Catharsis
In psychology, catharsis is most often taken to be a method by which a person is freed from anxiety and problems.
For example, when trying to remember past events that supposedly influenced problems in the present, a kind of cleansing, or catharsis, occurs. The simplest example of catharsis: cry a lot, and then feel relief.
Basic terms in psychology
Abstraction is the separation of non-essential aspects, properties and connections of the object being studied (subject, phenomenon) and the selection of essential, natural features characteristic of the entire class of these objects.
Agnosia is a violation of visual, auditory or tactile perception while maintaining sensitivity and consciousness.
Agoraphobia is the fear of open space.
Aggression is motivated destructive behavior that goes against accepted social norms and causes physical or moral harm to people.
Amnesia is loss of memory due to brain injury or disease.
Aphasia is a speech disorder. People with aphasia may have difficulty speaking, understanding, reading, writing, and paraphrasing. The cause of aphasia is always brain damage.
Affect is an emotional process, intense and short-term, accompanied by pronounced motor activity and changes in the functioning of internal organs.
An unconditioned reflex is an inherited innate reaction of the body that occurs invariably to certain influences, regardless of the conditions for the occurrence and course of reactions.
Repression is one of the mechanisms of mental defense. It is a motivated forgetting or ignoring an unpleasant fact, event, or emotion.
A hallucination is an image that appears in a person’s mind in the absence of an external stimulus. They are observed with severe fatigue, use of psychotropic substances and with some mental illnesses.
Dissociation is a method of psychological protection of a person from intolerable emotions. In dissociation, events are perceived as happening not to the individual himself, but to someone else.
Your ideal self is the person you want to become. His traits and characteristics are based on expectations from society, family, peers and can be very different from the real, real self.
Illusion is a distorted perception of a really existing object or phenomenon. It can occur not only in patients, but also in mentally healthy people (optical, physical, physiological illusions).
Catharsis is an emotional release that reduces anxiety, conflict, frustration, leading to a better understanding of oneself and an improvement in a person’s mental state.
Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that a person experiences when conflicting ideas: ideas, values, beliefs collide in his mind.
Intelligence quotient (IQ) is a quantitative assessment of a person’s level of intelligence, determined by testing.
Libido is one of the basic concepts of psychoanalysis. Denotes sexual desire or sexual instinct. The term is used to explain the causes of mental disorders and neuroses.
Personality is a person as a bearer of some properties, an individual principle, the implementation of which occurs in the context of social relations.
Mnemonics is a set of special techniques and techniques that facilitate the memorization of information through the formation of associations.
Motivation is an incentive to action, a psychophysiological process that controls human behavior.
Narcolepsy is a disease of the nervous system in which a person is subject to daytime attacks of irresistible sleepiness.
Heredity is the totality of the natural properties of an organism received from its ancestors.
A neuron is a cell that is the main structural and functional unit of the nervous system.
Memory is the ability to retain in consciousness and, at will, reproduce previous impressions and experiences, as well as the very stock of impressions stored in consciousness.
A panic attack is an inexplicable, unmotivated, painful attack of severe anxiety for a person, turning into fear and accompanied by various somatic manifestations (shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness, etc.).
A placebo is a harmless substance in the form of a medicine that has no medicinal properties, but exhibits a therapeutic effect due to the patient’s self-hypnosis.
Projection is a psychological defense mechanism in which a person attributes his thoughts, feelings and motives to someone or something, believing that he has received information from the outside, and not from within himself.
Psychology is a science that studies the processes and patterns of mental activity.
Multiple personality disorder (split personality, split personality) is a rare mental disorder in which several different personalities “coexist” in one body, replacing one another. Individuals can have different gender, age, temperament and mental abilities, and react differently to the same situation.
Free associations are a technique used in psychoanalysis to study the unconscious. A person talks about everything that comes to mind, despite the fact that his speech may seem absurd or obscene.
Consciousness is a property of human higher nervous activity, the ability to think, reason and determine one’s attitude to reality.
