What are the phenomena in psychology. Psychological phenomena. Some patterns of behavior. Sociocultural in the works of Petirim Sorokin and F. Tenbrook

Sometimes things happen to people that are out of the ordinary. This does not mean that these phenomena are supernatural. Science just can't explain them yet. They are called psychic phenomena. There are many varieties of such phenomena, and people study them with great interest. Many people believe in them, others don't. Let's look at some of these phenomena. One of them is called "poltergeist". It is associated with strange sounds, the movement of furniture, breaking dishes and other strange incidents that people who are at that moment in the apartment cannot explain in any way. But for this to happen, the presence of a certain person is almost always necessary.

Even more interesting are the phenomena associated with the extraordinary abilities of the psyche of some people. In such cases, a person has knowledge about what he could not know in any natural way. For example, he can read the thoughts of another person or learn about an event that happened somewhere far away or a very long time ago.

Reading the thoughts of another person (not a guess, but reading) is called telepathy.

Knowledge about some distant and long-standing incidents is called clairvoyance. A lot of research has been done to prove the existence or demonstrate cases of telepathy, but many scientists claim that these experiments were done incorrectly. Another interesting psychic phenomenon is called prediction. This is when people seem to know about events that should happen in the future. People who do not believe in predictions may ask why these people do not get rich on the stock exchange or do not prevent crime.

In general, there is a twofold attitude towards psychic phenomena: some unconditionally believe in them, while others - among them there are many scientists - do not believe in them and believe that such a thing cannot take place and therefore does not happen.

In the practice of empirical psychotherapy, it is necessary to take into account the presence of complex mental phenomena that guide a person's life, since it creates the conditions for their manifestation. Some of these phenomena are briefly discussed below.

Sensual complexes

Anticipating the discussion of sensory complexes, I will make a brief, superficial review of what we currently know about feeling in general. Several thousand years ago (and, perhaps, much earlier), Eastern philosophical thought singled out six "sense organs" in man: sight, hearing, smell, touch, touch and thinking. The activity of each of them is associated with the experience of some kind of feeling, which in turn is the result of the activity of certain parts of the brain. However, both the “sense organs” and the corresponding parts of the brain are only transmission links in the chain that leads us to experience this or that feeling. And what is the basis that allows us to experience feelings - we still do not know. Not without reason, on the basis of scientific and "non-scientific" data, we believe that this basis is closely connected with the psyche, if not at all one with it. But this understanding does not bring us one step closer to the true knowledge of the nature of feelings, but only “adds fog”, since we know very little about the nature of the psyche. And accordingly there are many questions to which we still do not have answers. Among them: does this base have a representation in each “sense organ” / corresponding part of the brain, or only some connection with each of them, or both? Practical observations convince us that the experience of some feeling can be not only the result of the activity of some "sense organ", but also the result of the direct activity of the basis that makes it possible for us to experience the feeling. In the latter case, the "sense organs" / corresponding parts of the brain function in the following ways:

- or as if there are reasons in the perceived environment that cause the corresponding feelings to appear, although there are no such reasons;
- or from the whole spectrum of signals of the surrounding world, they react only to those that correspond to the experience of a given feeling;
- or interpret any external signals as corresponding to a given experienced feeling;
- or use various combinations of the above mentioned functionalities.

There is another variant of the activity of the basis that generates feelings: the appearance of the absence of the ability to feel, with - anatomically and physiologically - intact "sense organs" and the corresponding parts of the brain.

The foregoing and practical experience allow us to believe that the "sense organs" and the corresponding parts of the brain in their activity do not have autonomy at all.

On this I will complete the review and go directly to talking about sensory complexes.

Human life is an experience of various feelings. It should be noted that a feeling is something that has a life much longer than the life of a person, and it is only temporarily connected with what a person is. Pi this feeling experienced by a person can be very intense, but this is far from all the intensity that it is capable of. In various world teachings, it is noted that while a person is alive, feelings are limited in their manifestation and vice versa - they manifest themselves unlimitedly after his death. Perhaps this is what is meant when a person is warned that his hatred or love will be with what remains after his physical death.

