In the life of an individual, internal and external conflicts occur, generated by contradictions between the subjective perception of the world and its objective picture, as well as between the real and desired image of the Self.

Certain mental processes work to eliminate or minimize negative experiences caused by psychological conflicts. Such regulatory systems of the psyche are called defense mechanisms, and their totality is called psychological protection of the individual.

Psychological defense is triggered when there is a real or potential threat:

• integrity of the individual,
• her identity
• self-esteem,
• image of "I"
• stability of the subjective picture of the world.

Psychological protection is designed to protect the individual from worry, anxiety, and fear. This system of mechanisms helps a person survive in society and adapt successfully.

The essence of psychological protection is as follows:

1. eliminating the source of conflict experiences from the sphere of consciousness,
2. its transformation, in order to prevent conflict in the psyche,
3. reducing the severity of experiences through specific behavior.

At the same time, psychological defense does not give the individual the opportunity to take active steps to eliminate the source of worries. By protecting against excessive inconsistency, smoothing out contradictions, reducing tension, lowering the significance of the situation, psychological defense only hides or transforms the conflict in a person’s perception.

There are situations that require the elimination of their causes and sources. In these cases, psychological defense mechanisms work more to the detriment than to the benefit of the individual.

Basic mechanisms of psychological defense

The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, began to study the mechanisms of psychological defense. He defined them as a way of resolving the conflict between Id (Unconscious, instincts) and Super-Ego (Super-I, moral attitudes).

In modern science and practice of psychology, more than twenty types of psychological defense mechanisms are identified, and the seven most common of them will be described below.

crowding out

This is the most universal mechanism, which consists in eliminating contradictory experiences, drives, motives, information, and memories from a person’s consciousness. They are repressed into the sphere of the unconscious. The psyche “hides” an unacceptable phenomenon from consciousness, replacing it with a socially acceptable one. A person cannot remember repressed negative events, while they are still stored in the depths of his memory, beyond awareness.

Inversion or reaction formation

This paradoxical mechanism forces a person to replace unacceptable emotions and manifestations with diametrically opposed ones. For example, experiencing hatred, but not wanting to show it, a person can be emphatically polite, kind, caring; roughly speaking, hatred is replaced by love.

Regression

A return to simpler forms of thinking and behavior. The psyche “falls into childhood”; a person begins to think and behave like a child, trying to simplify an overly complex life situation.

Identification

Initially, this is a way for a child to assimilate social norms by copying the behavior of significant adults. This is how children learn, adapt to their social environment, and adopt ideals and patterns of behavior. As a psychological defense mechanism, identification is an unconscious copying of desired personality traits, thereby covering up their absence and feelings of inferiority.

Rationalization

A person’s ability to explain rationally unacceptable for himself or for society, irrational drives and instincts. When such a mechanism comes into force, the significance of forbidden desires is reduced and overestimated, the person convinces himself that he really does not need the object of desire, and “calms down” unconscious impulses with reasoning.

Sublimation

This is a specific psychological defense mechanism designed to transform a specific type of energy - sexual attraction - into the social activity of the individual. Very often, unreleased or excessive sexual energy gives strength for creativity, sports, active study and work.

Projection

An easy to understand psychological defense mechanism. It works when a person unconsciously attributes rejected and unacceptable qualities and patterns of behavior to other people.

When psychological defense mechanisms turn out to be ineffective, the individual needs to either change the conflict situation (up to its complete elimination), or change himself, transform, adapt, change his worldview in such a way that the problematic situation ceases to be such.

A person’s life consists not only of pleasant and joyful moments. Stress, tension, troubles at work and at home - all this also inevitably surrounds us. This, it would seem, should make a person’s existence unbearable, but no, we are experiencing problems, trying to come to an agreement with ourselves. Here the mechanisms of psychological protection of the individual come to our aid.

What it is

The concept of psychological defense was introduced into science by a world-famous psychologist. It was he who noticed that in difficult moments, special psychological mechanisms come to the aid of a person, thanks to which experiences and anxiety are reduced, and a feeling of relief comes.

It is important to note that the functions of psychological protection are generally positive, as they protect a person from unnecessary worries, eliminate tension, and help maintain self-respect. But if this comfortable state is fixed for a long time, then self-deception or an incorrect perception of reality is possible.

Variety of ways

Currently, the most studied types of psychological defense are:

• Crowding out.
• Negation.
• Regression.
• Compensation.
• Rationalization.
• Reactive education.
• Depreciation.
• Fantasizing.
• Insulation.

Upon closer examination, probably, each person will be able to recognize the techniques that his psyche used as a defense.

Crowding out. With this type of protection, traumatic circumstances or unpleasant information pass from a person’s consciousness to the subconscious. But the problem does not go away - it remains in the psyche, maintaining emotional tension and affecting a person’s behavior.

For example, repression as a psychological defense of the individual is very clearly manifested in people who have experienced violence. The emotional shock from the experience can be so strong that the traumatic memory is sent deep into the subconscious. So, if we repeatedly forget something, it's worth asking ourselves if we really need this information.

But sometimes a repressed memory manifests itself. This is especially clearly expressed in human behavior. For example, a woman who has experienced violence may exhibit mistrust, anxiety, and even fear when interacting with men. Sometimes repressed information comes out in slips, slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, etc. Psychosexual disorders or psychosomatic illnesses can also appear as a result of repression.

Negation. This mechanism first manifests itself in early childhood. When denied, information that leads to internal disharmony or anxiety is not perceived.

For example, most people who have any bad habit are ready to deny the obvious facts of disappointing statistics. After all, their agreement with them would mean awareness of the damage they cause to their health.

Denial also helps to escape from circumstances that can be traumatic. For example, fearing to lose, a person avoids participating in competitions.

Regression. With this type of psychological defense, a person, in order to avoid anxiety, reacts to what is happening as he would have done in a more early stage life. Thus, in adults, childish behavior, excessive sentimentality, and infantilism are noted. All this is present when the “Ego” does not want to acknowledge the existing reality.

Identification. By attracting this method of psychological defense, a person adopts characteristics the personality and behavior of another individual.

Thus, not being brave enough, a person identifies himself with a courageous person. Thus, he achieves self-confidence and growth in his own eyes. For example, a child who is afraid of his parent unconsciously wants to be like him.

Compensation. In this case, a person makes great efforts to achieve success where he is most vulnerable. Compensation also occurs when distressing circumstances are overcome through oversatisfaction in other areas.

For example, a physically weak or cowardly person who finds it difficult to give a direct response to a threat tries to humiliate the offender with the help of his intelligence or resourcefulness, thereby finding satisfaction.

Projection. The mechanism of this defense is to transfer thoughts, feelings, and actions that a person does not accept in himself to someone else. Thus, the proverb “He sees a speck in someone else’s eye, but does not notice a log in his own” clearly illustrates this method of protection. Blaming others for your failures and problems also occurs within the framework of projection.

Substitution. This is a mechanism in which there is an outburst of emotions (most often anger, rage) on objects that are less dangerous than those that provoked them.

Substitution can often be observed in everyday life. Often people simply do not have the opportunity to punish the one who offended them or treated them unfairly. A striking example of substitution, when a person, dissatisfied or offended by his boss and not having the opportunity to express this to him, upon coming home, transfers his indignation to his wife and children.

Rationalization. With this type of psychological defense, the individual tries to logically explain his mistakes and failures. And it happens that he convinces himself and those close to him that everything is fine.

For example, a woman whose husband left her tells herself and her friends that he worked little, did not help her, had a bad character and smoked a lot. As they say: “I didn’t really want to.”

Also, an example of rationalization can be seen in the fable “The Fox and the Grapes,” when, looking at the beautiful berries and not being able to pick them, the Fox began to persuade herself that the grapes were still green.

Reactive education. According to Freud, this defense mechanism It is triggered when there is a possibility that previously repressed desires and thoughts that are unacceptable to the environment or the individual himself may return to consciousness. Then the person begins to behave in the opposite way to these illicit impulses.

For example, a man’s excessive love for a woman can be transformed into hatred for her. Or a man with homosexual inclinations may manifest himself as an ardent supporter of exclusively heterosexual feelings.

Thus, reality is greatly distorted, and it is difficult to understand a person’s true attitude to a particular situation. After all, an unkind attitude can actually be a consequence of strong, sometimes unrequited feelings.

Sublimation. This type of psychological defense involves the transformation of initially sexual impulses into others that are acceptable in society.

For example, a young man with a penchant for or even sadism can realize his desires by writing literary works, paintings, and also by playing sports. Thus, he sublimates his inclinations into socially accepted and useful activities. Z. Freud notes in his works that the sublimation of sexual impulses became the basis of the cultural movement in the West.

Depreciation. The methods and techniques of psychological defense described above are relatively humane in relation to the outside world. Depreciation is, on the contrary, one of the harshest ways of protecting yourself in relation to others.

A person who underestimates or even devalues ​​himself wants to humiliate everyone around him. This is how he saves his self-esteem.

This mechanism can most often be observed among young people, because it is during their teenage years that people most often have low self-esteem. This is often the reason for the ironic, unkind attitude of young people towards each other and others around them.

Fantasizing. This method of protection is characterized by the fact that a person lives in an illusory, fantasy world. Thanks to fantasies, self-doubt and anxiety are mitigated. In their fantasies, such people can be winners, rich, successful in personal relationships.

S. Freud noted that happy people either never fantasize or do it very rarely. A satisfied person simply does not need this. As a result, it may happen that a person begins to live in an unreal, imaginary world.

Insulation. With this method of protection, a person divides his personality into two or more. One of them is separated, namely the one that causes discomfort and tension.

A striking example of this form of psychological defense is the behavior of a child who did something bad, and then “turned” into another person (a toy, a fairy-tale character, etc.) and confesses that he saw the boy do something bad, but he is not to blame.

Classification

When classifying, methods of psychological defense are divided into mature and primitive. Mature ones include sublimation, fantasy, regression, etc., and primitive ones include denial, projection, devaluation, etc.

B.D. offers his own division of defenses. Karvasarsky. He divides them into four groups.

First group. It includes mechanisms that do not process information, but can repress, suppress, block, and deny it.

Second group. This includes types of defenses that distort the content of a person’s thoughts and experiences (rationalization, projection, isolation, identification).

Third group. This group includes those types of defenses that provide emotional release. The most striking example is sublimation.

Fourth group. It includes those types of defenses that allow manipulation (regression, fantasy, idealization, devaluation).

Meaning

There are two General characteristics, which are endowed with methods of psychological protection:

• They work on a subconscious level.
• They deform, sweep away, and distort the surrounding reality.

A person most often uses different methods of psychological defense at the same time in order to most effectively protect himself from what is traumatic, disturbing, or unsettling.

Thanks to research, the main thing has been clarified: psychological defenses are completely normal. Largely thanks to them, a person in the outside world finds harmony with himself, gets rid of anxiety, stress, tension.

