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Психология. Журнал Высшей школы экономики. 2014. Т. 11. №2. С. 136-149.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STATUS OF A PSYCHOTHERAPIST
A.B. ORLOV, N.A. ORLOVA
Alexandr B. Orlov — Dr., Professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics E-mail: aorlov@hse.ru
Address: 20 Myasnitskaya str., Moscow, Russian Federation, 101000
Natalya A. Orlova — PhD., Senior Lecturer at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology,
E-mail: n.orlova@newmail.ru
Address: 9 Institutskiy per., Dolgoprudny, Moscow Region, Russian Federation, 141700
Abstract
Traditionally, the psychological status of the therapist is defined as a personality. However, the therapeutic relationship is very specific (unconventional) and therefore cannot be regarded merely as a form of interpersonal relationship. This contradiction poses the problem of the therapist’s psychological status. The authors reveal the following polar dimensions of subjectivity: individuality (personality) and individity (essence). Personality/individuality are objects of traditional humanity. Individity is a specific, integrated embodiment of the human essence. It serves as an instance, responsible for the process of individuation, and is the result of individuation. The main features of individity are: numinous, transpersonal experiences; sensitivity and openness to experience; authenticity and congruence; and ability to love. The most important condition of the psychotherapeutic process is the psychological status of the psychotherapist. This status is the result of actualization. It is not the therapist’s individuality, but his/her individity that is in communication with a client. The therapist’s individity is characterized not only by unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding of the client and congruent self-expression, but also by an altered (unconditional) state of the therapist’s consciousness where his/her intuitive, positive and essential characteristics are present in the therapeutic situation.
Keywords: psychotherapist, personality, individuality, essence, individity.
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To be a good psychotherapist, you need to be a good person.
Ilya, boy of 10 years old
Introduction: Two paradigms
Complex studies of personality (Orlov, 2003) and individuality (Sta-rovoitenko, Shadrikov, 2009) show the relevance of these topics to the current situation. Humanity is entering an age where not just quality and way of life can be significantly changed, but the very nature of a human being.
In our point of view, what was fundamentally new in the twentieth century was not just the large-scale social transformation of human technology, but a new understanding that we did not know what being “human” actually is. This understanding is reflected by both a large-scale study of man, and by increasingly penetrating public consciousness. It can be seen that man is forced to admit his ignorance based on genuine scientific knowledge. This new epistemological situation in the human sciences is appearing to be more and more accepted.
In the XX century, perhaps more than ever before, two opposing scientific paradigms denoted clearly. According to the natural sciences (cognitive) paradigm, a person is a “determinate being”, a part of nature, an element of the world. And in this sense it is knowable, fixed in knowledge and subject to change.
According to the humanitarian (hermeneutic) paradigm, a person is not a “present being” but an “existence” which embodies the “essence”. If the first scientific paradigm continues focusing on the tradition of knowledge and change (formation) in a person (which was clearly the case in the past), the sec-
ond paradigm makes a very different emphasis, focusing on: understanding, trust and promoting the implementation of what it is to be human.
The parallel existence of both of these trends suggests we evolved into the current situation, with its real threats to “change” in a man, without any basic understanding of what man is in its natural form.
Turning to the study of this problem some time ago (Orlov, 2002), we concluded that only through general psychology can an integral view of man be found.
Such general psychological theory can be based on broad cultural, sociological and psychological research, and also on the psychotherapeutic research of man during the process of psychotherapy. It is curious that such a broad perspective can be compared with a seemingly narrow aspect of human activity, such as therapeutic relationships. However, as will be shown below, psychotherapeutic communication is different from the types of communication conventionally accepted in society, and fully discloses all aspects of the human being as he/she actually is. Therefore, we begin considering a therapist as the person who is most fully immersed in the psychotherapeutic process.
Traditional allocation of the psychological characteristics of the therapist
R. May (1994), in his first classical work, directly points to a number of
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personal qualities of a counselor. Among these qualities are: an interest in people, an ability to learn by doing, his/her own therapy and constant selfexamination.
