“Any path is just one of a million possible paths.”
Carlos Castaneda

There are a great many ways... which one to choose? Speaking about purpose and its search, one cannot ignore the whole human life path. This is a more capacious and long-lasting concept that spans the entire human life. Someone lives by the inertia of “let everything go as it goes”, rejoices at successes and is upset when they bypass him, saying that this is fate... And someone is looking for the right path for themselves - their own path. So, what should you prefer? Choosing a life path or let your life take its course?

Faced with another failure in their life, probably every person has wondered, is it possible to change anything at all? As a rule, we attribute all problems and consequences of mistakes to fate. And we chalk up every success to our own account. But maybe, it is worth analyzing failures as well? See your mistakes and wrong actions in them? Watch the children: one, having tripped over a stone, will look at it, draw conclusions and avoid it next time, while the other will constantly fall in the same place. Such an ingenuous example can be applied as a stencil to any human action. And this is not the ability to think logically - it is, first of all, the desire to understand “why I fell.” It is unlikely that any adult will seriously think that fate placed this stone under his feet. And perhaps choice of life path and lies in first learning to analyze what consequences will follow what actions.

After all, few people think that human life path The path he walks on is not only the presence or absence of work, income, success. This is both a worldview and the ability to build harmonious relationships both in the family and with business partners, the ability to be happy and constructively sad, the ability to LIVE. Agree, our perception of everything that happens depends on our attitude to the world around us. You can create, but you can destroy everything . Obviously, these are two opposite poles, but the road between them is very short, since it depends only on our thoughts and feelings. And we know how to control these matters, or at least we can learn.

Do choice of life path yourself, compare:

• Destruction - this is irritation, fear, melancholy, dissatisfaction with oneself, disappointment, jealousy and even a feeling of guilt, which entails punishment (of oneself). All this not only forces a person to destroy relationships, his life, but also himself, since thoughts and feelings tend to materialize.
• Creation - this is responsibility for your actions, feelings and thoughts. This is the understanding that our own subconscious mind is in control. human life path. This is the road of development.

Some will say that the answer is obvious, but how to find yourself your path, and not the principles of life, even after making the right choice of life path? After all, the feeling of unfulfillment is also a destructive force.

“Each of us has only one true calling -
find a way to yourself"
Hermann Hesse

Find yourself like No matter how it sounds to skeptics, people have strived at all times. But in the entire history of mankind, no one has ever found an answer to the question, how to find yourself, your own life path. A person thinks about this all the time, although it is difficult to solve the issue by reflection alone.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step"
Lao Tzu

As with achieving a goal, you need to be able not only to think/analyze/draw conclusions, but also to act. You have already taken the first step - you have decided what you need find yourself. How you will do it - that’s another question.

“Either I will find my way, or I will make it myself.”
F. Sydney

Finding yourself means feeling fulfilled, in demand and, as a result, happy. The components of happiness for many are health, family and, of course, success at work - in a job that gives pleasure. It is precisely the last component that is the most difficult for most: how to find yourself- your place in life, your calling, your business. Returning to the question of how to find your calling, you should understand that no one can answer it unequivocally, but a number of specialists offer trainings and various exercises that help you find tips, responses within yourself to what really, perhaps, will become your business. life.

You will find how to take the next step in finding your calling, your life path, in the next article, in which we will talk about.

In characterizing the ontogenesis of the human psyche, it would be an omission not to consider the question of its relationship with a person’s life path. Life path person is the history of the formation and development of personality in a particular society, contemporary certain era and peer of a certain generation. At the same time, the phases of the life path are dated historical events, a change in the methods of education, changes in the lifestyle and system of relationships, the sum of values ​​and life program - the goals and meaning of life that a given person owns. The phases of the life course overlap with the age stages of ontogenesis, to such an extent that currently some age stages are designated specifically as phases of the life course, for example, pre-preschool, preschool and school childhood. Practically stages of public education, education and training, constituting a set of preparatory phases of the life path, personality formation have become defining characteristics of periods of growth and maturation of an individual.

The starting point of ontogenesis is the zygote and the entire process of embryogenesis with its two phases - embryo and fetus. The transition of phylogeny to ontogeny is the beginning of the individual. Moreover, the beginning of an individual is not a one-time act of its creation by a parental couple; it has deeper origins in phylogeny and heredity, transmitted through the parental pair. In addition, the developing individual undergoes a number of metamorphoses during the uterine period of life. Consequently, the individual “begins” long before birth, and the newborn child comes into the external environment with a certain developmental history.

The famous zoopsychologist N.A. Tikh, when comparing the childhood of animals and humans, notes that childhood characterized by the accumulation of body weight or growth, the development of individual organs and functions that carry out adaptive activity, and puberty, the latter determining the transition to maturity. Human childhood contains all these characteristics, but nevertheless the transition to maturity is not determined only by puberty. Speaking about individual human development, it should be noted that “the main content of childhood is, along with the preservation of its biological purpose, preparation not for reproductive activity, but for participation in general labor life. Therefore, along with the complication of last period childhood lengthens and often extends far beyond puberty." Maturity - the central moment in individual development, but the maturity of an animal is always only sexual maturity: the reproduction of its own kind exhausts its biological purpose. Meanwhile, “in the living conditions of society, an individual acquires this or that significance not depending on his reproductive activity (which, of course, is necessary and important), but in accordance with the share of his labor and creativity that he contributes to the historical development of mankind.”

