Scientific-practical conference “Mental health of a person and society. Actual interdisciplinary problems
« mental health »
Completed by: Ivanov I.I.
Voronezh, 2010
Introduction
Chapter 2. Features and nature of the functioning of the human psyche
Chapter 3
Conclusion
Bibliographic list
Introduction
On the present stage development of society, during the process of gradual worldwide globalization and increasing the level of scientific and technological progress in the world, research in the humanities fields of scientific knowledge is becoming more and more relevant. In science, there is a return from science-intensive technologies to the humanitarian sphere. Psychology is a typical example of this phenomenon. Since psychology, although it is one of a number of humanities, today it occupies a strong position among all humanities. The reasons for this are in the scientific "outlook" and "foresight" of psychology, which allows a person to be subjected to a comprehensive psychological analysis, as well as to study his behavior, life, and besides this, the whole society as a whole. Let us note the fact that a person is still a social being, therefore psychology directs its scientific view also on society. The importance of this science is that it allows you to identify and reveal problems of a psychological nature in a person and society, and besides this, solve them and predict them.
Today, the problem of mental health in modern society appears relevant. The relevance is due to many factors. Thus, having crossed the threshold of the 21st century, humanity has reached unprecedented heights in science and technology, industrial, medical (pharmacological). But at the same time, humanity has lost its truly "human" face. The current situation in Russia continues to testify to many unresolved problems of a social nature: social stratification against the backdrop of the economic crisis of recent years, widespread alcoholism and drug addiction, the spread deviant behavior among young people, extremism, and much more. The level of mentally ill people in society is increasing more and more. Urbanization, the acceleration of the pace of life, information overload, increase nervous tension, which often contributes to the emergence and development of neuropsychiatric pathology. The syndrome of "emotional burnout" at work and many others is becoming the norm. etc. Therefore, based on all of the above, the study of mental health issues will allow, from our point of view, not only a more correct approach to solving pressing problems in the mental area of a person, but also possibly solving problems in the social sphere of the whole society.
General purpose of the study is - carrying out a structural analysis of the phenomenon of "mental health";
Tasks research: 1) explore the possibility of objective use of the concept of "mental health"; 2) analyze the features and nature of the functioning of the human psyche; 3) to conduct a structural analysis of mental health through the prism of the relationship between the psyche and the surrounding world, as well as human physiology.
The research methodology is based on such general scientific methods as: analysis, synthesis, comparison and theoretical generalization will be used.
The general structure of the work consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion and a bibliography.
Chapter 1. Mental health as the norm
Mental health is a collective concept that consists of several components: the psyche and health - thus creating a synthetic object for study.
Health is a state of complete physical, spiritual (mental) and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and physical effects. So physical health is the natural state of a person, due to the normal functioning of all his organs and systems; it depends on motor system, from proper nutrition, from the optimal combination of oral and physical work.
Mental health, as defined by the World Health Organization, is a state of well-being in which a person can realize their own potential, cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively and fruitfully, and contribute to their community. From this definition, one important idea follows that if the physical state of health is the health of something material, then mental health is the normal functioning of actually mental processes in a person.
Thus, mental health is an integral characteristic of the full value of the individual's psychological functioning. The definition of mental health in modern science is closely related to the general idea of personality and the mechanisms of its development.
In psychology and medicine, there are different approaches to the problem of mental health, addressing different aspects of normal and abnormal functioning. The traditional medical model sees mental health as a measure of the likelihood of developing disease (a "negative" definition of health as the absence of disease). In psychoanalysis, there is no concept of health as such.; each person acts as a carrier of a potential disease, the transition of which into an actual disease is hindered by a balanced mode of functioning of the mechanisms of psychological protection and compensation in individual psychodynamics.
Behaviorism is characterized by reducing the personality to its social functioning and to the definition of a norm or health through the concept of equilibrium with the environment, using such criteria as adaptation, stability, success, and productivity. Modern theoretical, experimental and applied approaches in personality psychology and psychotherapy characterize mental health as a maturity, safety and activity of personal self-regulation mechanisms, a measure of a person’s ability to transcend (“bring beyond”) his biological, social and semantic determinism, acting as an active and autonomous subject of his life in a changing world.
Returning to psychoanalysis, we note the fact that psychoanalysis was the first modern system psychology, the subject of which is not some single aspect of a person's problem, but a person as a whole person. For more full understanding mental health consider briefly the study of the psyche by the founder of psychoanalysis Z. Freud. So in the course of his research, Freud established that the psyche is initially regressive.. Regression is one of the most commonly used concepts in psychoanalysis and its meaning is not unambiguous. This is, firstly, the transition from "secondary", conscious forms of mental activity to primary, unconscious, instinctive ones. Secondly, from complex ones to simplified, childish ways of reasoning or returning to obsolete, passed stages of development. Thirdly, it is a lively, interested desire to express with the help of words, images, gestures the hidden non-articulated content of the psyche. Fourthly, the return of the libido, the sexual instinct, to its primary, earliest objects. Similarly, Freud also singled out such features of the functioning of the psyche as: resistance, repression, transfer, etc.
In addition to Freud, to whose activities there are also negative opinions in the scientific community, the studies of K. Jung and E. Fromm should be noted. Acting as successors to the work of their teacher and being representatives of the psychoanalytic school, they also established that, in fact, the concept of a norm, a standard in the field of psychology is not acceptable. So, for example, according to K. Jung, the unconscious, and in particular the collective unconscious, is the basis of the psyche common to all representatives of the human race, while occupying the largest area in the process of human functioning. Mental disorders, according to Jung and Fromm, can act as a result of an internal contradiction between internal (“most human”) messages and external ethical norms and foundations. In this vein, an attempt to define the standard of mental health is unthinkable. Our unconscious, as primitive, archaic thinking, which is the initial stage of human world relations, is in irreconcilable contradiction and hostility with those cultural limitations of the individual that make him a social unit, a participant in the cultural construction of man. Reality shows that the thinking of the mentally ill and neurotic, to a greater or lesser extent, differs precisely in such features that bring them closer to “archaic” people, that is, in fact, to people who, at some stage in their development, could not resolve these internal contradictions. Therefore, even if we try to conditionally formalize mental health, the problem will be urgent and relevant, either constantly and accompanying all of humanity, or will be resolved with a new round of development of psychology as a scientific discipline. But research in the field of philosophy of science (for example, the work "The Revolt of the Masses" by José Ortega y Gasset) rather confirms the first.
Touching upon the issues of the mental health standard, it will be interesting comparison of boundaries between human character traits (accentuations) and pathologies. So the accentuation of character is a concept introduced by K. Leonhard and meaning the excessive severity of individual character traits and their combinations, representing extreme options norms bordering on psychopathy. It is on the descriptions of these accentuations that modern classifications of characters are built. We will not bring them into the work due to the minimum amount of work. Accentuations as temporary states of the psyche are most often observed in adolescence and early adolescence.
How we understand mental health depends on our understanding of human nature. In previous chapters I have tried to show that human needs and passions spring from special conditions his existence. Needs that are common to humans and animals - hunger, thirst, the need for sleep and sexual satisfaction - are important because they are caused by internal chemical processes organism; not finding satisfaction, they are able to become omnipotent (of course, this applies more to food and sleep than to sexual needs, which, if unsatisfied, never reach the strength of other needs, but at least for physiological reasons). However, even their complete satisfaction is not a sufficient condition for sanity and mental health. But both depend on the satisfaction of purely human needs and passions arising from the peculiarities of a person’s position in the world: the need for belonging, overcoming the limitations of one’s own existence, a sense of rootedness, the need for a sense of identity, as well as for a system of orientation and worship. The great human passions: the lust for power, vanity, the search for truth, the lust for love and fraternity, the lust for destruction as well as for creation - every strong desire that drives a person's actions originates in this specifically human source, and not in the various phases of the development of the libido, according to Freud's theory.
Satisfying the natural needs of a person is extremely simple from the point of view of physiology, and if difficulties arise in this, then only of a sociological and economic nature. Satisfaction of specifically human needs is immeasurably more complex, it depends on many factors, of which, last but not least, is the way the society in which a person lives is organized, and how this organization determines human relations within society.
The basic mental needs arising from the characteristics of human existence must be satisfied in one way or another, otherwise a person is threatened with the loss of mental health in the same way that his mental health must be satisfied. physiological needs otherwise he will die. However, the ways of satisfying mental needs are very diverse, and the difference between them is equivalent to the difference between varying degrees mental health. If one of the basic needs remains unfulfilled, mental illness may occur; if such a need is realized, but in an unsatisfactory (from the point of view of the nature of human existence) way, then, as a consequence of this, a neurosis develops (either explicit or in the form of a socially given inferiority). A person needs a connection with other people, but if he achieves it through symbiosis or alienation, he loses his independence and integrity; a weak, suffering person is overcome by anger or indifference. Only if a person manages to establish relationships with people on the principles of love, he gains a sense of unity with them, while maintaining his integrity. Only with the help of creative labor can a person relate himself to nature, becoming one with it, but without dissolving in it without a trace. As long as a person is still incestuously rooted in nature, in the mother, in the race, his individuality and mind cannot develop; he remains a helpless victim of nature and at the same time completely deprived of the opportunity to feel himself one with her. Only if a person develops his mind and ability to love, if he is able to humanly experience the world of nature and the world of people, can he gain a sense of home, self-confidence, feel himself the master of his life. It is hardly worth saying that of the two possible ways to overcome the limitations of one's own existence, one - destructiveness - leads to suffering, the other - creativity - to happiness. It is also easy to see that only a sense of identity based on the sensation of own capabilities, while the same feeling, but based on the group, with all the diversity of its forms, leaves a person dependent and, therefore, weak. Ultimately, a person can make this world his own only to the extent that he is able to comprehend reality; but if he lives in illusions, he will never change the conditions that give rise to these illusions.