In addition, as noted by R. May, a therapist is a person who is “enlightened”, “internally purified and repentant”, “devoid of pride”1. In other words, the personality of a therapist, according to R. May, is not a result of complications, enrichment, differentiation or development of existing properties. On the contrary, such a person is formed due to simplification, release, integration, recovery and an awareness of his/her inherent qualities that were present before (i.e., specific to its basic, underlying, nuclear, essential units). In the psychotherapeutic process, those manifested qualities can be observed phenomenologically as conditions of change in the interactions of therapist and client.
Three main phenomenologically observed stages of therapeutic work
Our experience of therapeutic work with clients in the following three nondirective formats — client-centered (Rogers, 2001), expressive (Rogers, 1993) and ontotherapy (Meneghetti, 2007) — allows us to suggest that the process of psychotherapy consistently passes through three main stages (Orlov, 2002; Volkova et al., 2010).
At the first stage, the client’s problem is localized in the area of interper-
sonal relations, or at the level of the client’s interaction as individuality (personality) with other individualities. The client uses evaluative, stereotyped, cliched sign language. The therapist sets emlogic contact with the client and is attentive to the provision of client information. Emlogic contact implies unconditional acceptance of cognitions - i.e. views and opinions, questions and doubts, expectations and plans of the client.
At the second stage, the client’s problem is transferred to a sphere of intrapersonal relationship — a relationship between the different contents of his/her own inner world. At this stage, the therapist sets empathic contact with the client, empathically understanding actual, experienced emotional states of the client. The therapist’s attention is focused on emotional experiences that the client may reflect with a more relaxed posture and facial muscles, minimized muscle clamps, richer overtones in voice and depth of breath etc.
Because of this, the client tends to begin his/her communication by asking the therapist questions at this stage, leading to formulation of the request, i.e. a very special form of question, to which neither he/she, nor the therapist is ready to answer. Thus, from the impersonal level, the client moves to the personal level — associated not with the “general situation”, but with his/her concrete (from Lat. con-crescere — “fused together”) situation as a complex web of different conditions and circumstances.
1 The allocation of personal qualities of the therapist has been developed further in numerous studies of psychotherapy effectiveness factors (see: Luborsky et. al, 1975, 1986, 1997, 1999, 2002). This concept continues to find its realization in concrete studies to date (see: Aveline, 2005; Cooper, 2010).
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At the third stage of the psychotherapeutic process, the psychotherapist establishes emphilic contact with the client. Here, the therapist is deeply immersed in the internal world of the client, congruent to express his/her intuitive responses which are relevant to the most cherished and meaningful client aspirations. During psychotherapeutic contact, the therapist’s perception is open to new experiences, full of meanings that cannot yet be understood by client or therapist. At this third stage, the client’s problem progresses to the field of transpersonal relationships and is tagged as the person’s relationship with his/her personality as a whole. A transpersonal relationship is impossible without the transpersonal “fulcrum”, which can perform only as the essence of a person. At this stage, the client’s personality questions itself, language is saturated with the author’s metaphors, the range of self-presentations is growing, expanding and deepening, and self-perception is enriched with unique sensations and experiences. This can help the client progress to a new world of experiences, which combines a form of self-discovery — a sense of vitality, fullness and self-worth etc. Those experiences can take the form of altered states of consciousness such as a rebirth, a new birth, a new acquisition of the “self”, and the rejection of the former “personality”. The third stage of therapy is also characterized by the appearance of symbolic images (“living characters”, if using Jung’s thesaurus), which — in contrast to the client’s metaphors — are perceived as “miraculous”, not created or generated by the client, full of meaning, a superior understanding of the actual situation, thus generating new
life opportunities. At this stage, the essence-individity of human being is revealed, and the process of transcendence, or access to forms of transpersonal experience, is begun (i.e. from the experience of another person as a unique Front-Face being, to a Divine experience).
The concept of therapist’s “Self”
C. Rogers (2012), who devoted his entire life to the study of necessary and sufficient conditions for positive personal change in a client in therapy, showed us the triad which became known as the paradigmatic personal attitudes of a therapist: unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding and congruent self-expression. In his later work (Rogers, 2001; see: Baldwin, 1987), Rogers pointed out two more important elements of effective psychotherapy: an altered state of consciousness of the therapist, and the special presence of the therapist “Self” in a relationship with the client.