And in order to neutralize some of the peculiarities of the “work” of psychological defense, it is not the person’s behavior that needs to be corrected – it is necessary to eliminate the consequences of the injury, due to which the mental defense was activated. Author: Yana Glukhova

Topic: “Mechanisms of psychological defense”

Moscow 2013

Introduction

Chapter 2. Mechanisms of psychological defense

2.1 The concept of the psychological defense mechanism

2 Psychological defense mechanisms

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Almost every day a person is faced with situations where an existing need cannot be satisfied for some objective or subjective reasons. In such cases, behavior is usually regulated through psychological defense mechanisms that are aimed at preventing behavioral disorders.

Psychological protection is associated with a change in the system of internal values ​​of the individual, aimed at reducing the level of subjective significance of the corresponding experience in order to minimize psychologically traumatic moments. So, for example, R.M. Granovskaya, Doctor of Psychology, believes that “the functions of psychological defense are inherently contradictory: on the one hand, they contribute to a person’s adaptation to his own inner world, but at the same time, on the other, they can worsen adaptability to the external social environment.”

Psychological defense can also become a problem when it ceases to provide our comfort and safety and begins to cause trouble, and in order to prevent this from happening, you need to have at least the slightest understanding of the basic defense mechanisms.

I have to find out what mechanisms exist and how they can influence us and our behavior. This is the purpose of my research.

In order to achieve my goal, I have to solve a number of tasks, such as: find out what psychological defense mechanisms are, highlight the main ones and give them a brief explanation.

The methods of my research are analysis, synthesis, induction, and the object is the mechanisms of psychological defense.

The practical significance of my abstract is determined by the fact that the results of my generalization can be used in the educational process.

Chapter 1. The concept of psychological defense

What is psychological defense anyway?

Psychological protection is a regulatory system of mental stabilization of the individual, aimed at eliminating (reducing) the negative effect caused by any traumatic influence.

It protects the individual from traumatic experiences, in particular, by displacing them into unconscious sensations, feelings, and ideas. Psychological protection forms the psychological security of the individual. This is one of the components of the anti-suicide barrier.

Let's also consider one more concept for this term.

Psychological defense is also considered as special techniques and actions taken by a person in order to maintain a positive image of himself and normal well-being when negative personality traits, immoral thoughts, actions or ignoble feelings are attributed to him. This concept will be more understandable to any person.

Psychological defense can be presented as a system of mechanisms aimed at minimizing negative experiences associated with conflicts that threaten the integrity of the individual.

Such conflicts can be provoked both by contradictory attitudes in the individual himself, and by a mismatch between external information and the image of the world and image formed by the individual. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian psychologist, psychiatrist and neurologist, who was the first to tackle the problem of psychological conflicts, interpreted them as a form of resolving the conflict between unconscious drives and internalized social demands or prohibitions.

Subsequently, as a result of numerous studies conducted primarily in clinical practice, different kinds psychological defense mechanisms. Through the implementation of psychological mechanisms, as a rule, only relative personal well-being is achieved. But unresolved problems become chronic, as a person deprives himself of the opportunity to actively influence the situation in order to eliminate the source of negative experiences. Psychological defense has the most positive role when the problems that arise are of little significance and are not worth dealing with at all.

The functional purpose and goal of psychological defense is to weaken the intrapersonal conflict (tension, anxiety) between the instinctive impulses of the unconscious and the learned demands of the external environment that arise as a result of social interaction. By weakening this conflict, protection regulates a person’s behavior, increasing his adaptability and balancing the psyche. At the same time, a person can express the conflict between need and fear in different ways:

· through mental changes,

· through bodily disorders (dysfunctions), manifested in the form of chronic psychosomatic symptoms,

· in the form of changing behavior patterns.

If a person’s mental defense mechanisms are weak, fear and discomfort will inevitably overwhelm his soul. At the same time, maintaining the protection mechanisms at an optimal level requires constant expenditure of energy. And these costs can be so significant, and even unbearable for the individual, that in some cases they can lead to the appearance of specific neurotic symptoms and impaired adaptability.

The problem of psychological defense contains a central contradiction between a person’s desire to maintain mental balance and the losses that result from excessive invasion of defenses. On the one hand, there is an undoubted benefit from all types of defenses designed to reduce the tension accumulating in a person’s soul by distorting the original information or correspondingly changing behavior. On the other hand, their excessive inclusion does not allow the individual to be aware of the objective, true situation and to adequately and creatively interact with the world.

Thus, psychological defense plays a huge role for a person in solving any problems, resolving complex and incomprehensible situations.

Chapter 2. Mechanisms of psychological defense

Having clarified the concept of psychological defense, we can move on to defining its mechanisms.

2.1 The concept of the psychological defense mechanism

Psychological defense mechanisms are a set of unconscious techniques through which a person ensures his inner comfort, protecting himself from negative experiences and mental trauma.

Psychological defense mechanisms usually include denial, repression, projection, identification, rationalization, replacement, isolation and some others. Different scientists consider different mechanisms, but I would like to dwell on the mechanisms of psychological defense according to the characteristics of each of the named mechanisms as described by R. M. Granovskaya.

Let's start with a mechanism called denial.

Denial is a person’s unconscious refusal to perceive information that is unpleasant for him, a mechanism for rejecting thoughts, feelings, desires, needs or reality that are unacceptable on a conscious level.

Denial comes down to the fact that information that is disturbing is not perceived. This method of defense is characterized by a noticeable distortion of the perception of reality. Denial is formed in childhood (if you hide your head under the blanket, then reality will cease to exist) and often does not allow people to adequately assess what is happening around them, which leads to difficulties in behavior. Adults often use denial in cases of crisis (incurable illness, impending death, loss loved one and so on.).

So a person can listen carefully, but not perceive information if it poses a threat to his status or prestige. In this case we should talk about denial. It is also unlikely that you can achieve the desired result by telling a person “the truth,” since most likely he will simply ignore this information. This is why psychology and pedagogy recommend never discussing a person’s personality, but only his negative actions.

The next psychological defense mechanism is repression.

Repression is the most universal way to get rid of internal conflict by actively turning off an unacceptable motive or unpleasant information from consciousness. Repression is the process of eliminating from the sphere of consciousness thoughts, feelings, desires and drives that cause pain, shame or guilt. The action of this mechanism can explain many cases of a person forgetting to perform some duties, which, as it turns out upon closer examination, are unpleasant for him. Memories of unpleasant incidents are often suppressed. If any segment of a person’s life path is filled with particularly difficult experiences, amnesia can cover such segments of a person’s past life.

It is interesting that what is most quickly repressed and forgotten by a person is not the bad things that others have done to him, but the bad things that he has done to himself or others. Ingratitude, all types of envy and a great many inferiority complexes are associated with this mechanism, which are repressed with terrible force.

This mechanism is also described in L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” using the example of Nikolai Rostov, who quite sincerely “forgot” about his non-heroic behavior in the first battle, but described his exploits with emotional enthusiasm.

Let's move on to projection as a psychological defense mechanism.

Projection is the unconscious attribution of one’s own, most often socially condemned, qualities to another person, the unconscious transference to another person of one’s own feelings, desires and inclinations, which a person does not want to admit to himself, understanding their social unacceptability. The projection mechanism allows you to justify your own actions. An example would be the case when a person has shown aggression towards another, he often has a tendency to reduce the attractive qualities of the victim. In this case, such a person unconsciously attributes cruelty and dishonesty to those around him, and since those around him are like that, then in his mind his similar attitude towards them becomes justified. By type - they deserve it.

One of the main mechanisms of psychological defense is also identification.

Identification is the process of unconsciously identifying oneself with another subject, group, model, ideal.

In the process of identification, one person unconsciously becomes like another (the object of identification). Both people and groups can act as objects of identification. Identification leads to imitation of the actions and experiences of another person. In a child, this mechanism often manifests itself in their unconscious imitation of one of the adults, most often a parent of the same sex; in adults, in the worship of an idol. Thus, according to Freud, with the help of identification, young children learn the behavior patterns of people significant to them, form the Super-I, and take on a male or female role.

Sigmund Freud argued that identification is a defense against an object (which causes fear) by assimilating to it. Thus, the boy unconsciously inherits a strong and strict father and thereby strives to earn his love and respect. By voluntarily identifying with the aggressor, the subject can get rid of fear. Through identification, symbolic possession of a desired but unattainable object is also achieved.

Identification leads to an increase in the individual’s energy potential due to the symbolic “borrowing” of energy from other people.

Let's move on to rationalization.

Rationalization is a pseudo-rational explanation by a person of his own aspirations, motives for actions, actions actually caused by reasons, the recognition of which would threaten the loss of self-esteem.

Self-affirmation, protection of one’s own “I” is the main motive for updating this mechanism of psychological protection of the individual.

Rationalization is a person’s explanation of his own intentions and aspirations for the purpose of self-justification and self-affirmation. In this case, the true motives are not realized, since awareness of them (if they are socially undesirable) would lead to a loss of self-esteem.

What is striking is that whenever a person is asked why he acted the way he did, his motives (in the person’s opinion) usually turn out to be “good.” As a result of this psychological defense mechanism, a person rarely recognizes his intentions as immoral.

One of the psychological defense mechanisms is also substitution.

Substitution is the realization of unsatisfied desires and aspirations with the help of another object. In other words, substitution is the transfer of needs and desires to another, more accessible object.

If it is impossible to satisfy a certain need with the help of one item, a person can find another item (more accessible) to satisfy it.

In the case of substitution, there is a partial discharge of energy, tension, which is created by one need and is associated with a certain transfer of energy to another object. But this does not always lead to achieving the desired goal, since there is a threat of tension being restored.

For example, if the person you love and with whom you have associated the satisfaction of your needs and desires is unavailable to you, then you transfer all your feelings and opportunities to satisfy your needs to another person. And if your dream of becoming a writer has not come true, then you can choose the profession of a literature teacher as a substitute, partially satisfying your creative needs.

A person takes out the inability to directly express his dissatisfaction with high authorities on his own subordinates, close people, children, etc.

The effectiveness of substitution depends on how similar the replacement object is to the previous object (with which the satisfaction of the need was initially associated). Maximum similarity of the replacement object ensures that more of the needs that were first associated with the previous object will be satisfied.

Let's move on to inclusion.

Inclusion - empathy as a way to relieve one's own internal tension. It is a method of psychological defense close to rationalization, in which the significance of the traumatic factor is also overestimated. For this, a new global system of values ​​is used, of which the old system is included as a part, and then the relative importance of the traumatic factor decreases against the background of other, more powerful ones. An example of inclusion-type protection is catharsis - the relief of internal conflict through empathy. If a person observes and empathizes dramatic situations other people, significantly more painful and traumatic than those that worry him, he begins to look at his troubles differently, evaluating them in comparison with others.