For certain reasons, at the moment of the emergence of a feeling, its full manifestation does not occur. It translates into what K.G. Jung called - a sensual complex, which is forced out of consciousness into the sphere of the personal unconscious.

The sensual complex is a very energy-intensive formation. It not only cumulates the energy of an unlived feeling, but also contributes to the formation of various depots of stagnant muscle energy in the human body. In addition, the sensory complex requires certain energy costs for its creation, displacement into the personal unconscious and retention there. The energy for all this is drawn from the reserve that is given to a person for his life.

In psychoanalytic literature, the mechanism that removes feelings (in the form of sensory complexes) from the sphere of consciousness into the personal unconscious was called repression. The ability of the psyche to displace feelings into the personal unconscious is given to a person even before birth and manifests itself throughout his life, regardless of his desire. But with the development of consciousness, with the formation of self-control skills and with the knowledge of oneself, a person can influence the process of repression, contributing to or hindering it.

The process of transforming a feeling into a sensory complex and forcing it into the personal unconscious is accompanied by a change in the general state of a person in the direction of reducing the intensity of mental, emotional and bodily manifestations. The rate of blunting the sharpness of their manifestations runs parallel to the displacement of the sensory complex into the personal unconscious, and directly depends on how it is realized. There are many nuances related to the latter fact, and specialists have accumulated rich practical material that testifies to this. There are also observations of extremely opposite cases. One of their poles is represented by a lightning-fast process of repression, accompanied by a "loss" of mental, emotional and bodily memory of certain events. The second - the opposite option - is manifested by the absence of repression, and, as a result, by the inability of a person to somehow muffle feelings that correspond to some experience from his past. Perhaps, in this case, the point is not that the process of displacement cannot be carried out, but that for a number of reasons it is ineffective.

The process of repression is an adaptive tool that allows you to postpone, delay the full experience, the full expression of feelings. But only temporarily postpone, since in human nature there is a need for the full manifestation, self-expression of any feeling. This feature can be formulated as a kind of life principle: any feeling strives for such a (full) manifestation, after which it can “leave the stage” giving way to another feeling. We have a need for a comprehensive realization of any feeling. This explains the fact that the sensory complex tends to return from the space of the personal unconscious to consciousness, and continue its life in it. And at least partially, but he manages to do it. At the same time, returning, each time it makes a person, to one degree or another, experience what was once not fully lived. As noted by K.G. Jung, the sensory complex demonstrates its certain independence and ability to influence the psychophysical state of a person.

Many times, at different moments of life, overcoming the action of repression, the sensual complex reminds its owner of itself by appropriate mental, emotional and bodily manifestations. In response to such independence of sensory complexes, a person strengthens the possibilities he has to control what is happening in him. That is, it makes the work of displacement more intense. True, this requires the expenditure of additional energy. And the more intensively some sensory complex seeks to return to consciousness, the more energy a person spends to counteract it. At the same time, the forces that a person can use in this struggle are gradually depleted. But sensual complexes are tireless in their desire to return and manifest themselves fully. One of the results of this confrontation will be that a person will begin to feel a lack of energy to maintain their daily activities. The person will notice that he began to quickly get tired. At the same time, he will notice that his psychological status is changing for the worse. That is, sensory complexes are directly related to the development of asthenization of a person, to the occurrence of psychological problems in him, and, as a result of all this, to the emergence of psychosomatic diseases.

