Horoscope gives placebo effect

Whether it is necessary to take into account the religion of the spouse in marriage, whether it is worth believing in horoscopes and what couples can keep the relationship, told the host of “Pravda.ru” Igor Booker clinical and family psychologist Olesya Pokusaeva.

- In smaller cities, it really makes a strong difference. In megacities like Moscow, New York, Hong Kong, where everything is mixed up, it rubs off. Yesterday I was traveling with a woman from Dagestan who said that her son is categorically against marrying a Dagestani Muslim woman. That is, he grew up in Moscow, his roots are already cut off, and there is no intimacy with Muslim women. Here he has already gotten used to socializing with Russian girls. They are, he says, more free, not uptight.

If people live in one common religion, there is no need to prove to the other person that it is right or wrong. Of course, if it is sincere, if the boy or girl grew up with it, absorbed the religion. It is often superficial: oh, let's go to get married, a beautiful rite, an additional event. Christenings are also a trendy topic, but how are godparents chosen? When I was chosen to be a godparent, the godparents arranged a conversation with me for a week, so that I could think whether I was ready for it morally.

- I have a positive attitude to everything, but the other issue is, as you rightly said, that there are a lot of charlatans. If we open the horoscope for the same day in the newspaper in the morning, then somehow everything suddenly works out for us. And if we put this horoscope aside and open it a week later, and look at how my Tuesday was going, it turns out that somehow it is not so. If all this is competently calculated, even the hour of birth affects there, in what place you were born, then, of course, it can help people. However, God assumes and man disposes. If a person sincerely believes in it, there is a placebo effect. If a woman believes that she will meet a billionaire, she will at least go to parties where billionaires are present. Therefore, a horoscope can give a lot.

- Yes, a huge number of appeals. At one time there were a lot of divorces in China after the quarantine, and in our country too. I had a couple who had been married for over 20 years, and the self-isolation made them see who they were living with. Before that, they would come home in the evening, have dinner, watch something, cross paths sometime on the weekend, sometimes on vacation. And suddenly they realized what a partner was really like, that a lot of things didn't match and they didn't want to live together. The positive effect is that people started to pay attention to themselves, their adult partners, their children.

Who I live with, why I live - these are questions people often don't ask. In small towns there is such a thing: you have to get married. If this age used to be 19-20, now it is already 25-26. And why? Maybe it is good for her to live alone?

- Sometimes there is a habit, an established relationship. More marriages are destroyed by women than by men, they are more determined. Men often think: here is something established, not perfect, but here it is. Couples come in where both want to keep the relationship. So they need a change, a new look, and then it's real. when one of the couple wants to, and the other doesn't want to, it's always an interesting effect.

I had a couple sit for three and a half hours in counseling, the husband begging for us to save the marriage. We talked, I asked questions. At the end he stands up and says, “I get it, we're never going to live together.” I just asked the same questions, he says, “I couldn't get an answer to them for years. How were you able to?” Me: “But I'm just wondering, I'm not conflicted.” And that was already his decision. He realized that, indeed, they had become little in common, even though they had children. Keeping the relationship alive for the sake of the kids? The kids will never say thank you. They see what goes on in the family. Many grew up and say: we saw everything, why did you torture yourself and us.

Another couple came to me, the woman said it was impossible to live with him, he was a terrible man. I said, “Maybe we could persuade the husband to come? I would listen to his position.” The husband came, and she said, “Listen, it turns out we still have so much in common.” Because to a person, because of the experience, everything seems black. Our brains are so organized that we are more focused on the negative, and we push away the positive. So when couples come in, I say, “Tell me, what are the good things about your partner?” People who have more good things start listing them:

• beautiful eyes
• cooks well
• I love more

And others, sometimes, just hang on: they don't know what is good. That is, there is already so much negativity that even beautiful eyes they can no longer see. Such marriages are difficult to save, it is better to go for divorce.

- They say the same thing to me: you've written so many books, maybe by your books?

I say: in a book you give general recommendations, they may not work for a particular person. That is why personal recommendations work faster and more effectively than any book. At the same time, one cannot deny the usefulness of any books and articles. But sometimes it is much more effective when a person or a couple comes and gets the direction for themselves.