Psychologists have often turned to colleagues for professional support.

About 30.5% of psychologists seek supervision — professional support from colleagues — because of their work with clients' traumatic experiences. The analysts of the online psychotherapy service Yasno told Izvestia about this on April 23.

According to the study, psychologists most often seek help in choosing a therapy strategy (72% of cases) and in case of deadlocks in working with patients (70%). Half of the respondents face the problem of transference — when a client unconsciously reacts to a psychologist as a significant person from his past (for example, as a parent). There is also the problem of countertransference, when a psychologist unwittingly transfers his personal experiences to a client.

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"Supervision is important not only for the therapist, but also for the client. Knowing that someone is working with you who continues to learn and develop increases confidence in the process," said Ekaterina Artemenko, a practicing psychologist, gestalt therapist and supervisor, community director of the Yasno service.

In addition, it turned out that 40% of psychologists seek advice because of client resistance, 26.5% - because of doubts about their own competence. Issues of professional boundaries (23.2%), burnout (12.2%), and ethical dilemmas (9.9%) are less frequently discussed.

The respondents admitted that formal requests often conceal the need for emotional support and professional verification of working methods.

Earlier, on March 5, Sergey Martynov, a psychotherapist, founder of the International Institute of Psychosomatic Health, and a teacher of the CBT course, told Izvestia about ways to prevent burnout and depression. He explained that burnout doesn't happen overnight. It is the result of a long-term internal conflict that leads to discomfort and problems at work.

The associated causes may be constant overexertion, lack of rest, chaos in the work process, a toxic atmosphere, as well as adjusting to the demands of management or the team, which are perceived as unfair and meaningless.