Sometimes we hear phrases like this:
- I haven’t seen him for 10 years, he’s a completely different person! I know him well, he was such and such! And now he’s changed so much that you don’t even recognize him at all!
- My husband (wife) has become a completely different person! I married (married) so-and-so (detailed description), and he turned out to be so-and-so! Well, a person cannot change like that!
Maybe.
We are like a river that flows and changes all the time. Man is a water-protein formation and consists of 80% water. And, like a stream of water, it also flows, and everything in it changes. And where there is a flow of water, there is a movement of energy that passes from one state to another.
In addition to the fact that our character is influenced by the properties of the elements corresponding to the signs of the Zodiac according to the date of birth and number life path, every seven years we are influenced by the elements of our age.
Every seven years the human body and its cells change almost completely. There is a renewal of all its constituent organs. And every seven years, one or another number of tissue elements, which can be roughly reduced to the concepts of earth, water, fire and air, determine the psychophysical state of a person.
We, biological-energetic beings on Earth, have a sevenfold cycle of life. Since ancient times, people have noticed and systematized the influence of vibrations of the number seven on almost all rhythms of life on the planet. Seven colors of the rainbow, seven chakras, seven notes in an octave, seven days in a week, seven - lucky number, seven lamps at the Throne of the Lord.
Seven is a perfect number according to Pythagoras, which contains the entire beginning of the Primary Mind.
Seven basic human emotions according to Lao Tzu, which determine his psychophysical state as the basis of health and success.
And, apparently, the same seven days of the phases of the Moon, which set this sevenfold cycle for all life on Earth.
Every seven years a person acquires a new energy structure corresponding to the elements of the twelve signs of the Zodiac.

Aries - (0 - 7 years). From birth we are sheep, lambs, and lambs. Pretty, fluffy, affectionate, round. Everyone loves us, pets us, caresses us. Children under 7 years old in the house are carriers of the element of Fire, a symbol of hearth, comfort, and a symbol of the Sun. This is probably why they are affectionately called: “you are my sunshine”, “you are my little lamb”.
Children are fast, active, eat and drink a lot.

Taurus - (7 - 14 years old). Calves. They stretched out, became angular, self-willed. They run away wherever they want, or just wherever they look. The aggressiveness of a teenager is the key to his survival. The psyche remains at the level of Aries, and the appearance of an adult. Thinking does not keep pace with the growth of the physical body. Vulnerability, amorousness, suspiciousness.
I want to grow up quickly and I’m scared that no one needs you like you’re big, and you want to be loved like you’re little.
First love and falling in love. The first tragedies. In the family, parents are at an age when the partner they chose at 20-22 years old is no longer satisfied.
There is only one reason - the Elements and their properties have changed, but people do not know this and are looking for a reason where there is only a reason: they have fallen out of love, tired, are not satisfied, do not correspond.
And the Taurus teenager has a tragedy because of his parents. The first disappointments, self-doubt (who needs (needs) me so awkward and ugly?!) Touchiness. Irritability. Closedness. Depression - why live?
Cruelty reaching the point of absurdity, incomprehensible to adults, with which Taurus teenagers cover up their inner defenselessness, vulnerability, and helplessness.

Gemini - (14 - 21 years old). The constellation is named after the twin sons of the god Zeus: Castor and Pollux. One brother is mortal. The other is immortal. Unity and struggle of contradictions, opposites.
The age when a person becomes physically adult, but the psyche, the soul is young, just blossoming. Maximalism. The world has only 2 colors - white and black.
We are finishing high school, we go on to study further, we go to serve in the Army. Romance. Brigantines. Scarlet sails and the eternal: “He (s) doesn’t love me!” Or "Love for life!"
First marriages. We are starting to look for a mate. The time has come to pay back our debt to the continuation of our biological life on this planet.
Search for the meaning of life: poetry, music, festivals, picnics, relaxation. Just a fairy tale! The tale of Cinderella and the Prince, the Bear and the Princess. Age of absorption of knowledge. Any information is easily perceived, but all through the prism of interpersonal relationships.

Cancer - (21 - 28 years old). We search and find a couple. Weddings. All my friends and girlfriends got married. Children. Who was left alone, quickly, quickly, just for someone, just not to be alone.
Time for creation. Family.
We finish secondary special and higher educational establishments, we come back from service in the Army, we work. Those who do not realize themselves biologically, like father and mother, realize themselves professionally - career, graduate school, dissertation. Work, business.

