Psychological assistance by phone around the clock. Where to go for psychological help? Eastern Administrative District

The story of the appearance of the world's first telephone of psychological assistance is connected with the USA of the beginning of the twentieth century, where once at night a Protestant priest Harry Warren rang the phone. The caller begged for a meeting, explaining that his situation was hopeless. Awakened and irritated priest replied that he would listen to the poor fellow tomorrow at church, in the morning. And in the morning it became known that the caller had committed suicide. Struck by this situation, the priest in a local newspaper printed an ad: "Before you die, call me at any time of the day." The first “official” helpline was launched in the fifties in London. Since then, helplines have been operating all over the world.

Now, helplines (and especially psychological assistance telephones) are a very important social initiative. As a rule, it is necessary to take advantage of the opportunity to receive psychological counseling in times of crisis or when experiencing emergency situations in life. It is almost impossible to imagine how this or that person will behave, being in a state of stress, extreme circumstances. That is why it is very important to popularize information about the very possibility of receiving emergency psychological assistance. After all, it’s far from everyone, alas, when experiencing difficult moments, it occurs to me to turn for psychological help, albeit remote.

The most vulnerable segments of the population are, of course, children, adolescents, women (who are statistically more likely to be victims of domestic or sexual violence). Sometimes, being in a psychologically unfavorable, stressful environment, which does not make it possible to “break out,” full-time psychological help becomes simply inaccessible or unattainable, namely telephone counseling is the only way to get help in overcoming the problem.

Telephone counseling has a number of basic principles that are steadily observed by the organizers of all such services:

• anonymity   both the caller and the consultant: the subscriber is not obliged to either give his real name or other personal data. The phone number is also not fixed, which is designed to increase the degree of mutual safety of the interlocutors;
• tolerance,that, whatever the views of the subscriber, they are in no way condemned and criticized;
• confidentiality   It is designed to ensure complete closeness of the information received by the consultant from third parties, and any statistical information collections (nature of the problem, gender, age) are maximally anonymized;
• conversation managementbelongs primarily to the subscriber who can stop the conversation at any time.

What specialists work in these services?

First of all, these are, in some cases, volunteers (volunteers) who have passed special training. The work of consultants is accompanied by supervisors - highly qualified psychologists or psychiatrists who help to form and improve counseling skills, conduct training sessions and adjust the work in general.

The main purpose of telephone counseling is to provide primary psychological assistance. Further, if necessary, specialists can provide information on the possibility of receiving, for example, narcological and psychiatric care, including anonymous.

Attention: services for further psychiatric or narcological care may be provided for a fee. Specify details by phone.

Phones of psychological assistance

A free round-the-clock “Emergency psychological assistance telephone” is open for Moscow - 051