Mikhail, you recently participated in the STS show “Supermomochka”. What was your role in that project?

My role is complex. Firstly, I comment on the actions of the heroines. Secondly, they ask me questions about their lives, children, relationships with children. But not about food and cleanliness, and I don’t understand that. Plus, I evaluate them: I can give ten points to the mother who I consider the winner, and this can affect the final result. Interestingly, mothers themselves also rate each other. That is, one participant determines how well the other cooks, whether she cleans cleanly, or whether she is a good parent.

How different are the heroines on the show? Or are they similar in many ways?

It seems to me that our heroines are a cross-section of the Russian family. Firstly, many are raising children without husbands. But according to statistics, 54% of families in Russia are single-parent. Secondly, what is not accepted in European countries is welcome here. But in general, they are completely different: it could be a DJ in a nightclub, a ballet dancer, a housewife, a scientist. They have different relationships with life, children and husbands (who, of course, have them).

Maybe someone was particularly memorable?

Television is television, and I find myself participating in the entertainment process. But I am also a psychologist, so for me the most memorable and interesting thing is when, in the process of communication, a mother changes her attitude towards life and the child. This is what I remember the most.

You said that you rated mothers based on whether their children were happy. What is happiness for you? And is there any universal way to it?

Happiness for me is a state that occurs infrequently (it is simply impossible to be happy all the time), but it is wonderful. The path to it is very simple and clear. Only people with a light psyche can be happy: not heavy, not confused, not overloaded with dialogues and monologues in their heads. Unfortunately, happiness is not available to people with feelings of resentment, anger, and humiliation. But this is exactly what psychologists help with - to become “easier”.

Do you have an easy character?

It became lighter than it was before. When the character was difficult, I was not happy. The heaviness of character does not make it possible to enjoy life.

You started your career more than 30 years ago. Psychologists were probably not popular in those years. How has the situation changed during this time?

When I started working at the school (I was a student then), the director did not know what to do with me. The bet was 69 rubles, but what to do? At that time there was no manual from the Ministry of Education, no one wrote what a psychologist should actually do. Today there are psychologists in almost every school.

Today, of course, we are visiting psychologists more often. Why? Because television, radio, magazines - everyone talks about it. And people began to see this as an opportunity to improve their quality of life. Without a psychologist, of course, you won’t die, but you’re unlikely to be happy either. The point is not how long you live, but how happy your life will be. People began to understand that it was possible to get rid of fears and anxiety, and over the years the level of culture of psychology has increased. And this is a big role of television.

In general, is the topic of psychology a good basis for a television project?

I view television as entertainment, so I don’t like programs that “load”: when psychologists take out a patient’s brain, the patient takes out the psychologist’s brain, the viewer takes out the brain, everyone takes out each other’s brain. But, as a rule, neurotic viewers love to watch this.

For example, in the series “Psychotherapy”, patients come to the hero-therapist, tell him everything that is happening in their lives, and this is what the series consists of. I turned it off in the second episode because I don’t want to watch people break, kill, and cry. I love watching funny programs about the same psychologists.

Is it true that every psychologist is a shoemaker without boots, and he needs his own psychologist?

It is a misconception that psychologists are healthier than patients. Usually they are even more confused.

As for how psychologists are doing with their psychologists. Firstly, psychologists, as a rule, are people with problems, otherwise they would not want to hear about other people’s troubles for money. By studying psychology, they also solve their own problem. I also started with this, but I managed to break out of this circle, reducing the problems to a minimum. And you know, I immediately became uninterested in working as a psychologist. I switched to lectures and now see very few clients.

In the West, you simply won’t be given a license as a psychologist until another psychologist confirms that you spent the required number of hours with him

Secondly, all over the world, psychologists are required to attend supervision: to lay out their problems to another psychologist, so as not to shift them onto their patients. For example, in the film “My Best Lover,” Uma Thurman’s 40-year-old heroine goes to a psychologist and talks about her affair with a 20-year-old guy. And the psychologist played by Meryl Streep suddenly realizes that this is her son, but cannot say anything, because she is a psychologist and provides help. She has to go to her supervisor and, sobbing, talk about her misfortune.

Moreover, in the West, you simply will not be given a license as a psychologist until another psychologist confirms that you spent a certain number of hours with him. This is not the case in Russia. They walk, but not much.

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Letter from the editor-in-chief

It’s done: when making material about the trends of the new season, we removed the spread about leopard print, because “it’s clear that it’s super fashionable and is repeated from season to season.” However, a lot is repeated from season to season, we have written about this more than once - we just have to take and mix the fashionable ingredients at our own discretion. This is both easy and difficult at the same time. Get used to creating fashion together with designers!

