CONVERSATION OF A YOUNG MAN WITH A PSYCHIATR
Kulikovich Anton Yurievich, PhD (PhD in Law) — psychiatrist, psychotherapist, who has completed an 11-year practical school of Russian psychiatry and a 4-year practical and scientific school of foreign psychiatry. I have a number of scientific articles and publications.
My experience of treating more than 3 thousand patients in individual therapy and more than 5 thousand patients in inpatient practice forms the basis of my professional approach. I am the author of specialized lecture programs that increase the level of understanding of problems in the field of processes that affect humans and humanity as a whole.
DIALOGUE OF A YOUNG MAN WITH A PSYCHIATR
How important is the result to you when you work with patients, and how is it measured?
And from the state of despondency and despair, in which almost every first person who comes across now lives, comes out into pure positive feelings that every person is able to experience 90% of the time.
And what percentage of the population, in your opinion, have reached such a «positive» state?
Wow… You squeezed me against the wall, of course! The percentage is extremely minimal… It’s easier for me to answer the question what is the main secret of the universe… The only thing that can be said good about this is that in our society there are much fewer liars who will say that they have reached this state, in contrast to Western and Eastern societies, where it is customary to lie on this topic. In the west, people are masked by their success in career growth, material wealth, while in the east, people will brag about their hermitage.
Do you work mainly with the seriously ill or ordinary people?
80% of the people who come to me are ordinary people who want to become better, happier and more successful.
There is an opinion that psychiatry is for schizophrenics. How can it be useful for an ordinary mentally healthy person?
My help to such people is offered in the form of mentoring. In the first session, we take a «cake», where each segment is responsible for a sphere of life. Then we honestly prescribe from zero to one hundred satisfaction in each area. After that, we set a goal to achieve 70-80% in each of them.
Here we are not talking about seriously mentally ill patients at all. This whole project is aimed at the most serious work on oneself, which implies the achievement of a result. I do not accept every person to this project, because not everyone is ready make such amount of effort.
Cannot the psychiatrist do all the work for the patient?
Only a sorcerer can do all the work for you, not a psychiatrist. Thanks to my competence, I give a person a guarantee that within a certain period of time we will achieve our goal. Very often, work is done with more than just one person.
Also, similar courses are held with top managers of companies, thanks to which many problems can be solved. And from my experience, there are no ideal companies that would not benefit from such experience.
Anton, you once said that at the time of growing up, physical separation from the parents is an entirely necessary stage on the child’s maturity journey. Not everyone has the material opportunity to move from their parents. What to do?
Everyone has an opportunity. You can rent an apartment relatively inexpensively. There is an “empty refrigerator effect”. And the boy turns into a man. Such decisions turn a boy into a man.
Often people say, «Be yourself!» How to become «who you really are»?
It is better to remain silent here. There is no quick answer to the question «How to become yourself?» Usually advice like “be yourself” is dominant tyrannical advice. «Be yourself and not a step to the side!» Throughout life, you can open yourself in the present in some new aspects and feelings. This kind of search is very worthy and it takes years.
How do you feel about dedicating your life to a particular cause, as a tool for finding yourself? For example, a musician.
In general, I have deep respect for people who are sincerely ready to say that they are wholeheartedly devoted to their work. It is also important to understand the impact your business will have on the world around you. There is a lot of music that would be better off at all.
Music about hatred, about revenge. There are people who are offended at the whole world, at all of humanity. And such people begin to pour these feelings into music. If you read the lyrics of some of the songs, there will be only hatred towards other people.
If such music resonates with the people who listen to it, does it mean there is something good in it?
The point is that people hate themselves. Therefore, such music responds to people. And those who hate themselves get a mazachistic thrill from this. Therefore, it is so important to understand how, in the moral sense, your work affects people. I am for socially responsible creativity, that is, for the Pure.
Quite often people come to such fields as psychiatry as a result of a way of overcoming personal trauma. How did you get interested in this sphere?
I don’t have a superhero story like Spider-Man who was bitten by a spider in the laboratory. I was just interested in this direction from my youth, and started going to various psychological trainings on personal growth and so on.
But when I got on an internship in psychiatry, I realized what rubbish was presented everywhere before. And then I had a deep desire to do this business deeper. Psychiatry carries Knowledge with a capital letter. This is the wisdom of understanding life. It’s all about understanding. First and last.
Do you think that everyone can become a psychiatrist with proper education?
