PECULIARITIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELING WITH CIVIС IDENTITY PROBLEMS

Abstract

The article describes the main stages of psychological counseling work with civic identity problems, analyzes the dynamics of the civic identity of clients during counseling sessions. It was found that the request of most clients was based on deep frustration due to: disappointment in the possibilities of self-realization in the organizational environment of the state; clashes with law enforcement agencies and dissatisfaction with the legislation of their own state; unsuccessful attempts to emigrate. Clients' expectations about the results of psychological work with civic identity concerned the harmonization of relations with the state, the acceptance of their own state, and finding new resources for self-realization in the state of own citizenship. It was found that the main deformation of the civic identity of clients was their focus on the destructive game and scenario interaction with the state, which hindered the normal social self-realization of the individual and led to a constant external search for a "better" state and "better" citizenship; to a lesser extent, another deformation of civic identity was presented - its de facto unformedness. It was determined that the most common games for clients were: "The state oppresses me" (role "Victim", 33%), "If not this state" (role "Offended", 28%); less often - "Privilege" (14%), "Patriot" (14%) and "Exemplary Citizen" (11%). Psychological counseling work with games was carried out in accordance with the postulates of transactional analysis and included the following main stages: 1) awareness of the game (search for the game as a series of complementary transactions that inevitably lead to a destructive result in relations with the state and in civic self-realization), formulation of the thesis (the main purpose of the game), finding clients’ psychological gain, as well as a discussion of the antithesis of the game, the ability to stop it, get out of the game; 2) manifestation of mechanisms of imitation and internalization of civic thinking stereotypes in clients’ childhood in order to find the moment of "beginning" of this game; 3) analysis of the sources of subject-object / object-subject paradigm of the individual's relationship with the state and possible emotional fixations in positions of civic protest or civic conformity, identification of "trigger" situations that trigger the mechanism of game transactions; 4) development of new (non-game) ways of behavior in "trigger" situations of interaction with the state. A comparative analysis of the results before and after psychological counseling showed an increase in the conceptuality and subjective orientation of civic identity, as well as increasing its hierarchical position (representation) in the structure of other personal identities.