statements and behavior. And every time the hysteria grows, scandals flare up around sexual harassment, feminists continue to defend themselves ... At the epicenter of all conversations are "bad" men and "victims", but at the same time strong and independent women.
And it seems to me that there is nothing to fight with. The country, and by and large - the entire planet, plunged into an atmosphere of man-hatred, they want to subdue the stronger sex, castrate, subjugate. Will we regret it later?
Many women already regret reaping the rewards in bed. After all, sex is a continuation of a relationship. Everything that happens between partners in words continues on a non-verbal level. Here I would like to give an example when men at forty think that their interest in the opposite sex and sex has generally dried up and there is no more libido. And then all of a sudden it turns out to be completely wrong.
It's simple - a person's libido does not dry out, physiologically, if you follow a healthy lifestyle, a man is able to satisfy a woman until old age. The only thing that remains is psychological reasons.
Normally, a man after quarrels with his beloved woman feels depressed, because he is worried, begins to feel guilty and insecure, or angry with his woman and tries to somehow digest these feelings.
If the conflict is resolved, then the couple again proceeds to obtain mutual pleasure.
Now, if you imagine a man who is shown his place every day, complained, compared and devalued, then it is easy to understand where this leads. In the end, anxiety, downtroddenness, a sense of inferiority develop into psychological impotence.
I was once told a story about a fat, almost toothless man, about 35 years old, who worked in a low-paid job (although he was obviously a bright head and a specialist of the highest level). And somehow the friends of this ugly duckling meet, and he is a beautiful swan - slender, teeth in a row, a new job, self-confident and happy. It turned out that he fell in love with his colleague.
Before that, the whole company watched in unison as his ex-wife openly insulted and sawed. She allowed herself, for example, in front of guests to teach how to be a peasant, with contempt commented on literally any of his statements in front of a child.
A wonderful transformation took place within a year. This time was enough for a person to believe in himself, turn his world upside down. It’s hard for me to say what really happened to him, but it was obvious that the new wife believed in him and respected him. And by the way, she also looked happy and satisfied.
I think it's time to finally understand the simple truth. A woman cannot be a woman without a man. Only the opposite of our nature attracts us to each other and helps to develop. Without a man it is impossible to get sexual satisfaction, without a man it is impossible to conceive, without a man a daughter will not become a woman, and a son will not be formed as a man. Instead of dictating your ideals and models to men, maybe it's time to give them a word - to hear what they say and see what they do? And maybe then everything will fall into place and everyone will be happy.