No. It requires a calling. There should be a deep feeling of love and inspiration for this business. Anyone can reach the level of a psychiatrist who prescribes medicines for patients, but not everyone is destined to become a creator.
THE DIFFERENCE
Psychiatry is an integral medical system of knowledge about the human soul, which allows solving problems of any complexity.
Psychiatrist:
- Always a doctor who completed 6 years of study at the Medical Academy and 2 years of psychiatric internship.
- Huge experience in mental hospital hell.
- Legal law and legal responsibility. All state diplomas, certificates and licenses necessary for the provision of therapeutic care.
- The moral right to help others, because only professionals should help.
- Deals with the psyche of both sick and healthy people.
Psychiatrists are of 2 specializations:
- Narrow-profile, pharmacological. That is, they treat only seriously ill patients and only with medication.
- Full-fledged. Psychiatrist + psychotherapist. This implies the ability to provide assistance both medically and in words, depending on the individual situation.
Clinical psychology is the diagnostic alphabet of psychiatry without therapeutic potential. Clinical psychologists are our assistants in mental hospitals.
Psychotherapy is the general name for many methods that help a person with a word.
Psychotherapist:
- Not always a doctor.
- You can become a Psychotherapist in a couple of months by completing almost any course.
- Lack of responsibility.
- Sometimes there are shiny nuggets.
Psychology is the general name for a group of modern approaches to influencing the human psyche. It emerged as a discipline separate from psychiatry in the «era of marketing».
Psychologist:
- No medical education.
- You can become in a couple of months by completing almost any course.
- Lack of responsibility.
- You can become after graduating from the Faculty of Psychology and get the legal right to test people.
- Lack of therapeutic potential.
*Only a doctor can treat. Be careful, friends!
What can you say about the reaction of hatred towards Russia?
The reaction of hatred is the response of people pushed to the brink of despair, to the very edge where death is the only thing beyond it. Is it a natural reaction? Partially.
In this case, hatred is the result of people’s desire to live, having spent all their resources in pursuit of peace at any cost. But on the other hand, this reaction also reveals deep helplessness and powerlessness.
That’s why my recommendation is to take all that energy of hatred and fear and channel it into your own survival and the survival of your loved ones. It’s no coincidence that sages from different corners of the world, especially from the East, say that love will save the world.
Love excludes hatred. When we replace hatred with love, we shift the vector of our energy toward higher vibrations.
This way, people will be much more productive during wartime compared to those who thirst for blood and revenge like cannibals. In that state, you won’t help anyone, and you won’t be able to save yourself, either.
What advice can you give to people during wartime to maintain calm and avoid anxiety?
Avoiding anxiety during war is impossible, and it’s not even necessary. The key is to redirect the energy of fear and anxiety. I recommend Aikido. You must have a goal that extends beyond the war. For example, prosperity or a happy life with your family. That goal must always be in front of you. Then, you will radiate the energy of love rather than hatred.
What is the connection between a person’s physical health and their emotional state?
Psychiatry is about balance, where the norm is the golden mean. Taking care of your body is, of course, normal. The human body is the most complex mechanism in the universe, consisting of body, psyche, and spirit.
Psychiatry deals with the unity of these three parts of a person. Therefore, taking care of the body is important. However, excessive obsession with a healthy lifestyle and sports can trap a person in pride and self-worship, which is pure egocentrism.
Why does this attract people?
Because people compensate for their fears, anxieties, and unresolved psychological problems with an obsession with their bodies. That’s why taking care of the body without fanaticism is the right approach.
In our society, famous figures who have achieved success in sports and other fields are idolized and idealized. Yet many of them are deeply unhappy, and the rates of drug addiction and suicide in these circles are extremely high. What are they missing? After all, they seem to have achieved everything one could envy. For example, world boxing champion Tyson Fury fell into severe depression and wanted to end his life immediately after winning the world championship title.
When we envy people, we only see the tip of the iceberg. Sports and happiness are parallel lines — they never intersect. Happiness is the highest human need. Now, translate the word «box» from English.
Box.
Why is that?
Because in a box, you have two enraged scorpions attacking each other. In the past, when intelligence was valued in Japan, Aikido was a martial art practiced by samurai and generals. Meanwhile, street brawling was for soldiers and slaves.
People dedicate their entire lives from childhood just to receive a medal. And in the end, where does it lead? To disappointment, because a person who has the ability to think will eventually start asking: «And what was the point of it all?»