In this connection, it is appropriate to formulate the following question: How does one define the “Self” of the therapist in a therapeutic relationship with the client?
Addressing this question, C. Rogers (see: Baldwin, 1987) notes that the “Self” he uses in therapy does not include all of his personal characteristics. In other words, his therapeutic “Self” is not the same as his personality, it is only a part of it. This part, as Rogers claimed (ibid.), includes only internal and unprotected personal characteristics because a therapist ceases to be a therapist if he begins to defend himself. In other words, conventional communication and conventional interpersonal
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interaction between a therapist and a client is counter-therapeutic. Moreover, such communication is dangerous both during the therapy, and for the therapy. Taking the concept of therapeutic “Self” as a base, C. Rogers also notes that the “Self” he uses in treatment can be described as internal and intuitive. During contact, these very characteristics identify the therapist -according to C. Rogers (ibid.), the more effective such contact and identification, the more effective the psychotherapy is (in other words, the more a therapist is being a therapist).
Considering the process of psychotherapy as a process of self-investigation (not just for the client, but also for the therapist), C. Rogers (ibid.) points out that this process is a natural way to detect internal intuitions - positive, intrinsic (therapeutic) characteristics of “Self”. In these characteristics of “Self”, the therapist is present in the therapeutic relationship.
Personality (ego) and essence (self) as two “poles” of subjectivity
Traditionally, the psychological status of a therapist is defined as a personality (sometimes as a Personality with a capital letter) (Kochyunas, 1999). This proposition is based on the idea that the psychotherapeutic relationship between a therapist and a client is an interpersonal relationship, i.e. a relationship based on a model of social influence (Strong, 1968) which is similar to all other forms of interpersonal relationship. However, it is quite obvious that the therapeutic relationship is very specific (unconventional) and therefore cannot be regarded merely as a form of interpersonal relationship.
This contradiction sets the problem of the therapist’s psychological status: in what capacity is the therapist communicating and interacting with the client? How can we describe the psychological quality of his/her psychotherapeutic position?
Two components of subjectivity are highlighted invariably in humanistic psychology (Rogers, 1961), existential analysis (Langle, 2005), esoteric psychology (Almaas, 1990; Gurdzhieff, 2001), analytical psychology (Jung, 1994, 1995), and ontopsychology (Meneghetti, 2007), namely: personality (ego) as a specific conglomerate of psychophysical characteristics and social functions; and essence (self) as a free and responsible entity capable of making autonomous and authentic decisions.
Existing approaches to understanding personality and its many definitions, in our opinion, can be organized in accordance with fairly conventional assumptions about the etymological origin of the word “personality” from the Latin word “persona”. “Persona” was the name for an actor’s mask in ancient Roman theatre. Thus, personality is related to the external manifestation of the human being which is responsible for the impression that a human being makes on others (such as “hysterical personality”, “aggressive personality”) and which is identical to the social role of human being (“influential personality”, “very important personality”). In this regard, the etymology of the word “personality” is: “per” - through and “sonus” - sound, i.e. “something through which sound passes”. To describe and to understand a personality means to figure out a set of its features as trans-situational characteristics or
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recognizable characteristics (personality type) such as a restless, intelligent, talkative, committed personality type; or an authoritarian, conformal, introverted personality type etc. As the most visible component, personality is described and tested as part of the psychic totality of a human being. Existence of a personality as a mental configuration is not doubted in scientific literature and is axiomatically postulated in any psychological theory.
Without delving too far into ontological discussions around whether or not we need to postulate such “reality” as essence, or whether it should be cut off by “Occam’s razor”, we will try to justify our reasoning logically. We deduce this logical reasoning from personality change as a result of psychotherapy. As we have noted, even a character with an extremely rigid psychological formation is unable to resist effective psychotherapy — this may support the fact that a human being has a “free zone” and is conditioned to the very possibility of change.
Paraphrasing M. Heidegger (1997), we can say that “individity” refers to “personality” as “ontological” (being) refers to “ontic” .