In general, everything happens for the first time in life. Preparing for a meeting with the outrageous psychologist Mikhail Labkovsky, I first became acquainted with his rather cynical rules, the first of which says: “Do only what you want.” What nonsense, I thought, how is this just what you want? I began to remember my life step by step and realized that I did a lot of things exactly as I wanted, contrary to generally accepted dogmas and rules. What is most important is that in these cases everything turned out very interesting. Sometimes even too much, but let’s skip the details. In short, these words should not be taken too literally. We are talking about freedom, internal and external, and this, in ours and not ours, and in general at any time, has always been the highest value. We tie ourselves hand and foot with unnecessary obligations and non-existent debts, we are afraid to “make a sound” where we should shout; on the other hand, we issue too long exculpatory texts where we simply need to answer the question posed. And if they don’t ask, don’t answer, Labkovsky teaches, and on this I completely agree with him. Read, argue, be outraged and write your opinions - the conversation turned out to be difficult, with getting personal and making diagnoses. And that’s good, isn’t it? Enough with the sleek questions about “creative plans”, give us new glossy journalism, a new discussion platform, our new Hyde Park. In a word, I want to start this season this way - so that the word “new”, which has been beaten up by the glamor press, again acquires its true meaning. Let's look at Dahl's dictionary: “New is the opposite of old, dilapidated, ancient, ancient, former, past; recently created, made, revealed; different, not the same as before, hitherto unknown.” Do those concepts, actions, actions, and phenomena that we call new often correspond to this description? What's new happening in your life? “Answer only the question,” Labkovsky urges in his rules. I asked the question. All that remains is to answer it.

And where do women get all these problems?

On the eve of Mikhail Labkovsky's lecture in Kyiv chief editor of Buro 24/7 Alexey Tarasov spoke with a psychologist, TV presenter and columnist about happiness and cockroaches.

I read all the interviews you gave, including the popular interview with Russian Elle, and noticed that almost everywhere women complain about post-Soviet Slavic men: they look bad, they don’t know how to build relationships, and they are generally scoundrels. This gave me an idea for a conversation - what's wrong with men? What's wrong with us?

The only thing that is wrong with us is that women, having problems, see only those men who correspond to their neuroses. Prosperous women are doing well: their men are well-groomed, faithful, loving, and so on. But, unfortunately, a huge part of women are dysfunctional - their relationships do not work out, their romances end badly. They attract certain men to them, and hence they have the feeling that all men are like that. They come across infantile, irresponsible men, men who sometimes earn less than a woman and are not ready to support their family. And how can we give birth to children with them, when they either have no work, then they have nowhere to live, and some of them also drink. And women who meet men who drink are usually addicts themselves, only women depend on problems alone, and men, say, on alcohol. Further: all men need only one thing - this is a common women's phrase.So it's true. Yes. Don't women need this? They immediately get married - and no sex? They also need sex no less than men. The point is different: when you have problems, you are surrounded by people who correspond to your problems - that is the idea of ​​​​my answer.Not the whole world is like this, but men with whom something is wrong exist in it. There are those who are so childish that they listen to their mother. Their family is like that of a child: it looks like there is a wife and children, but still the mother rules everything. There are men who are not serious, womanizers like this: he goes out with me and with someone else. I repeat that all these men exist in nature, there are quite a lot of them, but they are found by those women who themselves have problems, who feel lonely, unwanted, abandoned, unloved.

You yourself said that post-Soviet men are spoiled: there are few of us, but many women. Let's talk about this phenomenon: indeed, according to the population census, there are significantly fewer men in Ukraine. But we all understand that some women get married more than once, while others never get married. You mentioned my interview with the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine. She is quite old, and now she lives with her fourth husband. How does this gender inequality not apply to her? There are not enough men, and Lena Sotnikova was married 4 times. How come? Lena Sotnikova is the most beautiful woman on Earth, or what? And there are very beautiful women who have never been married. All the answers are in the psyche. Not in appearance, not in luck, not in character, not in age. These are all general arguments of women whose lives are going badly, and they are trying to understand the reason. We are all designed in such a way that we try to find the reason not in ourselves, but in such and such a situation or in such men. In fact, the situation can be changed and you can live quite happily, and even with such an imbalance of men and women, you can find your own, and maybe more than one.I'll tell you that many of my friends married foreigners: Italians, British, Turks - and, in general, they are happy. Ukrainian women often repeat that in Italy or, say, in Holland there are normal men, but at home there are only goats. How can this be explained? This can be explained by the fact that: A - such women do not like Slavic men as a class, B - Slavic men are spoiled by the fact that there are few of them. They are psychologically lazy, their eyes do not burn. I will give one example: it was about 5 years ago, I went to a cafe where a bachelorette party was taking place. 12 girls sat at the same table and celebrated their birthday. They drank, and suddenly one of them screamed: “Damn, I’m not asking to get married, let’s just sit for 5 minutes and have a drink with the girls!” There were 5 of us men, and everyone turned away. Only one alcoholic sat down with them, drank for free and left. Yes, this is not Holland or Italy. In Holland, these girls would not have even reached the table, they would have already been sorted into pairs. And here they have been drinking for two hours, the famous sexy female laughter sounds - and the men don’t need anything, they just look past.So you didn’t join this company either. And me too. Although I am not a Slav, I was born in the Soviet Union, and, apparently, this psychology also concerns me. Le-ni-vo. The eye doesn't burn. But Europeans are not spoiled. The European still needs to win a woman. By the way, many problems lie in female pliability, in the fact that our woman does not defend her interests, like a Dutch woman, with whom you cannot spoil so much - you can even get kicked in the horns. Our people, you know, are becoming more and more shy, more and more grateful: oh, thank God, they paid attention to me, they found some guy. This story began after World War II when there were practically no men.