Sensual complexes are not something with which one must fight, the manifestations of which must be suppressed. A constructive approach in psychotherapeutic work implies the creation of conditions in which some kind of sensory complex can be resolved. The possibility of this is provided by the very principle of the formation of sensory complexes: each sensory complex contains the memory of the mental, bodily and emotional manifestations of the feeling that gave rise to it. Psychotherapeutic practice shows that the inverse relationship is also legitimate: the activation of the corresponding mental, emotional or bodily manifestation leads to the manifestation of the sensory complex as a whole. This is noted in various psychotherapeutic approaches. For example, psychoanalytic practice shows that working with the mental plane enlivens the emotional and bodily manifestations that correspond to the state once experienced. The manifestation of a sensory complex is also observed when using psychotherapeutic approaches that practice work with the body or with emotional experiences. Therefore, by reviving some mental, emotional or bodily manifestation (both individually and in their various combinations), one can work out the corresponding sensory complex.

Summarizing everything I know about the ability of the human psyche to repress and create sensory complexes, I can express the opinion that their presence in the human psyche is a consequence of the presence of ego in a person. I think that the absence of ego will entail the absence of repression and the impossibility of creating sensual complexes. But the absence of ego is that stage of human development, which is not yet achievable for the vast majority of people. Therefore, for us now another question is more relevant: how to achieve the resolution of sensory complexes? My personal experience does not allow me to give an answer that exhausts all possible cases. But on the basis of my experience, I can say that for the resolution of a sensory complex, at least two conditions must be present.

The first condition is the ability to fully live the situation that gave rise to the sensory complex.

The second condition is the need for awareness of the experience, which allows you to get a situation that gave rise to a sensory complex.

On this consideration of the role of sensory complexes, as separate mental phenomena, can be considered sufficient, and we have come close to considering the role of the second mental phenomenon - systems of condensed experience (CSE). The isolated influence of any sensory complex on a person's life is very short-lived. Being repressed into the personal unconscious, he unites with his own kind in what is called a system of condensed experience. And already after a short time after its inception, any sensory complex manifests itself in the human mind as a representative of its COEX system.

The following definition of the phenomenon seems to me the most successful:

Phenomenon (Greek ... "appearing"). ... According to a tradition dating back to ancient Greek philosophy ... a phenomenon is understood as the phenomenon of a thing given in sensory experience ... which implies the essence behind it, inaccessible to the senses and revealed only in the course of ... special cognition or ... unknowable. ... In modern times (Locke, Berkeley and Hume) there is a psychological concept of a phenomenon (appearance). The phenomenon begins to be thought of as a given to consciousness in the external or internal experience of sensation, “idea”, perception. ... According to Kant, a phenomenon is an object ... the appearance of a thing in the forms of sensual contemplation available to us. ... The phenomenon is opposed to the unknowable transcendental noumenon, that is, "the thing in itself" [Dictionary of Philosophical Terms, 2004, p. 614].

I. Kant (1994) considers phenomena as sensually perceived objects or phenomena. The phenomenon for him is an ordered collection of sensations. He's writing:

Phenomena, insofar as they are thought of as objects on the basis of the unity of categories, are called phaenomena. ... Things ... as objects of the understanding, which ... can be given as objects of contemplation, although not sensual ... can be called noumena [p. 515-516].

The founder of modern philosophical phenomenology E. Husserl (2005) writes:

... psychology is called the science of mental, natural science - the science of physical "phenomena", or phenomena ... in history ... they talk about historical, in the science of culture about cultural phenomena ... No matter how different the meaning of the word "phenomenon" may be in all such speeches ... phenomenology (meaning the phenomenology of Husserl. - Auth.) is associated with all these meanings, however, with a completely different setting, through which ... any meaning of the “phenomenon” is modified ... It enters the phenomenological sphere only as modified [p. 243].

Indeed, the author understands phenomenon very specific and declares his refusal to consider phenomenology "as the lowest rung of empirical psychology". V. Volnov (2008), considering his position, nevertheless notes:

Although Husserl calls his teaching phenomenology, the concept of "phenomenon" remains indefinite for him. Only one thing can be said with certainty: Husserl understands the so-called phenomena of consciousness by phenomenon. ... Husserl inherited the identification of phenomena with the phenomena of consciousness from Kant [p. eight].

