Wanted

Many who called Dasha were actually in need of psychological help. The rest were simply curious.

By Kevin O'Flynn
Published: October 29, 2004

You could almost mistake it for a lonely-hearts ad.

Candidates should be between 25 and 40, "higher education a must." Meetings in the Noviye Cheryomushki or Prospekt Vernadskogo areas. Dasha is the name.

Some romantics might balk at the part about Testy trebuyut izvilin, or "The tests require brains." Still, it was only men who answered the ad on Bg.ru placed by Dasha, a psychology student at Moscow State University offering free psychological portraits to complete her final year of coursework.

"Maybe men need it more than women, and maybe they recognize [problems] in themselves more than women," she said, joking. "The weaker sex isn't weak."

Many of those who called her up were actually in need of psychological help. The rest were simply curious.

Dasha deliberately chose the curious lot and is currently testing a 37-year-old man -- carefully watched over by tutors every step of the way to make sure that she doesn't turn him into the other type of respondent.

"I am not a psychotherapist," she said, refusing to disclose the man's identity.

At the end of the process, the mystery man will receive a 1 1/2-page report providing a "description of his character and prognosis of development in the future."

Setting age limits was an important part of writing the advertisement, as patients too old or too young raise difficulties of their own.

"Until you're 20," said Dasha, 21, speaking slowly and thinking out every answer, "your character is still being formed."

For instance, what might appear to be emotional instability in a younger patient could simply be the fact that the subject has fallen in love. Test a patient over 40, and he or she might try too hard to impress the budding psychologist.

The test is spaced out over three or four sessions with a mixture of questions and experiments. One standard test, which the mystery man has already completed, involves asking the patient to invent an animal and give it a name. One leg, two legs, big feet, little trunk -- whatever. All the subject has to do is draw the animal.

Dasha refused to discuss the mystery man's creations, but did say that results often provide an unusual key to what a person is really thinking. For example, "if a person draws an animal with huge open eyes and without a mouth, it can show people's worries and fear. And if it has a big nose ..." she said, pausing as if searching for the right words. "It can show sexual anxiety."

As Dasha is still a student, MGU teachers are on their guard so that she does not wreak havoc with the man's psychology.

"They don't let us do bad work," she said.

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