I remember that you have a very negative view of modern psychological methods. Can you give an example of how going to a psychologist could harm a person?
Let me answer the following question: Do you value your time?
Yes.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how much?
10.
Great. Now imagine that two years of your life have been taken from you. And not just wasted to nothing, but filled with superficial nonsense. Any thinking person should understand that our world has depth.
Do you feel that the meaning of life is more than just reproduction, sleep, and food? Unfortunately, for many people, that’s all it is. And there are specialists who will convince a person that the true meaning of life is just to eat well, sleep well, work somewhere, and have children.
Are you saying that someone who goes to a psychologist with depression could actually worsen their condition this way?
What do you think is the biggest danger of depression?
The risk of suicide.
Exactly. On average, it takes a person suffering from depression between 3 and 15 years to reach suicide. If an unqualified specialist interferes, that time can be cut in half. That is essentially murder. There are a huge number of people suffering from depression. The statistics are terrifying. Depression is a suppression of emotions.
Is there a common cause of depression that is present in all patients?
In my opinion, depression is caused by a guilty conscience. But this applies only to adults.
Do you consider 18 years old to be adulthood?
In our culture, people remain «children» until around 25. Our society does not require young men and women to possess adult skills from an early age. In African cultures, by the age of 10, boys were already considered men. They could build a house and hunt down an elephant on their own. If you didn’t grow up by that age, a tiger in the jungle would eat you, and what do we have? Video games until 45.
Do you see this change in our society as degradation? After all, in our society, intelligence is valued much more.
Ancient natural cultures were, first and foremost, human-centered — contrary to Hollywood propaganda, which portrays them as primitive cannibals. Why was human life always their highest value? The survival and birth of healthy offspring depended 100% on the physical — and especially the mental — health of society.
Modern technogenic culture only pretends to value human beings. In reality, a person is valuable only as a commodity in a society of relentless consumption, where at the top of the hierarchy sits the true cannibal.
You previously mentioned that depression is a disease of a guilty conscience. Are there completely unscrupulous people who are incapable of falling into depression?
A totally unscrupulous person — this is actually the goal and aspiration of many successful people: to reach a state where nothing bothers them, where they can do whatever they want, stepping over anyone, and simply not caring about anything. But at that point, they are no longer human.
A person completely devoid of conscience loses their humanity. And then the question arises: «What makes you human?» Falling into depression can make a person listen to their conscience, but it’s important that they come out of it quickly.
The golden mean is always essential, including when it comes to conscience. One extreme is the utterly unscrupulous person who is even proud of it. The other extreme is someone just as unscrupulous but trying to hide it.
This is the realm of the hypocrite. Such people present themselves as saints, engage in charity, and pretend to have high moral standards. This is vanity disguised as philanthropy. You see it everywhere today. It is hypocrisy because in order to help others, you must first help yourself.
Only after becoming a master in track and field do I have the right to teach others track and field — not the other way around. The first extreme is full of businessmen, while the second is full of their wives.
I think we can also add that almost all clergy fall into the second category.
Yes, absolutely.
People often believe that having a conscience means being weak. Do weakness and conscience have anything in common? And why are they confused?
Conscience is the quality that separates a person from a cannibal. It is the hallmark of a strong individual, someone willing to consistently correct their mistakes and uphold moral principles.
Do you use harsh methods in your work with patients?
Yes, naturally, when appropriate. I am not kind. I believe kindness is indistinguishable from deceit and hypocrisy. Kindness and evil are two unhealthy extremes. The harshest method I use with my patients is simply telling them the truth. And sometimes, that is harsher than a slap in the face. But it is only used for those who are ready. Most mental illnesses exist because people live in complete self-deception.
How do you determine when someone is ready for this?
First, when they ask for it themselves, other times, it is necessary when a person is intoxicated by their own lies, and only this can help them. For example, a man drinks half a liter of wine every evening. He has a six-year-old son, whom he has also taught to drink with him every night.
The child becomes addicted to alcohol from an early age. It destroys his brain. This father needed an urgent wake-up call. And in reality, these kinds of things happen in many families. People just don’t dig deep enough. Everything is hidden, concealed, masked. And then, ten years later, everything falls apart, and they run for help.
And if, as you say, the entire world suffers from mental disorders, how can one live in such a world?
You have to be a beacon in this world, and maybe I can inspire you to become one.
What is the role of such a beacon?
To be human and to be a light in the darkness.
Photos provided by Anton Kulikovich