Leo - (28 - 35 years old). The first children have grown up, the second ones are born. The first divorces, dissatisfaction - everyone is married, but I’m not.
Everyone is a business person, and I...
Everyone has dissertations, but I...
Disappointments. If I knew that you would be like this, I would...
Second dissertations, inventions. Big business. Policy. Confession. Or the darkness and grayness of everyday life, hopelessness, no prospects. There is a sharp stratification into successful people and losers.
The time of suicides, the first serious illnesses and deaths.
Searching for new life partners. Lovers, mistresses, i.e. The partners we need during the age of "Air" - Gemini, often become uninteresting. We ourselves are different. And we want everything in our lives to be unchangeable, constant, indestructible. But “everything flows, everything changes,” and “you cannot step into the same river twice.” And we suffer from the fickleness of life. From its rapid movement, not noticing that we are changing too, we don’t want to see it and we don’t want to change ourselves.
We are entering the age of Virgo.

Virgo - (35 - 42 years old). A time of apparent stability. Children grow and grow up, become independent, enter the age of Taurus (7-14 years) or the age of Gemini (14-21 years). Parents have a certain status and financial situation. It seems that life has improved: familiar acquaintances, a way of life, an established “mine and mine.” Your own house, your own car, your own dacha, your own wife, your own tennis and preference partner, your own social circle. A time of relative peace and... stagnation.
40 years is a critical age for a woman.
42 years is a critical age for a man.
Women with complexes of grievances, such as “they don’t love me, life is not a success, my children and husband don’t understand,” get sick, self-destruct, and die.
When grievances accumulate in the mother, illnesses accumulate and develop in children. Loving mothers They diligently treat their children and husband, visit all famous doctors and healers, and buy expensive medicines. And nothing helps.
Just as the husband took a sip from the life-saving glass, he continues to find consolation from it, from the glass. And the woman suffers. Everything is not working out the way she would like. Her emotions, trapped inside, turn into serious illnesses.
Likewise - a man!
The stronger sex is a very fragile energy creature. Men suffer in silence, they are reluctant to be treated. They courageously overcome obstacles, overcome barriers, build careers and family well-being. They patiently wait for love from their wives and other women.
But a man is always unloved! He lacks the energy of love, the very energy that for him is the energy of creativity and creation. They love him during the period of grooming, in the first months of marriage. And then the wife, the mother of his children, loves the children and takes care of her husband. The husband fades into the background; he is the convoy of material support in the family.
He owes everyone everything. But there is no time to love him: first alone Small child, then - children, then - work plus children, plus illness, plus everyday life.
Love as the necessary energy of a man’s life leaves him and from him. They look for it, love, “on the side,” and find it very rarely. Because a small number of women are capable of loving a man just like that. Not for money, not for material well-being or position in society, not for..., but simply to love, to give him the joy of joint awareness of the great gift of life on Earth.
A man is always a child. He plays with life. Little boys play with small cars, in "war games". Big "boys" play with big toys - cars, planes, big wars.
And they very quickly waste their vital energy and often die at the age of 42!
Living a vibrant life, giving everyone around them the fire of their hearts, their souls, they leave us in the prime of their lives: Joe Dassin, Vladimir Vysotsky, Andrei Mironov and others.
The slogan "Take care of men!" was not born in empty space. They really need to be protected, educated and loved. Boys need to be raised in love so that this potential of maternal love will be enough for them throughout their bright lives!
Dear women, love your men, and they will respond to you with attention and light. For the element of any man is Fire. According to the worldview of the ancients, a man is the Sun, a woman is the Moon, and shines with the reflected light of the Sun, the Luminary.

Libra - (42 - 49 years old). We survived the time of Virgo. Much was overestimated, much was understood.
Those who survived live on. And life somehow became simpler, easier, because the time of fast Air had come. But in order to maintain the apparent balance of life at this time, you need to weigh all your actions.
Libra - two bowls, are in constant oscillation, trying to find a balance point. Most people at this age strive to balance the “yoke” by adding weights to one or the other bowl.
The time of Libra is a period of revealing the analytical abilities of the mind, a time to appreciate everything beautiful. But this is still the time to “throw stones.”
The children became adults, the first grandchildren appeared. Life is Beautiful! New achievements, new victories! New achievements, new searches for love. But love is not so much physical as spiritual. When meeting with a new chosen one, we hope not only for a night of love, but above all for an evening with pleasant humor, leisurely conversation, a glass of wine and warm light candles.
Search for the meaning of life in religious and philosophical teachings. Understanding the depths of existence.