Are there no phenomena besides the phenomena of consciousness? [FROM. 9.]

Phenomena in the understanding of E. Husserl are still far from being just phenomena of consciousness, at least not at all what classical psychology considers as such. Other researchers attribute a different range of phenomena to phenomena. Some researchers narrow the concept phenomenon and, considering it in the plane of consciousness, they identify it with a mental phenomenon:

A phenomenon is a phenomenon given to us in the experience of sensory cognition, in contrast to the noumenon comprehended by the mind and forming the basis, the essence of the phenomenon [Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998, p. 477].

Others expand it, identifying it with what is represented by these mental phenomena.

Translated from Greek, it means a phenomenon, that which appears, therefore, any noticeable change, any phenomenon available for observation. This meaning is very general and contains two aspects, each of which is represented in the following more limited meanings.
A physical phenomenon, a fact, a confirmed event...
The inner experience that is recognized is the data of personal experience. This meaning is reflected in the position of phenomenology.
In terms of Kant - manifestations of knowledge, events or objects, interpreted through categories ... [Big Explanatory Dictionary of Psychology, 2001a, p. 414-415].

E. E. Sokolova, for example, in psychology distinguishes six groups of phenomena: conscious and unconscious mental phenomena, forms of behavior, phenomena of social relations, objects of material and spiritual culture, and even psychosomatic phenomena. Such an expansive approach, of course, is unacceptable, if only because of the incompatibility of the entities included in this classification, for example, conscious mental phenomena and cultural objects. In addition, without exception, all the listed objects, forms, relationships, and even mental phenomena themselves are represented in the human mind in the form of conscious mental phenomena, and therefore can and should be primarily considered only in the form of phenomena or phenomena of consciousness.

I personally understand phenomenon exclusively in the psychological, and not in the philosophical sense, as any phenomenon of human consciousness: an image, sensation, emotion, motivation, even a verbal construction, etc., as everything that a person is able to discover in his mind in the process of introspection and experience. A psychic phenomenon is something that arises in the human mind. Therefore, a psychic phenomenon is a synonym for a psychic phenomenon.

Discussing the concept phenomenology 1 , J.-F. Lyotard (2001) observes:

This term means the study of "phenomena", that is, that which is in consciousness, that which is "given" [p. 7].

I call phenomenology the doctrine of mental phenomena, or phenomena, and consider it as a branch of psychology. As follows from what has been said, such a phenomenology is completely different, for example, from the phenomenology of E. Husserl and from other variants of philosophical phenomenology, with which it cannot even be correlated. E. Husserl (2005) writes that his phenomenology:

... this is not psychology, and that its reckoning with psychology is excluded not by any accidental delimitations of the field and terminologically, but by fundamental grounds [p. 19].

He rightly points out that psychology is the science of "facts" and "realities", while "pure transcendental phenomenology" is the science that deals with "surreal phenomena". The reduction to which the author subjects psychological phenomena “purifies” them of what gives them reality and inclusion in the real world (ibid.). Moreover, the author directly says:

I would most willingly exclude the word, burdened with a heavy burden real if only some suitable replacement would be presented to him [p. 24].

I, on the contrary, consider the real phenomena of our psyche. If E. Husserl quite justifiably refused to consider his phenomenology "as the lowest rung of empirical psychology", then this is exactly how I consider my own views presented in this book. At the same time, it seems to me that psychology and philosophy are inextricably linked, so the psychological phenomenology I propose cannot remain aloof from philosophy.

Phenomena are the phenomena of our consciousness directly given to us, respectively, the phenomenology presented in this book is the consideration of the givens of our consciousness, the description of its phenomena and the study of what they are and how they change over time.

In accordance with the Husserlian tradition, phenomena should be considered by researchers without taking into account any even the most basic verbal knowledge about them. However, our consciousness is arranged in such a way that we will not be able to describe and study anything without first understanding at least somehow the phenomenon being studied, that is, without modeling it with the help of other, as a rule, verbal phenomena of our consciousness.

