PSYCHOTHERAPY AND PSYCHOCONSULTING: APPROACHES TO STATUS ESTABLISHMENT

Abstract

The article presents the results of the analysis of psychotherapeutic and psycho consultative literature, the authors of which are domestic and foreign psychologists. Among them are scientists and practitioners, including those working in the field of psychotherapy and in the field of psychological counseling. It highlights the content of the controversy about the common and different between the two types of psychological assistance for people who have psychological problems. Discussions about the relationship between psychotherapy and psychoconsulting: identity or autonomy – a clear answer to this controversial problem have not been given so far, as it is evidenced by a systematic analysis of the scientific literature. There are alternative opinions of experts, both those who study this issue and those who practice in the field of psychological services. The question is also about the generic relationship between psychotherapy and psychological counseling, and the independence of these psychological disciplines and types of psychological care. Researchers propose different criteria by which it is expedient to distinguish them, highlight common features in conducting the psychotherapeutic sessions and psychological consultations, thus proving their closeness, commonality. The lack of a consensual solution to the solution of this problem has negative consequences, which are manifested, firstly, in the incompetence of specialists in choosing the optimal type of psychological care for each specific case of the type of psychological assistance; secondly, the inability of such professionals to determine correctly what the client, needs makes not only a threat to his mental health, but also sometimes severe mental disorders. Thus, establishing of the true status for these sciences is currently an important scientific problem, demanded by both psychological science and the practice of psychological care. One of the rational approaches to determining the status of psychotherapy and psychological counseling is a psycholinguistic approach, which is based on speech-language phenomena, on distinguishing between conscious and subconscious areas of the human psyche, on special psycholinguistic (discursive) influences that allow working with people by convincing what is more typical for psycho-consulting, and by suggestion, which is mostly inherent to psychotherapy. Psycholinguistic tactics in the case of both psychotherapy and psycho-counseling contain a set of necessary verbal tools that allow influencing different areas of the client’s psyche, providing a preventive or curative effect.