Summarizing, we can say that the concept of mental health follows from the very conditions of human existence and is the same for all times and all cultures. Mental health is characterized by the ability to love and create, liberation from incestuous attachment to family and land, a sense of identity based on the experience of one's Self as a subject and implementer of one's own abilities, awareness of reality outside of us and in ourselves, i.e., the development of objectivity and mind.
This idea of mental health is largely consistent with the precepts of the great spiritual teachers of mankind. From the point of view of some modern psychologists, this coincidence serves as proof that our psychological premises are not "scientific", that they are philosophical or religious "ideals". They seem to find it difficult to reconcile themselves to the conclusion that in all societies the great teachings were based on an intelligent insight into human nature and on the conditions necessary for full development person. But it is precisely this conclusion that, apparently, is more in line with the fact that in the most diverse places on the globe, in different historical periods, the “awakened ones” preached the same norms completely or almost independently of each other. Akhenaten, Moses, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Isaiah106, Socrates107, Jesus affirmed the same norms of human life with only small, insignificant differences.
But there is a particular difficulty that many psychiatrists and psychologists must overcome in order to accept the ideas of humanistic psychoanalysis. They still think in terms of nineteenth-century materialism, which believed that the source (and cause) of all important mental phenomena must be the corresponding physiological, somatic108 processes. Thus, Freud, whose main philosophical orientation was formed under the influence of this type of materialism, believed that in the libido he found just such a physiological substratum109 of human passions. According to the theory presented here, the needs for belonging, overcoming the limitations of one's own existence, etc., do not have an appropriate physiological basis. In this case, it is formed by the entire human personality in the process of its interaction with the world, nature and man; the basis is the practical life of man, arising from the conditions of human existence. In philosophical terms, we proceed from premises other than the materialism of the 19th century: as the main empirical data for the study of man, we take his activity and interaction with people and nature.
If we take into account what human evolution is, then our interpretation of mental health will lead to some theoretical difficulties. There is reason to believe that human history began hundreds of thousands of years ago with a truly “primitive” culture, when the human mind was still in its infancy, and its orientation system very remotely reflected the truth and reality. The question arises: should this primitive man be considered insufficiently mentally healthy if he simply lacked those qualities that he could acquire only in the course of further evolution? Only one answer could be given to this question, opening simplest way to solving the problem. It would consist in the obvious analogy between the evolution of the human race and the development of the individual. If the relation to the outside world of an adult and his ability to navigate in it is at the level of development of a one-month-old baby, we will undoubtedly classify such a person as seriously ill, possibly with schizophrenia. However, for a month old child, the same attitude is completely normal and healthy, as it corresponds to his level of mental development. Thus, adult mental illness can be defined (as Freud showed) as a fixation on an orientation inherent in an earlier stage of development, or a regression towards this orientation, which no longer corresponds to the level that this person. Analogous would be the idea that the human race, like a child, begins its journey from a primitive orientation, and we would consider all forms of orientation adequate to the corresponding stage of human evolution to be healthy. At the same time, those types of "fixation" and "regression" that represent earlier stages of development already passed by mankind should be regarded as "painful". However, no matter how tempting such a decision may seem, it does not take into account one point. A month old baby does not yet have an organic basis for an adult attitude to the world around him. Under no circumstances can he think, feel or act like an adult. On the contrary, man, a generic being, for hundreds of thousands of years has already had in physiological terms everything necessary for maturity: his brain, bodily coordination and physical strength have not changed in all this time. The evolution of man depended solely on his ability to transmit knowledge to future generations and thus accumulate it, and it is the result of cultural development, and not organic change. A child from the most primitive culture, transferred to a highly developed culture, would develop in it on an equal basis with all other children, since the only thing that determines his development is the cultural factor. In other words, while it is generally impossible for a one-month-old child to reach the spiritual maturity of an adult (regardless of cultural conditions), any person, starting from the primitive, could come to the perfection acquired by mankind at the peak of its evolution, if he had the necessary for this cultural conditions. From this it follows that to speak of the primitiveness, unreasonableness and incestuous tendencies inherent in man at the corresponding stage of evolution, and to declare the same about a child, are not at all the same thing. However, on the other hand, the development of culture is a necessary condition for human progress. As a result, it may seem that this problem does not have a completely satisfactory solution: on the one hand, we can talk about a lack of mental health, on the other, about an early stage of development. However, this difficulty appears significant only when considering the problem in the most general terms; one has only to begin to study the more concrete problems of our time, as it turns out that the situation is much simpler. We have reached a level of individualization at which only a fully developed, mature personality can fully enjoy freedom; if the individual has not developed reason and the ability to love, he, unable to bear the burden of freedom and individuality, seeks salvation in artificially created bonds that give him a sense of belonging and rootedness. In our time, any return from freedom to artificial rootedness in a state or race is a sign of mental illness, since it does not correspond to the stage of evolution reached and undoubtedly leads to pathological phenomena.
Whether we are talking about "mental health" or "mature development" of humanity, the concepts of mental health or maturity are objective, they are obtained from the study of the "human condition" and the human needs and requirements arising from it. Therefore, as I already pointed out in chapter II, mental health cannot be defined in terms of the "adjustment" of the individual to the society in which he lives; quite the opposite: it should be defined in terms of the adaptation of society to human needs, based on whether it promotes or hinders the development of mental health. Whether an individual is healthy or not depends primarily not on the individual himself, but on the structure of the given society. A healthy society develops a person's ability to love people, stimulates creative work, the development of reason, objectivity, and the acquisition of a sense of one's own self, based on a sense of one's creative forces. An unhealthy society gives rise to mutual enmity, distrust, turns a person into an object of manipulation and exploitation, deprives him of a sense of self, which persists only to the extent that a person obeys others or becomes an automaton. Society can perform both functions: and promote healthy development man and prevent him. In almost most cases, it does both; the question is only what is the degree and direction of positive and negative influences.
This approach, according to which mental health should be defined objectively (while society has both a developing and a deforming influence on a person), is opposed not only to the position of relativism discussed above on this issue, but also to two other points of view that I would like here. discuss. In accordance with one of them - undoubtedly the most popular in our time - they are trying to convince us that modern Western society and especially "American Lifestyle” correspond to the deepest needs of human nature, and fitness for this way of life is tantamount to mental health and maturity. Thus, social psychology, instead of being an instrument of criticism of society, becomes an apologist110 for the status quo. With this view of things, the concepts of "maturity" and "mental health" correspond to the desired life position of a worker or employee in production or business. As an example of this understanding of "fitness" I will give the definition emotional maturity given by Dr. Strecker. He says: “I define maturity as the ability to be dedicated to one's work, to do more than is required in any business; as reliability, perseverance in the implementation of the plan, despite the difficulties; as the ability to work with other people, subject to organization and leadership; as the ability to make decisions, the will to live, flexibility, independence and tolerance"111. It is quite obvious that these, according to Strecker, the distinctive features of maturity are nothing but the virtues of a good worker, employee or soldier in modern large social organizations. Similar characteristics can often be found in job advertisements for small employees.
For Dr. Strecker, as well as for many of his associates, maturity is tantamount to adaptability to our society, and they do not even have a question about adaptability to which lifestyle - healthy or pathological - in question.
This point of view is opposed by another, whose supporters include scientists from Hobbes112 to Freud, a point of view that assumes the existence of a fundamental and unchanging contradiction between human nature and society, arising from the supposedly non-social essence of man. According to Freud, man is driven by two impulses of biological origin: the desire for sexual pleasure and the desire for destruction. His sexual desires are aimed at achieving complete sexual freedom, that is, at the unlimited availability of relationships with women who might seem desirable to him. Through experience, Freud believed, a person discovered that "sexual (genital) love represents ... the strongest experiences of satisfaction, gives him, in fact, a model of any happiness." Therefore, he was forced "to continue to seek the satisfaction of his desire for happiness in the field of sexual relations, to place genital eroticism at the center of vital interests"113.
Another direction of natural sexual desires is the incestuous attraction to the mother, the very essence of which creates conflict with the father and hostility towards him. Freud showed the importance of this side of sexuality when he argued that the prohibition of incest is perhaps "the most significant mutilation experienced by the human love life in all the past times"114.
In full accordance with the ideas of Rousseau115, Freud believes that primitive man has not yet had to, or almost never had to cope with the limitations in satisfying these basic desires. He could not restrain his aggressiveness, but his satisfaction sexual desires was only slightly limited. Indeed, primitive man "knew no limits to his instincts... cultured man exchanged part of the opportunity to achieve happiness for a part of reliability”116.
