Imagine that you will die... No, not immediately, but in a minute or two. Of course, this is unlikely to happen, but just imagine. Try to imagine such absurdity. And in this regard, determine the sequence of your actions. In this last minute of your being.
You'll jump up, jump up in your workplace or in your own bedroom, run to say goodbye... To whom? With colleagues? It’s better, much better, if you stay at home and have time to shout to your loved ones: “Don’t remember it badly!”
And if, let’s say, you just (at that very moment) received a call with a very tempting offer: to become a minister? You will probably (I bet here) sadly, and maybe even tragically say:
- How stupid.
And perhaps add:
- Forgive me, Lord...
They will begin to convince you (the minute has not yet passed, you are still alive, your heart is still beating, blood is running through your veins, and your lungs are deeply inhaling the wonderful air mixed with city smoke). It was rightly noted: you can’t breathe before you die! You yourself realized the authenticity of this folk wisdom. Your eyes still see the iridescent colors of the world, your nostrils draw in wonderful aromas, terrible things will happen a little later...
You are strongly urged to:
— Such offers are not refused.
You, I believe, will answer, perhaps even nervously and not entirely politely:
- Leave me alone with your idiocy! Look at the clock!
- What other hours? Oh, for the watch... Do you mean that your watch is not encrusted with diamonds? So this is a profitable business, that’s why we offer such a high post.
- What do diamonds have to do with it?
- And here’s what it has to do with it. If the Minister of Defense? Such prospects, such opportunities... Diamonds and rough diamonds will appear.
And the second hand counts down division by division.
You may still have time to say:
“I don’t even want to be the Minister of Defense.” You can’t turn everything around...
And you will become tragically silent... And you will fall.
This, I tell you, will be the most effective treatment. Then, at the funeral service, the one who called you will remember with sincere warmth, taking the floor and standing at your head:
“He was a man of amazing modesty and decency. He was offered high positions... But personal honesty and clean conscience were more important to him. Above all for him was human sincerity. We have lost a true hero of our time.
Let’s now say that you die not in a minute, not in two, but in a day. And you, having heard the proposal to take up the post of minister, quickly calculated: yeah, I can do a lot in 24 hours, so that there will be enough for the children, and the grandchildren will not lose out, they will remember well for the inheritance left to them. And you say:
- Yes! Yes, I agree.
They answer you:
- Very good thanks. This issue just needs some reconciliation. A minute's formal matter...
And then they call and say:
- Unforeseen circumstances... Someone else agreed to take this position. And it has already been approved. Don't worry, we'll find something better for you...
And they would have picked it up, no doubt. But the next day you will throw away your sandals...
And now the picture at the funeral is completely different. Everyone whispers, and some, especially cynical and unceremonious, even smile:
- I didn’t survive the refusal... Who would have thought... So strong in appearance...
The memorial service follows an unimaginably offensive, offensive scenario for you and turns into a farce. As a mockery of you, who certainly deserve a different attitude. Kind, heartfelt, humanly insightful.
Well, what if you die not in a minute, not in five minutes, not even in a day (not a bad backlash!), but in a month. A month, I tell you, is a completely different time, a different caliber. It’s terrible what can be done in a month. There is so much to think about! There is so much to understand. Moreover, if nothing interferes with your thoughts, nothing distracts you. No one calls on a direct line and sows temptations:
— What if he’s the prime minister? What if he is the president?
For some inexplicable magical reason, you are spared from such unbearably tempting temptations: to die with the rank of prime minister or president... This is a dream! Any sane bipedal subject. What a big funeral! What a scale the worldwide funeral service will thunder! What a farewell - at the level of heads of foreign states! Not everyone can resist such a temptation to die at such a level. To be written down in the history books. Having spent only a month in a responsible position. They will say about this guy: he died suddenly from overexertion and the burden of problems that fell on him. Yes, for one such line in an obituary published by all the newspapers of the world, many, I am sure, would agree to sacrifice anything. Even with your own life.
However, it’s even better when, having agreed to become prime minister or president (and not knowing what awaits you in the near future), you exist carefree and happily. (If you know in advance that you will soon die, it is somehow sad, mournful, and not at all joyful to rule the population and sit on the throne.)