You say that the most important thing in a relationship is a healthy psyche and openness. For example, I feel most comfortable and harmonious alone. Can it be that you feel comfortable, but your head is not right? No, your head is fine. In general, I want to say that there is no norm here. Why do you think that if you feel good alone, then there is something wrong with you and you should want to be more than alone? What nonsense? When you're 80 and perhaps afraid of dying alone, then you might want someone to be with you. But now, while I’m young, everything is fine.This already looks like a personal consultation, but maybe I’m just afraid of relationships? Perhaps you will dissuade me, but I, for example, do not know a single happy couple. Someone is bound to suffer, secretly or openly. And even Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie divorced, even they. Let's start, probably, from the end. I read a book by Angelina Jolie's second husband, Billy Bob Thornton, a great actor, director and screenwriter. He writes a little ironically about Angelina. They are all not very friendly, Brad Pitt is the healthiest of them, even in appearance. Angelina with very big “hello”, and Thornton writes the truth to himself that he has complexes. So what does “even” mean?

Now about you: it may very well be that you are afraid of relationships, so you are comfortable alone. As for women’s problems, it starts with their mom and dad. Because the first, excuse me, asshole in the life of a Ukrainian woman who calls men that way was her father. Who may have been drinking, who may have been fighting. Therefore, the word “goat” stuck with a 5-year-old child. And then she just works out this childhood story, believing that men are all like that.

Do you personally know happy couples? I know. The main thing, and I insist on this, is that no compromise, no concessions bring happiness to people. Happiness comes from an absolutely healthy, stable psyche. What does it mean? This means that you personally as a person feel good right from the morning, you are in high spirits. You do what you love, you love yourself, you love everyone else. And your partner is exactly the same person. And this is what happiness in a couple is based on. How can you take two sick people and build a healthy relationship? Just reading in glossy magazines, how to behave correctly? This is impossible. If everyone in a couple has problems with their heads, then they cannot build anything normal. But if each of them is normal and, most importantly, loves himself, then they will love each other. Here I would highlight: people who do not love themselves cannot love each other, therefore they cannot have a happy couple either.

Psychology is such an insightful profession. What have you learned about people over the years of practice? I didn't find out anything bad. The fact is that a psychologist is cut from the same cloth as patients. As in the famous joke - whoever puts on the robe first is the doctor. But I wasn’t always so healthy either. I had big “cockroaches” in my head, which is why, in fact, I worked as a psychologist for 35 years. But as soon as I recovered, the first thing I encountered was that I was not very interested in working with them, although I continue to do so. And I started giving lectures, it’s like theater for me, I love lectures. Once you don't have problems, you're not very interested in hearing about other people's problems.What kind of “cockroaches” did you have? Firstly, I also had not entirely normal relationships with women. They were built on conflict, on the feeling that no one loved me, and so on. And even when you are loved, you still don’t believe it. I was touchy, conflicted, I think I had a rather difficult character. But I still changed and got rid of my favorite childhood diagnosis, which in English is called A.D.H.D., attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, when a person cannot concentrate on something. I began to feel completely different. So you say that women consider men to be assholes. Do you know what men think women are? Yes, they are generally bitches, they only need money.Certainly.I left this world, I began to love people. If I date those who are called assholes, then I do not treat them badly. I don’t relate to them at all. I'm just not interested. I have no desire to condemn them, there is no anger. Well, they are people like that, and they themselves suffer from it. And other men, other women in general, began to surround me. And why? Not because the world has become a better place, but because I have improved. When I was with my “cockroaches”, I also didn’t really like the people who surrounded me. But when I began to change, became healthier, more open, more straightforward, without any manipulation, without offense and without conflicts, then absolutely wonderful women began to surround me, simply beautiful, it couldn’t be better.So you didn’t end up becoming a cynic? I think a cynic is also a protective mask of unfinished romantics. I didn't become a cynic. On the contrary, everything became more fun.So you think that nothing healthy can come from conflict?

First, nothing healthy can come from conflict. Secondly, I’m not a fan of building relationships. All magazines are guilty of advising that you need to work on relationships. My friends, when you come home from work, take a rest. Your second job doesn't pay you at all. You don't have to work at anything. You either have a relationship or you don't. But in order for you to have a relationship that does not require physical and moral investment, you need to accept yourself for who you are. And then you will accept your partner as he is: you will not want to remake him, correct him, re-educate him. No need. Either you like him or find someone else. Do not touch the person with your hands. When you accept yourself and live in harmony with yourself, then you begin to like other people, you experience pleasure from communicating with them.