While agreeing with Rousseau's idea of the "happy savage", Freud at the same time follows Hobbes in his assumption that there is an inherent hostility between people. “‘Homo homini lupus est’117, will anyone have the courage, after the bitter experience of life and history, to dispute this position?” Freud asks. He believes that there are two sources of human aggressiveness: one is an innate desire for destruction (death instinct), the other is culturally imposed obstacles to the satisfaction of instinctive desires. And although a person can direct part of his aggressiveness against himself through the superego, and a small part of people are able to sublimate their sexual desires into brotherly love, aggressiveness remains ineradicable. People will always compete with each other and attack each other, fighting if not for material goods, then for “advantages in sexual relations, which can become a source of the strongest discontent and hostility among people. If, by the complete liberation of sexual life, these advantages are also destroyed, i.e., the family, the basic unit of culture, is abolished, then, of course, it will be difficult to foresee what new paths the development of culture will take, but one thing can definitely be expected: an ineradicable feature of human nature will follow after her and beyond." Since Freud considers love to be essentially sexual desire, he is forced to assume that there is a contradiction between love and social cohesion. In his opinion, love is inherently egocentric and antisocial, and solidarity and brotherly love are not primary feelings rooted in human nature, but abstracted from the goal, inhibited sexual desires.
Based on his understanding of man, according to which he is inherent in the desire for unlimited sexual satisfaction and destructiveness, Freud necessarily comes to the idea of the inevitability of a conflict between civilization, on the one hand, and mental health and happiness, on the other. Primitive healthy and happy, because nothing interferes with the satisfaction of his basic instincts, but he is deprived of the benefits of civilization. The position of a civilized person is more secure, he enjoys the fruits of science and art, but is doomed to be neurotic because of the constantly imposed restraint of instincts by culture.
From Freud's point of view, social life and culture initially contradict the needs of human nature; man, on the one hand, faces the tragic necessity of choosing between happiness based on the unlimited satisfaction of his instincts, and on the other hand, security and cultural achievements based on the suppression of instincts and, therefore, contributing to the development of neuroses and other forms of mental illness. For Freud, civilization is the result of the suppression of instincts and, as a result, the cause of mental illness.
Freud's notion that human nature is inherently competitive (and extrasocial) is similar to that which we find in most authors who believe that the traits inherent in a person in modern capitalist society are his natural properties. Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex is built on the assumption of the existence of a "natural" antagonism and rivalry between father and sons, challenging each other maternal love. This rivalry is accepted as inevitable, since the incestuous tendencies inherent in sons are considered natural. Freud only follows this line of thought, believing that the instincts of each person make him strive for the preemptive right in sexual relations and thereby cause bitter enmity between people. It is impossible not to see that the entire Freudian theory of sex is built on an anthropological premise, according to which rivalry and mutual enmity are inherent in human nature.
In the field of biology, this principle was expressed by Darwin in his theory of the competitive "struggle for survival". Economists such as Ricardo120 and the Manchester School121 brought it into the realm of economics. Later it was Freud's turn - under the influence of the same anthropological assumptions - to declare it in relation to the field of sexual drives. Just as the concept of “homo economicus”122 was the main one for economists, so for Freud the concept of “homo sexualis”123 becomes the main one. Both "economic man" and "sexual man" are very convenient inventions; the essence ascribed to them - isolation, asociality, greed and competition - gives capitalism the appearance of a system that is fully consistent with human nature, and makes it inaccessible to criticism.
Both approaches - both the idea of "adaptation", and the idea of Hobbes - Freud about the inevitable conflict between human nature and society - in fact mean the defense of modern society and give a one-sided, distorted picture of reality. Moreover, both of these approaches overlook the fact that society is in conflict not only with the extrasocial properties of a person (partly generated by society itself), but often with the most valuable human qualities, which it suppresses rather than develops.
An objective study of the relationship between society and human nature must take into account both the developmental and the restraining influence of society on man, taking into account the nature of man and the needs arising from it. Since most authors have repeatedly emphasized the positive impact of modern society on a person, in this book I will pay less attention to this side of the issue and dwell in more detail on the sometimes overlooked morbid role of modern society.
Moscow 2005
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Translation from German Compiled by A. Laktionov Serial design by A. Kudryavtsev
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The relationship between man and society has long attracted philosophers who sought to determine which of the elements of this binary opposition is primary. Is the individual antisocial by nature, as 3. Freud argued, or, on the contrary, is a person a social animal, as K. Marx believed? An attempt to reconcile these opposing points of view was made by the founder of "humanistic psychoanalysis" Erich Fromm. Society is infected with the depersonalization of the individual: mass culture, mass art, mass politics are conditioned by the totality of all the living conditions of modern industrial society. This disease can be cured only through the acquisition of positive freedom, freedom not in itself, not destructive, but "freedom for something", through the transition from the state of "to have" to the state of "to be". And only a society whose members have positive freedom can be called healthy.
UDC 159.9 BBK 88.5
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LLC "Publishing House ACT", 2005
FROM RELAXATION
NEGATIVE FREEDOM OF A PRISONER OF NATURE
The relationship between man and society has long attracted philosophers who sought to determine which of the elements of this binary opposition is primary and to explore the nature of the relationship between the individual and society. The culmination of the "social" approach to the analysis of these relationships was the theory of K. Marx, who proclaimed man a social animal. According to Marx, a person is a set of social relations, so the opposition of the individual to society is meaningless. The “biological” theory of 3. Freud, who believed that a person is endowed with fundamental antisociality, became a counterweight to the Marxist theory. Society is repressive; threatening sanctions, it suppresses the free expression of instincts, which, expressing the biological nature of man, are immoral from the point of view of society. An attempt to reconcile these opposing points of view on the relationship between man and society was made by the founder of "humanistic psychoanalysis" Erich Fromm.
Fromm saw Freud's mistake in the fact that Freud passed off a contemporary person as a person in general. There is no immutable human nature (namely, this is how Freud approached a person) does not exist. Of course, all people have common and constant needs: hunger, thirst, the need for sleep. But the aspirations and feelings built on top of them: love, hatred, the thirst for power, the craving for pleasure are products of the social process.
Marx, on the other hand, absolutized the social in a person and considered the mind to be decisive, and when approaching society and history, he underestimated psychological factors. Contrary to Marx, who believed that social life (being) determines social
consciousness, Fromm believed that between economic relations and human consciousness there is another element - social character. Its content is the psychological properties of a person, in which his abilities for critical thinking, for subtle experiences are realized and which are expressed in the desire for freedom and justice.
Widespread definitions of man: “man is a rational animal”, “man is a political animal”, of course, reflect certain aspects of human nature, but miss its essence. And the essence of a person is not a certain “thing” that is “hidden” behind phenomena, the essence of a person is determined by his existential situation. And this situation is unique: on the one hand, man is an animal and as such he is an inseparable part of nature, and on the other hand, man is a social being, that is, he is separated from nature by an impassable abyss. This duality of man is the essence of his existence. As Fromm wrote: “A person faces a terrible abyss of becoming a prisoner of nature, while remaining free inside his consciousness; it is predestined to be separated from it, to be neither there nor here. Human self-consciousness has made man a wanderer in this world, he is separated, alone, seized with fear.
This fear gives rise to irrational destructiveness in a person, a craving for destruction as a form of “escape from nature”. This "negative freedom" results in a global catastrophe of relations between people in society and between a person and society as a whole - in other words, in a crisis of society as an institution.
Marx, according to Fromm, was right in pointing out the crisis of human society, but mistakenly considered economic relations and private property to be the cause of the crisis. Society is infected with the depersonalization of the individual: mass culture, mass art, mass politics are conditioned by the totality of all the living conditions of modern industrial society. This disease can be cured only through the acquisition of positive freedom, freedom not in itself, not destructive, but "freedom for something", through the transition from the state of "to have" to the state of "to be". And only a society whose members have positive freedom can be called healthy.
Igor Feoktistov
HEALTHY SOCIETY
©T.V. Banketova, S.V. Karpushina, translation, 1992
ARE WE NORMAL?
There is no more commonplace thought than that we, the inhabitants of the Western world of the 20th century, are perfectly normal. Even with the fact that many of us suffer from more or less severe forms of mental illness, general level mental health is beyond our doubts. We are confident that by introducing better methods of mental hygiene, we can further improve the state of affairs in this area. When it comes to individual mental disorders, we consider them only as absolutely special cases, perhaps a little wondering why they are so common in a society that is considered quite healthy.
But can we be sure that we are not deceiving ourselves? It is known that many residents of psychiatric hospitals are convinced that everyone is mad, except for themselves. Many severe neurotics believe that their obsessions or hysterical fits are a normal reaction to not quite ordinary circumstances. Well, what about ourselves?