But, I repeat, no one is bothering you with enticements yet, you are simply aware (it has become known from authoritative competent sources) that in a month you will give up and continue to occupy a modest, non-presidential or prime ministerial position that does not aspire to anything.
And so, knowing everything about yourself and not being a minister or prime minister, enter the subway after an 8-hour working day. Everything there annoys you. Crowds of citizens trying to push and be the first to get onto the escalator and into the carriage, teenagers chewing gum and wearing headphones, but the music is still audible to those around them, and the fact that the wonderful antique chandeliers from under the ceiling were removed and replaced with modern vulgar lamps (and those the previous ones, of palace design, were taken to someone's country mansion), and now you look around with hateful eyes, and you want to kick, push, insult someone in response, and tell teenagers about the rules of behavior in in public places, you are also full of the desire to destroy all the country villas indiscriminately... And then you remember: there is nothing left to live. 30 days and nights. Is it really possible to spend it on squabbles, quarrels and pseudo-revolutionary acts? Although, of course, it is tempting to hear at a funeral service:
“I devoted myself entirely to the cause of restoring justice, the reign of honesty and order, but I could not withstand the hellish tension, collapsed, and burned.
Additionally, imagine the looks of those mourning your coffin, whom you pushed, barked at, offended, humiliated, left without a ceiling above your head decorated with antique chandeliers... Do you need such withering (purer than a crematorium oven) looks after you?
I think you will agree with me: one must depart from life quietly, blissfully, peacefully (in times of peace), and not with a hardened heart and furious indignation. Sowing forgiveness, not seeds of hatred...
Suppose now: not in a month, not in two or three, but only in six months, your hour of death will strike and the time will come... How will you live during this period? Who to communicate with and who to say goodbye to, who to call, who to ask for parting words, and who to beg not to remember evil?
Six months is a huge, vast, boundless period... You were told (by acquaintance): get ready, raise money. Then they added:
— By the way, if you want, we will appoint you as minister.
And they added:
- Or even the prime minister.
And they explained:
- So that later everything can be blamed on you.
And they also added:
- By your decree, you can transport chandeliers from the subway to your dacha or to a London mansion.
Wouldn't you be flattered? It’s so sweet and touching: to make public chandeliers your own... And on the other hand: what will these chandeliers give you? What will a ministerial position bring if you have two, three, five, six months left to enjoy it?
And it’s not bad at all to last five years. Or even ten. This is absolutely incredible! There is so much you can waste, steal, get! Hunt without a license in a nature reserve. Take away premises from a neighboring school for a personal hangar for a personal helicopter... Make a lot of mistresses or lovers rich... And much more...
The main thing is not to think that 10 years will fly by in one minute...
…Now let’s imagine a completely different, opposite situation: you were told that you will never die.
Moreover, in the near future they should become president or prime minister. Or just a minister. There is, of course, something to think about here.
Firstly, about the vast expanse of time that is under your control. It’s not you for him, it’s for you.
Secondly, about the role you can play in the history and evolution of mankind.
Thirdly, about innumerable plans for the realization of one’s own overwhelming ambitions.
But again the question arises (or even a lot of questions): under what conditions will you live forever? Will you maintain your current appearance or will you wither, bend, and shrink like Koschey the Immortal? This is an important point. Will you go up to the podium yourself or will energetic boys lead you by the arms? Will your mind remain sober or will it become decrepit along with you, and it will not be you, but your numerous referents, who will rule the country, the world, the universe? Each of them will become a king, and you will be fooled and made a laughing stock...
And the longer you exist, the more there will be those who live at your expense and - unlike you, who are divorced from reality - have a truly full-blooded life. He steals, has fun, fills his belly...
In general, there is something to think about in connection with the eternal questions about life and eternal death - questions that we forget about in the bustle of everyday life and the fever of everyday life.
Our columnist Alexander Zantovich discusses why the cult of “energy, multitasking and productivity” does not make our lives happier. But rather the opposite.
Facebook.com/leprumus
My uncle is an amazing person in many ways. For example, I am sincerely surprised by the style of his travels. Let's say, if I decide to go to Lviv, then it happens like this: I get in the car in the morning, drive, stand at the border, drive again, arrive in the evening - exhale. The path is known in advance, the hotel is booked, the budget is planned, it is thought out where I will go, what I will see. As they say, I see the goal - I’m moving towards the goal.