1 Phenomenology is the study of essences… [M. Merleau-Ponty, 1999, p. 5].

Phenomenology - the doctrine of the phenomenon ... [Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998, p. 477].

Phenomenology is talking about a phenomenon. Speech, designed to reveal the phenomenon, to show it as it is in itself ... [V. Volnov, 2008, p. 7].

The phenomenological method proposed and used by E. Husserl, J.-F. Lyotard (2001) describes it thus:

One must leave, without any preconditions, a piece of wax to oneself and describe it as it gives itself [p. 7].

However, in order to describe the piece of wax that J.-F. Lyotard, one must first learn the words, that is, assimilate all the “baggage” created by previous generations, and this assimilation will radically change the piece of wax that we perceive and describe. That is why Husserlian reduction is impossible in psychological phenomenology.

(a) Identification of individual phenomena from the general context of mental life

In any developed mental life, we are faced with such absolutely fundamental phenomena as the opposition of the subject to the object and the orientation of the "I" to a certain content. In this aspect, the awareness of the object (objective consciousness) is opposed to the consciousness of "I". This first distinction allows us to describe objective anomalies (distorted perceptions, hallucinations, etc.) as such, and then ask how and why the consciousness of the "I" could change. But the subjective (relating to the state of "I") aspect of consciousness and the objective aspects of that "other" to which the "I" is oriented are united when the "I" is embraced by that which is outside it, and at the same time is prompted from within to embrace this external in relation to him "otherness". The description of what is objective leads to an understanding of its meaning for the “I”, and the description of the states of the “I” (emotional states, moods, impulses, drives) leads to an understanding of the objective reality in which these states reveal themselves.

The subjective orientation to this or that object is, of course, a constant and fundamental phenomenon of any mental life accessible to understanding; but this alone is not enough to differentiate phenomena. Direct experience is always a set of relations, without the analysis of which no description of phenomena is possible.

This set of relations is based on the ways of our experience of time and space, our awareness of our own physicality and the surrounding reality, further, it has its own internal division due to the opposition of the states of feelings and drives, which, in turn, gives rise to further divisions.

All these articulations are overlapped by dividing the totality of phenomena into direct and indirect. Any phenomenon of mental life has the character of direct experience, but it is important for the soul that thinking and will be outside the sphere of this direct experience. The fundamental, primary phenomenon, without which analytical thinking and purposeful will are impossible, is denoted by the term reflection, this is the turning of experience back, on itself and on its content. From this arise all mediated phenomena, and the whole mental life of a person is saturated with reflexivity. Conscious psychic life is not a heap of isolated, separable phenomena, but a mobile set of relations from which we extract the data of interest to us in the very act of describing them. This set of relationships changes along with the state of consciousness inherent in the soul at a given moment in time. Any distinctions we make are transitory and sooner or later become obsolete (or we ourselves refuse them).

From this general view of mental life as a set of relations it follows that:

1) phenomena can be delimited and defined only partially - to the extent that they are available for re-identification. Separating phenomena from the general context of mental life makes them clearer and more distinct than they really are. But if we are aiming for accurate concepts, fruitful observations, and a clear presentation of facts, we must take this inaccuracy for granted:

2) phenomena can appear in our descriptions again and again, depending on which particular aspect is emphasized in them (for example, the phenomenology of perception can be considered both from the point of view of object awareness and from the point of view of feeling).

