Galina Savchenko, psychoanalyst and business consultant, founder and head of the Crisis Center, chairman of the Ethics Committee of the International Organization of Coaches and Consultants, training psychoanalyst and supervisor of the European Confederation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, founder of the ‘World without War’, psychology and counseling forum.
I am very passionate about my career as I believe that psychoanalysis is a gentle way to introduce some change in personality thus changing the world. I am close to the idea of a feminine, soft influence on a world full of conflicts and lacking unity!
This is exactly what I do in my work as a psychoanalyst and this is the idea that I embody in my social projects. The individuality of a person is as a way of communication with the world, individuality as a mild way of influence leading to a change in the general picture of the world.
Quote:
“Happiness for all! And let no one leave offended " This is a quote from a novel "Roadside Picnic " by mythic Russian writers The Strugatsky.
It defines precisely my idea of soft influence through the disclosure of the unique individuality of a man. I defined my way of influencing the world through a ‘Being a Muse’ way of influence.
A muse is a source to everyone! Female power, intellect, ability to listen and accept, not to depreciate, but to support, to believe and to fill. These are the strategies of Muses, as inspiring feminine.
My story
I was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersbourg), in the family of intellectual class, a co-called ‘Soviet intelligentsia’. Our family was traditional, that is the main life task of a woman was to have children, to keep the house clean and to care for her husband. A well-educated, healthy and beautiful woman becomes a wife, an important part of the life of her husband. It was in these traditions that my brother and I were brought up: a daughter at a music school, a boy at a cadet corps. I was taught to obey the “father's law” and to be number two: to suppress my individuality and always meet the expectations of my husband and social standards.
But one should not take it as a drama, as it was the reality for all women from middle-class families of that period. Therefore, when in the wake of Perestroika and the destruction of totalitarian morality, I decided to leave my husband - it was an ACT!
I guess I would never have dared to do this if it were not my spouse. He, intoxicated with freedom and sexual revolution, abandoned me and our daughter in a family bunkhouse. No permanent job, luck of money and a completely hopeless future!
My parents were categorically against our separation, and believed that this was a destiny of women to endure and suffer, and the only way she can save the family and achieve happiness. It was then that psychoanalysis entered my life. I was walking down the street, I saw the Institute of Psychoanalysis - I went in by curiosity and stayed in this profession for the rest of my life!
My second husband was a businessman. He has learned me to love and respect my individuality, to be proud of my achievements, even if they did not fit into the family context. He allowed me to go beyond the social stereotypes taking my own course, even if it went against social expectations. Living and developing with him, I tried to sit "on two chairs": to be an exemplary wife and to develop my own self. But this marriage ended in failure. "Bolivar will not make two". Whatever a man is, he always builds a relationship through domination and suppression. And as soon as a wife, as an individual, grows up and begins to make progress and build a career, the unconscious male pattern of repression and depreciation begins to work. My husband asked me to make a choice: the family or my work and career without him! My father then told me: “Give up your psychoanalysis, you have such a wealthy and good husband! Cook him soups, as he asks, accompany and decorate his life, and you will be like cheese in butter! ” I hesitated for a long time, but again life decided itself. As in the first case, the 2d husband left us with our daughter to live with someone else. It was hard to start a new life at 47. It was then that I realized that individuality and investment in personal development is the main way to interact with people, the opportunity to move forward, create and change the world. It was then that I realized that the power of a woman is in her unique individuality that changes the world by the mere fact of her existence. It was then that I felt and accepted the fact of my weakness and felt it as part of female strength. I realized that you can change your life and the space around you not only through phallic force and phallic rivalry, but through unification, acceptance of otherness and joint creativity.
Career:
I started my adult life as a music teacher. My parents predicted my career as a pianist, but I always knew it was not my path. I was interested in people, their life stories and their individual way of building relationships and changing the world. People are like flowers. Many are born and die "buds" and it is a great happiness to understand that you can help such a "bud" reach its potential and fill the world with your fragrance.
At the time when I was growing up and choosing my own path and profession, there was no psychoanalysis in the USSR, since Freud and his psychoanalysis were forbidden. I chose my psychoanalysis and went on this path as a mature person, after perestroika, when the Institute of Psychoanalysis appeared in St. Petersburg on the sprouts of a new freedom. It was then that I realized that psychoanalysis is my way and I want to follow this path to help people, to be a source of change and creativity.
Future challenges:
Women in Russia, even having more opportunities after perestroika, unconsciously live in a split state. As before, social stereotypes and parental family attitudes orient women not to develop her own individuality, but to suppress her.
Of course, for a modern woman there are many options and opportunities, but women's happiness and women's succes are still measured by the ruler of three K.
And the absence of a man, a family and children is still a sign of women's unhappiness and failure.
There is another type of women who deny the feminine in themselves and choose the male, phallic way of building life, through depreciation and domination. And thereby unconsciously devalue the feminine and the feminine way to influence the world.
One of the tasks of the future, as I see it: to help women return to themselves, to accept the feminine principle and feminine weakness as strength, and stop copying the masculine method of control and influence.
In the male world, weakness is synonymous with an outsider. In the female world it is different. Women should be given the opportunity to believe in themselves and their own opportunities, teach them not to be afraid to reveal their individuality towards the world and be proud of themselves and their way of living and changing the world.
Future global impact:
Psychoanalysis is always a look that is directed to the future from the present.
The Old Testament and religious dogmas (which have firmly entered the consciousness of modern man) form attitudes that a woman originated from the rib of a man and therefore is only part of a large male world, number two, and should correspond to such a restrictive attitude. It is like a glass ceiling, which every time a woman stays on, choosing an independent path of development.
Accepting female individuality, and the fact that women are different from men, that they do not need to prove or confirm their right to this difference, as well as their own female way to build a successful and happy life is the main vector of movement into the future. Soft power, through the disclosure of individuality, rather than rivalry and domination. I believe that the main task is to start talking positively about our female features. Create a “source” of support to which any of us can refer. Being weak and feminine, beautiful and successful, building a happy family life and having children - that does not mean being number two! But trying to be number one, competing with men for a dominant place, is also a dead end. Partnership, mutual assistance, and freedom in choosing their own path of self-determination as a way of global female influence.
Happiness to everyone! And let no one leave offended.