Scorpio - (49 - 56 years old). It's time for "gray hair in the beard, devil in the rib."
The time of decline of human reproductive abilities. Climax. Fears. Neurotic conditions. Women are busy with their problems: “Life is gone, but I haven’t seen anything yet.”
Men experience an unprecedented increase in sexual desire. There are no more candles and spiritual conversations. Sex. As a way to restore the outgoing energy of life. They find partners much younger than themselves. Both women and men.
Scorpio time is “time to collect stones.” We reap the fruits of all our thoughts, words, deeds, desires and actions. And if it suddenly seems that you have done everything in this life, there seems to be no point in living.

Sagittarius - (56 - 63 years old). Fire is bright, strong, festive, solemn. Lightning.
Beautiful grandparents. Pensioners. The service and career are over. They gave way to young people. The grandchildren are growing up. And the old people live for them, “for their grandchildren.” Rarely - for yourself. It’s the custom here: buy your children an apartment, a car, a dacha, look after your kids and grandchildren. And let the children live for themselves.
Civilized people of advanced age live for themselves. They travel, learn new and interesting things. They live a life that they simply couldn’t afford when they should have been doing it career growth. Life is very interesting! And they live brightly and freely!

Capricorn - (63 - 70 years old). Life goes on. The grandchildren are already adults. Great-grandchildren appear. Relative peace. Are we making it? But no, this age still has a lot of energy! This is a time of active social and political life.
Wisdom multiplied by literally youthful activity and aggressiveness - remember the time of Taurus!
Falling in love. New marriages. Maximalism. We get carried away by new ideas. We read new literature, but very carefully. Don't forget to criticize everything.
- In our time it was... And the music is not the same now, and the hairstyles with trousers are different. And the Sun shone 360 ​​days a year.
Yes, this is how we remember our youth at 70 years old, and in our time cherry blossoms bloomed all year round...

Aquarius - (70 - 77 years old). Time to leave. Our loved ones, our dear and lonely grandparents, are leaving one by one. But those who have mastered the practices of longevity in their time: fasting, prayer, proper breathing and communication with nature, hold on to life with all their might. They live and share the wisdom of their years with the new, younger generation, who do not always, oh, how they do not always hear the wisdom of their elders.
But it has always been like this. Everyone must gain their own life experience. Listening to the stories of others will not teach you how to drive a car yourself.

Pisces - (77 - 84 years old). Deep wisdom. We listen more than we talk. For, enclosing the circle of the Zodiac, Pisces has absorbed all its stellar wisdom.
Misunderstanding no longer causes deep emotional wounds, although we greatly depend on loved ones. The most self-absorbed and secretive period of life, when all the information accumulated over a lifetime is transformed into knowledge.
As a rule, people live to this age who treat everything around them with love, understanding and gratitude. Prone to everything mysterious, transcendental: healers, herbalists, scientists, composers, artists.

Aries - (84 - 91 years old). And life begins again...

The question is rhetorical and very pressing. Many of us have probably encountered almost insoluble situations in life, when we need to maintain relationships and want to, and there is love, and a desire to be together, but, alas, one thing becomes an obstacle to all this: someone has to change in some way .

Situations are different: a person can either drink too much, or be zealous, or cheat. Maybe he has a terribly difficult character, is overly touchy or hysterical. He can be an unbearable fan of football matches, and for a ticket to the next match, as they say, “he will sell his own mother.” Someone is an incorrigible workaholic and cannot find even a little free time to communicate with their family, give a summer house or renovate their apartment. And some people can’t live an hour without calling a friend or consulting with their mother about any little thing.

Everyone has their own “problems”, their own shortcomings, their own “ pain points" But in all other respects, life with this person is wonderful, and there’s nothing else to complain about. But it is precisely this feature that interferes with life, spoils everything in the bud and is the main obstacle on the path to happiness and well-being. So, willy-nilly, it spreads to all areas life together: everyday, intimate, ideological.