My uncle can travel to Lvov for three days. Because on the way he will meet a curious town. Why not check it out? Hmm, this is a nice cafe! There are tables outside, pleasant service, and a beautiful view of the river. Let's have some coffee here. Oh, it’s getting dark, perhaps we’ll spend the night right here, let’s find a hotel...
Or, let’s say, we went to the village to visit our grandfather. Work all the time: there are beds there, firewood, help with something around the house. Then the guy came and said: this is all right and true, but what’s stopping us from setting up a grill and frying kebabs in the evening? And in fact, we are surprised, how did this not occur to anyone?
And when he decided to make himself a dacha, an indispensable condition was the presence of a balcony on the second floor, where he could go out in the morning and happily smoke, looking into the distance and thinking about absolutely nothing.
He is a great master of enjoying life.
This skill should be mastered by everyone without exception. But it’s somehow not accepted here.
We respect a man of action. He is always busy with something. He fusses a lot at work. Concerned face, frowning forehead. He has important meetings, his desk is littered with documents. He argues loudly with someone on the phone, receives visitors, holds conference calls. He is always ready to take on additional functionality, is efficient and proactive. He says phrases like “I heard you”, “we will do the work”, “we must not allow this to happen”. I even heard the expression: “While a person works, he lives.”
facebook.com/bestadvt At home, a man of action doesn’t sit on the couch either. He comes up with something on his own: check the suspension in the car, change a light bulb, buy a new TV and a robot vacuum cleaner. The wife orders something. No not like this. The wife entrusts most of it: buy it for her new phone, take your mother-in-law to the dacha, and take her to Italy, expand the living space, reupholster the sofa, change the curtains, pick up food for dinner. And the children, of course. Diseases, vaccinations, kindergarten, school, clothes, sandals, mugs, take, bring, dad, I want a tablet...
This is why energetic and multitasking people are so valued. They always have a lot of things to do and problems. They are always on. Even on weekends, when it seems like it’s time to sit down and relax their face, they will come up with a program for themselves. Trips, meetings with friends, sports, cleaning the apartment, going to the garage, building a bathhouse...
Thoughts are constantly racing in my head. Do this, call so and so. He writes reminders about things to do in Google Calendar and forgets to do them, even after receiving a signal. And in the evenings he pours alcohol into his feverish brain or beats him down with impact sports so that the pot doesn’t explode. Or both.
They say that over the last twenty years people have begun to walk faster because they are constantly in a hurry to get somewhere and are afraid of not being able to do something in time. And, of course, there will always be something we didn’t manage to do, because there are twenty-four hours in a day. As it was a thousand years ago, it remains the same now.
instagram.com/insta_shkya In this crazy rhythm, we ultimately forget why we do everything we do. Staying busy is actually very easy. Because it eliminates the need to think. This activity is becoming less and less popular now because it is really difficult. After all, you can come up with completely inconvenient things. Asking yourself questions such as “what am I living for?” or “what do I really want?”, you can run into amazing and unexpected answers, after which it turns out that all this time you have been running enthusiastically in the wrong direction.
I love walking through Minsk parks, watching the leaves, the play of light and shadow, and clever squirrels. And for people. Somehow it is believed that idle people sit in parks, who do not need to go anywhere, have nothing to do, and are in no hurry. Right now I don’t agree with this. Sitting on a bench and contemplating the world around is conscious and very hard work. This is an activity that requires extreme composure and concentration. That's why almost all the benches are empty. Even the few who do sit down usually end up staring at their phones. This is cheating. This is not the same as doing nothing at all.
One acquaintance told me that he happened to observe amazing things. Like how a large trout floats to the surface of the lake, how the sun rises majestically, how a bird and a bat fight over a dragonfly. But that was a long time ago, when the phone was screwed to the wall, did not distract the owner, and he could sit for several hours without moving, just breathing and looking at “around”.
Imagine for a second that you will die tomorrow. I guarantee you will feel very sad. The first thing that comes to mind: I have lived so little, managed so little...