Psychological, sociological and psychiatric studies of personality according to cognitive paradigm inevitably took out an “essence” for “brackets”. It is important to emphasize, however, that the imposition of an “essence” for “brackets” is only possible in the cognitive paradigm, whereas the hermeneutic paradigm claims the necessity to study human subjectivity (inner world) not as a part, but as an entity.
In objection to this statement, we can certainly argue that such “free zone” may exist within the personality
as a part of it. One could postulate that this part of the personality - creating change and being the “core” of individuality — serves as a source for selforganization and self-regulation, since it is the “self” where human freedom is rooted. In other words, personality as an intricate system of relations has intrapersonal conflicts that can result in personality fragmentation and the emergence of competing sub-personalities. These conflicts can be seen — as assumed in many theories of personality — as drivers for the development and transformation of personality.
However, the whole experience of modern psychotherapy allows to suggest that intrapersonal conflicts stagnate personality rather than transform it, plunging it into the rigidity of neurotic reactions or chaos of fragmentation (thus absorbing a tremendous amount of energy and vitality). This experience also demonstrates that nonprofessional attempts (of family members and friends) to help such personality can lead to a neurotic situation (“negative psychology” according to Meneghetti) that is extended upon its environment, thus becoming a neurotic situation for the whole group of people. Moreover, even in the case of professional help, it is not always possible to avoid specific “infection” and “distribution” of a pathological situation (Kernberg, 2001). This “distribution” may indicate that the personality change needs some special factor which lies outside the personality as such. The same factor is required for the personality that, like any living organism, strives to preserve its identity and therefore resists any attempts to change it. In this case, the personality was able to break the impasse in which
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the conventional “linear” means of addressing were not possible.
Another argument, in favor of the possible existence of a mental configuration other than personality, lies in the field of cultural studies. It is fact that any notion of human psychology as a discipline (despite its scientific character) cannot escape ideological evaluation, or at least estimated connotations. Obviously, in Russian psychology, the traditional context for theories of personality is the context of general psychology (B.G. Ananiev, A.N. Leontiev, V.S. Merlin, S.L. Rubinstein and others). However, as it is quite obvious that very general psychological theoretical assumptions and calculations are essentially determined by wider humanitarian (both practical and ideological) contexts. For the Russian psychology of the Soviet period, these contexts were pedagogical and atheistic contexts first of all. Semantics of these contexts attached a positive value to the concept of “personality”, adjusted its content as an objective, and defined the core processes of it as both personalization and individualization of the individual — driven by his/her desire to become as a personality and individuality (A.G. Asmolov, V.V. Davydov, A.V. Petrovsky, V.A. Petrovsky, etc.).
In the world of psychological science, we discover a completely different tradition of seeing and understanding personality, determined by other humanitarian (psychotherapeutic and theistic) contexts, in which the general psychological (conventional) concept of personality is endowed with a negative value and understood as a barrier (the problem). The process of real development of a human being is defined as personification and individu-
ation - the refusal, the struggle, the liberation of a human being from the personality (authentification, self-realization, metanoia), due to his/her desire to be himself/herself (A. Almaas, A. Lang-le, C. Rogers, A. Meneghetti, C. Jung and others) (see: Orlov, 1995, 2002).
We offer to consider both of these lines as two different implementations of subjectivity of mental configurations (aspects, poles): personality and
essence. Personality development includes personalization; essence development is personification. In our view, dramatic confrontation between these two principles is not the only possible scenario of their relationship. Of course, from the point of view of personality, any change can be perceived as a threat to the existence and thus evaluated negatively but, in terms of change of the whole man (“homo totus” in Jung’s words), it can be regarded as just an episode of development.
Formation of personality is a process of individualization. Individuality is a result of this process. Implementation of the human essence (individuation according to Jung) is a deep inner work (Gindilis, 1996), the result of which — individity — is opposition to individuality, the “pole” of subjectivity. In other words, analysis of the organization of subjectivity reveals the following polar dimensions: individuality (personality, human) and individity (essence, being) (see, also, Lee, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d, 2012e, 2012f).