Let's look at the facts from a psychiatric point of view. In the last 100 years, we in the Western world have created more wealth than any other society in the history of mankind. And yet we have managed to destroy millions of people in wars. Along with smaller ones, there were major wars 1870, 1914 and 1939 1 Each participant in these wars firmly believed that he was fighting to defend himself and his honor. They looked upon their opponents as cruel, devoid of common sense enemies of the human race, who must be defeated in order to save the world from evil. But only a few years pass after the end of mutual extermination, and yesterday's enemies become friends, and recent friends - enemies, and we again, with all seriousness, begin to paint them in white or black colors, respectively. At the present time - in 1955 - we are ready for a new mass bloodshed; but if it happened, it would surpass any that have been accomplished by mankind so far. It was for this purpose that one of the greatest discoveries in the field of natural sciences was used. With a mixed feeling of hope and fear, people look at the "statesmen" of different nations and are ready to praise them if they "manage to avoid war"; At the same time, they lose sight of the fact that wars have always arisen precisely through the fault of statesmen, but, as a rule, not through malicious intent, but as a result of their unreasonable and incorrect performance of their duties.
Nevertheless, during such outbursts of destructiveness and paranoid 2 suspicion, we behave in exactly the same way as the civilized part of humanity has done over the past three millennia. According to Victor Cherbulier, in the period from 1500 BC. e. to 1860 AD e. at least 8,000 peace treaties were signed, each of which was supposed to ensure a lasting peace: in fact, each of them lasted an average of only two years! 3
Our business activity is hardly more reassuring. We live in an economic system where too high a crop is often an economic disaster - and we limit agricultural productivity in order to "stabilize the market", even though millions of people are in dire need of the very products that we are restricting. Now our economic system is functioning very successfully. But one reason for this is that we spend billions of dollars every year on arms production. With some anxiety, economists think about the time when we will stop producing weapons; the idea that, instead of producing weapons, the state should build houses and produce necessary and useful things, immediately entails the charge of encroaching on the freedom of private enterprise.
Over 90% of our population is literate. Radio, TV, movies and daily newspapers are available to everyone. However, instead of introducing us to the best literary and musical works of the past and present, the media, in addition to advertising, fill people's heads with the most base nonsense, far from reality and teeming with sadistic fantasies, which even the least cultured person would not become. occasionally fill your leisure time. But while this massive corruption of people from young to old is going on, we continue to strictly ensure that nothing “immoral” gets on the screens. Any suggestion that the government fund the production of films and radio programs that educate and develop people would also be outraged and condemned in the name of freedom and ideals.
We have reduced the number of working hours by almost half compared to the times of a hundred years ago. Our ancestors did not dare to dream of such an amount of free time as we have today. And what? We don't know how to use this newly acquired free time: we try to kill him and rejoice when another day ends.
Is it worth it to continue the description of what is already well known to everyone? If a single person acted in this way, then, of course, serious doubts would arise - whether he is in his mind. If, nevertheless, he insisted that everything was all right and that he was acting quite reasonably, then the diagnosis would not raise any doubts.
However, many psychiatrists and psychologists refuse to admit that society as a whole can be mentally unhealthy. They believe that the problem of the mental health of society lies only in the number of "unadapted" individuals, and not in the possible "malfunction" of society itself. This book considers just the last version of the problem statement: not an individual pathology, but a pathology of normality, especially in modern Western society. But before embarking on a difficult discussion of the concept of social pathology, let's take a look at some very telling and suggestive evidence that allows us to judge the extent of the prevalence of individual pathology in Western culture.
How widespread is mental illness in various parts of the Western world? The most surprising thing is that there is no data at all to answer this question. While we have accurate comparative statistics on material resources, employment, births and deaths, we do not have relevant information about mental illness. AT best case we have some information for a number of countries, such as the US and Sweden. But they only give an idea of the number of patients in psychiatric hospitals and cannot help in determining the comparative frequency of mental disorders. In fact, these data point not so much to an increase in the number of mental illnesses, but to the expansion of the capacity of psychiatric hospitals and the improvement of medical care in them 4 . The fact that more than half of all hospital beds in the United States are occupied by patients with mental disorders, on whom we spend over a billion dollars annually, may rather indicate not an increase in the number of mentally ill people, but only an increase in medical care. However, there are other figures that indicate with greater certainty the spread of rather severe cases of mental disorders. If during last war 17.7% of all conscripts were declared unfit for military service due to mental illness, this certainly indicates a high degree of mental ill health, even if we do not have similar figures to compare with the past or with other countries.
The only comparable figures that can give us a rough idea of the state of mental health are the data on suicides, murders and alcoholism. Suicide is without a doubt the most complex problem, and no single factor can be considered its sole cause. But, without even going into a discussion of this problem, I think it is quite reasonable to assume that high percent suicide in a given country reflects a lack of mental stability and mental health. This state of affairs is by no means due to poverty. This is strongly supported by all the data. The fewest suicides are committed in the poorest countries, at the same time, the growth of material well-being in Europe was accompanied by an increase in the number of suicides 5 . As for alcoholism, then it, without a doubt, indicates a mental and emotional imbalance.
Murder motives are perhaps less pathological than suicide motives. However, although countries with high homicide rates have low rates of suicide, the sum of these rates leads us to an interesting conclusion. If we classify both murders and suicides as "destructive actions", then from the tables given here we find that the total indicator of such actions is by no means a constant value, but fluctuates between the extreme values - 35.76 and 4.24. This contradicts Freud's assumption about the relative constancy of the amount of destructiveness, on which his theory of the death instinct is based, and refutes the conclusion that follows from this that destructiveness remains at the same level, differing only in its orientation towards itself or the external world.
The tables below show the number of homicides and suicides, as well as the number of people suffering from alcoholism, in some of the most important countries in Europe and North America. In table. I, II and III are data for 1946.
A cursory glance at these tables catches the eye interesting fact: countries with the highest
Table I
Destructive actions
(per 100 thousand people adult population, %)
Table II
Destructive actions
Table III
Approximate number of alcoholics
(with or without complications)
suicide rates - Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden and the United States - also have the highest overall homicide and suicide rates, while other countries - Spain, Italy, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland - also have the lowest homicide rates, and the number of suicides.
Table data. III show that the countries with the highest number of suicides - the USA, Switzerland and Denmark - also have the highest rates of alcoholism, with the only difference being that, according to this table, the USA ranks 1st, and France - 2nd place, respectively, instead of 5th and 6th places in terms of the number of suicides.
These figures are truly frightening and alarming. After all, even if we doubt that a high suicide rate in itself indicates a lack of mental health in the population, then the significant overlap in the data on suicide and alcoholism, apparently, shows that we are dealing here with signs of mental imbalance.
In addition, we see that in the countries of Europe - the most democratic, peaceful and prosperous, as well as in the United States - the richest country in the world, the most severe symptoms of mental disorders appear. The goal of all socio-economic development of the Western world is a materially secure life, a relatively equal distribution of wealth, a stable democracy and peace; and it is in those countries that have come closest to this goal that the most serious symptoms of mental imbalance are observed! True, these figures do not prove anything by themselves, but they are at least staggering. And before going into a more detailed examination of the whole problem, these data lead us to the question: is there something fundamentally wrong in our way of life and in the goals to which we aspire?
Could it be that the well-to-do life of the middle class, while satisfying our material needs, causes us a feeling of unbearable boredom, and suicide and alcoholism are just painful attempts to get rid of it? Perhaps the given data is an impressive illustration of the truth of the words “man does not live by bread alone” and at the same time shows that modern civilization is not able to satisfy the deepest needs of man? And if so, what are those needs?
In the following chapters, we will try to answer this question and critically assess the influence of Western culture on the spiritual development and psyche of people living in Western countries. However, before proceeding to a detailed discussion of these problems, we seem to need to consider common problem pathology of normality, since it is precisely this that serves as the starting point for the entire direction of thought set forth in this book.
CAN SOCIETY BE SICK?
PATHOLOGY OF NORMALITY 7
To argue that society as a whole may lack mental health is to start from a controversial assumption, contrary to the position of sociological relativism 8 shared by most representatives of the social scientists of our time. These scientists proceed from the fact that every society is normal insofar as it functions, and that pathology can only be defined as an individual's insufficient adaptation to the way of life of his society.
To speak of a "healthy society" means to be based on a premise different from sociological relativism. This only makes sense if we accept that a mentally unhealthy society is possible; this, in turn, presupposes the existence of universal criteria of mental health applicable to the human race as such, on the basis of which one can judge the state of health of any society. This position of normative humanism 9 is based on several main premises.
Man as a species can be defined not only in terms of anatomy and physiology;
representatives of this species are characterized by common mental properties, the laws governing their mental and emotional activity, as well as the desire for a satisfactory solution to the problems of human existence. However, our knowledge of a person is still so imperfect that we cannot yet strictly define a person in psychological terms. The task of the "science of man" is, finally, to compile an exact description of what is rightly called the nature of man. What was often called human nature turned out to be just one of its many manifestations (moreover, often pathological); moreover, as a rule, these erroneous definitions were used to protect this type of society, presenting it as an inevitable result, corresponding to the mental make-up of a person.
In contrast to this reactionary use of the concept of human nature, liberals since the 18th century. emphasized the variability of human nature and the decisive influence of the environment on it. Such a formulation of the question, for all its correctness and importance, prompted many representatives of the social sciences to assume that the mental make-up of a person is not determined by his own inherent properties, but is like a blank sheet of paper on which society and culture put their writings. This assumption is just as untenable and destructive to social progress as the opposite. The real problem is to establish from the many manifestations of human nature (both normal and pathological), as far as we can observe them in different individuals and in different cultures, to establish its basis, common to the whole human race. In addition, the task is to reveal the laws immanent in human nature, as well as the inalienable goals of its transformation and development.