Why didn't you do what you wanted?
facebook.com/leprumus After all, what we usually call our dreams can usually be done in a couple of weeks. Management gurus advise sorting all tasks by urgency and importance. So, the segment of things that are important, but not urgent, is what is actually worth doing first. We put it off for years. Our real desires, our “for the soul”, our “for ourselves”. And that’s why it becomes so sad when you realize that this is exactly what you didn’t have time to do. Somehow it didn’t work out, I was busy all the time, some things to do...
I think it's good to stop sometimes and think about what you want. And then take it and just do it.
Sometimes the most important things are closer and more accessible than we think. The result does not always require hard work, extreme concentration and effort. Sometimes it comes by itself if you relax and let life take its course.
Let's live at least sometimes like a great and wise teddy bear.
Still from the film “Christopher Robin” (2018) is for illustrative purposes / film.ru - And how do you manage to do this, Pooh?
- What's going on?
- Achieve your goal without making any effort.
“But I’m not achieving anything,” said Pooh.
“And yet, whatever you set your mind to, you succeed.”
“It happens somehow by itself,” he answered.
A friend recently complained. Something was leaking from the ceiling at work. A working specialist came to her office, sat down next to her and began to wait for it to flow. She was working, and he was sitting next to her, in his sweaty overalls, looking seriously at the ceiling and, it turns out, was also working. It seems to me that it should be something like this.
a simple visualization exercise for those who want to really change their lives or part with panic fears based on the fear of death
The poet Nikolai Gumilyov has a famous poem that begins with these lines:
“Only snakes shed their skins,
So that the soul ages and grows.Unfortunately, we are not like snakes.
We change - souls, not bodies."
The poet was practically right. (Only without a word - alas).
We really need to understand one thing with you simple thing: the process of death and rebirth in our lives is continuous.
Every time you change at least something in your ideas and feelings, you die and are born again.
But it’s difficult to understand this right away. We need a psychotherapeutic metaphor, or rather, work with it.
The best psychotherapeutic metaphor is always any visualization exercise and any TOP exercise - body-oriented psychotherapy.
I bring to your attention one such visualization exercise, which I called not childishly: “I died.”
However, only by experiencing death and rebirth in your imagination will you believe that such deaths and births happen constantly in your life - hundreds of times while you live...
Let's say you had a choice: to enter a medical institute or a theater school. You went to medical school and the actress died.
Then you were faced with a choice: marry a fellow student, Vasya, and go with him to Krasnodar, or enter residency, defend your dissertation, and go to work in Germany.
You chose Vasya. And the great immunologist, head of the department and Doctor of Sciences died, making way for Vasya’s wife, a charming mother of two children and part-time fitness trainer...))))) as uncle.
And so not hundreds, but thousands of times...
We constantly kill ourselves and are born again...
By choosing one alternative, we kill all other alternatives and ourselves in these unplayed roles.
Having become accustomed to dying a hundred, thousand times, we will cease to be afraid of death itself, because we will understand that death is an every second companion of life. This is life itself.
Positive conclusions that psychology and I draw before the visualization exercise
What's good about this? Why do we even need to do this exercise?
I will now explain how it benefits us - understanding the fact of the continuity of the dying-rebirth process during one life and in one body.
And the whole point is that there is no CONTINUOUS PERSONALITY that bears some constantly identical burden from birth to the end.
Often we complain about some FATE that pursues someone out there - US.
Yes, there are no such “us” who could be persecuted with stupid persistence! Because “we” are broken into billions of pieces! Whichever fragment you pick up, that’s what you will be. Pick a good one.))))
We update and “reset” millions of times, as many times as you yourself want to update and reset.
It is very common to hear complaints like: “They always laughed at me at school. This means that they will laugh at me always and everywhere, in any group, by any people.
I also had one like this bad habit- slouch and eat your own snot. So that’s why the whole class hated me.”
What can I say in response to this complaint?
If in any team you continue to stubbornly slouch and eat your own snot (because it’s convenient for you, right?) then in any team you will be called a slouched snot-eater (Because your behavior will leave them no choice).
But only “fate”, “ugly ears” and “ancestral curse” have nothing to do with it...
Stop eating snot and finally pump up your back muscles...
