Let's Think Sensibly! About Sanogenic And Pathogenic Thinking - The Quality Of Life

2023 Author: Oswald Adamson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-03 23:28

At the end of the last century, in the numerous "chorus" of psychological trends, the initially quiet, but then more and more confident voice of the new trend was heard. Psychologists started talking about the time to shift the traditional emphasis of theoretical work and psychological practice from the sphere of negativity and problems (how the client should solve them) to the positive.

In the West, one of the founding fathers and promoters of positive thinking was the well-known Martin Seligman, in Russia - the psychologist and philosopher, thinker, teacher, writer Yuri Orlov. He developed a system of sanogenic thinking (SHM) - a special way to reflect on emotions, relationships, love, death and other topics that excite every person. SGM is a special philosophy of life that helps to make it happier and more successful.

In the series of articles "Let's think sensibly!" we will tell you about the basics of sanogenic thinking, introduce our readers to useful psychotechnics that form the basis of SHM.

The conference hall of the Polytechnic Museum was almost full. Exactly at 18:30 he entered - a tall, large, strong, handsome elderly man, but he did not dare to call him an old man.

This is how I first saw Yuri Mikhailovich Orlov more than 15 years ago, on September 21, 1994.

Appearance Yu. M. Orlova made a special impression, bright and somewhat contradictory. There is such an expression: "from the plow." In Orlov such a popular simplicity was visible - both in the face and in the huge "peasant" kulaks. But he was certainly an intellectual. A philosopher and psychologist, he did not limit his thought to any dogmatic framework, he thought, reasoned, wrote, taught widely, at the same time covering with his name the deeds of his students, for example Arkady Egides, who opened the first Moscow dating club "Little Prince".

Yuri Mikhailovich was an excellent speaker. His performances at the Polytechnic Museum and lectures on the course "Practical Psychology" at the Moscow Medical Academy named after I. M. Sechenov, invariably ended with stormy, sincere, delighted applause. He called his speeches "thinking aloud" and attracted the attention of the audience for all the time he spoke.

The breadth of the topics of the lecture course was simply amazing: from individual emotions (resentment, guilt, shame) to the fear of death, the paradigm of nonviolent governance and the ascent to individuality.

I would like to say a little about the language of his speeches. He could speak clearly. And his books are written in understandable language. This is not a psychological pop, but it is not a scientific nonsense either. Perhaps his views on how human emotions are arranged, why conflicts arise, how to explain the origin of psychosomatic diseases, someone would consider too simplistic, but there was no primitivism here: everything is about life, everything is about us.

In my notebooks of lectures 1994-1995. dozens of Yuri Mikhailovich's original phrases remained, but taken out of context, they will not make the desired impression on the readers. I will limit myself to just one example. Explaining the essence of the name of the sanogenic thinking system (sanos - Greek "health"), Orlov joked: "And those who do not think sensibly fall into the arms of the Ministry of Health!"

After the speeches, Yuri Mikhailovich answered the questions that were written to him on pieces of paper. Those who have tried it understand that it is very difficult to answer psychological questions “from the audience”. First, often a question requires such a long answer that there is simply no time for it. About such cases, Professor Boris Bratus, head of the Department of General Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Moscow State University, says: "A question for an answer in a book." Secondly, people often, taking this opportunity, anonymously ask about themselves, about their difficult situations, and in order to answer more or less correctly, you need to ask them many clarifying questions, and this, of course, is impossible. Orlov responded to notes from the audience brilliantly. He almost never made jokes on purpose, and during lectures too, but his extraordinary answers, vivid examples, unexpected, unusual statements often caused laughter.

After Orlov's lectures, there was always a feeling of relief and a feeling of understanding, clarification. Although he constantly said that the effect could be only after studying sanogenic thinking (SHM) and a certain period of independent practice, even his words made it easier. Resentment, guilt, envy, and especially shame, a feeling of inferiority, other painful experiences somehow receded in the light of his thoughts, in general, simple and understandable.

I remember how, after a lecture on love, Orlov read someone's note: "Well, with love, everything is clear now, but how to live without love?" This is "everything is clear" and was a key experience for many listeners. Jealousy, insult, illness, and even the fear of death - Yuri Mikhailovich knew how to say everything in such a way that it was simply impossible to go out into the street after the lecture with the same attitude to the topic.

At first acquaintance, the SGM system gave the impression of a large-scale concept. It seemed that the times of the creation of new universal teachings had long passed, but here you were faced with the philosophy of all life, understandable explanations of how the human psyche, thinking, emotions, conflicts, actions, and most importantly - how to live right, that is, how to make your own life is more happy.

Who has not just said that suppressing negative emotions is not good for health, on the other hand, throwing emotions out can also be fraught with danger. What a way out of the seemingly insoluble contradiction did Orlov suggest: negative emotions need to be contemplated! The implementation of a simple algorithm leads to the fact that it is thanks to negative emotions (resentment, guilt, shame, indignation, etc.) that a person learns about his unconscious and unrealistic expectations about himself and other people. Instead of empty suffering - self-knowledge plus training to accept yourself as you are, and other (especially close) people as they are. Elegant and useful!

The fundamental specificity of sanogenic thinking lies in its focus on the inner world of a person, on his emotions, feelings, experiences (and not on solving problems posed by the outside world around us). For example, a person can reflect on a conflict situation in order to stop being offended, or jealous, or ashamed, or afraid, etc.

If a person knows how to think about emotions in such a way that his inner tension decreases, thereby reducing the likelihood of psychosomatic diseases, then such thinking is sanogenic, that is, generating health. The opposite is pathogenic (disease-generating) thinking - this is our usual way of thinking, conditioned by stereotypes, automatisms, habits.

The features of sanogenic and pathogenic thinking are clearly highlighted in comparison and can be visually presented in the form of a table compiled on the basis of the work of Tatyana Vasilyeva "Sanogenic thinking of a student, teacher" (Kaliningrad, GIPP "Amber Skaz", 2000).

Orlov has prepared a series of methodical brochures, which together constitute the course of SHM. On the first of them, I even wrote a review at his request.

Yuri Mikhailovich left in 2001. As a precious relic, I keep his book, The Ascent to Individuality, signed by him, which has become a bibliographic rarity.

The poet advised using champagne and The Marriage of Figaro as antidepressants. To each his own. When I leaf through notebooks with uncombed notes of Yuri Mikhailovich Orlov's statements, his powerful figure, his voice with unique intonations, vividly arises in my memory, and it becomes easier.

Sanogenic thinking

• Ability to concentrate attention, focus on the subject of reflection

• Ability to interrupt unpleasant memories after lessons and experience have been learned from them

• Ability to consider their actions and their experience as if from the outside (reflection)

• Awareness of mental actions that generate emotions

• Extinction of the emotional brightness of images of past events due to thinking about them in a state of relaxation, inner peace

• Concentration on what is happening at the moment

• A person's behavior is determined by him on the basis of an analysis of the real situation and his true feelings

• The ability to establish close trusting relationships with people

Pathogenic thinking

• Daydreaming and imagination, turning into a detachment from reality

• Uncontrolled repetition of traumatic situations in thoughts

• Inability to analyze your behavior

• Misunderstanding of the origin of emotions and treating them as uncontrollable phenomena

• Frequent memories of the past with accusations of oneself or other people

• Worry about possible future misfortunes

• Putting on a mask, playing roles learned in childhood, following cultural stereotypes

• Avoiding open relationships with people, instead, the desire to manipulate them

Continuation