The most telling contrast aging And old age in animals and humans. It is known that in the animal world, with the cessation of the reproductive function, the individual becomes useless for the species, and under these conditions, the old age of the animal represents “a process of gradual dying or life by inertia due to the preserved instincts of nutrition and self-preservation.” Meanwhile, after the end of the reproductive period, “the value of a person in old age often does not decrease, but increases to the extent that his participation in the life of society is maintained and, perhaps, increases”

For the first time, the concept of a person’s life path was put forward by S. Bühler. She identified three life path lines. The first line is the objective logic of life, as a sequence of external events. The second line is a change in the experiences of these events. The third line is the results of human activity. S. Bühler believed that in life a person is driven by the desire for self-fulfillment and creativity. She took the concept of “event” as the basis for explaining life, distinguishing external and internal.

Almost simultaneously with S. Buhler, P. Janet sought to define the life path as the evolution of the personality itself, as a sequence age stages her development, the stages of her biography.

The life path of an individual was deeply considered by S.L. Rubinstein. He believed that the concept of a person’s life path reflects the essence of the human personality, which finds its final expression in the fact that it not only develops like any organism, but also has its own history. A person is a person only insofar as he has his own history. In the course of this individual history, there are also “events” - key moments and turning points in an individual’s life path, when with the adoption of one or another decision, a person’s life path is determined for a more or less long period.

LIFE'S PATH

a very broad general scientific concept that describes the progress of individual human development from birth to death. It is often used as a synonym for the concepts “life time” and “life cycle”, but their content is different.

The term life time means the time interval between the birth and death of a person - the duration of life, regardless of its content.

The term life cycle implies repeating, relatively invariant aspects of development. These cycles are:

1) biological - successive stages of birth, growth, maturation, aging and death (-> ontogenesis);

2) social - assimilation, implementation and, finally, loss of certain complexes of labor, family and other social roles;

3) mixed, biosocial - a change in age generations, cohorts, where the biological laws of aging are complemented by social ones, due to which the younger ones first learn from the older ones, then act alongside them and then replace them.

In addition to the individual life cycle, they also say:

1) about cycles family life: marriage - birth of children - family with children of different ages - family from which adult children have already left, - etc.;

2) professional career - from choosing a profession to retirement, etc.

The concept of a life cycle presupposes a certain closure, completeness of the process, the center of which is in oneself, and the sequence of stages is strictly defined. However, the most important stages of human development are incomprehensible without taking into account the individual’s own efforts and his interaction with others, which cannot be described in cyclical terms.

Unlike the life cycle, the life path is characterized by multidimensionality and presupposes the presence of many autonomous trends, lines and development opportunities. Depending on the research tasks and style of thinking, natural and social sciences periodize the path of life in different ways. Biologists and psychophysiologists emphasize the importance of critical or sensitive periods, when the body is highly susceptible to certain external or internal factors, the impact of which precisely at this and no other point of development produces important irreversible changes in him. Sociologists talk about social transitions, turning points in development, which are often accompanied by special rituals (rites of passage) that radically change the social position, status or structure of an individual’s activities: entering school, coming of age as a citizen, getting married, etc.

Since critical periods and social transitions are usually accompanied by significant, sometimes painful mental restructuring, psychology uses the special concept of age-related or normative life crises to describe these processes, which are recognized as statistically normal, typical for a given age or stage of the life path (-> age crisis). Knowledge of these critical periods and life crises is important practically.

The life path of an individual, like the history of mankind, is the result of the cohesion of many individually unique characters and circumstances that cannot be described only in terms of impersonal structures and processes. Life events that interest a psychotherapist-biographer have not only an objective meaning, but also a subjective personal meaning, the decoding of which requires special sources and methods of cognition (-> biographical method).

Not a single life event can be understood without correlating it:

1) with the chronological age of the individual at the time of the event;

2) with his cohort affiliation;

3) with the historical era and date of the event;

4) with the personal meaning of this event for the subject.

The chronology and sequence of many of the most important life events and social transitions (for example, the age of physical maturation, the time of graduation from school, the start of work, etc.) depend on macrosocial conditions.

LIFE PATH

the broadest scientific concept that describes the progress of individual human development from birth to death. It is often used as a synonym for the concepts “lifetime” and “life cycle”, but their content is different. The concept of “lifetime” means the time interval between the birth and death of a person, the duration of life, regardless of its content. The term "life cycle" implies recurring, more or less invariant aspects of development. These cycles can be biological, social, or mixed. In contrast to the “life cycle,” the life path is characterized by multidimensionality and presupposes the presence of many autonomous trends, lines and development opportunities. Natural and Social sciencies periodize the life course in different ways (sensitive periods, social transitions, normative life crises).