From what has been said, it becomes clear that people who are able to sincerely empathize with the suffering of others not only alleviate it for others, but also contribute to the improvement of their own mental health.

For example, empathizing with the heroes of the next “soap opera”, people are distracted from their own, sometimes more significant and significant problems. protection psychological conflict identification

Let's consider the last mechanism of psychological defense.

Isolation is the isolation within the consciousness of traumatic factors for a person. In this case, unpleasant emotions are blocked by consciousness, i.e. there is no connection between the emotional coloring and the event. This type of defense resembles alienation syndrome, which is characterized by a feeling of loss of emotional connection with other people, previously significant events or one’s own experiences, although their reality is recognized.

Vivid examples of such a mechanism are often alcoholism, suicide, and vagrancy.

So, having considered all the psychological defense mechanisms that R.M. described. Granovskaya, we can conclude that psychological defense can help maintain a person’s internal comfort, even when he violates social norms and prohibitions, since it creates the ground for self-justification. If a person has a generally positive attitude toward himself and allows in his consciousness the idea of ​​his own imperfection and shortcomings, then he takes the path of overcoming the contradictions that arise. It should be noted, however, that it is necessary to know all the mechanisms in order to understand how to follow the path of self-improvement, solve problems, and not avoid or resort to psychological defense mechanisms.

Conclusion

So, having found out what psychological defense mechanisms are, highlighting the main ones and giving them a brief explanation, I can say that I achieved the goal of this work - I found out what mechanisms exist and how they can influence us and our behavior.

These mechanisms are used by humans directly in practice, most often thoughtlessly, on a subconscious level, because this is already inherent in nature. Every person should be able to protect himself in conflict situation, and these mechanisms help with this.

Defense mechanisms play, of course, a more maladaptive role, since by their nature they distort the perception of reality, but they can also be considered as adaptive, protecting not only a person’s self-esteem, but helping him cope with life’s difficulties and difficult situations. Psychological defense mechanisms help us reduce stress or avoid it altogether. They often suggest possible solutions to problems, and also provide respite and refuge from troubles that a person has no real opportunity to avoid.

List of sources and literature

Psychology of consciousness / Comp. and general editing by L. V. Kulikov. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2001. - 480 pp.: ill. - (Series “Anthology on Psychology”).

Zelinsky S.A. Control of the psyche through manipulative influence. Subliminal mechanisms of manipulative influence on the psyche of the individual and the masses for the purpose of programming to perform specified actions. - Minsk 2009 332 p.

R. Kociunas Basics psychological counseling- M.: "Academic Project", 1999

Mechanisms of psychological defense and coping with stress - R. R. Nabiullina, I. V. Tukhtarova

Freud A. Psychology of the “I” and defense mechanisms. - M., 1993.

Romanova E.S., Grebennikov L.R. Mechanisms of psychological defense. - M., 1996

Zhurbin V. Concepts of psychological defense in the concepts of S. Freud and C. Rogers // Issue. psychology. 1990, No. 4

Berezin F.B. Mental and psychophysiological adaptation of a person. - L., 1988

Mikhailov A.N., Rotenberg V.S. Features of psychological defense in normal conditions and in somatic diseases // Issue. psychology. 1990, No. 5, p. 106

Neurotic defenses of the psyche.

- Defense mechanisms of the psyche. Characteristics of basic defenses (repression, projection, sublimation, etc.)

- Resistance - as a factor of personal growth.

Let us briefly consider the defense mechanisms common in the human psyche. These defenses are: repression, projection, identification, introjection, reactive formation, self-restraint, rationalization, annulment, splitting, denial, displacement, isolation, sublimation, regression and resistance.

crowding out

Repression is the process of eliminating from the sphere of consciousness thoughts, feelings, desires and drives that cause pain, shame or guilt. The action of this mechanism can explain many cases of a person forgetting to perform some duties, which, as it turns out upon closer examination, are unpleasant for him. Memories of unpleasant incidents are often suppressed. If any segment of a person’s life path is filled with particularly difficult experiences, amnesia can cover such segments of a person’s past life.

Projection

With projection, a person attributes his own undesirable traits to others, and in this way protects himself from awareness of these traits in himself. The projection mechanism allows you to justify your own actions. For example, unfair criticism and cruelty towards others. In this case, such a person unconsciously attributes cruelty and dishonesty to those around him, and since those around him are like that, then in his mind his similar attitude towards them becomes justified. By type - they deserve it.

Identification

Identification is defined as identifying oneself with someone else. In the process of identification, one person unconsciously becomes like another (the object of identification). Both people and groups can act as objects of identification. Identification leads to imitation of the actions and experiences of another person.

Introjection

Traits and motives of persons towards whom a certain person forms various attitudes can be introjected. Often the object that is lost is introjected: this loss is replaced by the introjection of the object into one’s self. Z. Freud (2003) gave an example when a child, feeling unhappy due to the loss of a kitten, explained that he was now a kitten himself.

Reactive education

In the case of this defensive reaction, a person unconsciously translates the transformation of one mental state into another (for example, hatred into love, and vice versa). In our opinion, this fact is very important in assessing the personality of a particular person, because it indicates that real human actions, because they can only be the result of a veiled distortion of his true desires.

For example, excessive anger in other cases is only an unconscious attempt to veil interest and good nature, and ostentatious hatred is a consequence of love that frightened a person who unconsciously decided to hide it behind an attempt to openly splash out negativity.

Self-restraint as an adaptation mechanism

The essence of the self-restraint mechanism is this: when a person realizes that his achievements are less significant compared to the achievements of other people working in the same field, then his self-esteem drops. In such a situation, many simply stop working. This is a kind of departure, a retreat in the face of difficulties. Anna Freud called this mechanism “limitation of the ego.” She drew attention to the fact that such a process is characteristic of mental life throughout the entire development of personality.

Rationalization

Rationalization as a defensive process is when a person unconsciously invents logical judgments and conclusions to explain his failures. This is necessary to maintain your own positive self-image.

Cancellation

Nullification is a mental mechanism that is designed to destroy thoughts or actions that are unacceptable to a person. When a person asks for forgiveness and accepts punishment, then the unacceptable act for him is annulled, and he can continue to live in peace.

Split

In the case of splitting, a person divides his life into the imperatives of “good” and “bad,” unconsciously removing everything uncertain, which may subsequently complicate his analysis of the problem (a critical situation that causes mental discomfort as a result of the development of, for example, anxiety). Splitting is a kind of distortion of reality, like, in fact, other defense mechanisms, through the action of which a person seeks to escape from reality, replacing the true world with a false one.

Negation

In the case of this protective reaction of the psyche, when any negative information for him appears in the person’s perception zone, he unconsciously denies its existence. The presence of the fact of denial of any events, etc., makes it possible to find out about the true intentions and causes of concern of a given person, since often he unconsciously denies not something that does not exist in reality, but something important for him, but which, according to a number of things known to him reasons are unacceptable to such a person. Those. a person denies what he is trying to hide in the first place.

Bias

Such a protective function is expressed in a person’s unconscious desire to switch attention from an object of real interest to another, extraneous object.

Insulation

In this case, there is an unconscious abstraction from any problem, excessive immersion in which can lead to the development of symptoms of neurosis (for example, increased anxiety, restlessness, guilt, etc.) Also, if, when performing any work (activity), one is excessively immersed in the nature of such activity, then this may lead to a failure in the implementation of this activity. (If a boxer constantly thinks that the enemy’s blows can cause pain and various types of injuries, and even lead to death as a result of a strong blow, then such a boxer will initially lose due to the inability to fight due to fear, etc.)

Sublimation

Sublimation is the unconscious switching of negative mental energy to socially useful work. Sublimation is expressed in the fact that a person experiencing some kind of neurotic conflict finds replacing internal anxiety by switching to another activity (creativity, chopping wood, cleaning the apartment, etc.)

Regression

Such a defensive reaction of the psyche as regression manifests itself in the fact that a person, in order to avoid a neurotic conflict, unconsciously returns to that period of the past when everything was fine for him.

Resistance

Such a mechanism for protecting the psyche as resistance is very important both for understanding the specifics of defensive reactions in general, and serves as an opportunity to move to a new stage in the development of an individual as a person, which, in favorable circumstances, helps him rise to the next step in the hierarchical ladder of social relations.

First of all, let us remember that the human psyche is divided into such components as consciousness ( left hemisphere brain; approximately 10% of the volume), subconscious (unconscious, approximately 90% of the volume, right hemisphere), and censorship of the psyche (Super-I, Alter-ego). The censorship of the psyche is between consciousness and the unconscious; censorship of the psyche is a barrier of criticality in the way of information from the outside world and the psyche (brain) of a person, i.e. censorship of the psyche is assigned the role of critical analysis in assessing information coming from the outside world. Censorship passes some of this information into consciousness (which means a person is able to be aware of this information), and some - encountering obstacles in the psyche, the Super-Ego (Alter-Ego, censorship of the psyche) passes into the subconscious. In order from there to subsequently influence consciousness through emerging thoughts and the implementation of actions (actions - as a consequence of thoughts or unconscious, reflexive, desires, instincts). Resistance, being one of the protective functions (censorship) of the psyche, prevents information that is undesirable for consciousness from entering consciousness, being repressed into the unconscious. This becomes possible in cases where the nature of the new information, its semantic part, does not find a response in the soul of the individual, that is, at the initial level of perception it becomes impossible to correlate this information with information that already exists in the unconscious of a particular person, information that, being in memory of the individual - begins to clearly resist the receipt of new information. To the question: how is information received from the outside world consolidated in the psyche, one should answer that most likely there is some kind of coincidence of encodings (newly received and previously existing) information, i.e. new information becomes correlated with earlier information of similar content and direction, which by the time the new information arrived was already in the unconscious of the psyche (having formed in patterns of behavior after preliminary dominant consolidation in attitudes).