A stereotype is a well-established, generally accepted attitude towards an event, action or behavior, without taking into account all real factors.
Structuralism is a direction in psychology that studies the structure of the mind and analyzes the constituent parts of the cognitive process.
Temperament is the individual characteristics of a person that determine the dynamics of his behavior and mental processes. This structure is laid down from birth.
Tolerance is a term in sociology that means tolerance to a different worldview, lifestyle, customs and traditions.
A conditioned reflex is an acquired reaction of an individual to any stimulus. It occurs during life and is not fixed genetically.
Pheromones are the name of substances secreted by certain types of insects and animals. They serve for chemical communication between individuals and influence many processes of social behavior and reproduction.
A phobia is an irrational, uncontrollable fear in a certain situation.
Frustration is a mental state that occurs when a person’s desires do not correspond to his capabilities; this situation is traumatic to varying degrees for the psyche.
The central nervous system is the main part of the nervous system of humans (and animals), consists of neurons and their processes; the central nervous system includes the brain and spinal cord.
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Reflection
A way to understand yourself through the real world. A person analyzes his actions and decisions, thanks to this he gets to know himself better.
[CHOSEN FOR YOU] 7 Reasons Why Lazy People Are More Likely to Succeed
Reflection should not be confused with introspection, which we wrote about in the fifth paragraph. Introspection involves analyzing a person’s mental processes, and by reflecting, a person looks at himself from the outside and evaluates his behavior.
Abuse
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This term comes from the English word “abuse” - “abuse, insult, bad attitude.” It refers to all possible forms of violence (physical, psychological, economic, sexual) between people.
In an abusive relationship, one person is the aggressor to the other. It’s paradoxical, but often the victim is not aware of his situation, since everyone has their own level of tolerance for violence since childhood, instilled in us by family and society. For example, many only realize in adulthood that their mother is an abuser, and pathological feelings of guilt and psychological manipulation cannot be the basis of healthy parent-child relationships.
Now there are a lot of materials and checklists on the topic of abuse, so if suddenly you feel uneasy while reading, I recommend delving into the topic.
The shadow side of the term: calling any violation of your comfort zone “abuse,” and “abuser” anyone who disagrees with your point of view.
You might be interested in: Abuse on a man’s face. How to distinguish a defender from an aggressor? Advice from physiognomist Artyom Pavlov
Depreciation
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This is a classic mechanism for protecting the human self by putting others down. Roughly speaking, one person protects his personality, lifestyle, values and actions at the expense of the “devaluation” of another. Devaluation includes the following phrases: “There is no need to be sad, children in Africa have no food”, “But you are with a man”, “In our time there were no psychologists”, “All women are fools”, etc.
The shadow side of the term: Perceive any criticism addressed to you as devaluation.
Repression and displacement
It is easy to confuse the two mental defense mechanisms, but this should not be done. Repression, or suppression, is the elimination of something unpleasant from consciousness. At the everyday level, it manifests itself as attempts to get distracted and forget, although in general the process is somewhat more complicated.
Displacement consists of reorienting an emotion from the object that caused it to another, because its true direction needs to be hidden for some reason. For example, a person is angry at his boss, but yells at family members.
Man as a biological species
| From the point of view of social science, a person is a representative of the species Homo Sapiens, who is endowed with upright walking, self-awareness, speech, the ability to acquire social skills, and have not only biological, but also spiritual needs. |
On the one hand, people, like animals, have instincts, but on the other hand, they are strikingly different from other representatives of the animal world. In the very definition of the concept “human”, social science contains information about the biological and social essence of Homo Sapiens. The social component is precisely the main difference between humans and animals.
| Animal | Human |
| 1) All actions are determined mainly by instincts, the influence of which is irresistible. | 1) Along with instincts, activity is regulated with the help of thinking and self-awareness. There is the ability to overcome your instincts. |
| 2) To survive, it adapts to the environment and changes its lifestyle only when external conditions change. | 2) Can transform the environment, consciously change lifestyle, create material and other values. |
| 3) Certain species can use available means to achieve their goals, but they are not capable of creating full-fledged tools. | 3) Can create a wide range of tools. Capable not only of physical, but also of creative and intellectual work. |
| 4) The existence and interaction with other representatives of the species is determined by the biological essence. | 4) In addition to the biological, there is a social essence and spiritual needs. |
Classification of personality psychotypes
Well-known psychological types were identified and described by the Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst C. G. Jung.