Since a person dies and is born millions of times during his life, it is a sin for him to complain about the grievances of the past. The one who was wronged in the past no longer exists. There is a new person and he even has a new passport for a long time.
The one who could have rolled down the inclined path has no longer rolled (since he is sitting and reading all this here). Why remember the old? Who will remember the old...
In the same way, your present present can be left in the distant past, making it “old”, and changing your life once and for all!
Do you want to exchange the bast shoes of a fire victim for the boots of a millionaire? Want to?
Then ceremoniously bury the fire victim. Is it a pity?
That's it! We don't want to change. We want to eat snot and slouch, we want to preserve our identity... It won’t work!
We need to learn to work with our psychological barriers through
Visualization exercises “I died”
As the righteous and holy fool Motka Chabad said in response to this terrible statement: “The shumer died - as long as he was healthy,” so don’t worry.
You can’t intimidate us with these jokes; we generally know where people are going. We're having a psychotherapy lesson here. Practical lesson. Don't interfere, smart guys.
Description of the visualization exercise
Sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes. Enter the alpha state and imagine that... You are dying.
Your soul left your body and... got to where, according to your ideas, consciousness should be located after death.
Let your consciousness rush through the Universe. It rushes towards the One who is the Source and First Cause of this very Universe.
In the presence of this source, look back at your life and remember it in all the details that interest you...
Answer yourself a number of specific questions:
- What were you satisfied with that you did in this life?
- What did you do wrong?
- What grievances have you carried through your entire life and kept, and now you stand before God (Or the Source of Existence, the World Mind) with these grievances of yours?
- Which of these grievances have passed?
Now imagine that you are given a new chance and you go back to earth to live another life - in a new body and anew.
Quickly inform the World Mind of your wishes and requests:
- Which city would you choose?
- Country?
- Parents?
- Would you have brothers and sisters?
- What profession would you choose?
- What is the most important thing you want to achieve in your new life?
That's it, the exercise is over.
Do it by entering the alpha state somewhere in a comfortable chair.
Then we will discuss and comment.
End of the visualization exercise
After you finish the active part of the exercise - visualization, sit down and write down the answers to the following questions with a pen on paper (after thinking):
- What fresh changes do I want to make in my life after completing the exercise?
- What ways are there to become the person you “pictured” for yourself, but not in another life, but here and now?
Now let's start working.
The old us are dead. New we are born. Long live psychotherapy!
Every day, as part of the Nuzhnapomoch.ru project, a new post authored by famous journalists and public figures will appear on the blog on the RAIN website.
There are problems in the world that are difficult or almost impossible to solve: for example, defeating multiple sclerosis. Or Russian corruption. And there are equally important problems that can be solved by clicking the mouse a couple of times, and you have it - since you are reading this text.
So: imagine that you died. It's useful to imagine the world behind you. Well, if you don’t want to die, let’s imagine that you were sent to prison for life, this also happens here, although less often. That is, we cross you out - there is no way to help you. But the children left are yours. Now they are orphans.
They were sent to an orphanage. I won’t scare you with the horrors of orphanages - especially since there are decent institutions, and Zhirinovsky generally believes that millions of Russian children dream of living in an orphanage - however, we are not talking about the problems of early diagnosis of advanced schizophrenia.
So: your children have more or less safely suffered in the orphanage, and they are being released into adulthood. As we agreed, you cannot help them in any way - you have died, or you are idle in prison, and we do not promise or insure against either the first or the second. On that
case we have a state and its social guarantees- children are entitled to living space. That is, an apartment. And the state at least provides this apartment to graduates of orphanages.
An eighteen-year-old person is generally not a very experienced creature, much less a graduate of a boarding school who has no parents. No one will tell him about black realtors, or about kind women who suddenly want to drink, otherwise they want to eat so much that there is nowhere to spend the night. Or about new real friends who need to be helped out, why sell (donate) them an apartment just issued by the state. You never know there are many stories in life. I personally know of a case in Moscow when my aunt handed over her nephew after the death of his mother (her own sister) to a boarding school for the mentally ill in order to deprive him of his legal capacity and take away his apartment. And she did take it.
