School psychologists help their native village

May 20, 2018 -- in the village of Kuryk in the Mangistau region, psychologists from schools, vocational colleges, and hospitals of the Karakiyansky district received diplomas on the completion of training. Seven participants in the program of professional development studied modern effective express psychotechnologies (210 hours) for 5 months.

Psychologists in educational institutions have studied legislation related to their activities, the peculiarities of a psychologist's work in an educational institution, Eriksonian technologies, and NLP methods in express psychotherapy and other techniques, and have learned to combine several psychotechnologies in one session.

This knowledge will help them solve various problems in their work as school psychologists: self-actualization, career guidance, suicide prevention, assistance to victims of violence, other psychotrauma, and negative emotions. The training was conducted with the purpose of increasing their qualifications for effective work with teachers, students, and parents. Until the end of 2018, the psychologists will continue to participate in the program; they are now waiting for monitoring and online consultations.

The training was conducted by Zhanar Danenova and Kurmantai Shurabekov, specialists from the Genesis Verae Psychotechnology Center in Almaty.

"While working in more rural areas on an educational project for more than five years, we saw that the source of much psychological trauma in children is families and schools. And then we realized that in order to help children, we need to work with adults ... During the training, psychologists, in practice, independently applied the studied psychotechnologies under the supervision of experts. They conducted about 100 sessions with children and adults aged 4 to 60 years. It turned out that all 100% were subjected to or subjected to systematic physical or psychological violence in their family or at school ... 30% had persistent suicidal tendencies that were successfully withdrawn without medication, says project manager Azhar Nurbay.

"We need to change attitudes towards children! Adults need to respect children's personalities. Nobody gave adults the right to humiliate children, to raise their voice, I'm not talking about the inadmissibility of physical punishment. We want our children to be full-fledged, creative individuals who live consciously and are responsible for their lives, which are successful and positive. With that, we need to set an example and cultivate good qualities in them, rather than deform and destroy their personality at our discretion," says Zhanar Danenova, the Director of the Genesis Verae Psychotechnology Center, a psychiatrist, narcologist, psychotherapist, medical psychologist, a child psycho-neurologist, psychologist of Ericksonian hypnosis, and NLP therapist.

"We teach that there are no bad people; only that bad things happen ... in every person there is something goo,d and the task of the psychologist is to reveal this good in every person, to make them believe in their good beginning and cultivate it in them, " added Kurmantai Shurabekov, expert of the Genesis Verae Psychotechnology Center.

According to the Rules of the Psychological Service in the Secondary Education Organizations of the Mangistau Region, approved by the Order of the Akim of the Mangistau region No. 115 of April 22, 2015, school psychologists face the following tasks:

"assistance in the personal and intellectual development of students, the formation of the ability to self-educate and self-develop; the provision of psychological assistance to students in their successful socialization in a rapidly developing information society; development of the creative potential of students; the implementation of psycho-correctional work to solve the psychological difficulties and problems of students; the protection of the mental health of students; the provision of advisory assistance to parents (or their substitute persons) and teachers in solving psychological and pedagogical problems and in the selection of optimal methods of teaching and educational work."

Now, with all these tasks fixed by the rules, school psychologists can work effectively using modern express psychotechnologies.

"With the help of humanistic psychotechnologies, we learned how to work with students who were victims of physical and psychological violence, which caused depression and suicidal tendencies. We gained a lot of experience. The fact that the children have found their place after therapy and returned to normal life -- the fact that they share their joyful events with us, motivates us very much," says Raushan Abisheva, a psychologist at School No. 6, shares her impressions.

"Both children and adults are afraid of making mistakes. After having made a mistake, they have self-doubt, fear. But it's only thanks to mistakes that a person will understand what is right. Thanks to psychotherapy, we can show people that it's normal to make mistakes, everyone has a right to do so, and that you and only you choose your own way of life," says Moldir Duisenova, a psychologist from the Karakian Vocational College.

After increasing their qualifications with the course, psychologists can improve the situation in schools, by working with teachers and students.