So, it is precisely when we are on the verge of separation, a complete severance of all relationships, that we ask the question: is it possible to change a person? And there will be only one answer: it is very difficult and almost impossible to change a person if he himself does not want it.

There are several options for the development of events.

1) It is practically impossible to change a person against his will. This is unlikely to be achieved by scandals, threats, leaving and filing for divorce. Most likely, he will simply get angry, conclude that you did not understand him, did not accept him, do not love him... And the situation will remain unresolved.

2) A person can be changed by external life circumstances. Such as, for example, the army, new job, rise in or ruin in business, the birth of a child, the realization that you can lose someone close. During these periods, there is a reassessment of values, a look at one’s behavior, one’s life and actions.

It is bad and difficult if the cause of change is the death of someone close, life shocks, an accident, war or tragedy. After all, this is, in a sense, a “withdrawal”, a stress factor, and it is not a fact that a person will remain psychologically healthy, happy and ready for a full life. Although, sad as it may sound, it is negative life events that change a person for the better, make him stronger, expand his worldview, and make him think about life more globally and constructively. (But there are, of course, a number of cases when a person “breaks down,” becomes embittered, falls to the bottom, and becomes a fatalist after bad events).

3) A person can change if he himself wants it at least a little, understands how important it is for his life partner, his loved ones and loved ones. In this case, you need to help and support him in every possible way, contribute with all your mental strength and materially. available means, discuss and discuss his every step on the path to change.

4) There is, of course, another cunning and time-consuming way. You need to have patience, ingenuity and psychological “cunning”. And over a considerable period of time, try to make a person want to change himself. But this is a very delicate process that requires mental work, endurance and great desire. And one more important nuance: if you want to correct an obvious flaw in your partner (a destructive outlook on life, degradation, irrational delusions), this is a good and necessary thing. But if you want to adjust it simply to your tastes, standards or interests, then it’s better to think about whether you have the right to do this, is it humane in relation to the individual, will you be interested in an “artificially” created partner, will you want to manipulate him again and again.

Of course, it is worth noting that the older a person gets, the more difficult it is to change him in some way. The fact is that our personal characteristics are given to us not only by nature, they are also formed throughout life, depending on upbringing, environment, personal life, professional fulfillment and much more. Character and temperament are natural components, but ideological attitudes, tastes, motivations for actions, views are a product of the social environment and personal experience. So if the “candidate for change” is still in the age period from 16-18 years to approximately 26-28, then the chance of change is quite real.

During this period, a person can find himself in a different environment at a university and make important decisions regarding his future life, profession, and occupation. During this period of his life, his company will most likely change, and he will find a new circle of friends and acquaintances. At this age, they can change several times and, finally, the basic views on life will be formed. A person can come to create a family. And all of this, by the way, can be contributed to if there is a desire and opportunity. And the result is very real, because in such “sensitive” periods of life (the most sensitive, and therefore turning, decisive) changes in personality are most likely.

But at an older age, a person’s life enters a certain direction, opinions are confirmed, beliefs become stronger, stereotypes become ossified, and the worldview remains inactive. On top of everything else, habits, tastes and lifestyles are firmly established. And at this stage it is almost impossible to change a person without his will.

But in general, we need to say: love each other, try to understand and accept the person for who he is. After all, each of us has some shortcomings or something that another person may not like. Think, maybe someone loves you and appreciates you not only “for” something, but also "in spite of". Well, if we are talking about serious life mistakes, try to support your partner, use all means and methods to push him to independent decision about change.

At present, advanced representatives of science do not doubt the fact that millions of years ago man gradually separated from the animal world. Material scientists have deeply studied the process of turning the ancients into... Qualitative and profound changes in the appearance of a person and him turned out to be associated with his social and labor activities.

Creation and purposeful use of tools - distinctive feature person.

With the help of even the most primitive tools, man was able to provide himself and his relatives with the most necessary things for life. This sharply reduced human dependence on the influence of natural factors and reduced the importance of natural selection, which plays an important role in the development of biological species.

In the process of collective labor activity, people united into social groups. This led to the emergence and development of speech as a way of exchanging messages. At the same time, the vocal apparatus and those areas of the brain that are responsible for thinking and speech developed. But the sense organs, so important, have lost their significance, vision, smell and hearing have become dull.