(b) Form and content of phenomena

Let us set forth a number of provisions that are of general significance for all the phenomena that are subject to description. Form must be distinguished from content, which may change from time to time; for example, the fact of a hallucination must not be confused with its content, which may be a person or a tree, menacing figures, or peaceful landscapes. Perceptions, ideas, judgments, feelings, impulses of self-consciousness - all these are forms of mental phenomena, they designate varieties of existence through which the content is revealed "for us. True, when describing specific events of mental life, we take into account the content of the psyche of an individual, but in phenomenology we are only interested in form. Depending on which particular aspect of the phenomenon - formal or content - we have in mind at any given moment, we can neglect its other aspect, that is, respectively, content analysis or phenomenological research. For the patients themselves, only the content usually matters. Often they are completely unaware of exactly how they experience this content; accordingly, they often mix hallucinations, pseudo-hallucinations, illusory representations, etc., because they do not attach importance to the ability to differentiate these things that are so insignificant for them.

On the other hand, the content modifies the way phenomena are experienced: it gives phenomena a certain weight in the context of mental life as a whole and points the way to their comprehension and interpretation.

An excursion into the realm of form and content. All knowledge presupposes a distinction between form and content: this distinction is constantly used in psychopathology. Regardless of whether it deals with the simplest phenomena or complex wholes. Let's give some examples.

1. In mental life there is always a subject and an object. We call the objective element in the broadest sense psychic content, and how the object appears to the subject (perception, representation, thought) we call form. Thus, hypochondriacal content, regardless of whether it is revealed through voices, obsessions, overvalued ideas, etc., is always available for identification as content. Similarly, we can talk about the content of fears and other emotional states.

2. The form of psychoses is opposed to their particular content, for example, periodic phases of dysphoria as a form of illness should be opposed to particular types of behavior (alcoholism, fumes, suicide attempts, etc.) as elements of the content.

3. Some of the most general changes affecting mental life as a whole - such as schizophrenia or hysteria - being available for interpretation only in terms of psychology, can also be considered from a formal point of view. Any kind of human desire or aspiration, any kind of thought or fantasy can act as the content of one or another of these forms and find in them a way of revealing itself (schizophrenic, hysterical, etc.).

The main interest of phenomenology is in form; as for the content, it seems rather random. On the other hand, for an understanding psychology, the content is always essential, and the form can sometimes be unimportant.

(c) Transitions between phenomena

It seems that many patients are able to spiritually see the same content in the form of rapidly replacing each other various phenomenological forms. So, in acute psychosis, the same content - for example, jealousy - can take on a variety of forms (emotional state, hallucinations, delusional idea). It would be wrong to talk about "transitions" from one form to another. The word "transition" as a general term is nothing more than a disguise for defects in analysis. The truth is that at every moment any experience is woven from a multitude of phenomena that we share in describing. For example, when a hallucinatory experience is saturated with delusional belief, the perceptual elements gradually disappear and eventually it becomes difficult to determine whether they existed at all, and if so, in what form. Thus, there are clear differences between phenomena - real phenomenological gaps (for example, between physically real and imaginary events) or phenomenological transitions (for example, from awareness of reality to hallucinations). One of the most important tasks of psychopathology is to capture all these differences, to deepen, expand and systematize them; only under this condition can we achieve success in the analysis of each individual case.

(d) Classification of groups of phenomena

Below we give a consistent description of abnormal mental phenomena - from specific experiences to the experience of space and time, then to awareness of one's own corporality, awareness of reality and delusional ideas. Next, we will turn to emotional states, drives, will, etc., up to the person's awareness of his "I", and at the end we will present the phenomena of reflection. The breakdown into paragraphs is determined by the distinctive properties and visual characteristics of the relevant phenomena; it does not follow any predetermined scheme, since at present our phenomenological data cannot be classified in any satisfactory way. Being one of the foundations of psychopathology, phenomenology is still very poorly developed. Our attempt at description cannot hide this defect; nevertheless, we must give at least some - albeit tentative - classification. In frontal conditions, the best classification is the one that captures the natural practical consequences of the facts being discovered. The inevitable defects of such a classification will stimulate our desire to comprehend the totality of phenomena - and not so much through purely logical operations, but through the consistent Deepening and expansion of our ability to see phenomena in all their diversity.