Life path

the process of individual development of a person from birth to death. In contrast to the “life span”, which simply means the time interval from birth to death, regardless of its content, and the “life cycle”, which implies repeating, more or less invariant (biological, social and biosocial) aspects of development, life is characterized by multidimensionality and presupposes the presence of many autonomous trends, lines and development opportunities, the implementation of which depends largely on the subject’s own choice. The study of housing has always occupied an important place in the sciences of man and society. However, its biological, social, historical and personal parameters remained disconnected. For a very long time, developmental psychology has been constructing personality life patterns according to the model of biological ontogenesis, reducing development to a set of naturally repeating cycles. This is associated with the rigidity and dogmatism of many age periodizations. On the contrary, the biographical method of German “understanding psychology” (E. Spranger, S. Bühler) concentrated mainly on the analysis of subjective experiences and the development of self-awareness. A fundamentally new integrative direction in the interdisciplinary study of housing protection that emerged after World War II is based on a number of prerequisites and achievements: 1) the emergence of long-term longitudinal psychological research, covering significant periods of life, and ideally - all living space(life-span developmental psychology); 2) sociological structuring of housing. based on cohort and historical analysis(G.H. Elder), taking into account changes in family development cycles, socio-age criteria for maturation and the time of major social transitions; 3) the transformation of “developmental psychology” into developmental psychology, expanding its subject and conceptual boundaries using data from social gerontology and understanding the wide individual variability of all processes of change and development; 4) understanding the need to study individual development in a changing world. Interdisciplinary research in Zh.p. have a strong influence on the psychology and sociology of personality, the theory of education and other sections of the human sciences. I. S. Kon

Life path is an individual history of a person. As noted by B.G. Ananyev “the subjective picture of the life path is constructed according to individual and social development, commensurate in biographical and historical dates.” The specificity of the life path lies in its historical nature, understood as the inclusion of a person’s life in the historical process. On this occasion S.L. Rubinstein writes: “Not only humanity, but also every person is to some extent a participant and subject of the history of mankind and in in a certain sense he writes the story himself."

And to understand his life path, a person must consider and answer the questions: “Who would I be? What have I done? Who have I become?”

As noted by S.L. Rubinstein, it would be wrong to think that in one’s deeds, in the products of one’s activity, one’s labor, a person only reveals himself, being ready before and apart from them and remaining after them the same as he was. A person who has done something significant becomes, in a certain sense, a different person. Of course, to do anything significant, you need to have the internal capabilities to do it. However, these opportunities and potentials stall and die if they are not realized; only to the extent that a person is objectively, objectively realized in the products of his labor, does he grow and be formed through them.

When we see how much of himself a person has put into something he has done, we feel that there is a person behind the matter whose personality is of interest. Thus, “in human activity, in his practical and theoretical affairs,” notes S.L. Rubinstein, mental, spiritual development of a person not only manifests itself, but also improves." This is the key to understanding the development of personality - how it is formed while making its way in life.

The first and largest in terms of its theoretical potential was the formulation of the problem of life path by S. Bühler, who made an attempt to integrate the biological, psychological and historical times of life in a single coordinate system. She outlined three aspects of studying the life path of an individual:

study of objective living conditions, main life events and behavior in these conditions (biological-biographical aspect);

studying the history of the formation and change of values, experiences, evolution of the inner world of man (historical and psychological aspect);

study of the history of human creativity, products and results of his activities (psychological and social aspect).

The driving force of personality development, according to S. Buhler, is the innate desire for self-realization, self-fulfillment - the realization of “oneself.” The concept of self-realization is close in meaning to the concept of self-realization. But self-realization is only the beginning of self-realization.

The life path in the concept of S. Bühler is considered as a process consisting of five life cycles (phases of life). Each phase of life is based on the development of target personality structures - self-determination.

The first phase (from birth to 16-20 years) is considered the period preceding self-determination, and, as it were, is taken beyond the boundaries of the life path.

The second (from 16-20 to 25-30 years) is the period of human trials in different types activities, searching for a life partner, i.e. his attempt to self-determinate, to predict his future.

The third phase (from 25-30 to 45-50 years) is the period of maturity. During this period, his expectations from life are real, he soberly assesses his capabilities, his self-esteem reflects the results of his life’s journey as a whole, the first results of his life and his achievements.

The fourth phase (from 45-50 to 65-70 years) is the phase of the aging organism. Professional activity is ending or nearing completion. Adult children leave the family and biological decline sets in.

The tendency to dreams and memories increases, and the setting of long-term life goals disappears.

The fifth phase (65-70 years before death) is old age. Most people leave theirs professional activity, the inner world of old people is turned to the past, they think about the future with anxiety, anticipating the approaching end.

All life cycles are interconnected. The fact of starting an activity is of fundamental importance for the life path of an individual. As noted by B.G. Ananyev, human development from birth to adulthood coincides with a change in upbringing, education and training of the emerging personality and is prospectively oriented towards preparing a person for independent life. In genetic terms, this preparatory phase is very important, since education is the main form of social control of the process of formation of personality, the subject of cognition and behavior. “During this period, a person’s readiness for independent work and self-government is also formed.”