When information influences the brain, it should be said that any kind of influence becomes possible thanks to the suggestibility of the psyche. Suggestion in this case is a conscious change in a person’s existing psychological attitudes through activation of archetypes of the unconscious psyche. Archetypes, in turn, involve previously formed patterns of behavior. If we consider this from the perspective of neurophysiology, then the corresponding dominant is activated in the human brain (focal excitation of the cerebral cortex), which means that the part of the brain that is responsible for consciousness slows down its work. In this case, the censorship of the psyche (as a structural unit of the psyche) is temporarily blocked or semi-blocked, which means information from the outside world freely enters the preconscious, or even immediately into consciousness. Sometimes, bypassing consciousness, it passes into the subconscious. The personal unconscious of the psyche (subconscious) is also formed in the process of repressing information by censorship of the psyche. At the same time, not all information coming from the outside world is displaced unconsciously into the subconscious. Some of it goes into the subconscious on purpose. For example, to feed the information already available in the unconscious and further shape archetypes, or specifically for the purpose of forming new archetypes, patterns of future behavior of the individual. And this, in our opinion, must be correctly understood and distinguished. If we talk about how this or that information is forced out by the censorship of the psyche, going into the subconscious, then we should say that such information has not been verified, i.e. did not receive the proper “response” in the soul of the person whose psyche evaluates such information. As S. Freud (2003) pointed out, any situations or life circumstances that are painful for the individual’s psyche are repressed, i.e. everything that he unconsciously does not want to let into consciousness. In this case, unwanted moments of life are forgotten, that is, deliberately repressed. Moreover, let us recall that both resistance and repression are the psyche’s ability to get rid of neurosis. At the same time, new information, finding a “response in the soul,” will strengthen information of similar content that previously existed in the brain (unconscious psyche, right hemisphere of the brain). As a result, it is quite possible that for some time a kind of information vacuum will arise, during which the brain will assimilate any information received from the outside world. This also occurs if special techniques manage to break a person’s will to perceive information by overcoming resistance. Then any information received is directly deposited in the subconscious, and subsequently affects consciousness. Psychotechnologies of hypnotic influence in the waking state of consciousness of a person (object of influence) are built on this principle. In other words, if we manage to break the resistance of another person in the way of him receiving new information, then this new information will not only be deposited in his subconscious, but the person will also have the opportunity to perceive it in a cognitive (conscious) way. Moreover, in terms of the strength of its own influence, such information can have an incomparably greater impact in comparison with the modality of previously existing information in the psyche. If the modality coincides, then in this case the state of rapport occurs more easily, i.e. a reliable connection is established, whereby a person becomes receptive to receiving information from another person.

Attention should be paid to the fact that the psyche almost always protests to everything new and unknown. And this happens because, as it were, initially (when new information arrives), as we have already noticed, individual components of such information look for “certain family connections” with information that existed in the subconscious before (“coincidence of encoding”, as we define it). That is, when new information begins to be evaluated by the brain, the brain looks for something familiar in this information, through which it will either consolidate such information in consciousness or repress it into the subconscious. If the codes of new and previously existing information coincide, an associative connection arises between the new and existing information, which means a certain contact is established, as a result of which the new information seems to fall on fertile soil, and having some basis under it, it serves as an opportunity adaptation of new information, enriching it with symbolic, emotional and other components of already existing information, and then through transformation (without this there is no way, human memory cannot help but be updated) some new information is born, which already passes into consciousness, and therefore through the emerging in the unconscious of the psyche, thoughts are projected onto actions, which, although in most cases (in the absence of altered states of consciousness) are a consequence of the activity of consciousness, taking their basis in the unconscious of the psyche, forming there. At the same time, we must say that resistance allows us to identify a person’s unconscious impulses, his unconscious desires, attitudes that were early laid (by society, environment or another person) in the psyche of a given individual, and have already in one way or another begun to influence his real or future activities. In this case, it should be said that the subjugation of the psyche of another person occurs by programming his psyche by introducing into his subconscious various attitudes that can later be demanded by the manipulator (and then he activates them using code signals of an auditory-visual-kinesthetic nature); Moreover, the role of such a manipulator can be played by both specific individuals and society, the social environment, any natural factors, etc. Thus, we must say that any kind of information that is involved in any representative or signaling system of a person - either immediately deposited in the unconscious of the psyche or finds confirmation in existing earlier information, thereby being enriched due to this and amplified - is capable of influencing consciousness, i.e. on the process of human life.

Note that by overcoming resistance, a person opens his psyche to perceive new information. Moreover, there is a high probability of obtaining completely new information. After all, if earlier, as we said, some information was already present in memory, then when new information is received, the censorship of the psyche unconsciously looks for confirmation of the newly received information in the memory stores. Probably the psyche in this case should react in a certain way, and it reacts. Visually this is noticeable by external changes, occurring to a person in parallel “here and now” (redness or pallor of the facial skin, dilated pupils, variants of catalepsy (numbness of the body), etc.). Moreover, such changes can occur and not necessarily so noticeably, but still be caught by the eye of an experienced observer. Such changes indicate the onset, the possibility, of rapport (information contact) with the object of manipulation. And the probability that in this state the object will accept the information supplied to it without cuts reaches one hundred percent. Another question is that there may be individuals who cannot be brought into a state of rapport in the “here and now” transcription, but something similar, for example, can be done later. All the same, everyone has states when he is maximally susceptible to informational and psychological influence, to manipulation of his psyche, invasion of his psyche and control of the psyche of a given person. Moreover, it is also possible to fully trace the choice of the right moment, but for this you need to have experience, knowledge, and a predisposition to realize this kind of opportunities. Those. at least relative, but abilities, and even better - talent. In this case, the likelihood of achieving the programming result increases significantly.

As a result of the fact that the barrier of criticality is broken, the psyche begins to perceive new information with unprecedented force. Such information is deposited in the subconscious and is reflected in the preconscious and consciousness. That is, in this case we can say that the attack is being carried out on several “fronts” at once. As a result, unusually strong programming of the psyche is observed, the emergence of powerful, stable mechanisms (patterns of behavior) in the unconscious. In addition, after the creation of something like this, there is an initiation of the emergence of more and more new mechanisms of a similar orientation in the unconscious of the psyche. However, now they find constant reinforcement in both consciousness and preconsciousness. This means that not only is the process of consolidating information once received in the subconscious possible (not just any information, but precisely that which caused such a process, information that, as a result of the receipt of which, patterns began to form in the unconscious), but also such information begins to become active , soon subordinating the thoughts and desires of the individual in a manner indicated by the semantic load of this kind of information. At the same time, a very important factor in the processing of such information is the characteristics of the individual’s psyche. It is known that the same information may have no effect on one individual, but cause another to almost radically change their life.

The right hemisphere of the brain, as we have already noted, extends into the spectrum of activity of the unconscious psyche. Whereas the left one forms a conscious personality. The right hemisphere thinks in images, feelings, grasping a picture, the left hemisphere analyzes information received from the outside world, the prerogative of logical thinking is the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere realizes emotions, the left - thoughts and signs (speech, writing, etc.) There are individuals who, in a completely new environment, have the impression of “already seen.” This is a typical example of right hemisphere activity. As a result, we can say that the activity of the brain is provided by two hemispheres, the right (sensual) and the left (sign, i.e. integrates objects of the external world with the help of signs: words, speech, etc.). The complementarity of the activities of the two hemispheres is often manifested by the simultaneous presence in the psyche of the individual of the rational and intuitive, reasonable and sensual. Hence the high efficiency of directive instructions to the brain in the form of such mechanisms of suggestive influence as orders, self-hypnosis, etc. This is due to the specifics of mental activity, when, while pronouncing or hearing a speech, a person’s imagination also turns on, which in this case noticeably enhances this kind of impact. In this case, you should once again pay attention to the need to break resistance. It is known that resistance is activated when new information enters the brain (psyche), information that initially does not find a response in the human soul, does not find something similar to the information already in memory. Such information does not pass the criticality barrier and is repressed into the subconscious. However, if through an effort of will (i.e., using consciousness; will is the prerogative of the activity of consciousness) we can prevent repression, and force the brain to analyze the incoming information (the part of such information that we need), then we will be able to overcome resistance, and therefore after some At that time it will be possible to experience that state that we called early satori, or insight. Moreover, the effect of this will be incomparably higher than information that methodically and over a long period of time penetrated the subconscious, later influencing consciousness. In our case, if the barrier of criticality, and therefore resistance, is broken, we will achieve incomparably more, because in this case the so-called state will be observed for some time. “green corridor”, when incoming information passes almost entirely, bypassing the criticality barrier. Moreover, in this case, the transition into consciousness of both their preconscious and from the unconscious occurs just as quickly. This means that we will no longer have to wait long, as in the case of the natural transition of information from the subconscious to consciousness, when such information begins its transition only when it finds a “response in the soul,” i.e. only when, clinging to similar information currently available in consciousness (temporary information, because any information in consciousness does not last long, and after time, from operative memory it enters long-term memory) it enters there. In the case of overcoming resistance, such information arrives immediately, changing the person’s worldview, because in this case consciousness is actively involved, and if something is realized by a person, it is accepted as a guide to action.

It is also necessary to say that any kind of information passing by the consciousness and subconscious of the individual, i.e. falling under the spectrum of action of its representational system (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) and two signaling systems (feelings and speech) is invariably deposited in the subconscious. Resistance can be conscious, preconscious, subconscious, and can be expressed in the form of emotions, thoughts, ideas, attitudes, fantasies, etc. One form of resistance is silence. Resistance also includes avoiding topics that are painful for the human psyche; story in general phrases about what actually caused a storm of emotions at one time; a long story about something unimportant, unconsciously avoiding what may be truly important for a person. Resistance is any unconscious reluctance to change any established order in conversations, meetings, forms of communication, etc. Manifestations of resistance include tardiness, omissions, forgetting, boredom, acting out (manifested in the fact that a person talks about facts that are important to him different people), deliberate cheerfulness or sadness, enormous enthusiasm or prolonged high spirits. In this case, resistance can manifest itself in different ways, i.e. be explicit or not explicit. For example, when receiving any information, a person may not outwardly show any emotions, but this is precisely evidence of resistance, because, according to Professor R. Greenson (psychanalyst Marilyn Monroe), the absence of affect is observed precisely when actions are considered, which "must be extremely laden with emotion." But at the same time, the person’s comments are “dry, boring, monotonous and inexpressive.” (R. Greenson, 2003). Thus, we have the erroneous idea that the person himself is not interested, and the information received does not touch him. Absolutely not, he is actively worried, but strives not to show his true attitude to this or that situation precisely by unconsciously turning on resistance.