These children - who are no longer technically children - can and should be helped, and not only with a wise word and warning. In the Yaroslavl region, the problem of taking away apartments from orphanages is dealt with by Dina Lapaeva - she is a lawyer, she has her own law firm. Give them at least a little
we’ll help you - click the mouse and transfer a little money, you won’t even notice, and Dina will hire an employee who will do only this - help orphanages defend their rights. For them, for the orphanage residents, it is free, of course.
Dina has been doing all this for a long time, and quite successfully. But together we can do more. Especially if we imagine that these are our children. And we died. And what will we leave behind? Fodder for black realtors?
Olga Romanova,
Journalist, Executive Director of the Sitting Rus' movement
Participant of the project "Help Needed"
Read how to help Dina Lapaeva develop her activities here -
Perhaps the most emotionally difficult and frightening of all life's problems is the problem of death. Death evokes such fear in humans that it is essentially a taboo subject in our society. By not being able to openly discuss or even simply acknowledge death, we thereby contribute to strengthening its power over us, reinforcing the uncertainty of our attitude towards it. It is necessary to help the client deal with his fears and ideas about death. When a person can openly face the possibility of death, it not only reduces his level of anxiety, but also appears to reduce the physical pain associated with death.
The visualization exercise presented here (one could call it “guided fantasy”) provides an opportunity to take a broader view of life and its natural ending, and to formulate one’s ideas about death and dying. This exercise is not a “rehearsal” for death, but rather is aimed at providing a “life overview” and helping the person see the important things that he can still accomplish. It will help to abandon old prejudices, ideas and behavior and will contribute to the formation of new attitudes and feelings, new ways of relating to life.
Since the concept of death for many people is associated with certain religious beliefs, the instructions are designed in such a way that they do not assume or impose any specific religious beliefs. Try to translate these instructions into the language of your faith. As with all visualizations, you can have someone read the instructions out loud slowly or tape the text in advance.
Choose a quiet room, sit comfortably, and begin with a relaxation exercise.
When you feel completely relaxed, imagine that you are being told that you are dying. Imagine all the feelings and thoughts this message will evoke in you. Where are you going to go? Who will you talk to? What do you think? Take your time, try to imagine all this in the smallest detail.
Now imagine that you are gradually dying. Mentally paint a detailed picture of your deteriorating health. Try to focus on all the details of the dying process. Realize what you will lose when you die.
Give yourself the opportunity to experience all these feelings for a few minutes and carefully sort through them.
Imagine the people surrounding your deathbed. Try to see how they would react to losing you. What do they say, what do they feel? Take your time, imagine in detail everything that happens, including the moment of your death.
Now imagine that you are attending your funeral or farewell ceremony. Who do you see there? How do the people who came feel? And again, don’t rush, give yourself the opportunity to experience everything in detail.
Imagine yourself dead. What is happening to your consciousness? Let it go to where you believe consciousness is after death. Stay there for a while and feel everything.
Allow your consciousness to go out into the universe and meet there what you believe is the source or root cause of the universe. In the presence of this source, look back at your life and remember it in every detail. Do not hurry. What part of what was done were you satisfied with? What did you do wrong? What grievances have you carried within you throughout your life? Which of them are still alive in you? Try to review your life in this way and ask yourself these questions, regardless of what you think happens to consciousness after death.
You now have the opportunity to return to earth in a new body and start your life anew. Will you choose the same parents or find new ones? What qualities will they have? Will you have brothers and sisters? Are they the same siblings or different ones? What profession will you choose? What is the most important thing you want to achieve in this new life? What will be important to you? Think carefully about any new possibilities.
Realize that this process of death and rebirth in your life is continuous. Every time you change something in your ideas and feelings, you die and are born again. Now that you have experienced death and rebirth in your imagination, you can see it happening in your real life.
Calmly and slowly return back to the present moment in time. Get ready to get back to normal life again.
Typically, for people who have done this exercise, the part that is most helpful is the part where they look back on their experiences. This helps a person understand what changes he would like to achieve in his life. Try to draw the client’s attention to the fact that he still has time to use the knowledge gained during such visualization to change something in his life. Then he will not have to regret what he regretted during his imaginary death. By imagining the person they would like to be if they had the opportunity to be born again, people are actually deciding what they would like to change about themselves. Help the client try to find a way to become that person now, in this life.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy for depressive conditions
When treating depression in older people, cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, or behavioral modeling, is most often used, which is based on internal processing of information and is a learning process that provides the client with new experience. Despite the abundance of similarities with behavioral psychotherapy based on the theory of behaviorism, cognitive behavioral therapy is distinguished by its recognition of the leading role of the cognitive model in solving the problem of improving mood in depressed clients.