How man developed and changed

There is every reason to assume that the ancestors of modern apes and humans were the narrow-nosed apes, herds of which lived in the ancients. This largely determines the similarity between humans and primates in terms of external signs and behavior. But there are also significant ones.

Having descended from and moved on to terrestrial habitation, human ancestors acquired upright walking. The forelimbs thus freed could be used to perform simple labor operations. Straightening the body led to a shift in the center of gravity, which caused a restructuring of the skeletal system and musculoskeletal system. The spine has become more flexible.

Over time, the ancient man developed a springy, arched foot, the pelvis expanded slightly, and the chest also became wider.

The movements of a developing person have become more free. A step forward in evolution was the opposability of the thumbs, which enabled humans to make more complex and precise hand movements. Separated thumb allowed you to securely hold weapons and tools in your hand.

With the advent of tools, hunting weapons and fire, the human diet also changed. Food cooked over fire reduced the load on the masticatory digestive apparatus. The intestines gradually became shorter, and the structure of the facial muscles changed. In the course of slow mutational changes, the oral apparatus and larynx were gradually transformed. As a result, a person received developed speech organs.

The described changes did not occur immediately, but stretched over many hundreds of generations. Man acquired his modern appearance approximately 40-50 thousand years ago. Since then, there have been dramatic changes in people's lifestyles, unprecedented technological capabilities have appeared, but the appearance of man has not changed significantly.

586 Topic 14. Personal development

Some of them may even contradict the conclusions reached by the authors. These are thoughts evoked by the entire range of materials presented in this collection.

1. The only thing general rule is that in each department
In any case of change, we must carefully analyze the specific
figures of this situation. Recognizing that no other generalizations apply
exists, leads to one important conclusion: any attempt to consider
looking at the situation through the prism of a predetermined scheme is most likely
will be unsuccessful. We will be able to effectively use what we have from
known, only if we realize how little we know.

2. Understanding the conditions of a specific situation will allow us to develop
create an intervention appropriate to change the given situation. IN
depending on the situation, the details may vary, but they are in any case
tea is, and we always need to be attentive to them.

3. In any condition, change upsets the balance. When it
occurs, both external and internal pressures often arise,
aimed at canceling it and restoring balance.
But if equilibrium is restored to a new and higher level, then
there will be forces at work that support this new, more preferable
new position. To ensure the sustainability of the change, its agent
you must work with the consequences of this change until
this stage will not be reached.

4. A purely arbitrary change is extremely rare. That's how much
a direct ban turns out to be simplistic and ineffective. People
always act in such a way that it is better for them, although in a very peculiar way
good reasons. Perhaps these foundations will be weak and unconstructed
tive, but they can be considered sufficient if we understand especially
the living conditions of a particular individual. If a person changes, then we
must bear in mind that he is giving up something and therefore has
every right to expect that he will receive something in return for what he was given
forced to refuse. Robert Ruark 1 once wrote a book “Something About
values”, dedicated to changes in customs and relationships in
modern Africa. In the introduction he says that if you want to
people have given up what is dear to them, then in return you must offer
something more valuable to them. This should not be forgotten when we plan
We are intervening for change. Something valuable at an early stage
can provide a relationship with a psychotherapist, but then it must
be supported by the world in which the patient lives.

5. Another issue is related to the randomness of change. Somebody
Some people do not change, although they have a desire to change. Others
change, despite the fact that they don’t want to and don’t understand that they can
change. People who want to change do not put anything before us.

1 See: Ruark R. Something of Value. Garden City. N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955.

Curtis R., Stricker D. How people change inside and outside therapy 587

What problems, except for testing our skills. But what are the ethical implications beyond the prescribed (instituting) process of change if a person does not want and does not understand them? I don't have an answer to this question. But I want you to become more aware of the problems that can arise when we do not have a contractual relationship with a patient or we violate it.

