People who have graduated in psychology or who work as psychologists know well that, in addition to asking for a free consultation, there is another custom that leads many people to make a basic mistake when they hear that a friend or family member is a psychologist: ask for advice about life
Of course, asking for and giving advice is not a bad thing in itself. In fact, people who are psychologists can calmly give advice, and can even disseminate advice in the media, but making it clear that this is not the activity that defines their profession. That means, in the context in which a psychologist talks about his work, he does not give advice ; In other situations yes.
Assuming that the profession of psychologists consists of giving advice leads some people to ask for their help by posing a problem and finishing the topic with “what should I do?” But, although it may seem strange due to the myths that circulate about the profession, psychologists do not give advice. Below I will explain why.
Psychologists: dealing with individual or collective problems
People with a background in psychology know things about behavior and mental processes that predispose them to better know how to deal with certain situations in useful and effective ways, yes. But that doesn’t mean they can give someone advice “on the fly.”
Actually, It is not even true that all psychologists are dedicated to dealing with the vital problems of specific people Only those who are dedicated to psychotherapy and clinical intervention do this; There are also many other branches of psychology in which either one works for organizations and not for isolated people (organizational psychology or Human Resources), or one investigates using data on many people, as occurs in psychology. psychological and cognitive science research.
In both cases, psychologists do not intervene in cases of individual psychological problems, so asking them for advice does not make much sense. But neither does it have it when the person is dedicated to psychotherapy and mental health Because?
Magical solutions to universal problems
As we have seen, many psychologists do not direct their work towards dealing with collective problems, or with problems demarcated by legal entities, not people. However, those who intervene in individual cases do not give advice either, for three basic reasons.
The need to attend a consultation
If you want individual attention, you have to buy the entire package of individualized attention, not just the appearance of it.
That is to say, you have to attend a consultation a context in which, despite having that name, the client is not going to ask questions that must be answered.
Psychologists do not have a book in memory that contains all the vital guidelines to follow and what to do in each case. First, because a book like this does not exist and psychologists are normal people, made of flesh and blood, and not oracles with the ability to come into contact with something like divine and universal laws.
But then, what does psychotherapy consist of? This brings us to the second point of why the task of a psychologist is not based on providing advice.
Psychotherapy is a two-way task
Get to understand what options are the best to deal with a problem It is something that must be done by both the psychologist and the patient not just for the first one.
Knowing what to do depends on the will of the person seeking help and the specific characteristics of their life, and The role of the psychologist is to guide along the way not transmitting categorical answers to vital doubts.
Of course, if psychologists had a list of life laws as a tool, there would be so many that they would not fit in a room, much less in the long-term memory of a psychotherapist. Simply put, the characteristics of a person’s problem can be so many and so varied that There cannot be a defined action protocol for each one
Thus, much of what a psychologist does in the office is simply listening to understand the client’s problem and to have the opportunity to develop a series of individualized measures. For that reason alone, it is impossible for your work to be summarized with a “I give advice”, something that can normally be done in a bar after 10 minutes of conversation. No; the psychologist listens and asks many questions for a long time and in several sessions
But what comes later, when the psychologist understands the problem, is not giving advice either.
Act on the focus of the problem
Giving advice is simply that, issuing a series of statements in which they talk about what should be done in a specific case. But psychologists don’t do that. Talking about what should be done is not, in itself, something that brings the person very close to the solution of that problem, because believing that would be making the mistake of assuming that psychological problems appear simply when a person does not know what to do. it has to be done.
Thus, a person with a gambling addiction would simply need someone to strongly advise them to stop gambling. Once that person became aware of the problem from what he hears the other person say, the problem would be solved. It is a pity that this does not happen in the real world: psychological problems do not arise from a lack of information, but from something much deeper: inappropriate behavior patterns that must be corrected doing more and talking less.
Thus, the job of psychologists is not to inform people about what they should do, but to guide them towards a model of behavior that is useful to them and that allows them to be happier. That is why the product of psychotherapy sessions are not aphorisms and life maxims but intervention programs such as Self-Instruction Training, something like routines that are used in a gym made for our brain.
Mental health psychologists They create the necessary conditions so that their patients can reorient their actions and thoughts in a more appropriate way, according to their own objectives. Perhaps this temptation to ask psychologists for advice comes precisely from the fact that we are not very clear about the latter, the idea of what we want. In the advice, the goal to aspire to is already given: “do this.” Fortunately or not, what happens in a psychologist’s office is much more complex.