This understanding of human nature differs from the generally accepted meaning of the term "human nature". Transforming the world around him, man at the same time changes himself in the course of history. He seems to be his own creation. But just as he can only transform and modify natural materials according to their nature, so he can only transform and change himself according to his own nature. The unfolding of potentialities and their transformation to the extent of one's abilities - this is what a person really accomplishes in the process of history. The point of view presented here cannot be considered either exclusively “biological” or only “sociological”, since these two aspects of the problem should be considered in an inseparable unity. It rather overcomes their dichotomy 11 by assuming that the basic passions and urges of man stem from the totality of human existence, that they can be identified and defined, some of them leading to health and happiness, others to illness and unhappiness. No social system creates these fundamental aspirations, but only determines which of the limited set of potential passions is to be manifested or prevailed. No matter how people appear in each given culture, they are always a vivid expression of human nature, but such an expression, the specificity of which, however, is its dependence on the social laws of the life of a given society. Just as a child at birth has all the potential human capabilities that have to develop under favorable social and cultural conditions, so the human race develops in the course of history, becoming what it potentially is.
The normative humanist approach is based on the assumption that the problem of human existence, like any other, can be solved right and wrong, satisfactorily and unsatisfactorily. If a person reaches full maturity in his development in accordance with the properties and laws of human nature, then he acquires mental health. The failure of such development leads to mental illness. It follows from this premise that the measure of mental health is not individual fitness for a given social system, but a certain universal criterion valid for all people - a satisfactory solution to the problem of human existence.
Nothing is more misleading about the state of mind in a society than "unanimous approval" of accepted ideas. At the same time, it is naively believed that if the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings, then the validity of the latter is proved. Nothing is further from the truth than this assumption. Unanimous approval in itself has nothing to do with reason or mental health. Just as there is "folie a deux" 12 , there is also "folie a millions" 13 . Indeed, because millions of people are subject to the same vices, these vices do not turn into virtues; from the fact that many people share the same delusions, these delusions do not turn into truths, and from the fact that millions of people suffer from the same forms of mental pathology, these people do not recover.
There is, however, an important difference between individual and social mental illnesses, which implies a differentiation between the concepts of inferiority and neurosis. If a person fails to achieve freedom, spontaneity 14 , true self-expression, then he can be considered deeply flawed, as long as we admit that every human being objectively strives to achieve freedom and immediacy of expression of feelings. If the majority of the members of a given society do not achieve this goal, then we are dealing with a socially predetermined inferiority. And since it is inherent not to one individual, but to many, he does not realize it as an inferiority, he is not threatened by a sense of his own difference from others, similar to rejection. His possible loss in the richness of life's impressions, in the genuine experience of happiness, is compensated by the security that he gains by adjusting himself to the rest of humanity, as far as he knows him. It is possible that this inferiority itself is elevated by the society in which he lives to the rank of virtue and therefore is able to strengthen his sense of confidence in the success achieved.
An example of this is the feeling of guilt and anxiety that the doctrine of Calvin aroused in people 15 . A person filled with a sense of his own powerlessness and insignificance, constantly tormented by doubts whether he will be saved or condemned to eternal torment, is hardly capable of genuine joy, and therefore can be considered deeply flawed. However, it was precisely this inferiority that was set by society: it was especially highly valued, since with its help the individual was protected from neurosis, inevitable in the framework of a different culture, in which the same inferiority would cause him a feeling of complete inconsistency with the surrounding world and isolation from it.
Spinoza 16 very clearly formulated the problem of socially given inferiority. He wrote: “Indeed, we see that sometimes one object acts on people in such a way that, although it does not exist in cash, they are sure that they have it in front of them, and when this happens to awake person, then we say that he is crazy or insane ... But when a miser thinks of nothing but gain and money, an ambitious man thinks of nothing but fame, etc., then we do not recognize them as crazy because they are usually painful to us and are considered worthy of hatred. In fact, stinginess, ambition, debauchery, etc., are types of madness, although they are not ranked among diseases.
These words were written several centuries ago; they are still true, although at present various types of inferiority are predetermined by society to such an extent that they usually no longer cause irritation or contempt. Today we are confronted with a man who acts and feels like an automaton, he never experiences experiences that are really his own; he feels himself exactly as he thinks others think he is; his artificial smile replaced sincere laughter, and meaningless chatter took the place of verbal communication; he experiences a dull sense of hopelessness instead of actual pain. There are two things to note about this person. First, he suffers from a lack of spontaneity and individuality that may be irreparable. At the same time, he is not significantly different from millions of other people in the same position. For most of them, society provides behavioral models that enable them to maintain health, despite their handicap. It turns out that each society, as it were, offers its own remedy against the outbreak of obvious neurotic symptoms, which are a consequence of the inferiority generated by it.
Let us suppose that in Western civilization the cinema, radio, television, sporting events were canceled for just four weeks, newspapers were stopped. If in this way the main escape routes are blocked by flight, what will be the consequences for people left to their own devices? I have no doubt that even in such a short time, thousands of nervous disorders and many thousands more will find themselves in a state of intense anxiety, giving a picture similar to that which is clinically diagnosed as "neurosis" 18 . If, at the same time, we eliminate the means that make it possible to suppress the reaction to socially given inferiority, then we will face an obvious disease.
For a minority of people, the model of behavior offered by society turns out to be ineffective. This usually happens to those who are more susceptible to individual handicaps than the average person, with the result that the funds provided by the culture are insufficient to prevent an open outbreak of the disease. (Take, for example, a person whose life goal is to achieve power and glory. Although this goal in itself is clearly pathological, there is nevertheless a difference between one person making an effort to practically achieve what he wants, and another more seriously ill who remains in the grip of infantile claims, does nothing to fulfill his desire in anticipation of a miracle, and, experiencing more and more impotence as a result, comes in the end to a bitter sense of his own uselessness and disappointment.) But there are also such people who, by the structure their character, and consequently their conflicts, are different from most others, so that the means effective for the greater part of their brethren cannot help them. Among them, we sometimes meet people who are more honest and sensitive than others, who, precisely because of these properties, cannot accept the “soothing” means offered by culture, although at the same time they do not have enough strength or health to, in spite of everything, live peacefully in their own way. .
As a result of the above distinction between neurosis and socially determined inferiority, one may get the impression that as soon as society takes measures against the outbreak of obvious symptoms, everything turns out to be in order, and it can continue to function without hindrance, no matter how great the inferiority generated by it. However, history shows that this is not the case.
Indeed, unlike animals, man exhibits an almost limitless adaptability; he can eat almost anything, he can live in almost any climatic conditions and adapt to them, and there is hardly a mental state that he could not bear and in which he would not be able to live. He can be free or a slave, live in wealth and luxury or lead a half-starved existence, he can lead a peaceful life or a warrior's life, be an exploiter and a robber or a member of a brotherhood bound by ties of cooperation and love. There is hardly a mental state in which a person could not live, and there is hardly anything that could not be done to a person or for which he could not be used. It would seem that all these considerations support the assumption that there is no single human nature, and this would actually mean that "man" does not exist as a species, but only as a physiological and anatomical being.
Chapter IV. Mental health and society
How we understand mental health depends on our understanding of human nature. In the previous chapters I have tried to show that the needs and passions of man arise from the special conditions of his existence. Needs common to man and animals - hunger, thirst, the need for sleep and sexual satisfaction - are important because they are caused by the internal chemical processes of the body; if not satisfied, they are able to become omnipotent (of course, this applies more to food and sleep than to sexual needs, which, if unsatisfied, never reach the strength of other needs, at least for physiological reasons). However, even their complete satisfaction is not a sufficient condition for sanity and mental health. But both depend on the satisfaction of purely human needs and passions arising from the peculiarities of a person’s position in the world: the need for belonging, overcoming the limitations of one’s own existence, a sense of rootedness, the need for a sense of identity, as well as for a system of orientation and worship. The great human passions: the lust for power, vanity, the search for truth, the lust for love and fraternity, the lust for destruction as well as for creation - every strong desire that drives a person's actions originates in this specifically human source, and not in the various phases of the development of the libido, according to Freud's theory.
Satisfying the natural needs of a person is extremely simple from the point of view of physiology, and if difficulties arise in this, then only of a sociological and economic nature. Satisfaction of specifically human needs is immeasurably more complex, it depends on many factors, of which, last but not least, is the way the society in which a person lives is organized, and how this organization determines human relations within society.