So, we have considered a far from complete list of existing defense mechanisms, but listing the main defenses, in our opinion, can bring us closer to understanding the possible features of interpersonal interactions. At the same time, the very fact of the existence of protective mechanisms in the psyche brings us closer to understanding the mechanisms of influence of one person on another. When considering the inclusion of neurotic defenses (and any defense of the psyche is a defense against developing neurosis), we must pay attention to the fact that, according to O. Fenichel (1945, 2005), anxiety and anger are a consequence of not receiving an outlet for mental energy as a result of traumatic events in the psyche circumstances, and represent a release of mental excitement. It should be noted that the protective mechanisms of the psyche restrain an excess of psychic energy, but in the event of a predominance or repetition of a situation traumatic to a person’s psyche, a release of energy is possible, which results in the development of neuropsychic symptoms. At the same time, someone who is predisposed to neurosis due to constitution and infantile fixation will react with the development of neurosis even in response to minimal activation of infantile conflicts. And for some, this will become possible only as a result of difficult life circumstances. By and large, we are dealing with psychoneuroses, i.e. with the reaction of the psyche to any conflict involving the consciousness, subconscious and the surrounding world. The basis of psychoneuroses is neurotic conflict. Neurotic conflict is a consequence of the conflict between the tendency to discharge and the tendency to prevent it. (O. Fenichel, 2005). The severity of the desire for discharge depends both on the nature of the stimuli and, for the most part, on the physicochemical reactions of the body. Tracing the psychoanalytic structure of the psyche, it should be noted that a neurotic conflict is a conflict between the I (Id) and the Id (Ego). At the same time, it already becomes clear that the motive for protecting the psyche is anxiety. It is with the help of defense mechanisms that the individual’s psyche is unconsciously saved from the danger of external influence, i.e. from the impact of information from the external world on the internal world of the individual. Moreover, a number of people in this case actually experience a conflict, because the incoming information has a negative impact, replacing the individual’s personality and forcing him to commit actions that were not typical for him earlier. A person is saved from such influence precisely by turning on the mental defense mechanisms, which we briefly discussed above. In some cases, anxiety is replaced by a feeling of guilt. The feeling of guilt in this case acts as one of the defenses of the psyche. The feeling of guilt itself is a sure sign of neurosis, characterized by a long-term state of persistent anxiety, and actually replaces the true “I” with a false image that the person’s personality is forced to reckon with. Such a neurotic simply has no choice but to actually adjust his life to the feeling of guilt existing in his psyche. And the situation in most cases has quite serious consequences, because... forces a neurotic individual to perform actions, if controlled by consciousness, then in best case scenario partially; because unconscious desires take over, helping to “drown out” the feeling of guilt, causing strong provocations of neurosis in the psyche of a person who is forced to perform actions aimed at fulfilling someone else’s will and thereby eliminating anxiety. Guilt is a person's conscience. And in this case, there is a very significant conflict, rooted in the understanding of the issue, because the constant satisfaction of the urges of conscience in a neurotic ultimately leads to negative consequences, the consequence of which is difficult adaptation in society, i.e. Such a neurotic individual has disrupted contacts with the outside world, because his inner world is constantly forced to come into conflict between what needs to be done to survive in this world and the dictates internal state souls. At the same time, the negative aspects of the existence of a feeling of guilt for a neurotic person can manifest themselves in internal destructive impulses of a sadistic-masochistic nature, which consists in deliberate (unconscious, for the most part) causing implicit harm to one’s health (smoking, drinking alcohol, dangerous driving, parachute jumping, etc.) other activities extreme sports). Experiencing internal suffering from feelings of guilt, neurotics sometimes use some specific options for defense against feelings of guilt, manifested in the following: feelings of guilt can be repressed, projected (when someone else is accused of committing an undesirable act), or, for example, there is blaming , reproaching others for what they themselves could have done; A fairly typical example is with excessive intrusiveness, sociability, and sudden talkativeness. In this case, we should talk about a certain neurotic reaction, manifested in the neurotic’s desire to drown out his own feelings of guilt by obtaining approval for what is internally experienced as forbidden. Isolation of the feeling of guilt occurs when, for example, a neurotic person commits some offense with quite noticeable emotional indifference, while he sincerely repents for a completely harmless act.

It should be remembered that the protective mechanisms of the psyche for the psyche itself are a way to avoid neurosis. To establish contact and further influence on a person, it becomes possible to initially identify the protective mechanisms of his psyche (i.e., correctly interpret certain reactions of the body), so that in the future it becomes possible to establish rapport with a similar individual, and therefore after introducing him into a trance or a semi-trance state (depending on the individual characteristics of a particular psyche) to control such a person. It is also necessary to remember that rarely anyone is able to honestly and sincerely express their own feelings, thoughts, emotions, fantasies, desires, etc. Modern man, being a child of society, has learned to hide his feelings in the process of education, necessary for adaptation to the world around him. Therefore, the task is to influence a person, his psyche, to identify such concealment mechanisms, and to treat people as patients. And this is true, you just have to pay attention and observe the specifics of people’s behavior. Human nature itself forces him to be secretive. Moreover, this happens on an unconscious level and does not depend on the person himself. True, those individuals who, due to the geography of their residence (villages very remote from places of civilization, etc.) and their own moral preferences, have limited contact with the media, can still be as honest as possible, although civilization and culture exert their pressure on them , and over time, in order to survive, they must make a choice: either be like everyone else, i.e. lie, deceive, dodge, and in this case survive, become a full member of society, or remain completely honest and open, which means becoming an outcast of society, and a follower of marginal positions, and as a consequence of this - being deprived of the benefits of civilization. The choice is truly difficult, despite the fact that the majority simply do not realize it, since from birth their psyche is programmed by the media of mass communication and information, which means such people immediately begin to “play by the rules”, i.e. live in accordance with the laws of society.

Resistance is a factor in personal growth.

Having overcome such a protective mechanism of the psyche as resistance, an individual is able to move to a new level of his own perception of life, and therefore rise to the next step in the social ladder. This becomes possible in the following way. It is known that the individual’s psyche is divided into three important components: consciousness, subconscious (unconscious), and the so-called. mental censorship. The latter is assigned the role of critical analysis in assessing information coming from the outside world. Censorship passes some of this information into consciousness (which means a person has the ability to be aware of this information), and some of it, encountering barriers in the psyche in the form of the Super-I (censorship of the psyche), passes into the subconscious. In order to still subsequently influence conscious actions through the preliminary emergence of thoughts of an unconscious and conscious orientation.

Resistance, as we have noticed, is one of the defenses of the psyche. Without going into too detailed an analysis of resistance, let's consider resistance - in the concept of an individual's life growth, increasing his social status, his intellectual abilities, life adaptation, and so on. And even then, we need to highlight the role of resistance - as a feature of the psyche that affects the memorization of new information. At the same time, for the most part we will not consider any new information, but only that which causes a certain “protest” in the psyche after it encounters a barrier of criticality, and in some cases, initiating it. This becomes possible if the nature of the new information, its semantic part, does not find a response in the soul of the individual; that is, at the initial level of its perception, it becomes impossible to correlate this information with information that already existed earlier in the individual’s unconscious, information that, being in the individual’s memory, begins to clearly resist the arrival of new information. Moreover, this kind of resistance manifests itself especially strongly if either the general information-target orientation of the new and previous information coincides, or if the new information is generally something new, perhaps even to some extent presented for the first time in the psyche of such an individual; which means that in assessing such information, the individual - unconsciously - will not refer only to that general idea of ​​​​a particular problem (issue), which, as is known, exists in the soul of almost every person, and characterizes life experience, the amount of knowledge, etc. P..

At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention that the information received from the outside world (through any types of contacts: interpersonal, through the media, etc.) does not all and does not completely resonate in the soul of the individual. First of all, the influence is exerted by the information that seems to have hit a special wavelength, to which the individual’s psyche is tuned at the moment of receiving such information. At the same time, we must also say that at the next moment the same information may no longer be perceived. Even in general, invisible barriers of criticality may stand in its way, resulting from the activities of mental censorship. But if we say that information affecting the individual’s psyche was involved in the “here and now” mode, if this information was not, like other information, repressed into the subconscious, but almost unhindered, or without losing its basic essence, after which it is subsequently possible to restore its components, having assembled into a single whole, and so, if we say that such information has now penetrated into consciousness, then we should admit that this is quite possible. And this happens as a result of the fact that part of such information (its vanguard) not only entered with its codes (any information, as is known, can be presented in a system of codes) into a correlate with information already available in the individual’s psyche, but also as a result of such censorship The psyche weakened for a while and opened up (metaphorically speaking, the psyche opened a barrier to the entry of new information). This means that other information supplied with the information that penetrated through the coincidence of codes can also penetrate into consciousness. Except that in this case such information (information that entered consciousness fraudulently) does not linger for long, and soon turns out to be repressed into the subconscious. But if, as a result of censorship, information passes into the subconscious from the outside world, then in this case, this kind of information is forced out of consciousness. Although in both cases it ends up in the subconscious.

If we return to the issue of the receipt of information that, through the unconscious selection of codes, turned out to be in demand in consciousness, then in this case it should be noted that such a mental mechanism, which is capable of letting through, almost bypassing censorship, some information, is well known to specialists in mental manipulation. Moreover, the word “manipulation”, which has received a somewhat negative aspect, as we have already noted earlier, can be replaced with the more neutral word “management”. Control, or, for example, programming of the psyche. Rearranging words does not change the semantic effect. And, probably, the word “management” does not cause too obvious provocation of the psyche, an explosion of emotions, etc. barriers of the psyche, which, depending on the circumstances, can carry both positive and negative aspects as a result of voicing the word “manipulation”, and which involve one or another layer of the unconscious psyche, in the depths of which such deposits of sometimes priceless material lurk that those who know how to extract from the subconscious at least a negligible part of the information hidden there are able to significantly outstrip other individuals in information power. After all, it is quite clear that it is important not only to receive any information from the outside world, but also to remember it. Moreover, the memorization process is tested quite simply, and as one of the options, it includes such a component of the individual’s psyche as memory. The process of remembering is similar to the process of extracting information from the subconscious and bringing such information into consciousness. Despite the rather limited volume of consciousness (compared to the subconscious), it is impossible to live without consciousness. Because if a person were in an unconscious state all the time, this would mean that primary instincts would take precedence, the desires of a savage - to kill, eat, rape. And they would be implemented everywhere. Which would lead to the actual destruction of civilization.

How does information entering the psyche from the outside world “response in the soul” of an individual? As we have already noted, in this case we should say that we have before us a kind of coincidence of the encoding of new information with information that was previously already in the unconscious of the psyche of such an individual. In this case, attitudes and patterns of behavior are involved, as a result of which new information, practically bypassing the censorship of the psyche (which retreats, recognizing “its own” after receiving certain “password feedback”), immediately enters consciousness, and therefore has a direct impact on thoughts and human actions. Moreover, even if for some reason such information (or part of it) turns out to be repressed into the subconscious, most likely it will not penetrate further than the preconscious (there is also such a structure of the psyche, which, in Freud’s metaphorical expression, means “hallway”, that is something located between the front door (censorship of the psyche) and the living room (consciousness), or it will end up in the unconscious, but with some positive marking. As a result, information already in the subconscious earlier will be enriched with another charge of a similar orientation (encoding), will be strengthened , which means we can talk (immediately or after some time) about the formation of full-fledged attitudes and patterns of behavior.

