They talk and don't show up: how the anonymous psychological help service works
Constant stress wears out the nervous system of residents of big cities, making psychological help a vital necessity. You can get an urgent consultation with a psychologist for free by calling 051. Izvestia got acquainted with the behind-the-scenes part of the work of the psychological helpline.
12 hours on duty
A building built the century before last with a pale facade in the very center of Moscow, the same unremarkable iron door on the second floor, behind it a small security desk and an apartment with high ceilings and a corridor system with a shared kitchen and several half—empty rooms, each with several people at the same half-empty tables, some of them speak English. by phone. So, at first glance, the Moscow psychological emergency service looks very ordinary from the inside, where anyone can call 051 at any time of the day in any state of mind and receive help anonymously, free of charge, remotely and without eye contact with a psychologist.
People work here whose service is really not visible at first glance. But if you open one of the doors, you can hear a calm female voice. "How do you feel when you refuse to follow your mother's instructions? What are the sensations in the body? Let's try to touch them... Well, I didn't say it would be easy... Let's try it again. Imagine the initial situation. Here you are, and here she is..." says the psychologist. She is a middle-aged woman, and she is not alone here: six colleagues are on shift with her today, and more than 40 people work in the schedule. Their service is both dangerous and difficult, but few people realize this. After all, it is not customary for employees of the psychological service to spread the details of conversations with subscribers in the outside world. Their main condition when providing emergency psychological care at a distance is confidentiality.
This structure has been operating in Moscow since 2003. Three years later, they also created a telephone emergency psychological assistance service in remote and anonymous form. This is how Moscow got its own psychological helpline with the direct number 051. No one knows the exact number of subscribers who have called here in the almost 20-year history of work, but their account goes to millions.
Over the years, the small team has expanded to 42 full-time professional psychologists (and in total, the helpline staff consists of 54 people, along with the director and his deputies), they work night and day shifts of 12 hours each. Each psychologist receives up to 20 calls of varying duration and content per shift. On average, the service receives up to 60,000 calls a year from those in need of urgent psychological assistance.
"The number of calls does not change significantly from year to year, the dynamics change depending on the seasonality, the onset of long holidays or in connection with the onset of some negative events. For example, in covid, the number of calls to the service increased dramatically, we recorded an increase of 50 percent. We also recorded an increase in the number of calls during the terrorist attack in Crocus City last year," says Andrey Suchkov, director of the Moscow Psychological Assistance Service for the Population.
The subscriber is temporarily available
According to the practice of psychologists of the 051 service, an increase in the number of calls is usually associated with calendar holidays, the beginning of vacations, or, conversely, with the beginning of the school year. The day also has its own rush hours. From about 5 p.m. until late in the evening, the phone line is hot. Psychologists consider the evening to exacerbate depressive states, in which, as they say, they want to talk. The reason for the urgent need for communication can be anything: fear of death or fear of loneliness, the loss of a loved one or a pet.
"Mostly people call with complaints about their relatives, about their inattention and misunderstanding. Some people just can't get over their loss. There was one woman who lost her son, he died of natural causes at the age of 33, and she still could not come to terms with his passing. She called us several times and told us for a long time about her fear of entering his room, that there was a coffin with his body in front of her eyes. We listened to her without interrupting. In such an acute mental state, a person cannot adequately assess himself, you need to be very careful with him, listen, do not say too much, do not give advice and keep him on the line. The main thing is that a person in an acute psychological state does not hang up the phone. Sometimes you don't have to say anything at all, it's dangerous because. We need to prepare to listen for a long time," says the employee of the helpline.
Sometimes there are no calls, and then psychologists gather in the kitchen. They have regular conversations, but they don't discuss their subscribers among themselves. As a rule, such short tea parties are rare and do not last long. Everyone is prepared for the fact that a new call may come at any second. On the wall opposite the dining table hangs a handwritten graph with squares filled in with a marker in front of the names indicated in the column on the left. It is clear from the schedule that there are more day shifts than night shifts. There are usually 10 call reception lines per shift, and they are not the only ones you can call. For an emergency free consultation, you can contact the administrator on duty by writing to the chat.
A line for cancer patients is singled out separately. In the process, psychologists can send them to more specialized specialists — oncopsychologists.
"Such patients have high sensitivity, they catch falsehoods very clearly, so we try to catch everything they want to say from half a word. Here, as a rule, you need empathy and firmness in your voice, but no pretense, you need to be careful with such people. Suicides among such people are also possible," says the psychologist of the helpline service.
Over the past decade, the portrait of the average subscriber has not undergone drastic changes, and their average age is still 35-45 years old. However, according to psychologists, in recent years, young people aged 19-20 have become more likely to call.
"There are more men among the callers, which is surprising, since on average two thirds of callers are women, but men have been calling more often lately. No matter what happens, subscribers are more concerned about "world problems", why they are treated the way they are, why the partner left, why the boss behaves the way he does, and not otherwise. Mothers complain about their children's behavior, children complain about their mothers, and lovers complain about each other, and nothing changes over the years," says another psychologist.
Always on duty
How to talk to a stressed caller is the most tricky question that many of the current 051 psychologists were asked at the interview stage. Not all applicants respond immediately in detail, but this is not so critical.
"As a rule, over time, we add to such education courses in remote psychological counseling, which I happened to take after I got employed here, it was 13 years ago," says one of the psychologists of the 051 service.
Additional education for employees of the helpline service is a necessary thing. After all, the work of a psychologist is stressful, it requires empathy, stress tolerance, kindness, self-regulation skills and a calm voice from the applicant. They should feel the subscriber's condition from the very first seconds, gently involve him in the conversation. In such courses, future psychologists of the helpline are taught to "talk" to a "silent" subscriber, or a subscriber who is trying to joke instead of discussing a problem, or an insecure person who avoids direct questions. There are a lot of such subtleties. In turn, remote counseling gives an advantage to the psychologist himself. For example, he can end a conversation with an aggressive subscriber at any moment, politely saying goodbye, or carefully, without psychological pressure, collect information about the subscriber's plans to commit suicide or even kill another person, and then transfer his contacts to law enforcement agencies or the Ministry of Emergency Situations. But this happens much less often than exhausting conversations about human life and loneliness.
Working as a psychologist in a telephone service is a very stressful business. Personal data of psychologists is strictly confidential. To avoid emotional overload, 051 employees undergo supervision twice a month, where they sort out their own psychological problems due to emotional overload associated with work.
"All people's problems overlap in general terms, some stories trigger, and you start to feel stressed, too. Some stories just can't get out of my head, it's also exhausting, then you become a psychologist's patient. For example, I remember one caller who called constantly, complaining about his beloved woman, a relationship with whom has been going on for years. It seemed to the caller that she had grown cold to him, he was looking for reasons, weighing them, I listened, we tried to find a solution... And I realized that I was in a bad mood. But the supervision helped. They began to sort it out, they found my old story, which had been bothering them for a long time. Such situations help us to work on ourselves," says the psychologist of the 051 service.
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