Psychological Counseling and Psychotherapy

Metaphor Technique: Psychotherapeutic Casuistics

Alexander Kocharian — 2022-07-27

The technique of therapeutic metaphor is largely used in psychotherapeutic practice as a "system of empirical techniques", and has no scientific basis. The status of "tool", "method" is insufficient for the interpretation of psychotherapeutic metaphor. Metaphor is a complex entity that operates at different levels of personal organization. It works not only as an oriental metaphor, as a fairy tale, which due to the fascinating effect deepens the penetration of "correct" content in the conscious and subconscious of the client. An important feature of the metaphor is not that it "advises" the client, provides a correct understanding of the situation, problems and solutions. This understanding of metaphor makes it gently directive, a kind of veiled advice. Metaphor allows a person to enter all layers of their own existence, including somatic organization, to transform their own experience. Therefore, the therapeutic metaphor is an experiential approach to solving their own problems. The article presents work with a client who had very unarticulated complaints. The work was devoted to the realization of the metaphor of life, which had manifestations at all levels of the early emotional scheme - cognitive, emotional, somatic, early memories and motivation. The original metaphor of life "humble" vs "free" was transformed into a metaphor of "web" vs "sea". In the second healthy metaphor, the connotation of the poles changes and a new somatic structure is formed. The following conclusions were made: 1) the client's life really corresponds to some metaphor, it is built for it; 2) such a metaphor is either not realized at all by the client, or partially; 3) the therapist helps the client to understand the metaphor of life, which has a somatic (vegetative-sensory) status - emotions-in-the-body and thoughts-in-the-body (in this case, the somatic structure of the lifestyle "humble" - belching, sore throat, bloated stomach , compressed stomach, poured like foot pads, etc.); 4) it is necessary to determine the negative life consequences of such a metaphor; 5) as a rule, the metaphor carries polarity ("humble" vs "free"). Each pole has certain connotative meanings that should be articulated; 6) it is necessary to determine the direction of flow of internal dynamic forces in this case, the main flow is realized in the direction of "free" vs "humbly." Healthy flow should be carried out in the opposite direction; 7) you need to offer the client a new metaphor, with other poles that have the opposite connotative load ("humble" vs "web"; "free" vs "sea"). Such a transformation of life metaphor is aimed at forming new, healthy somatic and emotional roots ("sea" - joy, pleasure, relaxation, freedom, easy breathing, free, light legs, etc.); 8) the new metaphor should be perceived by the client as one that corresponds to their perceptual field. The transformation of life metaphors predisposes to lifestyle transformation.

Social Maturity: Resource Approach to the Explication of Personality Competence

Alexander Omelchuk — 2022-07-27

The article is devoted to the theoretical substantiation of social maturity as psychological resource of personality competence. The aim of the represented material is theoretical explication of the problem of social maturity of a personality as the resource approach to the interpretation of personality competence. The method of psychological reconstruction as theoretical study of subjective architecture of the phenomenon of social maturity in the perspective of identifying the methodological potentialities of each component of the resource approach is laid on the basis.The results include theoretical analysis of the basic positions of the study of social maturity of personality and outlining the methodological interpretation in the systemic, personalityactivity, synergetic and acmeological concepts.The subjective doctrine of analysis of the stated problem allows to unite the basic ppositions of consideration of social maturity as personality competence with the attraction to the basic social abilities and mobilization of psychological resources of personality. The theoretical scheme of manifestation of social maturity within the resource potentialities of personality competence is suggested.Two methodological orientations (result orientation and uniqueness orientation), which determine the manifestation of this phenomenon by signs of external and internal motivation; the types of external and internal psychological resources are singled out, which together determine the "potential of competence" in the whole set of systemic-synergetic integrity of manifestation of self-realization of personality as a subject of social activity.It is substantiated that axiological, reflexive and anticipatory mechanisms of functioning are involved in the potential of competence of social maturity.The conclusions indicate that the proposed theoretical scheme of social maturity manifestation within the resource potentialities of personality competence can be successfully used in the applied proceedings of preventive and developmental psychotechnologies, taking into account the social status, socio-cultural development, sex and gender models of behavior of a personality.