Answering the question of how this or that information is suppressed by the censorship of the psyche, going into the subconscious, we assume that such information has not received the proper “response” in the soul of the individual evaluating such information. After all, it is known that almost any information from the outside world is assessed by the psyche of the “receiving party”. And it depends on this what information the individual’s psyche will allow into consciousness and immediately begin to work with such information, and will displace some information. As Prof. pointed out. Freud (2003), any situations or life circumstances that are painful for the individual’s psyche are repressed, i.e. everything that he unconsciously does not want to let into consciousness. In this case, it is also appropriate to say that as a result of this, mental resistance is activated, as a result of which undesirable moments of life are forgotten, that is, deliberately repressed. Or, for example, in the way of information trying to penetrate consciousness, there is censorship of the psyche, which owns different ways protection, one of which is resistance, and as a consequence of the work of resistance - repression. Moreover, all this (both resistance and repression) is also nothing more than the ability of the psyche to get rid of neurosis, because any flows of information undesirable for the psyche can, after some time, lead to the appearance of symptoms of neurosis, and as a consequence - mental illnesses, disorders psyche. “...the prerequisite for the existence of a symptom,” wrote S. Freud, “is that some mental process did not occur completely in a normal way, so that it could not become conscious. The symptom is a substitute for what has not been realized... Strong resistance had to be directed against... the mental process penetrating into consciousness; so he remained unconscious. As an unconscious person, he has the ability to form a symptom. ...The pathogenic process, manifested in the form of resistance, deserves the name of repression.” Thus, we trace the emergence of repression through the resistance of the censorship of the psyche, which resists allowing unwanted, painful information for the psyche to pass into consciousness, and therefore subjugate the thoughts, desires, and actions of the individual. While the fact that after sometimes a very short period of time, these same pathogenic microbes, which have settled in the unconscious of the psyche, will begin to wander in search of “supporters” (information codes), and having found the latter, they will still be able to break through the defense and find themselves in consciousness, about In this case, the psyche, which through the barrier of criticality initiated obstacles to the flow of information from the outside world, does not seem to think. Nor do all those who mistakenly believe that nothing exists except consciousness, denying the subconscious under far-fetched pretexts, and thereby falling by their actions under the systematics of defense mechanisms described at one time by the Freud family (father and daughter Anna, professor psychology), and continued in the developments of modern scientists.

Before considering in more detail the role of resistance in the life of an individual, we note that prof. R. Greenson distinguished psychoanalysis from all other psychotherapeutic techniques precisely by the fact that it considered the issue of resistance. According to R. Greenson (2003), resistance can be conscious, preconscious, subconscious, and can be expressed in the form of emotions, thoughts, ideas, attitudes, fantasies, etc. In addition, one of the forms of resistance is silence. “Silence is the most transparent and frequent form of resistance encountered in psychoanalytic practice,” writes Prof. R. Greenson. - This means that the patient is consciously or unconsciously unwilling to communicate his thoughts or feelings to the analyst. ...our task is to analyze the reasons for silence. …Sometimes, despite silence, the patient may involuntarily reveal the motive or content of the silence by his posture, movements or facial expression.”

Making a small digression, we would like to draw attention to the methodology of applied psychoanalysis, which, in our opinion, is one of the most effective systems for controlling the psyche of humans and the masses; Moreover, our use of such a technique is supported (enriched) by some other approaches to influencing the psyche, which, in our opinion, are also effective. We should also talk about a number of differences between classical psychoanalysis and the so-called. therapeutic aspect, and applied psychoanalysis, where theories of influence on the conscious-subconscious are developed not for a psychotherapeutic effect (in terms of treating a specific individual or group of patients), but for the purpose of controlling a person, modeling his thoughts, desires, actions, etc., etc. their effectiveness are applicable both to the individual in particular and to society as a whole. In this case, we can already talk about the art of crowd control. About the preliminary modeling of the behavior of the masses by programming their psyches to carry out the necessary settings. Those who give such instructions are called manipulators. But they, as we have already noted, can also be called managers, managers, or anyone, if we approach such a question in the context of management, the power of some people over others. And this, in our opinion, is an important feature of the general approach to the possibility of controlling the psyche. Yes, this is justified, especially considering the fact that the enemy is not asleep, developing more and more new ways of manipulating the psychic consciousness and discovering new methods of influencing the subconscious in order to manipulate the individual. Therefore, the one who will win will not only be able to identify the enemy’s attempts, but will also be able to defeat the enemy using his own methods, at best forcing him to follow his lead, and at least avoiding his psychological attacks.

Returning to the issue of resistance, we should pay attention to the fact that the psyche almost always protests to everything new and unknown. And this happens because, as if initially (when new information arrives), the individual components of such information look for some kind of related connections (similar encoding in the process of afferent connections between neurons of the brain), that is, something similar that could be “clung on to.” " That is, when new information begins to be evaluated by the brain, it looks for something familiar in this information, through which it could gain a foothold. When the codes of new information and information already existing in the unconscious psyche coincide, in this case a certain associative connection between the new and existing information becomes possible, which means a certain contact is established, as a result of which the new information seems to fall on fertile soil, and having a basis some kind of basis - serves as the possibility of adapting new information, enriching it with existing information, and through some transformation, new information is born, which already passes into consciousness, which means, through thoughts that arise in the unconscious psyche, it is projected onto actions, which, although they are in the majority cases, a consequence of the activity of consciousness, nevertheless take their basis in the unconscious of the psyche, and it is there that they are born (formed). At the same time, we must say that resistance allows us to identify the unconscious impulses of an individual, his unconscious desires, attitudes that were early embedded in the psyche of such an individual, and already in one way or another influence his current or future life. One can even say that the programming of an individual occurs in part by introducing various attitudes into his subconscious, which can later be demanded by the manipulator (and then he activates them through code signals of an auditory-visual-kinesthetic nature); Moreover, the role of such a manipulator can be played by both specific individuals and society, the social environment, any natural factors, etc. Thus, we must say that any kind of information that is involved in any representative or signaling system of a person - either immediately deposited in the unconscious of the psyche, or finds confirmation in existing earlier information, thereby being enriched due to this and strengthened - turns out to be capable of influencing on the life activity of the individual we are considering (i.e., either immediately forming full-fledged dominants in the cerebral cortex, or attitudes in the subconscious, or first forming half-dominants and half-attitudes, and then, upon receiving new information of similar encoding, forming full-fledged attitudes and behavior patterns).

R. Greenson (2003), considering the role of resistance, drew attention to the fact that resistance can be explicit or implicit, but it almost always exists and manifests itself in different ways. For example, when receiving any information, a person may not outwardly show any emotions, but this is where resistance can be seen, because the absence of affect is observed precisely when actions that “should be extremely laden with emotions” are being considered. But at the same time, the person’s comments are “dry, boring, monotonous and inexpressive.” Thus, we have the erroneous idea that the person himself is not interested, and the information received does not touch him. Absolutely not, he is actively experiencing, for example, but strives not to show his attitude to this or that situation precisely by unconsciously turning on resistance. “In general, inconsistency of affect is the most striking sign of resistance,” notes R. Greenson. - the patient’s statements seem strange when the content of the statement and the emotion do not correspond to each other.” In addition, R. Greenson draws attention to postures that can serve as a sure non-verbal sign of resistance. “When the patient is rigid, motionless, curled up in a ball, as if protecting himself, this may indicate protection. In addition, any postures that are adopted by the patient and sometimes do not change during the session and from session to session are always a sign of resistance. If the patient is relatively free from resistance, his posture will somehow change during the session. Excessive movement also shows that something is being discharged in movement rather than in words. Contradiction between posture and verbal content is also a sign of resistance. A patient who talks calmly about an event while he himself writhes and squirms is telling only part of the story. His movements retell another part of her. Clenched fists, arms tightly crossed over the chest, ankles pressed together indicate concealment... Yawning during a session is a sign of resistance. The way the patient enters the office without looking at the analyst or makes small talk that does not continue on the couch, or the way he leaves without looking at the analyst are all indicators of resistance." R. Greenson also pointed out resistance if a person always tells something consistently about the present, without diving into the past, or about the past, without jumping into the present. “Attachment to a specific time period is avoidance, analogous to rigidity, fixation of emotional tone, posture, etc. ". Resistance is also indicated by the fact that a person, when telling something, talks about superficial and unimportant events for a long time, as if unconsciously avoiding what may be truly important for him. “When there is repetition of content without development or affect, or without deepening understanding, we are forced to assume that some kind of resistance is at work. If talking about little things does not seem superfluous to the patient himself, we are dealing with “escape.” Lack of introspection and completeness of thought is an indicator of resistance. In general, verbalization that may be abundant but does not lead to new memories or new insights or greater emotional awareness is an indicator of defensive behavior."

Resistance should also include avoidance of any topics that are painful for the psyche of this person. Or a story in general phrases about what actually caused a storm of emotions in the soul of a given individual at one time. In addition, in resistance one should guess any unconscious reluctance to change any established order in conducting conversations, meetings, forms of communication, etc. At the same time, we can also say that performing the same type and established actions is also one of the forms of protection against neurotic dependence. At one time, O. Fenichel (2004) drew attention to the fact that in all psychoneuroses, control on the part of the Ego is weakened, but with obsessions and compulsions, the Ego continues to control the motor sphere, but does not completely dominate it, and only in accordance with the circumstances. In this case, there may be a clear transition of a phobia into an obsession. “At first a certain situation is avoided, then, in order to ensure the necessary avoidance, attention is constantly tense. Later, this attention becomes obsessive or another “positive” obsessive attitude develops, so incompatible with the initially frightening situation that its avoidance is guaranteed. Touching taboos are replaced by touching rituals, fears of contamination by washing compulsions; social fears - social rituals, fears of falling asleep - ceremonies of preparation for bed, inhibition of walking - mannered walking, phobias of animals - compulsions when dealing with animals." An indicator of resistance according to R. Greenson is also “the use of clichés, technical terms or sterile language,” which indicates that such a person, in order to avoid personal self-disclosure, avoids the figurativeness of his speech. For example, he says “I felt hostility,” when in fact he was furious, thereby “avoiding the image and feeling of fury, preferring to it the sterility of “hostility.” “From my clinical experience working with patients in such situations, I concluded,” writes R. Greenson, “that “in fact” and “honestly” usually mean that the patient feels ambivalent, aware of the contradictory nature of his feelings. He wants what he said to be the whole truth. “I really think so” means that he really wants to think so. “I'm sincerely sorry” means that he would like to be sincerely sorry, but he is also aware that he has opposing feelings. “I think I was angry” means: I am sure that I was angry, but I am reluctant to admit it. “I don’t know where to start” means: I know where to start, but I’m hesitant to start. A patient who says to the analyst several times, “I'm sure you really remember my sister...” usually means: I'm not at all sure, idiot, whether you really remember her, so I'm reminding you of it. All this is very subtle, but usually repetitions indicate the presence of resistances and should be seen as such. The most frequently repeated clichés are manifestations of character resistance and are difficult to deal with before the analysis is in full swing. Isolated clichés can be easily accessed at an early stage of analysis.”

Various types of manifestations of resistance should also include tardiness, omissions, forgetting, boredom, acting out (this can manifest itself in the fact that a person tells about the same facts to different people; in this case, by the way, unconscious evidence is also manifested, confirming the importance of such information for a person), deliberate gaiety or sadness. "...great enthusiasm or prolonged elation shows that there is something that is being averted - usually something of the opposite nature, some form of depression."

