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!
Interviewed by Leonid Shokh
Photos courtesy of Anton Kulikovich