The basic mental needs arising from the characteristics of human existence must be satisfied in one way or another, otherwise a person is threatened with the loss of mental health in the same way as his physiological needs must be satisfied, otherwise death awaits him. However ways satisfaction of mental needs are very diverse, and the difference between them is tantamount to the difference between different degrees of mental health. If one of the basic needs remains unfulfilled, mental illness may occur; if such a need is realized, but in an unsatisfactory (from the point of view of the nature of human existence) way, then, as a consequence of this, a neurosis develops (either explicit or in the form of a socially given inferiority). A person needs a connection with other people, but if he achieves it through symbiosis or alienation, he loses his independence and integrity; a weak, suffering person is overcome by anger or indifference. Only if a person manages to establish relationships with people on the principles of love, he gains a sense of unity with them, while maintaining his integrity. Only with the help of creative labor can a person relate himself to nature, becoming one with it, but without dissolving in it without a trace. As long as a person is still incestuously rooted in nature, in the mother, in the race, his individuality and mind cannot develop; he remains a helpless victim of nature and at the same time completely deprived of the opportunity to feel himself one with her. Only if a person develops his mind and ability to love, if he is able to humanly experience the world of nature and the world of people, can he gain a sense of home, self-confidence, feel himself the master of his life. It is hardly worth saying that of the two possible ways to overcome the limitations of one's own existence, one - destructiveness - leads to suffering, the other - creativity - to happiness. It is also easy to see that only a sense of identity, based on a sense of one's own capabilities, can give strength, while the same feeling, but based on a group, with all the diversity of its forms, leaves a person dependent and, therefore, weak. Ultimately a man can make this world their only to the extent that he is able to comprehend reality; but if he lives in illusions, he will never change the conditions that give rise to these illusions.
Summarizing, we can say that the concept of mental health follows from the very conditions of human existence and is the same for all times and all cultures. Mental health is characterized by the ability to love and create, liberation from incestuous attachment to family and land, a sense of identity based on the experience of one's Self as a subject and implementer of one's own abilities, awareness of reality outside of us and in ourselves, i.e., the development of objectivity and mind.
This idea of mental health is largely consistent with the precepts of the great spiritual teachers of mankind. From the point of view of some modern psychologists, this coincidence serves as proof that our psychological premises are not "scientific", that they are philosophical or religious "ideals". They seem to find it difficult to reconcile themselves to the conclusion that in all societies the great teachings were based on an intelligent insight into human nature and on the conditions necessary for the full development of man. But it is precisely this conclusion that, apparently, is more in line with the fact that in the most diverse places on the globe, in different historical periods, the “awakened ones” preached the same norms completely or almost independently of each other. Akhenaten, Moses, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Isaiah (106), Socrates (107), Jesus affirmed the same norms of human life with only small, insignificant differences.
But there is a particular difficulty that many psychiatrists and psychologists must overcome in order to accept the ideas humanistic psychoanalysis. They still think in terms of nineteenth-century materialism, which believed that the source (and cause) of all important psychic phenomena must be the corresponding physiological, somatic(108) processes. Thus, Freud, whose main philosophical orientation was formed under the influence of this type of materialism, believed that in the libido he found just such a physiological substratum (109) of human passions. According to the theory presented here, the needs for belonging, overcoming the limitations of one's own existence, etc., do not have a corresponding physiological basics. In this case, it is formed by the entire human personality in the process of its interaction with the world, nature and man; the basis is the practical life of a person, arising from the conditions of human existence. In philosophical terms, we proceed from premises other than the materialism of the 19th century: as the main empirical data for the study of man, we take his activity and interaction with people and nature.
If we take into account what human evolution is, then our interpretation of mental health will lead to some theoretical difficulties. There is reason to believe that human history began hundreds of thousands of years ago with a truly “primitive” culture, when the human mind was still in its infancy, and its orientation system very remotely reflected the truth and reality. The question arises: should this primitive man be considered insufficiently mentally healthy if he simply lacked those qualities that he could acquire only in the course of further evolution? This question could certainly be given only one answer, which opens the simplest way to solve the problem. It would consist in the obvious analogy between the evolution of the human race and the development of the individual. If the relation to the outside world of an adult and his ability to navigate in it is at the level of development of a one-month-old baby, we will undoubtedly classify such a person as seriously ill, possibly with schizophrenia. However, for a month old child, the same attitude is completely normal and healthy, as it corresponds to his level of mental development. Thus, adult mental illness can be defined (as Freud showed) as a fixation on an orientation inherent in an earlier stage of development, or a regression towards this orientation, which no longer corresponds to the level that the person should have reached. Analogous would be the idea that the human race, like a child, begins its journey from a primitive orientation, and we would consider all forms of orientation adequate to the corresponding stage of human evolution to be healthy. At the same time, those types of "fixation" and "regression" that represent earlier stages of development already passed by mankind should be regarded as "painful". However, no matter how tempting such a decision may seem, it does not take into account one point. A month old baby does not yet have an organic basis for an adult attitude to the world around him. Under no circumstances can he think, feel or act like an adult. On the contrary, man, a generic being, for hundreds of thousands of years has already had everything physiologically necessary for maturity: his brain, bodily coordination and physical strength have not changed during all this time. The evolution of man depended solely on his ability to transmit knowledge to future generations and thus accumulate it, and it is the result of cultural development, and not organic change. A child from the most primitive culture, transferred to a highly developed culture, would develop in it on an equal basis with all other children, since the only thing that determines his development is the cultural factor. In other words, while it is generally impossible for a one-month-old child to reach the spiritual maturity of an adult (regardless of cultural conditions), any person, starting from the primitive, could come to the perfection acquired by mankind at the peak of its evolution, if he had the necessary for this cultural conditions. It follows from this that to speak of the primitiveness, unreasonableness and incestuous tendencies inherent in a person at the corresponding stage of evolution, and to declare the same about a child, are not at all the same thing. However, on the other hand, the development of culture is a necessary condition for human progress. As a result, it may seem that this problem does not have a completely satisfactory solution: on the one hand, we can talk about a lack of mental health, on the other, about an early stage of development. However, this difficulty appears significant only when considering the problem in the most general terms; one has only to begin to study the more concrete problems of our time, as it turns out that the situation is much simpler. We have reached a level of individualization at which only a fully developed, mature personality can fully enjoy freedom; if the individual has not developed reason and the ability to love, he, unable to bear the burden of freedom and individuality, seeks salvation in artificially created bonds that give him a sense of belonging and rootedness. In our time, any return from freedom to artificial rootedness in a state or race is a sign of mental illness, since it does not correspond to the stage of evolution reached and undoubtedly leads to pathological phenomena.
Whether we are talking about "mental health" or "mature development" of humanity, the concepts of mental health or maturity are objective, they are obtained from the study of the "human condition" and the human needs and requirements arising from it. Therefore, as I already pointed out in chapter II, mental health cannot be defined in terms of the "adjustment" of the individual to the society in which he lives; quite the opposite: it should be defined in terms of the adaptation of society to human needs, based on whether it promotes or hinders the development of mental health. Whether an individual is healthy or not depends primarily not on the individual himself, but on the structure of the given society. A healthy society develops a person's ability to love people, stimulates creative work, the development of reason, objectivity, and the acquisition of a sense of one's own self, based on a sense of one's creative forces. An unhealthy society gives rise to mutual enmity, distrust, turns a person into an object of manipulation and exploitation, deprives him of a sense of self, which persists only to the extent that a person obeys others or becomes an automaton. Society can perform both functions: both to promote the healthy development of a person, and to hinder it. In almost most cases, it does both; the question is only what is the degree and direction of positive and negative influences.
This approach, according to which mental health should be defined objectively (while society has both a developing and a deforming influence on a person), is opposed not only to the position of relativism discussed above on this issue, but also to two other points of view that I would like here. discuss. According to one of them - undoubtedly the most popular in our time - we are being convinced that modern Western society and especially the "American way of life" correspond to the deepest needs of human nature, and fitness for this way of life is tantamount to mental health and maturity. Thus, social psychology, instead of being an instrument of criticism of society, becomes an apologist (110) for the status quo. With this view of things, the concepts of "maturity" and "mental health" correspond to the desired life position of a worker or employee in production or business. As an example of this understanding of "fitness," I will quote Dr. Strecker's definition of emotional maturity. He says: “I define maturity as the ability to be dedicated to one's work, to do more than is required in any business; as reliability, perseverance in the implementation of the plan, despite the difficulties; as the ability to work with other people, subject to organization and leadership; as the ability to make decisions, the will to live, flexibility, independence and tolerance. It is quite obvious that these, according to Strecker, the distinctive features of maturity are nothing but the virtues of a good worker, employee or soldier in modern large social organizations. Similar characteristics can often be found in job advertisements for small employees.
For Dr. Strecker, as for many of his associates, maturity is tantamount to adaptability to our society, and they don’t even have a question about adaptability to which way of life - healthy or pathological - they are talking about.
This point of view is opposed by another, whose supporters include scientists from Hobbes (112) to Freud, - a point of view that presupposes the existence of a fundamental and unchanging contradictions between human nature and society arising from the supposedly non-social essence of man. According to Freud, man is driven by two impulses of biological origin: the desire for sexual pleasure and the desire for destruction. His sexual desires are aimed at achieving complete sexual freedom, that is, at the unlimited availability of relationships with women who might seem desirable to him. Through experience, Freud believed, a person discovered that "sexual (genital) love represents ... the strongest experiences of satisfaction, gives him, in fact, a model of any happiness." Therefore, he was forced "to continue to seek the satisfaction of his desire for happiness in the field of sexual relations, to place genital eroticism at the center of vital interests."
Another direction of natural sexual desires is the incestuous attraction to the mother, the very essence of which gives rise to conflict with the father and hostility towards him. Freud showed the importance of this aspect of sexuality, arguing that the prohibition of incest is perhaps "the most significant mutilation experienced by the human love life in all the past times" (114).
