Task organization of the psychologist’s professional activity

Abstract

The paper provides a theoretical analysis and reveals the constructive potential of the task-based organization of a psychologist’s professional activity in his/her systematic counseling work with a client, in which the latter goes through a four-stage cyclic-actual path of personal definition of a traumatic life problem as his/her own internal task: first, awareness of its subject and requirements, then its redefinition and redefinition, and finally its independent formulation as a purely personal one. In particular, it is proved that from the standpoint of the task approach, any activity can be interpreted as a series of continuously solvable tasks that can be faced by a person in the form of some action (a simple task); a situation that requires searching for connections between previously known information and unknown information, and thus obtaining some new knowledge (a thinking task), or a situation that, although it contains certain initial data, the person who solves it still does not know how to achieve the desired result (a problem task). It is from the standpoint of the latter definition that the personal request made by a client to a professional psychologist is considered. It is argued that it is the complex internal mechanism of transforming a problematic situation into a problematic task that is the “starting point” that separates a simple feeling of internal discomfort about the difficult life situation experienced by the client from his or her action activity, which, as a result of his or her own efforts, leads him or her to the desired answer. It has been determined that the central stage of this complex path is the process of a person’s internal acceptance of an external task as an internal (self) task, which can either be independently realized by the person at a certain time or recognized and approved with outside help (from a partner, loved one, friend, colleague, etc.). Therefore, it is the professional psychological support of such transformational changes that a psychologist must cope with when providing assistance to a client. The study found that in the process of such problematic dialogic interaction, which is the main channel of counseling or therapeutic practice, the person in need redefines and redefines the previously set task. In addition, the following scientific fact has been established: in order for an externally formed problem situation to become an internally accepted task for a person and eventually find its solution, it must go through four main stages: awareness (of the subject and requirements), its redefinition and redefinition up to the independent formulation of a new, purely personal task, which already contains more additional initial data (causes, means, probable consequences, etc.) and a set of possible options for an acceptable solution.