Individuality is regarded as an integral “profile” of personality. Such a profile can be regarded as a property of each personality (i.e. it is possible to say that every human being has a personality), as a kind of higher form of integrity.
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Without contradicting these propositions, we could assume that individuality is gradually formed around personality. Whatever the individuality of personality is, it lends itself to diagnosis, and the description on the typology of the object (sign) language. Even “brilliant individuality” falls into the class of “genius” and thus can be considered an object of typologization. Personality and individuality are the objects of traditional humanities such as sociology, psychology, political science, history, ethnology, cultural studies etc.
Individity is a specific integrated embodiment of the human essence. On the one hand, it serves as an instance, responsible for the process of individuation. On the other hand, individity can be seen as the result of this process of individuation. Individity presents itself as metaphorical material, which is far from being conventionally clear. The oversaturation of individity’s language by author’s metaphors clearly shows that individity cannot be classified, that we are dealing with a unique process every time.
Like any two poles, individuality and individity are in interaction — from total confrontation or isolation, up to unconditional positive regard. We can assume that any major ideological trends suggest a particular scenario in the relationship. We can also see different ways to implement these scenarios into life. But confrontation and/or isolation, in our opinion, are dangerous and disastrous in practice, and unconditional positive regard is an ideal which — even if not fully embodied in life — makes life worthy to be lived.
In other words, during the process of psychotherapy, the original individu-
ality built on the top of personality is changing. Individity reveals itself as a “new individuality”, which includes the essence — the “center of the initiative” (in terms of H.Kohut) — as its integral part. The main features of integral indi-vidity are: numinous transpersonal experiences, sensitivity and openness to experience, authenticity and congruence, ability not to act out their states, and ability to love.
So we have come to the conclusion that, in psychological terms, a therapist can be described not only as an individuality but as an individity. Summarizing the main differences between those mental configurations, we can say that:
- Individuality can be characterized by a relatively small number of features and, therefore, tends to be a clearly delineated psychological type. Indivi-dity, by contrast, is characterized by a large variety of characteristics and tends to be a unique combination.
- Individuality is a structure with a large number of contradictions, dualities and even conflicts. Individity, however, can be supposed to be an internally integrate and undivided configuration.
- Individuality is characterized by the bizarre and uneven development of individual traits and characteristics (up to accentuations). This results in opposition between developed, cultivated and accepted personal characteristics which constitute a personal “faqade”] and underdeveloped, neglected, unnoticed personal characteristics which constitute a personal “shadow”. Individity, in contrast, can be characterized as the result of a relatively harmonious development — a totality — in which there is no apparent opposition to the “fagade” and “shadow”.
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- Individuality is characterized as a dual phenomenon (“fagade” and “shadow”) because of this psychological structure, and is therefore incongruent. As for individity, incongruence as a psychological problem is minimized.
- Individuality is constantly confronted with situations of unacceptance, it experiences difficulty in acceptance of itself and other people. Individity, on the other hand, has many more resources for self-acceptance and acceptance of others.
- Individuality which is experiencing persistent difficulties accessing its own shadow features (characteristics, experiences, etc.) has very limited autoempathy. Individity has no similar constraints and is much more emlogic, empathic and emphilic in self-communicating and in communicating with other people.
For the purpose of clarification, we offer a brief outline of basic concepts in diagram 1.
Individity as psychotherapist
If we talk about the inner “pole” of subjectivity in more detail, it is difficult to formalize a field of phenomenological data. Of course, over time, a unique experience of any person can be more or less formalized and presented in a form
that will be accepted by another person (for example, the study of Russian sinologist V. Eremeev (2005) on the spiritual experience of Zhou Wen Wang (^^1); or the study of E. Underhill (1955) on European mystical tradition), but it tends to stay out of conventional discourse, as the experience of many alchemists does (Jung, 1997). It is also possible that it will not be perceived by contemporaries and later generations.
At the time, C. Jung proposed to subdivide the experience as symptomatic and symbolic (Jung, 1994), naming the symbols a “nursery”, because “in them” new semantic structures are born. Such symbolic material can be sudden, strange, mysterious, and seemingly unrelated to familiar experience. It can be experienced both as “my own”, and as alien (the effect of the “numinous” in Jung’s terms), both just as close to current personality as they are infinitely distant from it.