The most detailed and recognized periodization of life cycles in psychology belongs to E. Erikson, who distinguishes eight stages in a person’s life path. Each stage is accompanied by a crisis, which is turning point in life, arising as a result of achieving a certain level of mental development and changing relationships with other people and the world. As a result, a person acquires something new, characteristic of a given cycle of personal development. These personal new formations themselves do not arise out of nowhere; their appearance is prepared at the previous stages of personality development.

As a personality develops, it acquires not only advantages, but also disadvantages. In its concept personal development E. Erikson describes only the extreme lines of personal development: normal and abnormal. IN pure form they are rare, but they contain possible intermediate options for a person’s personal development.

In accordance with the theory of E. Erikson, the foundations of personal development are laid at the first stage (stage of trust - mistrust), which lasts from birth to 18 months. During this period, social interaction develops, the positive pole of which is trust, and the negative pole is distrust. The degree of trust depends on the care shown to the child, affection, attention to his needs, etc. Lack of loving care, proper attention and care develops mistrust, fearfulness and suspicion. The child carries this trust-distrust with him into other stages of development, and at subsequent stages the child may overcome the initial distrust, but may also lose trust in others.

The second stage (autonomy of shame) lasts from one and a half to three to four years. During this period, based on the development of motor and mental abilities, the child’s independence develops. He strives to do everything himself and is active. The main positive result of development at this stage is the achievement of a sense of independence. But life activity may not be perfect, as a result of which the child faces disapproval from others. Too strict or inconsistent external control makes the child doubt the significance of his personality, creating shyness, doubt in his abilities and a feeling of shame.

The third stage (initiative - guilt) begins at about four years of age (up to 6 years). During this period, the child has his first ideas about what kind of person he can become. Intensively developing cognitive activity child, curiosity. The plans that he constantly makes and which he is allowed to implement contribute to the development of initiative. But if the parents show the child that his initiative and curiosity are undesirable and harmful, the games are stupid, the questions are annoying, he begins to feel guilty and carries this feeling of guilt and humility into the next stages.

The fourth stage (industriousness or feelings of inferiority) lasts from approximately six to eleven years of age. During this period, the child is included in systematic organized activities which he carries out independently. During this period, the child tries to win recognition and earn approval by carrying out educational and work activities. He develops a hard work ethic. But if the child does not develop a hard work ethic, then the level of development of educational skills, labor activity lower than others, low status in situations joint activities contributes to feelings of inadequacy, incompetence and inferiority.

Fifth stage (personal identification or role ambiguity). When moving to the fifth stage (12-18 years), the teenager matures physiologically and mentally, he develops new views of the world, a new approach to life and himself. There is an active search for oneself, playing various roles. In search of personal identity, a person decides what is important to him and develops norms for evaluating his own behavior and the behavior of other people. This process is associated with awareness of one’s own worth and competence, and the development of plans for the future. If a person successfully copes with the task of psychosocial identification, then he has a sense of who he is, where he is and where he is going. Failure to identify can lead to status uncertainty, role confusion, self-doubt, and problems in self-determination.

The sixth stage (intimacy-isolation) begins at 20 and ends by 45 years. By intimacy, E. Erickson understands not only physical closeness, but also the ability to care for another person, to establish trusting relationship, be in love. Success or failure at this stage depends on how successfully the person has completed the other stages. Social conditions can make it easier or more difficult to achieve intimacy. But if a person does not achieve intimacy, his lot becomes loneliness - a state of a person in which he has no one to share his life with, no one to care about.

Seventh stage (universal humanity - self-absorption). This stage covers the period from 45 to 60 years. E. Erikson calls universal humanity the ability of a person to be interested in other people, to think about the life of future generations. A person feels pride in his children, satisfaction with a full and varied life, he works creatively on himself. This period is characterized by high productivity in the most different areas. Those who have not developed a sense of belonging to humanity focus on themselves, and their main concern is satisfying their needs and their own comfort.

The eighth stage (fullness of life-despair) is experienced during aging, after 60 years. This is the stage when a person achieves integrity, feels the fullness and usefulness of the life he has lived, and realizes that life was not in vain. Death is inevitable, but not terrible.

If a person is not satisfied with the life he has lived and realizes the meaninglessness of his existence, then he ends his life in fear of death and in despair.

B.G. Ananyev noted that the desire to express the milestones of a person’s life path in chronological dates is justified. Each phase of the life path: preparatory, start, culmination, finish - characterizes a change in the subject of activity, personality. However, the convention of average climax values ​​does not require proof. Reduced productivity of a scientist, artist, engineer, writer, etc. may be temporary, and after a decline or creative decline, a new rise, a new climax occurs. In addition, there is certain dependence the culmination comes from the start, and the start from the education of the individual. To the same extent, one can assume a connection between the climax and the finish.

The life periodization of a personality and its life structures depend on the personality itself, on its capabilities and the meaning of life. The meaning of life is a person’s generalization of his tasks, capabilities and place in life, i.e. human life concept.