His theory about “introversion - extraversion”, as well as about the four types of perception of the world, has developed and continues to develop.
Psychological personality types proposed by Jung:
- Personality types depending on the vector of its orientation:
- An extrovert is a person psychologically oriented to the outside world; sociable, active, active.
- An introvert is a person focused on the inner world; closed, sensitive, reasonable.
- Psychological types depending on the predominant way of perceiving life, in other words, on the main mental function:
- Thinking type - a person who primarily relies on logic and thinking when making decisions. The sphere of feelings is suppressed.
- Feeling type - a person focused on feelings, judges in terms of “good - bad”, and not logically.
- The sensing type is a person who perceives life directly through the senses; he looks, listens, touches and makes decisions based on the information he receives. Intuition is suppressed by him.
- Intuitive type - a person who relies on the “sixth” sense; such people make decisions based on intuitive, unconscious knowledge, rather than on direct sensations.
Based on Jung’s typology, in the seventies and eighties of the last century, Soviet sociologist A. Augustinavichiute developed one of the most detailed and reliable personal typologies and became the founder of a scientific direction called “socionics”.
- A. E. LICHKO
Another Soviet scientist A.E. Lichko, observing teenagers, identified psychological types that describe the types of character accentuations. Accentuation is an excessive strengthening of individual character traits, psychological deviations bordering on psychopathology, but not beyond the norm.
- In adolescence, the crisis age, accentuation manifests itself most pronouncedly.
- Later, the character “smoothes out”, and accentuation appears only in crisis, stressful situations.
- K. LEONHARD
The German scientist K. Leonhard proposed a similar classification, but did not limit it to the puberty period. The classification is based on an assessment of a person’s communication style with his immediate environment.
Psychological types according to K. Leonhard:
- Hyperthymic. Optimistic, sociable, proactive, active, conflict-ridden, irritable, frivolous.
- Disthymic. Pessimistic, silent, withdrawn, non-conflict, conscientious, fair.
- Cycloid. Changeable type, combining hyperthymia and dysthymia.
- Excitable. Slow, irritable, gloomy, domineering, conscientious, neat, loving animals and children.
- Stuck. Perfectionist, inquisitive, fair, ambitious, touchy, suspicious, jealous.
- Pedantic. Formalist and neat, serious, reliable, non-conflict, passive, boring.
- Anxious. Timid, insecure, defenseless, pessimistic, self-critical, friendly, efficient, sensitive.
- Emotive. Excessively vulnerable, tearful, passive, kind, compassionate, responsive, efficient.
- Demonstrative. Can be both a leader and an opportunist; self-confident, artistic, courteous, captivating, extraordinary, selfish, boastful, lazy.
- Exalted. Extremely sociable, experiencing bright and sincere feelings, amorous, altruistic, compassionate, changeable, prone to panic and exaggerate.
- Extroverted. Sociable and talkative, open, efficient, frivolous, prone to excitement and risk.
- Introverted. Idealist, reserved, philosophizing, non-conflict, principled, restrained, persistent, stubborn.
Depression and sadness
It’s high time to stop mentioning depression in vain: there’s no need to call bad mood and fatigue that way. This is a serious disease, the causes of which can be an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain, endocrine changes, brain damage, severe traumatic events, and so on.
A person with depression needs medical help. Instead, he often receives comments like “I don’t have time to be depressed, I have a lot to do” and “go somewhere, unwind.” And the reasons for this are the use of the name of the disease with or without reason.
