When do I need the help of a therapist?

We bring to your attention an article by the head Clinics of psychiatry and psychotherapy of the European Medical Center, psychotherapistNatalia Rivkina, which is published on the Internet portal Medcrug.ru.;

With today's rapid pace of life, high stress and lack of time to rest, it is not uncommon to hear from colleagues, friends or family that they attend counseling sessions with a psychologist or psychotherapist. More and more residents of megacities are resorting to the support of specialists to solve problems related to their emotional state, personal life, workloads, and frequent stress. 

The head of the department explains in which cases and under what conditions it is necessary to seek help from a specialist in psychotherapyClinics of Psychiatry and psychotherapy of the European Medical Center, psychotherapist Natalia Rivkina. 

Often, a stressful lifestyle, great responsibility, excessive emotional stress, prolonged stress lead to psychoemotional maladaptation, depression, a feeling of constant fatigue, and the inability to relax. Such conditions interfere with work, create difficulties in family life, and sometimes lead to alcohol abuse. At the same time, social status or external circumstances do not allow a person to significantly change the situation, lifestyle, or reduce stress. In such cases, with the help of special psychotherapeutic support, one can learn to withstand emotional stress without "breakdowns" and maladaptation, build a new system of behavior under stress, and find internal resources to overcome difficult situations. 

Another important area is providing assistance to patients experiencing acute stress due to the loss of loved ones, emotional trauma, or any unexpected traumatic events. It must be remembered that the emotional reaction to grief has its own patterns and can have serious complications, sometimes very long. The most serious of these are delayed stress reactions, when obsessive memories of what happened, depression, apathy, and fear "return" after a considerable time after the injury. 

Children are most susceptible to developing post-stress disorders. The death of a relative or loved ones, the divorce of parents, adoption, as well as serious illnesses are reasons for contacting a psychotherapist with a child. 

It is known that the sooner the necessary psychotherapeutic support is provided, the less likely it is to develop pathological reactions to stress. 

To help in stressful and crisis situations, the most effective approach is one that combines both special psychotherapeutic techniques and complementary medicine, including various types of massage, reflexology, yoga and relaxation. An individual approach and individually designed programs of psychoemotional support are important, depending on the needs of the patient. 

If we talk about psychotherapeutic approaches in dealing with stressful and crisis situations, then the most justified is the use of cognitive behavioral therapy approaches (one of the directions in psychotherapy based on ideas according to which a person's feelings and behavior are determined not by the situation in which he finds himself, but by his perception of this situation). 

Different approaches and techniques are used for children than for adults. Special attention is paid to game psychotherapy, which can be combined with elements of physical and cognitive therapy. Children and adolescents experience stressful situations differently, they have a higher risk of developing delayed reactions due to stress, therefore, unlike adults, they require special attention and special treatment technologies. 

The standard of care for patients with severe somatic diseases accepted in the world medical community is an integrated approach with the mandatory inclusion of psychotherapeutic support programs for the patient and his family members. 

This support involves working with post-stress disorders, with patients' reactions to the news of the disease, and is aimed at overcoming stress and maintaining the patient's quality of life.

Research shows that psychological support provided as part of medical and surgical treatment not only reduces stress and emotional overload, helps the patient and his family "understand" the disease, makes it much easier to tolerate possible side effects of treatment and increases the effectiveness of therapy. For example, without psychological support, high-quality care for patients with oncological, cardiological and severe endocrine diseases is impossible. 

Many diseases that pose a real threat to human life cause various mental disorders and social maladaptation of the patient. Moreover, any illness itself is stressful. Therefore, in order to prevent the development of post-stress disorders, it is necessary to provide specialized support in a timely manner, as early as possible from the moment the patient learns about his illness. For this purpose, there are programs aimed at helping to overcome stress and post-stress reactions, which are carried out using personalized technologies and help restore human resources in a difficult life situation. 

We are building an individual program for the patient and his family, thanks to which, even at the outpatient stage, after the end of treatment in the clinic, the patient and the family will be able to cope with the hardships of the disease independently in the future. 

Scientific studies show that psychological factors are the root cause of eating disorders. Therefore, psychotherapeutic assistance programs for the correction of eating disorders are developed taking into account both emotional eating disorders and disorders due to the presence of mental disorders (anorexia, bulimia). 

The main purpose of such support is not just to teach the patient to limit himself in food and get rid of excess weight, but to help him cope with tension or stress in an alternative way, while maintaining a comfortable weight. 

Currently, anorexia and bulimia pose a serious threat to women's health and sometimes their lives. The situation is further complicated by the fact that patients often do not recognize the presence of the disease. Such patients require long-term psychotherapeutic and drug treatment. 

Our clinic provides assistance for eating disorders and early childhood (from 0 to 8 years old), which are often associated with an incorrect approach to feeding a baby. The problem may lie both in the "false" ideas of parents about the rational nutrition of the child in the first months and years of life, and a distorted opinion about how a child at a certain age should weigh and look. 

After excluding somatic diseases that could be the cause of the problem, specialists help parents learn everything about the needs of the child, about the rational care of the baby, and teach proper feeding techniques. Parental education can take place already at the stage of pregnancy planning. The program is designed not only for family members (dads, moms, grandmothers, etc.), but also for the child's nanny.