Speaking about resistance, we must also say that if we manage to break such a defensive reaction of the psyche on the way to obtaining new information, then in this case, by weakening the censorship of the psyche, we will be able to achieve an effect incomparably greater than if new information , through associative connections and the appearance of empathic attachment, would pass through the barrier of the psyche and would remain conscious. And a greater effect is achieved precisely due to the fact that the psyche, as if wanting to “justify itself” for its previous inaccessibility, opens up almost to its maximum on the path of new information. Moreover, such information can fill the depths of the psyche and be projected (later) onto consciousness in at least two directions. In the first, she can - even if she initially finds herself in the unconscious - create there those stable formations on which she can subsequently rely if she wants to take power into her own hands while introjecting information stored in the unconscious into consciousness. Such a period can be, depending on the time, short-term and intense; or be noticeably distributed over time, and, as it were, prepare for a performance, i.e. to the transition of information from the unconscious to consciousness. Whereas in the second option, we can say that for some time such information (newly received information) will not only be inactive, but there will also be an assumption that it lies exclusively in those depths of the psyche from which it is not so it will be easy to remove when the appropriate time comes. Moreover, such a time (such a suspicion may arise) may not come.

Actually this is not true. And it is in the second case, more often than in the first, that we witness that such information, information that had previously entered the subconscious, is activated in such a strong way that it will literally pull with it other information stored in the unconscious, if it is found in such information any similarity. Moreover, the newly formed flow of such information, information to some extent that does not have personal historical unconscious experience associated with the psyche of a particular individual, will not only fill the resulting void, but will also clearly lead to the fact that it will pull this entire flow along with it, and ultimately over a long period of time will be able to subordinate to his perception almost any other information that will then enter the psyche, and thus it will indeed turn out to be much higher in effectiveness. Moreover, in our opinion, this is closely related to the specifics of education and training. For if in this way we manage to break the resistance of another individual on the path of receiving new information, then it is likely that such information will not only be deposited in the subconscious, but the individual will also have the opportunity to perceive it in a cognitive (conscious) way. Moreover, we repeat once again that in terms of the strength of its own impact on the individual’s psyche, such information can have an incomparably greater impact in comparison with the modality of previously existing information in the psyche. Yes, if the modality coincides, then in this case the state of rapport occurs more easily, i.e. a secure connection is established whereby one individual (or group) becomes receptive to receiving information from another individual (group). The state of rapport also turns out to be very effective during manipulative influence, i.e. when controlling one person, the psyche of another. At the same time, for such an impact, for its effectiveness, it is necessary to find something in the supplied information that will find confirmation with the information that already exists in the psyche. A.M. Svyadosch (1982) noted that processes of probabilistic forecasting occur in the brain, accompanied by processes of verification of all incoming information, i.e. there is an unconscious determination of its reliability and significance. In this connection, if you need to suggest something to another person, then it is necessary to ensure the introduction of information that is accepted by the person without critical evaluation and has an impact on neuropsychic processes. At the same time, not all information has an irresistible persuasive effect. Depending on the form of presentation, the source of receipt and the individual characteristics of the individual, the same information may or may not have a suggestive effect on the individual. The state of rapport is generally considered invaluable in using all the possibilities of trance influence. We do not need to put the object into a sleep state for this. More precisely, he falls into sleep, but this will be the so-called. a dream in reality. And just such a state, in our opinion, turns out to be the most effective and unusually effective in realizing the possibilities of informational and psychological influence on an individual, on an object, with the aim of inspiring the latter to perform certain actions necessary for us.

Returning to the topic of resistance, let us highlight once again important function similar defensive reaction of the psyche. And then we note that by overcoming resistance, we open our psyche in the most amazing way to perceive new information. Moreover, there is a high probability of obtaining completely new information. After all, if earlier, as we said, some information was already present in memory, then when new information is received, the censorship of the psyche unconsciously looks for confirmation of the newly received information in the memory stores. Probably the psyche in this case should react in a certain way, and it reacts. Visually, this is noticeable by the external changes that occur with a person in parallel “here and now” (redness or pallor of the facial skin, dilated pupils, variants of catalepsy (numbness of the body), etc.). Moreover, such changes can occur and not necessarily so noticeably, but still be caught by the eye of an experienced observer. Such changes indicate the onset, the possibility, of rapport (information contact) with the object of manipulation. And the probability that in this state the object will accept the information supplied to it without cuts reaches one hundred percent. Another question is that there may be individuals who cannot be brought into a state of rapport in the “here and now” transcription, but something similar, for example, can be done later. All the same, everyone has states when he is maximally susceptible to informational and psychological influence, to manipulation of his psyche, invasion of his psyche and control of the psyche of a given person. Moreover, it is also possible to fully trace the choice of the right moment, but for this you need to have experience, knowledge, and a predisposition to realize this kind of opportunities. Those. at least relative, but abilities, and even better - talent. In this case, the likelihood of achieving the programming result increases significantly.

Let's return to resistance. So, as a result of the fact that the barrier of criticality is broken, the psyche begins to perceive new information with unprecedented force. Such information is deposited in the subconscious and is reflected in the preconscious and consciousness. That is, in this case we can say that the attack is being carried out on several fronts at once. As a result, unusually strong programming of the psyche is observed, the emergence of powerful, stable mechanisms (patterns of behavior) in the unconscious. In addition, after the creation of something like this, there is an initiation of the emergence of more and more new mechanisms of a similar orientation in the unconscious of the psyche. However, now they find constant reinforcement in both consciousness and preconsciousness. This means that not only is the process of consolidating information once received in the subconscious possible (not just any information, but precisely that which caused such a process, information that, as a result of the receipt of which, patterns began to form in the unconscious), but also such information begins to become active , soon subordinating the thoughts and desires of the individual in a manner indicated by the semantic load of this kind of information. At the same time, a very important factor in the processing of such information is the characteristics of the individual’s psyche. It is known that the same information may have no effect on one individual, but cause another to almost radically change their life.

Considering the impact of information on the psyche, let us pay attention to the role of resistance in the assessment of information coming from the outside, both from the immediate surrounding world (buildings, architectural monuments, landscape, infrastructure, etc.) and from other individuals (as a result of interpersonal contacts) , as well as transporting information over long distances using mass media and information (QMS and media). As we have already noted, the same information can either have or not influence an individual. In the first case, we should talk about establishing rapport (contact), as a result of which the barrier of criticality of the psyche is weakened (censorship of the psyche according to Freud), which means that such information is able to penetrate into consciousness, or from under consciousness (where all information is stored) to have an impact on consciousness, i.e. in the process of initial encoding of the psyche, control of it is achieved, because it has long been proven by various scientists (S. Freud, K. Jung, V.M. Bekhterev, I.P. Pavlov, V. Reich, G. Lebon, Moscovici, K. Horney , V.A. Medvedev, S.G. Kara-Murza, I.S. Kon, L.M. Shcheglov, A. Shchegolev, N. Blagoveshchensky, and many others), that it is the subconscious that controls the thoughts and actions of an individual , unconscious. But we must pay attention that if we make attempts to break the barrier of criticality, then it becomes possible to achieve as a result of this step (note, very dangerous, and necessary to be carried out under the guidance of specialists of the appropriate profile) something like “enlightenment”, satori. Just such states were the goal of martial arts and meditative practice in martial arts and Eastern philosophy (religion), or the state of enlightened consciousness in Russian pagan practices, or similar states in other systems of the world. Moreover, it should be noted that the state of satori is a temporary state, passing over time (lasts from several seconds to several minutes, for some a little more or less); Moreover, this is not an eternal state, i.e. are not states in the “once and for all” paradigm, therefore, after some time it is necessary to again plunge into the depths of consciousness or overcome resistance in order to achieve a similar effect. Unless in this case we can note that most likely for the majority after the first achievement of such a state, the subsequent induction of the state of “enlightenment” will be easier. Although in this case it is necessary to take into account the greater predictability of achieving this for “artists” (in the context of the division of the psyche proposed at one time by Academician I. P. Pavlov, who divided the psyche of individuals into “thinkers” and “artists”). Pavlov classified the former as those who remember logical information well, and the latter (“artists”) as visual. According to academician I.P. Pavlov (1958), the input of the left hemisphere includes speech, reading, writing, counting, solving problems requiring logic (rational, analytical, verbal thinking). In the introduction of the right - intuition and spatial-imaginative thinking (i.e. visual and auditory figurative memory). Let us add that the input of the left hemisphere includes consciousness (10% of the brain), and the right hemisphere includes the subconscious, or unconscious (90% of the brain). Moreover, the mechanisms of brain functioning are the result of the functioning of the individual’s psyche, and therefore the methods of subsequent influence on the psyche of the object of manipulation, so let us dwell in a little more detail on the activity of the brain hemispheres.

The developed left hemisphere of the brain predisposes a person to speech, logical thinking, abstract inferences, has external and internal verbal speech, as well as the ability to perceive, verify, remember and reproduce information and the individual life experience of a particular individual. In addition, there is an interrelation between the work of the left and right hemispheres of the brain, since the left hemisphere perceives reality through the corresponding mechanisms (images, instincts, feelings, emotions) of the right hemisphere of the brain. As, indeed, through one’s analytical and verification psychophysiological mechanisms (life experience, knowledge, goals, attitudes). The right hemisphere of the brain, as we have already noted, extends into the spectrum of activity of the unconscious psyche. Whereas the left one forms a conscious personality. The right hemisphere thinks in images, feelings, grasping a picture, the left hemisphere analyzes information received from the outside world, the prerogative of logical thinking is the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere realizes emotions, the left - thoughts and signs (speech, writing, etc.) There are individuals who, in a completely new environment, have the impression of “already seen.” This is a typical example of right hemisphere activity. As a result, we can say that the activity of the brain is provided by two hemispheres, the right (sensual) and the left (sign, i.e. integrates objects of the external world with the help of signs: words, speech, etc.). The complementarity of the activities of the two hemispheres is often manifested by the simultaneous presence in the psyche of the individual of the rational and intuitive, reasonable and sensual. Hence the high efficiency of directive instructions to the brain in the form of such mechanisms of suggestive influence as orders, self-hypnosis, etc. This is due to the specifics of mental activity, when, while pronouncing or hearing a speech, a person’s imagination also turns on, which in this case noticeably enhances this kind of impact. We consider in more detail the specifics of brain activity when processing information coming from the outside world separately, therefore, without dwelling on the mechanisms of the brain, we will return once again to the state of enlightenment, satori, insight, insight, etc. numerous names denoting the essence of the same thing - the establishment from now on (from the beginning of the activation of such a mechanism) of a stable connection between the manipulator and the object at which the manipulative influence is directed.