The implementation by a person of his life plans and tasks is the self-actualization of the personality. Self-actualization is "full use of talents, abilities, opportunities, etc." - notes A. Maslow. He wrote: “I imagine a self-actualized person not as ordinary person, to whom something has been added, but as an ordinary person from whom nothing has been taken away." He names the characteristics of a self-actualized personality:

a more effective perception of reality and a more comfortable relationship with it;

acceptance of oneself, others, nature;

spontaneity, simplicity, naturalness;

task centeredness (as opposed to self centeredness);

autonomy, independence from culture and environment;

constant freshness of assessment;

a sense of belonging, unity with others;

deeper interpersonal relationships;

the difference between means and ends, good and evil;

a philosophical, non-hostile sense of humor;

democratic character structure.

Self-actualization, as A. Maslow notes, is not the absence of problems, but a movement from temporary and unreal problems to real problems.

Self-actualization plays a crucial role throughout the entire life path of an individual and at the same time determines it.

Many authors believe that a self-actualizing personality is a person who has the freedom to create himself and his life, turning the most routine activity into a holiday, into an exciting game. E. Fromm defined freedom as the ability to make conscious choices. One of the steps to freedom is the ability to love. Many people do not know, do not understand that we cannot love others until we love ourselves. And to love yourself is to accept yourself with all your weaknesses and shortcomings. The same attitude should be towards other people. We are subject to the illusion that we can love only for perfection, so love is replaced by power over a person, the desire to correct others.

Thus, a positive life path has a person striving for self-actualization, who is characterized by faith in himself, in his Self, adequate self-esteem their qualities, a high level of self-government over their actions and actions. The beginning of the path to self-actualization is the development of the ability to self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence.

As we have seen, a person is not born with a personality; he becomes a person. This formation of personality is significantly different from the development of the organism, which occurs in the process of simple organic maturation. The essence of the human personality finds its final expression in the fact that it not only develops like any organism, but also has its own history.

Unlike other living beings, humanity has a history, and not just repeating cycles of development, because human activity, changing reality, is objectified in the products of material and spiritual culture, which are passed on from generation to generation. Through them, a successive connection is created between generations, thanks to which subsequent generations do not repeat, but continue the work of the previous ones and rely on what their predecessors did, even when they enter into a struggle with them.

What applies to humanity as a whole cannot but apply, in a certain sense, to every person. Not only humanity, but every person is to some extent a participant and subject of human history and, in a certain sense, has a history himself. Every person has his own history, since the development of the individual is mediated by the result of his activity, just as the development of humanity is mediated by the products of social practice, through which the historical continuity of generations is established. Therefore, in order to understand the path of his development in its true human essence, a person must consider it in a certain aspect: what was I? - What I've done? - what have I become? It would be wrong to think that in one’s deeds, in the products of one’s activity, one’s labor, a person only reveals himself, being ready before and apart from them and remaining after them the same as he was. A person who has done something significant becomes, in a certain sense, a different person. Of course, it is also true that in order to do anything significant, you need to have some kind of internal capabilities for this. However, these possibilities and potentials of a person stall and die if they are not realized; only as the personality is objectively, objectively realized in the products of his labor, does he grow and be formed through them. There is a peculiar dialectic between a person and the products of her labor, between what she is and what she has done. It is not at all necessary that a person exhaust himself in the work that he has done; on the contrary, people in relation to whom we feel that they have exhausted themselves with what they have done usually lose purely personal interest for us. Then, when we see that, no matter how much of himself a person has invested in what he has done, he has not exhausted himself in what he has done, we feel that behind the deed there is a living person whose personality is of special interest. Such people have an internally freer attitude towards their work, towards the products of their activity; without exhausting themselves in them, they retain internal strength and opportunities for new achievements.

The point, then, is not to reduce history human life to a number of external affairs. Such a reduction is least acceptable for psychology, for which internal mental content and mental development personalities; but the essence of the matter is that the very mental development of a person is mediated by his practical and theoretical activities, his affairs. The line leading from what a man was at one stage of his history to what he became at the next passes through what he has done. In human activity, in his affairs, practical and theoretical, the mental, spiritual development of a person is not only manifested, but also accomplished.

This is the key to understanding personality development - how it is formed as it makes its way through life. Her psychic abilities are not only a prerequisite, but also the result of her actions and deeds. In them it is not only revealed, but also formed. The thought of a scientist is formed as he formulates it in his works, the thought of the public, politician- in his affairs. If his deeds are born from his thoughts, plans, intentions, then his thoughts themselves are generated by his deeds. The consciousness of a historical figure is formed and developed as an awareness of what is happening through him and with his participation, just as when a sculptor’s chisel carves a human image from a block of stone, it determines not only the features of the person depicted, but also the artistic face of the sculptor himself. An artist's style is an expression of his individuality, but his very individuality as an artist is formed in his work on the style of his works. A person's character is manifested in his actions, but it is also formed in his actions; a person’s character is both a prerequisite and a result of his real behavior in specific life situations; By determining his behavior, he also develops in behavior. A brave man acts bravely and a noble man behaves nobly; but, in order to become brave, you need to do bold things in your life, and in order to become truly noble, you need to commit actions that would put this stamp of nobility on a person. A disciplined person usually behaves in a disciplined manner, but how does he become disciplined? Only by subordinating your behavior day after day, hour after hour, to strict discipline.

