The image of a participant in interaction in the activities of specialists in helping professions – teachers, doctors, psychologists

In this paper, the author explores the work of helping professionals within the context of their perceptions of the client, student, and patient. Most professions in modern society involve providing assistance to others, aiming to bring good and healing. The work of doctors, teachers, psychotherapists, and social workers involves providing direct assistance, primarily to those who are unhappy, ill, or unable to find their place in life. In such work, the concept of a helping partner plays a significant role. The aim of this paper is to examine how helping professionals perceive their clients. The object of the study is helping professionals, and the perception of their clients. The author suggests that the specific activities of helping professionals are reflected in their perception of the clients and have distinctive characteristics. The sample consists of 60 people (20 psychologists, 20 teachers, 20 medical professionals (doctors of various specializations)); the average age of the subjects is 35-40 years, the average length of service is 15 years, and the sample is homogeneous by gender (women). To study the characteristics of client perception, the author uses a semantic differential, a method of freely describing the client by the subjects. The author found that the descriptions of perceptions by all three groups are very similar. All helping professionals, when forming perceptions of their patients, students, and clients, focus on the characteristics of their activity. It can be assumed that such perceptions create a friendly attitude among specialists when meeting with a client, patient, or student. However, it is possible that the failure to confirm these perceptions by the other participant in the interaction generates conflicts, crises, and is a determinant of burnout. The specificity of perceptions is related to the specifics of the professional activities of helping professionals. For example, medical professionals focus on their attitudes toward care and their own health based on intellectual, cognitive, moral, volitional, and activity-based qualities, while psychologists focus on the emotional state (experiences, mood), needs and demands (what a person needs now), and resource states (energy, will, activity). The scientific novelty of the presented study is related to the possibility of identifying areas for enriching the interaction of helping professionals with their clients.