What Drives Them Crazy? Blitz Survey - Society

Victor Allakhverdov

Doctor of Psychology, Head of the Department of General Psychology, St. Petersburg State University, President of the St. Petersburg Psychological Society

One of the eternal topics that worries at least my students: why are almost all encyclopedias in the world, even on the culinary arts, written by men? In fact, the answer to this question is quite simple: it has long been known that males provide the variability and diversity of a biological species. When we say that there are two times more geniuses among men than among women, then we must understand that there are twice as many “idiots” among them.

So, all men are more different from each other, and all women are more alike. And even outwardly: pure constitutional types, as a rule, are determined in men, and not in women, in the latter they are more mixed. The fact that women ensure the preservation of the species determines their long average life expectancy. While men, providing the diversity and variability of the human species, live in different ways: among them there can be both long-livers and those who "spoil the statistics."

Our consciousness is conservative. Each of us tries to prove to himself that he is what he thinks of himself. And also to prove to ourselves that the world is the way we think about it. These are two different tasks. Which of these two tasks are we solving in the first place? Women are always more stable, therefore, and this is a well-known fact, women are more resistant to monotonous work. They already know very well that they are exactly what they think of themselves, but what about the situation? Men - on the contrary: they are not really worried about the problem of the situation, they are more worried - am I myself? Men try to preserve themselves in all situations, to be consistent and adequate to themselves; women - to maintain the situation around them, to adapt to different situations, to be more adequate to the world around them. Hence the eternal misunderstanding between them.

If we talk about what confuses a man to a greater extent, it is a loss of understanding - "who I am." If at some point he ceases to understand “who I am”, this is more terrible for him than if he ceases to understand “in what world I live”.

Mikhail Reshetnikov

Doctor of Psychology, Candidate of Medical Sciences, Professor, Rector of the Eastern European Institute of Psychoanalysis, President of the European Confederation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Member of the Scientific Expert Council of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, Member of the Expert Council of the Ministry of Emergencies

Women, starting with the very first and dearest. In psychiatry, the concept of "schizophrenogenic mother" is well known. I have never met an attempt to substantiate a similar term for fathers. The child's psyche is broken by both excessive care and guardianship (which are then expected from everyone around), and the lack of maternal love. And the one who has not received love, is unable to give - there is nothing. As a result, an endless search for the "not received" begins, which can stretch for a lifetime and ruin the lives of dozens of women.

The second is betrayal. For a certain period, it can make even a strong man weak and helpless. Adultery in our time is usually viewed as a kind of "prank", and strong men in these situations often resort to a special male privilege - to forgive; although there is also a narcissistic component: "I don't want to lose it!" The betrayal of friends is much harder to bear. This is almost a tragedy that can cause "temporary insanity" with all the typical manifestations of the second (after love) never satiated feeling - revenge …

The main thing that brings a strong man to a psychotherapist is culture and intelligence. There is such an extremely stupid opinion that a strong person is one who cope with all his problems on his own. Nothing like this. A strong person is not the one who always blames external circumstances for everything, but the one who is able to admit to himself that, perhaps, in this "dead-end" (career, love, financial or family) situation he is to blame. He will try to understand a specific situation, not excluding his wrong attitudes, stereotypes, actions or decisions as its cause.

Ravil Nazyrov

psychotherapist, Ph. D. honey. Sci., Head of the Department of Outpatient Psychotherapy and Rehabilitation of the Institute. V. M. Bekhtereva

It seems to me that all male fears are based on their own personal delusions. The more rigid, unambiguous ideas you have, the higher the likelihood that, on the one hand, they will not come true, and on the other, your suffering will arise. I generally do not use ratings such as "strength" and "weakness". And the state of helplessness arises from time to time due to one's own failure.

The term "stress" is not at all close to me, apparently, the school affects, but I understand the tragedy as an existential crisis, the collapse of an entire part of a life project, "social death". I remember when I graduated from the medical institute in Khabarovsk, I had to stay at the Department of Psychiatry in graduate school. Then it seemed that there was nothing worse than "thundering into the area." This is what happened … I remember that time seemed to have stopped. Life posed a difficult question for me: either betray my professional ideas and go to graduate school at the Department of Social Hygiene and Health Organization, or go to a remote area of the Tyumen region as an ordinary psychiatrist. Torment was caused by this internal struggle of values: a warm place in the department or a distant area. It helped, almost like in textbooks, the acquisition of the meaning of suffering and its purpose. I chose the area and as soon as I made my decisiona new life began. It turned out that this was completely correct: the experience acquired a huge independent psychiatric activity. And the center for psychotherapy in Tyumen turned out, and the department of psychotherapy at the Institute. V. M. Bekhterev, and a private psychotherapeutic clinic. If it weren't for the district, I would be sitting quietly now in the dean's office of the provincial medical institute.

I remember one client who turned with his tragedy: he could not keep the created business. It seemed to him that he was a monstrous loser. Then it turned out that he opened the company for the fourth time and was losing it. After several meetings, we came to the conclusion that he professionally launches companies, but does not manage them! Realizing his purpose, he continued to create a very successful turnkey business. With this vision, his entire biography began to be understood not as a history of failures, but as an excellent portfolio.

Alexander Kondinsky

Candidate of Medical Sciences, Chief Physician of the St. Petersburg Scientific Research Psychoneurological Institute. V. M. Bekhtereva

In recent years, patients with alcoholism have been most frequently treated. Anything can push you to a visit - truancy at work, problems at home, in your intimate life, health problems.

The second most common cause is problem relationships in the family. For example, the choice between a wife and a mistress. Suffering in connection with this situation is also different for everyone: someone has a sense of duty to his wife, someone has a responsibility to the child, someone has a respect for the image before others. Over the past six months - five such clients, four as a result have made a choice in favor of mistresses. Although the situation is current, and what will be their choice in another six months or a year is unknown.

Next is the problem of professional choice. And not just a situation of dismissal or job change, but a radical change in the direction of life in general. I work as an engineer, but I want to be an artist: he earns little, but it's cool. Or a banker: hens do not peck money, 40 years are approaching, but the melancholy is green, I want to be a psychologist!..

Before a person comes to me, he has time to visit many people. He can go to the priest in church, to grandmothers-healers, to psychics, he can walk for a year or two to neurologists with his symptoms, to therapists with his vegetative-vascular dystonia. Such walking in agony can really "drive you crazy." However, some - those who have a more or less realistic system of ideas about the world and have an understanding that there is, if not a scientific, then at least a science-like approach to providing assistance and there are people with special education who provide it - turn to us immediately, bypassing the listed steps.