Any kind of manipulation is suggestion, i.e. conscious change of the object’s existing attitudes through the involvement (activation) of archetypes of the unconscious psyche; archetypes, in turn, involve previously formed patterns of behavior. If we consider this from the perspective of neurophysiology, then the corresponding dominant is activated in the subject’s brain (focal excitation of the cerebral cortex), which means that the part of the brain that is responsible for consciousness slows down its work. In this case, the censorship of the psyche (as a structural unit of the psyche) is temporarily blocked or semi-blocked, which means information from the outside world freely enters the preconscious, or even immediately into consciousness. Sometimes, bypassing consciousness, it passes into the subconscious. The personal unconscious of the psyche (subconscious) is also formed in the process of repressing information by censorship of the psyche. But not all information coming from the outside world is repressed unconsciously into the unconscious. A part still seems to pass into the subconscious intentionally (for example, to feed the information already available in the unconscious and to further form archetypes, or specifically and exclusively for the purpose of forming new archetypes, patterns of future behavior of the individual). And this, in our opinion, must be correctly understood and distinguished. At the same time, attention should once again be paid to the need to overcome resistance. It is known that resistance is activated when new information enters the brain (psyche), information that initially does not find a response in the human soul, does not find something similar to the information already in memory. Such information does not pass the criticality barrier and is repressed into the subconscious. However, if through an effort of will (i.e., using consciousness; will is the prerogative of the activity of consciousness) we can prevent repression, and force the brain to analyze the incoming information (the part of such information that we need), then we will be able to overcome resistance, and therefore after some At that time it will be possible to experience that state that we called early satori, or insight. Moreover, the effect of this will be incomparably higher than information that methodically and over a long period of time penetrated the subconscious, later influencing consciousness. In our case, if the barrier of criticality, and therefore resistance, is broken, we will achieve incomparably more, because in this case the so-called state will be observed for some time. “green corridor”, when incoming information passes almost entirely, bypassing the criticality barrier. Moreover, in this case, the transition into consciousness of both their preconscious and from the unconscious occurs just as quickly. This means that we will no longer have to wait long, as in the case of the natural transition of information from the subconscious to consciousness, when such information begins its transition only when it finds a “response in the soul,” i.e. only when, clinging to similar information currently available in consciousness (temporary information, because any information in consciousness does not last long, and after time, from operative memory it enters long-term memory) it enters there. In the case of overcoming resistance, such information arrives immediately, changing the person’s worldview, because in this case consciousness is actively involved, and if something is realized by a person, it is accepted as a guide to action.

It is also necessary to say that any kind of information passing by the consciousness and subconscious of the individual, i.e. falling under the spectrum of action of its representational system (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) and two signaling systems (feelings and speech) is invariably deposited in the subconscious. This means that ultimately it begins to influence the individual’s consciousness, because everything that is in the subconscious affects consciousness, the emergence of corresponding thoughts, desires, and actions in the individual. That is, in this case we can talk about modeling a person’s actions through the initial formation of the unconscious of his psyche. And this is a truly serious issue, attention to which would allow us to avoid many problems, including and in raising children and adults. Moreover, in a situation with a child, it becomes possible to calculate his adult behavior, and in the case of an adult, it should be said that such an influence can begin to have an impact, incl. and in a fairly short period of time. The presence of the object among other people especially enhances the schemes originally embedded in the subconscious, i.e. when we talk about mass behavior. In the case of the latter, the mechanisms of mass and crowd are activated (in this case we do not separate these concepts), which means the effect is much more effective than in the case of preliminary influence on one individual. At the same time, as a result of our influence on the object, we should achieve a state of empathy, when the internal world of the object is perceived by us as our own. Professor Carl Rogers wrote about empathy: “To be in a state of empathy means to perceive the inner world of another accurately, with the preservation of emotional and semantic nuances. It’s as if you become that other person, but without losing the “as if” feeling. Thus, you feel the joy or pain of another as he feels them, and you perceive their causes as he perceives them. But there must definitely remain a shade of “as if”: as if it were me who was happy or sad. If this shade disappears, then a state of identification arises... The empathic way of communicating with another person has several facets. It implies entering the personal world of another and staying in it “at home.” It involves constant sensitivity to the changing experiences of another - to fear, or anger, or emotion, or embarrassment, in a word, to everything that he or she experiences. This means temporarily living another life, delicately staying in it without evaluation and condemnation. This means grasping what the other is barely aware of himself. But at the same time, there are no attempts to reveal completely unconscious feelings, since they can be traumatic. This involves communicating your impressions of another's inner world by looking with fresh and calm eyes at those elements that excite or frighten your interlocutor. This involves asking the other person frequently to check your impressions and listening carefully to the answers you receive. You are a confidant for another. By pointing out possible meanings to another's experiences, you help them experience more fully and constructively. To be with another in this way means to put aside one's own points of view and values ​​for a while in order to enter the other's world without prejudice. In a sense, this means that you are leaving your Self. This can only be done by people who feel sufficiently safe in in a certain sense“They know that they will not lose themselves in the sometimes strange or bizarre world of another and that they can successfully return to their world whenever they want.”

Psychoanalysis understands resistance as everything that prevents the penetration into the consciousness of an individual’s secret (deep, unconscious) thoughts. E. Glover identified explicit and implicit forms of resistance. By the first in psychoanalytic work, he understood lateness, missed sessions, excessive talkativeness or complete silence, automatic denial or misunderstanding of all statements of the psychotherapist, playing at naivety, constant absent-mindedness, interruption of therapy. He attributed everything else to the second (implicit forms), for example, when the patient formally fulfills all the working conditions, but at the same time his indifference is clearly noticeable. The classification of types of resistance (according to Freud) includes: repression resistance, transference resistance, id and superego resistance, and resistance based on secondary benefit from the disease. Resistance occurs when the individual’s psyche resists the penetration into consciousness of any painful information from the subconscious. At the same time, according to J. Sandler, Dare et al., this type of resistance can be considered a reflection of the so-called. “primary benefit” from the disease neurosis. As a result of the method of free associations, information previously hidden in the unconscious can come out (pass into consciousness), therefore the psyche resists this - by engaging (activating) resistance mechanisms. Moreover, the closer the material previously repressed from consciousness (and transferred to the subconscious) approaches consciousness, the more resistance increases. Transference resistance characterizes infantile impulses and the fight against them. Infantile impulses are understood as impulses caused by the personality of the analyst and arising in direct or modified form: the analytical situation in the form of a distortion of reality at a certain moment contributes to the recall of previously repressed material (material that, once in the unconscious, caused a neurotic symptom). Transference resistance varies depending on which transference relations (positive or negative) underlie it. Patients with an erotic transference (for example, with a hysterical type of personality organization) may strive for sexual relations with the therapist or demonstrate resistance in order to avoid awareness of strong sexual attraction in such a transfer. Patients with a negative transference (for example, with a narcissistic type of personality organization) are filled with aggressive feelings towards the therapist and may strive through resistance to humiliate him, make him suffer, or in the same way avoid transference awareness of these feelings. “It” resistance is characteristic of cases when negative and eroticized forms of transference become an insoluble obstacle to continuing therapy. At the same time, Freud considered the resistance of the Superego (“Super-Ego”) to be the strongest, since it is difficult to identify and overcome. It stems from an unconscious sense of guilt and hides impulses that the patient finds unacceptable (for example, sexual or aggressive). One of the manifestations of superego resistance is a negative therapeutic reaction. Those. the patient, despite the clearly successful result of the treatment, has a very negative attitude towards both the therapist and the manipulations performed on him. At the same time, just from the awareness of such nonsense, their mental health worsens, because it is known that for our psyche it is virtually indifferent whether an event actually happens, in reality, or whether it scrolls only in a person’s thoughts. The brain will receive impulses from such an impact that are identical and almost equivalent in terms of involvement and activation of neurons. As a result of psychotherapy, resistance may be observed based on the so-called. “secondary” benefit, i.e. when the patient benefits from his “disease”. In this case, we see a clear trace of the masochistic accents of the psyche of a neurotic individual, because the patient likes it when people feel sorry for him, and he does not want to get rid of the support provided to him “as a patient.”

The conditional scheme for working with resistance is as follows:

1) recognition (it is necessary for resistance to be noticed not only by the therapist, but also by the patient);

2) demonstration (any type of resistance noticed in the patient is verbally demonstrated in order to draw the patient’s attention to it);

3) clarifying resistance (which involves confronting what the patient is avoiding, why he is doing it and how).

After clarifying the cause of resistance, its form is analyzed. The result of this stage is the discovery of an instinctive urge, the attempt to satisfy which led to conflict. After this, the history of the experience is revealed through the method of interpretation. At this stage, it becomes clear how the conflict arose, how it manifested itself and is manifesting itself throughout the patient’s life, what patterns of behavior and emotional response it gave rise to, etc. The history of the experience allows us to include the identified conflict in the broader context of obstacles at this stage of psychodynamic therapy. At the same time, the therapist must remember that criticism or disagreement with something by the patient does not always mean a manifestation of resistance. At the conclusion of therapy for working with resistance, resistance is worked through, which is a tracing of the influence of an already realized conflict on various life events in order to repeat, deepen, and expand the analysis of resistance. Elaboration allows you to enhance your understanding of the client by increasing the amount of material involved. This is also where the interpretation of new resistances that arise occurs, which further clarifies the basic issues and leads to more sustainable results. This stage is not limited in time; its duration depends on the individual characteristics of the patient, the form and content of resistance, the stage of psychotherapy, the state of the working alliance and many other factors.

And finally, I would like to once again draw attention to the fact that the activity of resistance is an unconscious act, and thus it is quite logical that if we want to unravel the nature of man, the nature of his psyche, to unravel the mechanisms of mental control, we will certainly first in turn, we must pay attention to his unconscious reactions, by analyzing and comparing various facts, reveal what a person is hiding, and therefore, in the future, such methods can bring us even closer to the path of understanding the human psyche, help reveal the mechanisms of the psyche, how to trace certain other human reactions, and to identify the mechanisms of impulses that result in these reactions. That is, we are saying that analysis, carrying out analytical work, paying attention to every little detail is absolutely important, because it is they who will ultimately allow us to collect the most complete picture about the psyche of this or that individual, and therefore, subsequently, to find out (develop, identify, etc.) mechanisms of influence both on such an individual and on society as a whole, for society consists precisely of various individuals who, uniting in masses, collectives, meetings, congresses, processes, symposiums, crowds, etc. . forms of association of people are part of the environment. For the environment is precisely represented incl. and the constant unification and separation of people, this process is fluid like mercury, the mass is changeable and fickle not only in its desires and interests, but also in the composition of participants, etc. Thus, the solution to the psyche of each individual person can bring us closer to the secrets and clues of society, and therefore to the development of a methodology for managing a person, modeling his thoughts and projecting such thoughts into actions.

© Sergey Zelinsky, 2010
© Published with the kind permission of the author