In full accordance with the ideas of Rousseau (115), Freud believes that primitive man has not yet had or almost never had to cope with the limitations in satisfying these basic desires. He could not restrain his aggressiveness, and the satisfaction of his sexual desires was only slightly limited. Indeed, the primitive man "knew no limits to his drives... A cultured man exchanged part of the opportunity to achieve happiness for a piece of reliability" (116).
While agreeing with Rousseau's idea of the "happy savage", Freud at the same time follows Hobbes in his assumption that there is an inherent hostility between people. “Homo homini lupus est”, will anyone have the courage, after the bitter experience of life and history, to challenge this position?” - asks Freud (118). He believes that there are two sources of human aggressiveness: one is the innate desire for destruction (death instinct), the other is culturally imposed obstacles to the satisfaction of instinctive desires. And although a person can direct part of his aggressiveness against himself through the super-ego, and a small part of people are able to sublimate their sexual desires into brotherly love, aggressiveness remains ineradicable. People will always compete with each other and attack each other, fighting if not for material goods, then for “advantages in sexual relations, which can become a source of the strongest discontent and hostility among people. If, by the complete liberation of sexual life, these advantages are also destroyed, i.e., the family, the basic unit of culture, is abolished, then, of course, it will be difficult to foresee what new paths the development of culture will take, but one thing can definitely be expected: an ineradicable feature of human nature will follow after her and beyond” (119). Since Freud considers love to be essentially sexual desire, he is forced to assume that there is a contradiction between love and social cohesion. In his opinion, love is inherently egocentric and antisocial, and solidarity and brotherly love are not primary feelings rooted in human nature, but abstracted from the goal, inhibited sexual desires.
Based on his understanding of man, according to which he is inherent in the desire for unlimited sexual satisfaction and destructiveness, Freud necessarily comes to the idea of the inevitability of a conflict between civilization, on the one hand, and mental health and happiness, on the other. Primitive man is healthy and happy because nothing interferes with the satisfaction of his basic instincts, but he is deprived of the benefits of civilization. The position of a civilized person is more secure, he enjoys the fruits of science and art, but is doomed to be neurotic because of the constantly imposed restraint of instincts by culture.
From Freud's point of view, social life and culture initially contradict the needs of human nature; man, on the one hand, faces the tragic necessity of choosing between happiness based on the unlimited satisfaction of his instincts, and on the other hand, security and cultural achievements based on the suppression of instincts and, therefore, contributing to the development of neuroses and other forms of mental illness. For Freud, civilization is the result of the suppression of instincts and, as a result, the cause of mental ill health.
Freud's notion that human nature is inherently competitive (and extrasocial) is similar to that which we find in most authors who believe that the traits inherent in a person in modern capitalist society are his natural properties. Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex is built on the assumption of the existence of a "natural" antagonism and rivalry between father and sons, challenging each other's maternal love. This rivalry is accepted as inevitable, since the incestuous tendencies inherent in sons are considered natural. Freud only follows this line of thought, believing that the instincts of each person make him strive for the preemptive right in sexual relations and thereby cause bitter enmity between people. It is impossible not to see that the entire Freudian theory of sex is built on an anthropological premise, according to which rivalry and mutual enmity are inherent in human nature.
In the area of biology this principle was expressed by Darwin in his competitive "struggle for survival" theory. Economists such as Ricardo (120) and representatives of the Manchester School (121) transferred it to the sphere economy. Later, Freud's turn came - under the influence of all the same anthropological premises - to declare it in relation to the field sexual desires. Just as for economists the concept of “homo economicus” was the main one, so for Freud the concept of “homo sexualis” becomes the main one. Both "economic man" and "sexual man" are very convenient inventions; the essence attributed to them - isolation, asociality, greed and rivalry - gives capitalism the appearance of a system that fully corresponds to human nature, and makes it inaccessible to criticism.
Both approaches - both the idea of "adaptation" and the idea of Hobbes - Freud about the inevitable conflict between human nature and society - in fact mean the protection of modern society and give a one-sided, distorted picture of reality. Moreover, both of these approaches overlook the fact that society is in conflict not only with the extrasocial properties of a person (partly generated by society itself), but often with the most valuable human qualities, which it suppresses rather than develops.
An objective study of the relationship between society and human nature must take into account both the developmental and the restraining influence of society on man, taking into account the nature of man and the needs arising from it. Since most authors have repeatedly emphasized the positive impact of modern society on man, in this book I will pay less attention to this side of the issue and dwell in more detail on the sometimes overlooked morbid role of modern society.
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Man is a complex living system. Its vital activity is provided at three levels: biological, mental and social. At each of these levels, human health has its own characteristics.
Health at the biological level is associated with the body and depends on the dynamic balance of the functions of all internal organs, their adequate response to the influence of the environment.
Health at the mental level is associated with the personality and depends on such personal characteristics as emotional-volitional and motivational-need, on the development of self-awareness of the individual and on the awareness of the value for the individual of one's own health and a healthy lifestyle.
Health at the social level is associated with the influence on the personality of other people, society as a whole and depends on the place and role of a person in interpersonal relationships, on moral health society. Social health develops under the influence of parents, friends, loved ones, classmates at school, fellow students at the university, work colleagues, housemates, etc.
The difference between mental and social health is conditional: the mental properties and qualities of a person do not exist outside the system of social relations. Man is a social being, society affects the health of the individual. Moreover, this influence can be both positive and negative. Mentally healthy people feel quite confident and safe in any society. In a healthy society, as a rule, healthy individuals are formed. Deficiencies in upbringing and adverse environmental influences can cause degradation of the individual, in which case her attitude towards herself, towards other people, to activities and communication will change.
A person with a developed consciousness and self-awareness, independent and responsible, can withstand the effects of external conditions, struggle with difficulties and obstacles, achieve goals and remain healthy physically, mentally and socially.
For a long time, the values of the individual, including health, were not a priority in our society. Health was defined by experts as "the absence of disease." The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Health is a conditional concept, there are no criteria and indicators applicable to all people.
Realizing the ideas of mental and social health will require each person to rethink such personal qualities, as activity and responsibility, and from society - a revision of the established priorities and traditions in the field of upbringing and education, work and recreation.
The definition of health includes the state of mental well-being as one of its main elements. And this is no coincidence. The mental state of a person has a significant impact on many aspects of his health. It determines mental and physical activity and performance, as it directly affects the functions of the body, the ability of a person to adapt to changing environmental conditions, and largely determines relationships with other people. sociable people find their place in the team more easily, have emotional stability, successfully resist stress, depression and various diseases. Mentally healthy people, as a rule, successfully satisfy their material and spiritual needs, have a sense of dignity and self-respect, as well as adequate self-esteem. This creates a positive motivation for healthy behavior, a healthy lifestyle.
Mental health of a person is the basis for the formation of an active personal position in relation to quality own life. Personal happiness, career, relationships with colleagues and friends, parents and loved ones are directly related to the state of mental and social health. An important manifestation of mental well-being is the state of the emotional sphere of a person. Emotional stability is fully manifested in mental balance. Emotional experiences are external manifestations of a person's mental state, they have a significant impact on internal physical functions. A mentally healthy person is dominated by a good (optimistic) mood.
Emotional reactions are manifested in the form of subjective experiences, one's attitude to everything that a person knows and does, to what surrounds him. Emotional reactions can have different colors: joy or sadness, delight or disappointment, pity or aggressiveness, pain or shame.
The emotional reflection of phenomena, events or facts is much broader and deeper than our sensations, because they have a direct impact on all body functions.
Is it possible to learn to suppress your emotions or, on the contrary, to strengthen them? It turns out that it is possible, but after appropriate training.
Here are some ways you can work on yourself.
1. Try to change the occupation if your professional activity has reached a dead end. Every person is gifted by nature with some ability. We must find this path and act in this direction.
2. Put in all your efforts to be sure to succeed. The main thing is to strive to do your job as best as possible. You should always carefully and thoughtfully, without missing a single detail, prepare for a business meeting or negotiations, speeches, exams, etc. It is unacceptable because of poor preparation to fail the case (or miss your chance).
3. Learn to divide (rank) your affairs in order of importance, giving priority to the most significant. Make it your rule, and success, and therefore emotional well-being, will not be long in coming.
Throughout life, people face many difficulties and experiences due to the fact that some of the needs, due to objective or subjective reasons, cannot be satisfied. Emotionally healthy people will always find a way to get out of a difficult situation with dignity. In every unsolvable situation, they see positive moments. Difficult situation someday it will end, and after it, of course, positive changes will come. This ensures their well-being.
One of the important signs of a person's emotional well-being is his need to take care of other people. It is inherent in every person genetically. However, a person is arranged in such a way that, first of all, he takes care of himself. Those people whose own needs are not satisfied show no interest in others.
An important indicator of emotional well-being is how a person builds his relationships with other people. Mentally healthy people are friendly to others, they are responsive and friendly and have the right to expect the same attitude towards themselves from the environment. This gives them confidence and gives them a reason to consider themselves part of society.
A special place in emotional well-being is the need to be loved and the ability of a person to love others. However, before a person can learn to love others, he must learn to respect and love himself. Failure to do so is an indicator of disrespect for oneself.