The therapist, actualizing his/her individity, can accept and absorb such symbolic material. He/she does not try to build a defensive structure or hide behind the usual stereotypes. The therapist’s open “defenselessness”, pointed out by C. Rogers (see: Baldwin, 1987), can help the client to cope with this new situation. Paraphrasing Heraclitus
Outline of basic concepts
SUBJECTIVITY OF HUMAN BEING
Diagram 1
Individuality (ego, personality) fagade”--------“shadow”
Individity (self, essence)
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(Heraclitus, 2012, F 91a), it is impossible to enter the same river twice. Therefore, we could declare that the river is new every time — and similarly that the experience of self-actualization is new every time. According to this metaphor, we can say that individuality is a conventional “bank” with a fairly stable shape; and that individity is a “river”, each time filled with new water2 and “in those streams we enter and do not enter at the same time” (Heraclitus, 2012, F 49A). The metaphor of the bank and the river is just one of several possible figures of speech and ways of thinking about the interaction between two poles of subjectivity. Metaphorically, this interaction was described by M. Heidegger (1993) as interaction between Welt and Erde. From the point of view of Christian understanding, it can be described as interaction between the divine and human nature of Christ. In Chinese culture, it can be seen as interaction between yin (№) and yang (PS). Each metaphor specifies one or another aspect of the “living symbol”, whose actions are beyond our current abilities of understanding.
Psychotherapist as individity
Any competent communication implies that the specialist knows his/her subject — in this case, an expert psychologist knows a person as the subject of his/her study. Additionally, the therapist must not only know his/her own individuality, but must be in contact with his/her individity in order to perceive complex states of consciousness that are not always clear for
his/her current individuality. Typically, such contact is only possible when various physical and mental clamps are removed.
At the somatic level, these phenomenological characteristics manifest themselves as the phenomenology of relaxation, i.e. the removal of muscle clamps, breath deepening, more open postures, deepening of vocalization, more natural facial colour and so on. At the attentional level, we fix the phenomenology of “free-floating attention” (Freud, 1958, s. 112; Fink, 2007, p. 10-12), when attention is not bound tightly to a specific fragment of the current experience, but is in contact with this experience as a whole. At the rational level, we see phenomenology of emlogia (emlogy), i.e. unconditional positive regard for any form of client cognitions, his/her thoughts, suggestions, expectations, goals and plans. At the emotional level, we observe phenomenology of empathia (empathy), i.e. emotional undestanding and cofeeling across the whole spectrum of emotional experience. At the semantic level, we deal with phenomenology of emphilia (emphily), i.e. congruent expression of any intuitive realizations of client humanity, his/her meanings, states, inclinations and other manifestations of life.
All this is not phenomenology of his/her personality. Thus, a therapist is much “broader” and “deeper” than his/her current conventional identity (personality, individuality) — he/she is individity. This is another psychological status of a therapist. Only in this status does the therapist have the possibility
Every day the sun is new” (Heraclitus, 2012, F6).
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of becoming a facilitator of the client’s positive personality change.
The psychological status of the psychotherapist
The most important condition of the psychotherapeutic process is the psychological status of the psychotherapist. This status is the result of two interrelated processes: understanding and acceptance of his/her individuality, and actualization of his/her individity in communication with a client. The therapist’s individity is characterized not only by unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding and congruent self-expression, but also by an altered (unconditional) state of the therapist’s consciousness (Rogers, 2001) where his/her intuitive, positive, essential characteristics are present in the therapeutic situation (Baldwin, 1987).
When discovering, understanding and accepting his/her own personality as individity, the therapist learns to discover, understand and accept the subjectivity (individuality & individity) of a client, with all its features and aspects.
In actualizing his/her individity, the therapist learns to see and to facilitate this process in the client without limitation, discounting or fragmentation. The movement into self, both for therapist and client, turns into a true meeting with each other “in the land of human” (according to C. Jung).