In the same way, in order to master the heights of science and art, certain abilities are, of course, needed. But, being realized in some activity, abilities are not only revealed in it; they are formed and developed in it. There is a deep relationship and close interaction between a person’s abilities and the products of his activity, his labor. A person's abilities are developed and practiced by what he does. The practice of life provides at every step a wealth of factual material testifying to how people’s abilities are developed and developed at work, in study and work.

For a person, his biography, a kind of history of his “life path,” is not a random, external and psychologically indifferent circumstance. It is not without reason that a person’s biography includes, first of all, where and what he studied, where and how he worked, what he did, his works. This means that in the history of a person, which should characterize him, they include, first of all, what during his training he mastered from the results of the previous historical development humanity and what he himself did for its further advancement - how he became involved in the continuity of historical development.

In those cases when, being included in the history of mankind, an individual performs historical deeds, i.e. affairs that are included not only in his personal history, but also in the history of society - in the history of science itself, and not just scientific education and mental development this person, in the history of art, and not only aesthetic education and the development of a given personality, etc. - she becomes a historical personality in the proper sense of the word. But every person, every human personality has his own story. Every person has a history because he is included in the history of mankind. One can even say that a person is a person only insofar as he has his own history. In the course of this individual history, there are also “events” - key moments and turning points in an individual’s life path, when with the adoption of one or another decision, a person’s life path is determined for a more or less long period.

Moreover, everything that a person does is mediated by his relationship to other people and is therefore saturated with social human content. In this regard, the things that a person does usually outgrow him, since they are public affairs. But at the same time, man outgrows his work, since his consciousness is public consciousness. It is determined not only by a person’s attitude to the products of his own activity, it is formed by his attitude to all areas of historically developing human practice, human culture. Through the objective products of his labor and creativity, a person becomes a person, since through the products of his labor, through everything that he does, a person is always related to a person.

Behind every theory there is always, ultimately, some kind of ideology; for each psychological theory- some kind general concept a person who receives more or less specialized refraction in it. Thus, a certain concept of human personality stood behind traditional, purely contemplative, intellectualized psychology, in particular associative psychology, which depicted mental life as a smooth flow of ideas, as a process occurring entirely on one plane, regulated by the coupling of associations like a smoothly working machine in which all parts adjusted to each other; and in the same way, its own concept of man as a machine, or rather an appendage to a machine, lies at the basis of behavioral psychology.

There is also a concept of human personality behind all the constructs of our psychology. This is a real living person of flesh and blood; are not alien to him internal contradictions, he has not only sensations, ideas, thoughts, but also needs and drives; There are conflicts in his life. But the sphere and real significance of the higher levels of consciousness for him are ever expanding and strengthening. These higher levels conscious life are not built externally above the lower ones; they penetrate deeper and deeper into them and rebuild them; human needs are increasingly becoming truly human needs; without losing anything in their natural naturalness, they themselves, and not just the ideal manifestations of man built above them, are increasingly turning into manifestations of the historical, social, truly human essence of man.

This development of human consciousness, its growth and its rooting in him are accomplished in the process of real human activity. Human consciousness is inextricably linked with reality, and effectiveness with consciousness. Only due to the fact that a person, driven by his needs and interests, objectively generates more and more new and more perfect products of his labor, in which he objectifies himself, more and more new areas, all higher levels of consciousness are formed and developed in him. Through the products of one’s labor and one’s creativity, which are always products of social labor and social creativity, since man himself is a social being, a conscious personality develops, its conscious life expands and strengthens. This, in a condensed form, is also an integral psychological concept. Behind her, what's her name real prototype, the appearance of a human creator emerges, who, by changing nature and rebuilding society, changes his own nature, who in his social practice, generating new social relations and in collective work creating new culture, forges a new one, authentic human form person.

A consultant, regardless of his theoretical orientation, uses in his work such concepts as fate, life path, meaning of life, a person’s place in life, life strategy.

To the extent that a person himself organizes and directs the events of his life’s path, builds his own development environment, and selectively relates to those events that do not depend on his will, he is subject of life activity . The principle of life activity developed by K.A. Abulkhanova, reflects the role of man in own destiny. The degree of activity can be different depending on the individual and personal characteristics of a person. On this basis, it is possible to distinguish between levels of life activity and associated personality types. At one pole there is a life subordinate to circumstances, a stereotyped fulfillment of social roles, a kind of automatism. At the other pole is life creativity, when life activity, embodied in specific forms of social behavior and activity, is directed by the subject in accordance with fundamental relationships and attitudes, when life activity is adequate to character and is self-expression.

Personality, wrote B.G. Ananyev, is a social individual, object and subject of the historical process. A person's life as a history of his personality in a specific historical era and how the history of the development of its activities in society develops from many systems public relations in certain circumstances, from many actions and actions of the person himself, turning into new circumstances of his life. There is no doubt that a person largely becomes what life makes him or her in certain circumstances, in the formation of which he himself participates. Man, however, is not a passive product of the social environment or a victim of the play of “genetic forces.” Creating and changing the circumstances of one’s life through one’s own labor, creating one’s own development environment through social connections – all these are manifestations of a person’s social activity in his own life.