An essential and invariable indicator of emotional health is a person's ability to fruitful and efficient work. Emotional conflicts do not contribute to productive work.
Emotionally prosperous and are born, and become in the course of all life. Psychologist E. Erickson identified four conditions that ensure emotional well-being: good developed sense personality, ability to communicate, the ability to create close relationships, the ability to be active.
One of the main psychological factors for the reliability of efficiency and success is emotional stability.
Emotional stability is the non-susceptibility of emotional states to negative influences (external and internal), one of the main conditions for maintaining activity even in difficult situations. Emotional stability is an integral property of the psyche, which is expressed in the ability to overcome the state of excessive emotional excitement when performing complex activities. This valuable personality trait reduces the negative impact of strong emotional influences, warns distress, promotes the manifestation of readiness to act in tense situations.
Indicators of emotional stability - at the level cognitive processes: correct perception of the situation, its analysis and assessment, decision-making, sequence and error-free actions to achieve goals at the level of behavioral reactions, accuracy of movements, timbre, speed and expressiveness of speech, changes in appearance(facial expression, gaze, facial expressions, etc.).
Man is an active being. The activity manifests itself in different ways different people. Positive results are achieved by those who are active. Activity (from Latin actives - active) - the ability to transform the material and spiritual environment.
Psychologists distinguish three types of behavior: passive, active, aggressive.
Passive behavior is expressed in the fact that a person shifts the solution of his problems to others. Active behavior is the opposite of passive. It is expressed in the fact that a person openly declares his needs, desires and his desire to satisfy them by all permitted methods. Independence and self-esteem are inherent in such people, an active life position creates normal, healthy relationships between people (or healthy competition). Such people, as a rule, achieve great success.
At the same time, active behavior can also be aggressive. In this case, the achievement of the goal occurs at the expense of infringement or claims to the rights of other people. Naturally, this causes their response, which ultimately ends in complete isolation of the person and rejection from others. Aggressive behavior offends others, hurts their self-esteem, forces them to take retaliatory measures (sometimes not the most in a legal way). All this further aggravates relations with others and does not at all contribute to the achievement of the goal.
In the process of long evolution, man has learned to adapt to constantly changing environmental conditions. It was this ability that allowed a person to survive in very harsh conditions of existence. However, a natural question arises: is the reaction of all people the same in response to the influence of various environmental factors, or is it different? How many people, so many responses.
Canadian physiologist Hans Selye was able to combine all the reactions of the body various people on the impact of the environment and called them - stress. In the very general view Stress is the body's reaction to the action of some environmental factor. A stressor (or stressor) is any effect on the body that causes a stress response.
There are many such influences in life. Here are some of them: marriage, divorce, change of residence, new job, dismissal from work, exam, emotional conflict at home, at work, fatigue, fear (for example, dismissal), long-term uncertainty in the life situation, changing weather conditions, injury, surgery, illness different nature(somatic or infectious) and much more.
Studying the body's responses to the actions of various environmental factors, G. Selye found that, despite quantitative and qualitative differences, they are always of the same type and include a huge number of physiological reactions that can be assessed using objective methods. G. Selye designated the totality of physiological reactions as a general adaptation syndrome (GAS). Its development is accompanied by a change of three periods or states: mobilization ( increased activity), resistance and exhaustion.
In each of the states, the nervous and endocrine system.
At the time of the formation of a stress response at the first stage - the stage of mobilization - there is an increase in the activity of the nervous system. sympathetic system which is necessary and prerequisite general adaptation syndrome. However, long-term maintenance of sympathetic activity can have a sharply negative impact on health. In this case, all those systems and organs that are involved in the stress response suffer. These are the cardiovascular and digestive systems, the nervous and endocrine systems, and the reproductive system.
The period of mobilization is associated with the emergence of anxiety at the initial moment of the action of any stressor. The body urgently (sometimes just in case, since there is no real threat) mobilizes all its explicit and hidden reserves, prepares for immediate action (reaction) - attack, defense or flight in order to avoid a direct collision with danger. This is expressed in the acceleration of the pulse, increased blood circulation in the body and in the striated muscles, in an increase in blood pressure and some deepening of breathing, and a decrease in the secretion of digestive enzymes. The body is ready to do the work that real life practically never occurs. There is a case when a young man, fleeing from an angry bull, jumped over a river, the width of which was quite large. The next day, after arguing with friends, he could not repeat this jump, although he tried many times.
When the immediate threat of danger disappears, the body goes into the second state - resistance. The period of resistance is accompanied by a decrease in the level of mobilization to a stable level, but with a sufficiently high activity of the systems and organs involved. This allows the body to tolerate prolonged exposure to the stressor. Of course, while the body is in some tension. But this cannot go on for any length of time. After a certain time (for all people it is different and depends on individual characteristics body) comes the next, third period - exhaustion. It occurs when the body is exposed to either a very strong (excessive) or very prolonged action stressor. In this case, a significant loss of energy occurs, the body's ability to withstand the action of a stressor decreases. During this period, the immune system suffers the most, which normally provides protection for the body from a number of diseases, both infectious and non-infectious (somatic) in nature. Arise various diseases. In this regard, G. Selye noted that, in principle, any stressor can bring the body to complete exhaustion and, as a result, lead to the complete destruction of physical and mental health.
The action of a stressor and the development of stress, along with the obvious negative consequences for human health, can be beneficial. In other words, stress is not only harmful, but also beneficial. This is observed in cases where the effect of the stressor is not very significant, but occurs at a sufficiently high level and the body copes with the load relatively easily. At this moment (persistent activity), the human body, body and mind act most clearly and harmoniously. Selye called this state of stress (from the Greek ai - good or real). However, it should be noted that a high level of stress cannot be prolonged.
Prolonged, unrelenting stress turns into distress with all the ensuing consequences of the development of the disease. If a person does not know how to manage his emotions and does not want to learn this, he is more likely to get sick.
Let us analyze some situations associated with the development of diseases, the cause of which is the impact of stress factors. Most often, stress affects the state of the cardiovascular system. And it's understandable why. During stress, the pulse quickens, therefore, the heart works in an unfavorable mode, it rests less and the recovery time is shortened. Blood pressure rises and changes chemical composition blood, it increases the content of cholesterol, contributing to the development of atherosclerosis and narrowing of the lumen of blood vessels. Under such conditions, the heart works with great overload, which increases the possibility of cardiovascular pathology.
Here are some examples of distress. The announcer's excitement affects the secretion of digestive enzymes. Often, appetite decreases or disappears completely (although some people, on the contrary, increase their appetite and begin to eat too much). The stomach accumulates (free and bound) hydrochloric acid. Due to the fact that there is no food, acid and digestive enzymes gradually destroy the mucous membrane of the stomach and duodenum. First, erosion appears, then gastric ulcer, and its consequences for the body are extremely unfavorable. The possibility of complete destruction (perforation) of the stomach wall increases, when its contents enter the abdominal cavity, with the subsequent development of peritonitis (inflammation of the peritoneum). In this case, urgent intervention of the surgeon is necessary.
Stressful situations significantly increase the likelihood of cancer formation. The occurrence of a cancerous tumor in any system of the human body is associated with a weakening immune system, with the loss of the ability to distinguish between one's own and someone else's. Many reasons for the occurrence of stressful situations arise in last years in our country due to a radical breakdown of economic and social relations, as well as ideological concepts that have existed for more than 70 years. There was a sharp stratification of society into the very rich and the very poor. The middle class is practically non-existent. Perhaps one of the main causes of many stresses is the uncertainty in everything: at work and at home, in personal life and in public. There was a whole army of unemployed. And those who work are afraid of possible dismissal, and it does not matter at all whether it is a state institution or a commercial structure. The main thing is that a huge number of people are on the verge of a mental breakdown. This is a general situation, not related to the person himself, it exists objectively.
However, there are also subjective reasons that depend on the psyche of the person himself, his personal characteristics or character traits. Here are just some of the personality characteristics that increase the impact of stressors:
Negative attitude towards work
Insufficient managerial or organizational experience;
· sedentary image life,
low level of physical development,
low level of mental and physical performance;
Inferiority complex, when a person unjustifiably underestimates his abilities, low self-esteem;
Existence of bad habits: smoking, alcohol abuse, drug use or toxic substances;
poor communication skills, inability to find a common language with others;
· inability to rest, be distracted from work, lack of interests other than work.
Quite a significant source of stressful situations can be work. Dissatisfaction with it can arise for many reasons: as a result of vaguely defined terms of reference, the inability to show reasonable initiative, the complete absence of certain powers of the employee, the need to carry out assignments against one’s will, overload or lack of work, lack of prospects for promotion, low wages, social insecurity, etc.
American psychologists distinguish five stages in the development of stress associated with professional activities. At the first stage, there is a feeling of anxiety and some tension, at the second, a feeling of fatigue and alienation is added (from this moment depression begins), at the third, physiological reactions occur: the heartbeat slightly increases and blood pressure rises, there are signs of disturbances in the digestive system, dull pains in abdominal areas. At the next, fourth, stage, a person is aware of the onset of the disease, and the last is the fifth stage, when a person is diagnosed with an illness caused by a stress factor.
