Socio-Cultural Foundations of Psychological Counseling and Psychotherapy: Russian Approach

Abstract

The present article is devoted to the problem of the influence of socio-cultural norms, values, mentality on the formation of one or another approach to psychological counseling and psychotherapy. It is emphasized that the understanding emerging in modern cross-cultural psychology that, in essence, all known counseling approaches and psychotherapies are indigenous is not without foundation. The movement to create indigenous psychologies is analyzed as a reaction to ideological and theological postulates with a focus exclusively on the contingent of Western clients (WEIRD - White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) - Protestants by religion, individualists by life orientations and more and more inclined to nomadic lifestyle. In this regard, using the methods of psychosemantics, the basic structures of the Russian mentality are reconstructed, arising from the Russian religious and philosophi cal tradition and classical culture, and the socio-cultural foundations of the indigenous Russian approach to psychological assistance are revealed. Particular attention is paid to the essential understanding of the Russian tradition of psychological assistance as, first of all, work with interpersonal relationships and mental states induced by them, in contrast to the broader context of determinants that condition the pathologization of the psyche. An example sample of the consultative Protocol is provided. The approach is called “ethical personalism”. The position is defended according to which ethical personalism provides an opportunity for a deeper, essen tial understanding of what is happening in interpersonal relationships, since it is rooted to the oldest known from the Bible conflict between people, described as the “Abel-Cain” relationship. And also it is based on the absolute ban on human sacrifice, including in a figurative, metaphorical, sense, which goes back to the ancient Persian Avesta and is enshrined in the Byzantine version of Christian ity, which is the basis of Classical Russian culture.