First systematic studying the patterns of life path was undertaken by S. Bühler and her colleagues at the Vienna Psychological Institute in 20-30. last century. Based on empirical material, various types of personal life paths were discovered. S. Bühler tried to understand life not as a chain of accidents, but through regular stages. Life's path personality she called individual, personal life in its dynamics and highlighted a number of aspects that make up the objective logic of life: 1) the sequence of external events; 2) a change in experiences, values, as the evolution of a person’s inner world, as a result of his internal events; 3) the result of his activities. S. Bühler, like many other psychologists, absolutized the role of childhood, believing that at this stage the project of a whole life is laid.

A. Adler used the concept of life style to denote the concept of life path. In his opinion, life style is the meaning that a person attaches to the world and himself, his goals, the direction of his aspirations and inclinations. A. Adler believed that the meaning of life is comprehended in the first four or five years of life and a person approaches it through sensations that are not fully understood. A. Adler identified four types of life styles: 1 – useful; 2 – correct; 3 – avoidant; 4 – recipient.

The idea of ​​a person’s life path as a scenario for his life was developed by E. Bern and his colleagues in the 60s. E. Berne included the concept of life path into the concept of fate. He believed that the fate of each person is determined primarily by himself, his ability to think and have a reasonable attitude towards everything that happens in his life and the world around him. Every person, even in childhood, often unconsciously, thinks about his future life, mentally constructs his life scenarios. “Scenario,” according to E. Bern, is a gradually unfolding life plan that is formed in childhood under the influence of parents. At the same time, E. Bern distinguishes between the concepts of life path and life scenario: a scenario is a life plan, and a life path is what happens in reality. Different types of life paths are the product of various forces, both external and internal, determined by personal characteristics, which can mix and lead to various types fate: scripted, unscripted, violent, independent.

L. Szondi believed that the concept of “fate” covers everything that concerns human life. As for the psychology of fate, here L. Szondi considered a person as a being who, although he is subjected to a certain coercion from the very beginning of his life, but as maturity increases, he gets the chance to choose based on his capabilities, and thereby realize his freedom. Therefore, fate, according to L. Szondi, can be imposed or free. He believed that the imposed fate of a person includes: 1) heredity, i.e., first of all, everything that he received from his ancestors; 2) environment 3) social environment. For L. Szondi, the essence of the psyche lay in a person’s desire and inclination for freedom. And, thanks to the personally determined abilities to decide and choose, a person is neither a slave of his nature, nor a toy of the world around him.

Thus, fate can be either objectively predetermined, where predestination is an event that occurs in a given place at a certain moment in an inevitable and unique way. At the same time, predestination depends on a number of reasons, most of which originate from childhood, or it is a subjectively transforming line of life, which depends on the person himself, his inclinations to this or that type of activity, on his awareness of what is happening to him and desire to change something.

As the main units of studying the life path, K.A. Abulkhanova, considering the personality as a subject of the life path, identifies not events and situations, but three interrelated structures: life position, life line and concept of life. Life position according to K.A. Abulkhanova, is a generalized value way of life of an individual, established on the basis of self-determination in relation to objective conditions and circumstances, in any case, as it seems to us, determined by the drives, predilections, predispositions, in other words, the inclinations of the individual. Characteristic life position is given through resolving the contradictions between the inherent maximum activity of a given personality and the impossibility of objectifying it, or, on the contrary, between a given personality’s lack of readiness, activity, maturity and optimal conditions for their implementation. Life line inherent prolongation, value, it can have a progressive or recurrent stagnant character. The main characteristic of a progressive life line is the continuous feedback of the results of the previous stage (decision, action) with the subsequent one. Awareness meaning of life, a way of directing one’s needs, a will that transforms reality in a direction adequate to needs, find expression in activity. Thanks to activity, the subjectivity of the individual is ensured.

Much attention analysis of the life path of a person and his biography was given by S.L. Rubinstein. He noted that the essence of the human personality finds its final expression in the fact that it not only develops like any organism, but also has its own history. Special the role of biography as a personal history due to very specific reasons.

1. The biography includes socio-demographic characteristics of the individual, reflecting his deep essence.

2. The biography reflects the main results of the individual’s activities.

3. Based on the biography, one can judge the factors and conditions in which the personality was formed, identify to what extent the achieved level of personal development is the result of the conditions surrounding it, and how much is the result of its internal efforts and aspirations.

Biographical method is especially important for analyzing collisions of individual needs with conditions that long-term impede their normal satisfaction. In the very general view the internal maladaptation of a personality, the degree of its marginality increases in cases of: 1) loss of a desired object (for example, a child has lost his parents, close friends, someone’s approval, etc.); 2) loss of love; 3) loss of identity of oneself (dismissal from work when the career was main goal life, public ridicule, etc.).

In the analysis of biography, childhood years are especially important, since developmental situations in childhood and teenage years may predetermine behavior patterns in adulthood. There are three types of situations that predispose to the formation of strongly pronounced accentuations.