We can also say that ignoring one of these processes impoverishes both the therapist and the therapeutic process. A bold analogy can be offered here: according to Chalcedonian Creed (Schaff, 1919), both the divine and the
human nature of Christ are “inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseperabiliter” (unmixed, unchanging, indivisible, inseparable). In addition, these two processes are so unmixed, unchanging, indivisible and inseparable in a person to such an extent that, if we divide them, we fall into the heresy of becoming a fragmented human being.
Of course, we can “restrict” a human being not only to personality, but even to a biological body, even to the aggregate of anatomical organs, even to the brain; but that does not mean that the person actually is as such, it is just our picture of him/her.
Unconditional positive regard, in this sense, is an extremely broad view of a person as a human being. And the therapist is not only a vehicle of such a view, but also the translator of the experience that such a view is possible at all.
Therefore, individuality — with all of its psychological characteristics — most consistently describes the psychological status of the client (patient); and individity best of all describes the psychological status of a therapist.
Conclusion: New prospects
In light of the above, it is clear that psychology as a natural scientific discipline does not have sufficient descriptive tools for characterizing psychic totality. That is why all real therapists do not treat their clients as objects, but talk with them on a person-to-person level, with all the risks, joys and difficulties that arise from this type of communication. Moreover, they realize that they lack the natural scientific language to describe the basic concepts of their own experience, which therefore
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is inhabited by ancient gods and mythical characters (Eros, Gaia, Hermes, Prometheus, Senex, etc.) (see: Neville, 2012) or other equally exotic creatures (Shadow, Anima, Self, In-Se, Monitor-of-deviation, etc.). In other words we can deduce that, when wishing to understand the essential principles of a person, the therapist immediately steps away from the natural sciences focus on personal characteristics, and instead tries to grasp the “wider” or “deeper” psychological configurations. He/she is then immediately caught by the psychic process which is responsible for the creation of metaphors and symbolic images. And if we recall our metaphor
of “the bank and the river”, we can say that exotic aquatic creatures “caught” by psychotherapists are amazing, but the very “stream” that brings these creatures is even more surprising. We do not yet know, so cannot yet say, what will be the language which describes the psychic totality of human subjectivity with equal clarity and definition. We can only be glad that our “fishing nets” never become empty. Therefore, we can just assume that new psychological concepts will be the result of fruitful cooperation and dialogue between the individuality (personality) and individity (essence) of future researchers.
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Психологический статус психотерапевта
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Психологический статус психотерапевта
Орлов Александр Борисович
Профессор кафедры психологии личности факультета психологии НИУ ВШЭ
E-mail: aorlov@hse.ru
Орлова Наталия Александровна
Старший преподаватель кафедры культурологии факультета гуманитарных наук МФТИ, старший научный сотрудник Института психолого-педагогических проблем детства РАО.
E-mail: n.orlova@newmail.ru
Резюме
Традиционно психологический статус терапевта определяется как личность. Тем не менее терапевтические отношения очень специфичны (нетрадиционны) и, следовательно, не могут рассматриваться лишь как одна из форм межличностных отношений. Это противоречие ставит задачу определения психологического статуса терапевта. Авторы раскрывают следующие полярные измерения субъективности: индивидуальность (личность) и индивидность (сущность). Личность/индивидуальность является объектом традиционных гуманитарных наук. Индивидность является специфическим, интегрированным воплощением человеческой сущности. Она оказывается примером и результатом процесса индиви-дуации. Основные особенности индивидности: нуминозные, трансперсональные переживания; чувствительность и открытость опыту; подлинность и конгруэнтность; способность любить. Важнейшим условием психотерапевтического процесса является психологический статус психотерапевта. Этот статус есть результат самоактуализации. Он является не индивидуальностью терапевта, но его/ее индивидностью, находящейся в коммуникации с клиентом. Индивидность терапевта характеризуется не только безусловным позитивным принятием, эмпатическим пониманием клиента и конгруэнтным самовыражением, но и измененным (безусловным) состоянием сознания терапевта, когда его/ее интуитивные, положительные и сущностные характеристики присутствуют в терапевтической ситуации.
Ключевые слова: психотерапевт, личность, индивидуальность, сущность, индивид-
ность.