Psychotherapeutic Correction of Homosexuality. A Case from Clinical Practice

Garnik Kocharyan — 2022-07-27

The article describes a clinical case with a 17-year-old male patient, who presented complaints about presence of his homosexual desire. He believed that sexual orientation was pathology and existing statements about normality of homosexuality were political propaganda. He wanted to get rid of homosexuality, marry over time and have children. During an active inquiry he informed that the proportion of the homosexual component of his libido in its total structure was 90-95%, that of the heterosexual one being 5-10%. During his active inquiry the patient informed about presence of a minimally expressed heterosexual component, still our comprehensive analysis of his psychosexual development, sexual behavioral manifestations and erotic dreams did not reveal any presence of the heterosexual component. Nevertheless, the latter might be present because from the very beginning the patient felt a slightly expressed sexual desire during heterosexual masturbation. The following correction was made: (1) cognitive influences targeted at strengthening of the patient’s opinion that it is normal to be heterosexual as opposed to homosexual; (2) aesthetic-erotic correction (viewing of beautiful women [naked and non-naked] using video materials for formation of the woman ideal); (3) hypnosuggestive correction of the sexual drive orientation with inclusion of the cognitive and behavioral (aversive) components; (4) prohibition of homosexually oriented masturbation and change over to heterosexually oriented one (sexual behavioral training targeted at reorientation of orientation of his sexual desire). Complete normalization of the patient’s health took place after 10 sessions of hypnosuggestive correction (programming, modelling) and retraining masturbation. The patient remained absolutely satisfied with the achieved results. This clinical observation demonstrates once more effectiveness of reparative therapy with absence of any complications. Here we should emphasize that such therapy can be given only on the voluntary basis.

Stage Features of Social and Psychological Adaptation in Ukrainians Immigrating to China

Andrii Kharchenko — 2022-07-27

Problem definition world globalization and the introduction of martial law in Ukraine led to a significant increase in the number of Ukrainians emigrating to China. The emigration process has its stages, at each of which the individual solves his tasks of social and psychological adaptation, which requires research. Problem analysis In the scientific literature, the emigration process is divided into three main stages (preparatory, moving and familiarization with new living conditions and adaptation to new conditions), in each of which adaptation is an important psychological component of this process. In the humanistic paradigm, the process of socio-psychological adaptation of the individual is the most developed and researched. The purpose of the study to reveal the stage-by-stage features of socio-psychological adaptation among Ukrainians emigrating to China. The research methods are the Rogers-Diamond diagnostic method of socio-psychological adaptation; questionnaires "Adaptive strategies of behavior" and "Satisfaction with life" according to N. Melnikova; questionnaire "Social well-being". Mathematical and statistical processing of the φ criterion - Fisher's angular transformation and the Mann-Whitney U-criterion. Description of the sample the sample consisted of 90 Ukrainians of early adulthood who are in a marital relationship and have a higher education. The sample was divided into 3 studied groups. Group 1 (Gr. 1) includes Ukrainians who plan to emigrate to China, which was confirmed by the documents they drew up for this purpose. Group 2 (Gr. 2) included Ukrainians who lived in China for no more than 1 year after moving. Until the third (Gr.3) - more than 1 year. Conclusions At the second stage of socio-psychological adaptation in the process of emigration, the indicators of emotional discomfort, non-acceptance of others, external conflict and maladjustment significantly increase among Ukrainians, which worsens their adaptation potential, however, at the third stage, its full recovery and return to the level of the emigration planning stage was revealed. At each stage, features of the manifestation of adaptive behavioral strategies, indicators of social well-being and life satisfaction were revealed.

Experiential-role approach in psychotherapy

Pavlo Gornostai — 2022-07-27

The article presents the author's approach to the practice of psychological help, which we call experiential-role psychotherapy. It comes into being as a synthesis of methods of psychodrama, transactional analysis, the theory of systemic family psychology and psychotherapy, and a problem approach to the practice of psychological help based on author’s practical achievements and theoretical models. The essence of the method is the organization of emotional experience and practical experience in a state of role impersonation. The method makes it possible to work with a wide variety of problem topics, situations, relationships. Among them, three directions can be distinguished that determine the specificity of psychotherapeutic interventions. The first direction covers interventions in a state of non-hypnotic age-related regression, using transactional models of redecision and reparenting. Such work allows solving many psychotherapeutic tasks: changing ineffective and destructive scripted beliefs, improving self-relationship, harmonizing relationships with others. The second direction includes interventions focused on experience of physical sensations; their goal is a redecision at the level of the bodily script. This work is aimed at problems related to bodility, including psychosomatic reactions, dysfunctions of individual organs and systems of the body, and even with psychosomatic diseases in the early stages of development. The third direction is interventions within the framework of the family system; here there is a redecision in the state of historical regression at the level of the family-generic script. The work uses the model of the family-ancestral unconscious and is aimed at solving a number of systemic problems related to problematic or traumatic family information, excluded figures, family secrets, etc. Special attention is paid to working with the consequences of collective traumas experienced by a person's relatives and ancestors. In addition to traditional role figures, the work uses specific “age-related”, “bodily” and “historical” roles, that opens up the possibility of successful psychotherapy in working with many problems.