A. Situations of social or organic inferiority. Children suffering from physical or mental disabilities tend to be highly self-centered, which contributes to the formation of a personality with a sense of inferiority. Inability to compete effectively with others. However, in this group there are individuals with “overcompensatory” capabilities (an example of the personality of A.V. Suvorov).

B. The situation of being spoiled. Spoiled children usually experience few genuine, positive feelings towards those around them, including towards the subjects who raised them.

B. A situation of rejection produces people who are incapable of emotional attachment to others. As they grow up, they can become emotionally cold and sometimes even cruel. Analysis of biographical data of odious historical figures(eg Hitler) shows that they were all mistreated as children. This caused the development of cruelty, envy, hostility, and the spontaneous emergence of negative feelings when they see others happy.

For all three described negative situations The development of personality is characterized by the formation of such traits as selfishness, narcissism, an exaggerated sense of self-worth, inability to objective self-esteem, indulgence towards one’s own shortcomings and intolerance towards others, etc.

Life path analysis in progress biographical interview helps to identify many individual personal characteristics of a person, the degree of tension, spiritual saturation of a person’s life at one or another stage of its development. In the process of a biographical interview, it is possible to diagnose a person’s claims to himself and his social environment, the degree of his activity at various stages of his life’s journey, in various spheres of life. Particularly informative in this regard comparison of life goals with a person’s actual achievements.

A more complete understanding of the ideological characteristics of the individual is helped by the analysis of the individual’s life choices, the choice of profession, this or that decision in a specific problematic situation personal life path. Life choices– this is, ultimately, the choice of a method of self-determination, self-realization. In this case, it is important to what extent the individual’s choice is subordinated to the future and how it appears to him. How the future appears to a person, what a person did to achieve it, what life choices and why a person made are the key points of biographical analysis.

Thus, biographical analysis involves a search, “discovery” of a principle, a way of life of a specific person. This way of life can be recognized by the person being examined, often metaphorically - in a motto, image, etc.

Highlight three main blocks of information about the client :

1. Demographic information: age, Family status; education; profession.

2. Current problems and violations: presence of difficulties and problems; the age at which they arose; life events that caused the emergence and aggravation of problems; change in a person's attitude towards significant people; change of interests; deterioration of physical condition; the immediate reason for the appeal; previous attempts to solve the problem; use medicines; family history.

3. Psychosocial history(meaningful interpersonal relationships):

Early childhood(circumstances and order of birth, main caregivers, family relationships);

Preschool period (first memories, birth of brothers and sisters, other significant events in the family);

Junior school period (successes and failures in studies, problems with teachers and peers at school, family relationships);

Adolescence and youth (relationships with peers, people of the opposite sex, parents, academic successes and failures, ideals and aspirations);

Adulthood (social relationships, job satisfaction, marriage, family relationships, sex life, economic living conditions, loss of loved ones, plans for the future, use of alcohol, drugs).

This diagram reflects important stages in the client's life. Of course, in each specific case one must be guided by the criteria of reasonable necessity, not trying to collect the listed information in full, but selecting information units for a specific task.

It should be noted that one of the most powerful biographical factors in the emergence life problems counts birth order. A. Adler was the first to draw attention to this fact, believing that birth order is associated with the very early formation of basic personality attitudes.

Oldest child in the family has a strong sense of responsibility. The firstborn is taught responsibility early years, helping parents, in particular, in raising their younger ones. In the early years, he experienced the love and care of his parents, which contributes to a certain emotional stability. Parents, as a rule, trust the eldest child more than other children and allow him to plan family affairs. Therefore the eldest child tends to order, loves stability and is predisposed to conservatism.

Second child differs significantly from the first: having come into the world, he encounters a rival. In infancy and childhood, he faces a successful competitor who constantly leaves him behind. The second child, being in a humble state, strives to look for new activities that allow him to excel. As a result a basis is created for the formation of ambition, the ability to compete in difficult conditions, and the tendency to revolutionize existing circumstances.

Occupies a special position in the family youngest child . As a child, he is surrounded by the love of his parents and older children, which creates a favorable environment and waiting for universal self-love. The danger is that the child begins to hope not only for love, but also for pandering to others.

Particularly difficult only child situation. He is given considerable more attention, he is literally surrounded by the love and care of his parents. This is where it lies many dangers: only child he is spoiled, he develops excessive demands and a dependent attitude regarding living conditions, he has little social experience in the hostel. The child thinks that the world should come to him, and if this does not happen, he begins to look at the world with hostility. However, along with the dangers, an only child has more real opportunities for comprehensive education and development.

Basic biographical data is collected both through special questionnaires and during a conversation with the client. At the same time, conversation, being the most important way to obtain data about the client, has weak sides, which pose real dangers of distortion of information: a consultant with his own influence can provoke false information, in a client’s story a consultant can see what is desired and not notice what is undesirable, the client may not always clearly understand the nature of the question. On the other hand, if the consultant, trying to avoid all dangers, strives for a more strict structuring of the conversation, he runs the risk of not seeing the uniqueness of the client, and the conversation will replace questioning or testing.

Data obtained about the client’s personality using the biographical method, as a rule, precedes and organically complements the information that the consultant receives using other methods, helping to more clearly define the client’s problem and ways to solve it.