Behavioral and cognitive therapists have a number of common characteristics (Wilson, 2000):
Both are not interested in the causes of disorders or the past of clients, but deal with the present: behavioral therapists focus on current behavior, and cognitive therapists focus on what a person thinks about himself and the world in the present.
Both view therapy as a learning process and the therapist as a teacher. Behavioral therapists teach new ways of behaving, and cognitive therapists teach new ways of thinking.
Both give their clients homework so that they can continue to improve the skills learned during consultations in their daily lives.
Both of them prefer a practical approach, devoid of absurdity (meaning psychoanalysis), unencumbered by complex theories of personality. Neurotic depression has become a clinical area
bringing together cognitive and behavioral approaches. A. Beck (Beck, 1995), observing patients with neurotic depression, drew attention to the fact that themes of defeat, hopelessness and inadequacy constantly sounded in their experiences. Beck concluded that depression develops in people who perceive the world in three negative categories:
Negative view of the present: No matter what happens, a depressed person focuses on the negative aspects, although life brings some pleasure to most people;
Hopelessness about the future: The depressed client pictures the future and sees only gloomy events in it;
Reduced sense of self-worth: The depressed client sees himself as inadequate, unworthy, and helpless.
The main emphasis of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy is on identifying specific patterns of thinking and ways clients evaluate events in their lives. Depressed people's thinking patterns are characterized by logical errors, which leads to irrational attitudes, incorrect conclusions and, accordingly, depressive experiences. A depressed client may focus on the negative aspects of past experiences and ignore positive events (Zeiss & Steffen, 1996).
Another common thought pattern of depressed clients is to misinterpret the intentions of others or to exaggerate. negative consequences any event.
Progress in depression therapy involves clients learning to become aware of their irrational beliefs, to come up with alternative explanations for the situations they encounter, and to test these alternatives.
Psychotherapeutic work with older people is complicated by the fact that their irrational attitudes, caused by a depressive state, are superimposed on social stereotypes of perception characteristic of old age (Zarit, Zarit, 1998).
Modification of cognitive behavioral therapy for older people (Zeiss, Steffen, 1996) involves a significant change in the procedure of psychotherapy, which traditionally includes functional behavioral analysis, changing self-image, correcting maladaptive behaviors and irrational attitudes, and developing competence in social functioning. When working with older people, a psychotherapy session must be carried out at a comfortable pace. It is also necessary to check whether the client has negative attitudes regarding psychotherapy. The focus of psychotherapy should be shifted from the “here and now” principle to an analysis of the life path. In cases of deep depression, it is advisable to maintain contact with the client’s attending physician and use the help and reinforcing influence of relatives (Ermolaeva, 2002).
Cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression in older people involves careful organization of the psychotherapeutic procedure itself. The first meetings are devoted to establishing a trusting, collaborative relationship, preventing or eliminating the client's disposition to judge the therapist's method of work and actions (Beck et al., 1979). As the focus of psychotherapy shifts to analyzing the client's attitudes, the therapist must eliminate the moment of dispute in communication. He should also not encourage the client to become overly dependent. The elderly client should be prepared for the possibility of relapse and taught ways to cope with it. During final meetings, the therapist usually evaluates the results achieved, summarizes the problems posed and the most successful techniques, presumably outlines the range of future problems, and invites the client to resume communication if something unexpected happens. The therapist must show the client that the tendency to exaggerate negative events potentially exists and can manifest itself in an unexpected situation, but the course of psychotherapy provides the client with the necessary skills to cope with possible relapses.
More details about the theory of cognitive behavioral therapy can be found in the works (Alexandrov, 2000; Burlachuk et al., 1999; Lazarus, 2000a, b; McMullin, 2001; Beck, 1995; Ellis, 1973; Ellis, Dryden, 1996; Ellis and Grieger, 1977; Lazarus, 1995; Wolpe, 1969).
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