Psychologists struggle with depression and come to the aid of military enlistment offices

The federal registry will leave the “digital clowns” with a nose

How to provide psychological assistance to people in a period of social upheaval – this is now being talked about a lot by doctors involved in the mental health of citizens. However, the professional community itself has enough problems now, and it needs help itself.

Director of the State Budgetary Institution “Moscow Service for Psychological Assistance to the Population” Nina Petrochenko said that social psychologists conducted 56,000 consultations right in the “red zones” during the pandemic. And now they “went to the military commissariats, and the military commissars understood this.” Although such “campaigns” are not spelled out in the laws, by-laws are needed.

The professional community has been waiting for a federal law that would regulate the activities of psychologists in the Russian Federation for 30 years. And supervision, and the register, certification and system of professional attestation. However, things are still there, so the arena of psychological assistance is filled with an army of charlatans: sorcerers, magicians, astrologers, energy healers, “digital clowns”. “Wild Market”, designates it the president of the Russian Psychological Society, Yuri Zinchenko. And there is also the dominance of half-educated psychologists, among the people they call them “psycho-lugs”. Zinchenko says that he personally saw on the Web courses for training psychologists not only for 3-6 months (half a year already “systemic”), but even … a psychologist in 3 days.

In universities where they teach to be psychologists – and there are 431 of them in the Russian Federation – their own problems. And the main thing is not integrated bachelor’s and master’s programs. Especially regional universities complain about the dominance of bachelors-lawyers, food workers and nuclear physicists who go to the master’s program in psychology. They sincerely do not understand that psychology is a difficult profession, and not just talking for a lot of money.

“Many people don’t understand why psychologists take mathematics upon admission,” says the head of the Department of Pedagogy and Medical Psychology at the University. Sechenova Maria Kiseleva. – Yes, psychology works with feelings: love, soul, fears, hopes… But at the same time it is a science. Mathematical modeling and the theory of statistics are used in teaching. You have to prepare for 6 years before a graduate “goes into the fields”. If he works in medicine, the former student will also be tested for 80 questions with a test in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, patho- and neuropsychology, etc. But so far this only applies to clinical psychologists. But there are also school (the most numerous category), family, social, psychologists of the Ministry of Emergencies …

In addition to the absence of a law, there is no fixed ethical code for the provision of psychological assistance in our country. There are no criteria for confidentiality and secrecy, the age of children for independent visits is not prescribed. Nor the permissibility of using special cases from practice for the publication of scientific papers … Nothing has been done to protect the psychologist from burnout, and the client from an unscrupulous specialist. “People with mental problems sometimes come to this area, sometimes they try to solve it at the expense of the patient,” Kiseleva noted.

And the head physician of the hospital. Alekseev Georgy Kostyuk is concerned that against the background of general anxiety and depression in society, the detection rate of mental illness has fallen. The stats are good though. “The regulation of the provision of psychiatric care led to the fact that many found themselves without this help,” said Kostyuk. He added that despite the legally regulated free psychiatric care for the population, “we do not find a common language” with polyclinics and general practitioners. Like, all hope for psychologists – after all, it is morally easier for a person to go to them than to a psychiatric hospital. And all this is very important “during those very difficult events that we are witnessing.”