6. The erudition of a psychotherapist is not limited to therapy. That's how much
both clinical and social psychologists have a lot to teach
us and each other. This possibility is sometimes veiled because they
research different problems in different laboratories, and the problem being studied
Ma often sets the structure of its solution. The main source of controversy
which lead to change, researchers can see in their own way
mu depending on the problem being studied, but this should not lead us astray
sense to such an extent that we neglect all other sources
nicknames

7. What to focus on: how People change, or how
We can we push them to change? Should we aim for
personality change as such, or whether the main thing for us should be
the process by which this change occurs? Perhaps it is
This is where the border between social and clinical psychologists lies
mi. Should we focus on external reality, how are things going?
are social psychologists, or, like clinical psychologists, are trained
focus primarily on internal change? This reminds
There is a discussion on the problem of the relationship between the individual and the environment, the most
economical solution which lies in the concept of their interaction.
A social psychologist who ignores the dynamics of internal change
individual and not seeing his active response to an attempt to intervene,
will fail at least sometimes or with some people
mi. Clinical psychologist trying to change inner world without
taking into account whether reality will support this change is hardly possible
produces a significant and lasting result. Our perspective is
recognizing the interaction between internal and external rather than choosing
between them.

8. If we want the effect of our external interventions
was durable, then you need to remember that their value is determined by how
the effect they have on internal structures. We torture
Let's change our feelings cognitive processes (cognitions), knowledge,
person's expectations and motivation. Thus, we provide personal
the ability to respond to one's environment in a different way. If ok
If the weapon does not support the changes caused, then most likely they will not
will be long lasting. Here again we need to expand, not su
reap our perspective.

9. The main means of changing a person is education.
It is much more than the transfer of information. ABOUT

588 Topic 14. Personal development

Necessities of education (experiential learning) They speak continuously, pointing out the key role of the teacher. The success of a teacher is determined both by what he does and, most importantly, by what he represents as a person. In an intense relationship between teacher and students, contact is formed, but resistance, often unconscious, prevents joint progress towards a common goal. The change agent's skill is demonstrated to the extent to which he is able to facilitate the development and maintenance of these relationships, opening up the possibility of constructing a form of them that can facilitate change.

10. In light of ideas about the decisive role of the change agent, the question arises, is it possible to become a psychotherapist or does one have to be born? There are some qualities such as sensitivity, contact and sociability (as capacity for human sensitivity, relatedness, and connectedness), which are not easy to acquire. They are absolutely necessary, but not sufficient for change to occur. However, there are certain techniques that we can learn, certain skills that we can hone, and there is certain knowledge, theory and understanding of how to lead the process of change. As Bettelheim writes in the title of his book: “Love alone is not enough.” 1

In this book we have seen a huge number of examples and different explanations of the change process. Which explanation is correct? It should not be forgotten that theories cannot be true or false. We can say that they can be useful or useless for the correct perception and understanding of reality. Instead of searching for one correct explanation, I would suggest keeping all explanations in mind and selecting from them what can be built into a coherent, reality-based explanation that helps you understand and bring about change. Some explanations are more appropriate for some people than others, and some are more appropriate for some situations than others. Many explanations can be developed, the creative combination of which can be so powerful that they push us toward greater understanding and lead us to a more promising path to fulfilling our purpose of helping people change.

1 See: Bettelheim V. Love is Not Enough: The Treatment of Emotionally Disturbed Children. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1950.

D. P. Schultz HEALTHY PERSONALITY 1

What is a healthy personality? What are the characteristics of a person who has a healthy personality? How does such a person act, think and feel? Can you or I become a healthy person?

These questions are increasingly being asked not only by psychologists, but also by millions of other people. As you might expect, these questions are followed by many different answers. There are a lot of books from the “self-help” series, guides that promise new life. Some of them are banal, grandiloquent and meaningless, while others have potential value in helping us better understand ourselves.

Many Americans attend trainings and participate in a variety of forms group psychotherapy, where they explore and flaunt their inner selves (and their bodies). Criminals and drug addicts, students and teachers, workers and managers, young and old, thin and fat, participating in such experiences, apparently discover changes and resources in themselves that they had not even suspected before.

The main theme of this very popular movement is to find and define a healthier self. The emphasis in this movement is not so much on healing childhood conflicts and past emotional traumas, but on releasing hidden talents, reserves of creativity, energy and motivation. The main thing is what a person can become, not what he is now or what he was in the past.

In psychology, which studied primarily mental illness, rather than mental health, have long been neglected to explore the potential personal growth person. But in last years The ability to change and grow as a person is beginning to be recognized by more and more psychologists.

1 Schultz D.P. Growth Psychology: Models of the Healthy Personality. N.Y. etc.: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1977. P. 1-5, 143-146. (Translation by El. Zagryazhskaya.)

