A professional journey does not always begin with a clear realization of one’s calling. Sometimes it takes years of searching, personal experience, rethinking, and gradually understanding where exactly you can be of the greatest service to others. That was the path that brought Olena Novikova to psychotherapy a specialist for whom working with people became not just a profession, but a life’s work.
Exclusively for the international glossy magazine Business Woman a conversation with Olena Novikova about her professional journey, inner grounding, personal transformations, and the power of helping others find their own path. In a candid dialogue, we talk about more than two decades of practice, shifts in professional vision, working with people, and why genuine support is not about ready-made answers, but about helping a person hear themselves.
What brought you to psychotherapy? Was there a moment or a personal story in your life after which you realized that this was what you wanted to do?
I cannot say that I woke up one day at a certain age and realized, “I will be a psychotherapist.” I would rather call it a path that I embarked on in 2003.
I entered the profession through an interest in human nature. I was always curious to understand why a person acts in a certain way, what lies behind their fear, aggression, or addiction, why they cannot leave a toxic relationship, or why they hesitate to choose their own path and live the way they truly want.
Over the years, my perception of psychology, psychotherapy, and counseling has certainly changed a great deal. At first, I genuinely wanted to help people—one could even say, to save them. But gradually, I realized that psychotherapy is not about giving advice, nor is it about trying to fix another person’s life.
Psychotherapy is about the ability to be there at the right time. Exactly in the place where it is so difficult for a person that even being alone with oneself becomes unbearable.
I cannot live a client’s life, nor can I make their choices for them. But I can walk alongside them for a while—until they feel their own inner support again.
And honestly, after so many years of practice, I am still fascinated by working with people. I understand that a person cannot avoid difficult life situations. Yet, they are capable of recovering, finding new meaning, and doing things they previously thought themselves incapable of doing.
It is precisely the opportunity to witness this process that is most valuable to me.
You work with people who have survived very difficult life circumstances, and at the same time, you volunteer. What has this work changed in you—both as a professional and as a person?
This work has taught me to judge a person far less and not to try to fix them.
Today, I work with people from different corners of the world—from Germany, Poland, Argentina, Lithuania, Estonia. And when you work for many years with very diverse issues—trauma, loss, anxiety, addictions, eating disorders—one simple thing becomes especially clear: behind any behavior that we might initially call wrong or incomprehensible, there is almost always a personal life story.
A person does not wake up in the morning wishing to ruin their life. Very often, they are simply trying to cope with something they once could not handle in any other way. And most often, they have been trying to do so on their own for a very long time.
The war deepened my understanding of human nature even further. I met people who lost their homes, loved ones, familiar lives, and sense of safety. At the same time, I witnessed a person’s incredible capacity to keep living, working, raising children, and helping others—against all odds.
Therefore, today I think much less about what is wrong with a person, and much more about what happened to them. And about what they need right now to feel alive again.
Volunteering has become an extension of this philosophy for me beyond the psychologist’s office. It is an opportunity to be useful to people who find themselves in difficult life situations, and to make a contribution where I can truly help.
Psychotherapy helps an individual who comes with their specific request. Volunteering provides an opportunity to do something for the wider community. But I do not see a wide divide between these two things.
Because in both cases, you are essentially saying to a person:
“You are not alone. I see that it is hard for you. And I am ready to do what I can.”
You work with both children and adults. Has your understanding of the human psyche changed after working with Ukrainians who survived war, forced relocation, loss of home, or loss of loved ones?
Yes, I work with both children and adults. And naturally, over the years of practice, my understanding of the human psyche has changed substantially.
The recent years of war have shown me with particular clarity how important it is not to pathologize a normal reaction to abnormal circumstances.
Anxiety, insomnia, irritability, difficulty concentrating, fear, guilt, emotional numbness—these are not always signs that the psyche is “broken.” Sometimes, it is the psyche doing everything possible to help a person survive in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
This is especially visible when working with children. A child cannot always say, “I am going through a traumatic experience” or “I have depression.” Instead, they may start sleeping poorly, become aggressive, withdraw into themselves, fear being left alone, regress in behavior, or lose interest in things that used to bring them joy.
And then, the adult’s task is to see the feelings behind the behavior. Not to judge the child or scold them for “misbehaving,” but to pause and ask oneself: what is happening with them? What are they going through right now? What kind of help do they need?
In fact, the same applies to adults. If a person has lost their home, it is very difficult to simply tell them, “You need to adapt to the new conditions.” If a person has moved to another country, it is not enough to say, “Just adapt.”
First, one must acknowledge the fact of loss itself—the loss of a home, stability, familiar life, realized dreams, and perhaps even a certain vision of one’s future.
It is the same with the loss of a loved one. I do not think a person in the midst of grief needs to be told, “Time heals.” Sometimes, they do not need someone trying to quickly relieve their pain, but someone capable of enduring that pain alongside them.
Because some losses are not meant to be forgotten. One has to learn to live with them.
Perhaps this is one of the most important things the practice of recent years has taught me: not to rush into changing a person, not to look for simple answers where there are none, and to remain human even in the most difficult situations.
Setting aside professional titles—psychologist, psychotherapist, volunteer—what kind of person do you feel like today? What matters most to you in life, and why do you continue doing what you do?
Setting aside all titles and roles, I am probably simply a person for whom it is important to be useful. Not a savior, but specifically useful—someone who can offer something, who can pass something along to another.
It is important for me to know that after a session with me, a person understands at least a little better what is happening to them. That they have stopped hating themselves so fiercely. That they were able to say “no” for the first time. That after many years, they allowed themselves to rest. That they found the courage to ask for help.
In psychotherapy, changes are very often small. And one should not expect it to necessarily be some grandiose transformation.
In the therapeutic process, there is no picture-perfect Instagram story where everything changes in a single moment. There are small steps. Yet, it is precisely from such changes that the new life a person sought is built.
My loved ones, family, and the opportunity to work, learn, and grow are also important to me. And so is the feeling that my life has meaning not only for myself. It is both a gratifying feeling and a great responsibility.
I have seen it many times: you cannot save a person from all hardships. But you can make sure they are not left alone at the moment when it is especially difficult.
I understand my responsibility and I know that I cannot save everyone. But I can be there for one person and give them exactly what they need right now.
Perhaps that is what the essence of psychotherapy is for me: not to make a person different, but to help them meet themselves again—and learn to accept who they are.
And that, perhaps, is why I keep going.
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Author: Olena Zhukova
Photo: from the heroine’s archive