590 Topic 14. Personal development

“Personal growth psychologists” (most of them consider themselves humanistic psychologists) offer A New Look on human nature. The personality type they have in mind is different from those previously described in the traditional branches of psychology: behaviorism and psychoanalysis.

Humanistic psychologists criticize traditional approaches because they believe that behaviorism and psychoanalysis take a narrow view of human nature and do not take into account the heights to which people can rise. They accuse behaviorism of treating man as a machine - " complex system, whose behavior occurs in a natural way" 1. Behaviorists describe the individual as an ordered, regulated, predetermined organism, no more spontaneous, alive and creative than, for example, a thermostat. Psychoanalysis shows us only the sick or disfigured side human nature, as it focuses on neurotic and psychotic behavior. Freud and his followers study not a healthy person, but a personality with emotional disturbances, i.e. the worst, not the best, of human nature.

Neither behaviorism nor psychoanalysis deals with our potential for personal growth, with our desire to become bigger and better than we are. In fact, they paint us a rather pessimistic picture of human nature. Behaviorists see us as passive reactors to external stimuli, and psychoanalysts see us as victims of biological forces and the conflicts of childhood.

For personal growth psychologists, a person is much more than this. They do not consider a person to be an eternal victim of these forces, although most of them do not deny that external stimuli, instincts and childhood conflicts influence personality. We can and must rise above our past, above our biological nature and the circumstances of our environment. We must develop and grow personally independent of these potentially overpowering forces. Personal growth psychologists paint an optimistic and hopeful picture of a person. They believe in our ability to open up and enrich ourselves, to develop and fulfill our potential, to become all that we are capable of becoming.

Proponents of the human potential movement assume that there is a desired level of personal growth and development that is above the “normal” and argue that a person should strive for this more high level in order to realize completely update your potential. In other words, it is not enough to free yourself from emotional disorders - the absence of neurotic or psychotic behavior is not a sufficient criterion for determining a healthy personality. This is only the first, although it is obligatory

1 Skinner B.F. Beyond Freedom and Freedom. N.Y.: Knopf, 1971. P. 202.

Schultz D. Healthy personality 591

An exciting step on the path of personal growth and self-realization. The individual must achieve more.

This point vision may cause disappointment for those who believe that avoiding mental illness is already quite difficult. Now they are told that being normal is not enough, that they are missing out on the opportunity to achieve a higher level of personal growth, i.e. some kind of “supernormality”. But what's wrong with being just normal? Why should you strive for a higher level of development if your life (without neuroses and psychoses) is rich and meaningful? You may know the answers to these questions from your own experience. After all, you can be completely healthy (in the sense of the absence of emotional disorders and provided that your needs and desires are sufficiently satisfied) and at the same time unhappy.

If we trust what personal growth psychologists say (and perhaps our own experience), we will agree that it is possible to be satisfied in all areas of life and at the same time suffer from excruciating boredom, stagnation, hopelessness and meaninglessness. Apparently, even with ideal conditions we can feel the gaping emptiness of our life, as if there is something essential missing from it, although we are not able to determine what is wrong. We can live comfortably, have Good work, a warm and loving family, not to worry and at the same time we will not have great joy, all-encompassing inspiration, a strong sense of calling or duty (dedication or commitment). Obviously, in this case we feel that not everything is so good. Despite our outward well-being, our lives are not as full as they could be.

A vivid description of a man who, at first glance, had everything perfect, was given by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. This man was so crushed by an overwhelming sense of the meaninglessness of existence that he was on the verge of suicide. He asked: “Why should I live?” Tolstoy knew well the suffering that he described, because he wrote about himself.

I felt that what I stood on had given way, that I had nothing to stand on, that what I lived on was no longer there, that I had nothing to live on... My life stopped...

And then I happy man, hid the rope from myself so as not to hang myself on the crossbar between the cabinets in my room, where every evening I... [undressed]; I stopped going hunting with a gun so as not to be too tempted the easy way ridding yourself of life. I didn't know what I wanted. I was afraid of life, longed to get away from it and, meanwhile, expected something else from it.

And this happened to me at a time when on all sides I had what is considered perfect happiness. I had a kind, loving and beloved wife, good children and a large estate, which grew and increased without any difficulty on my part. I was respected by loved ones and acquaintances, more than ever before, I was praised by strangers and could consider that my name was glorious without much self-delusion. At the same time, not only was I not crazy or spiritually unhealthy, on the contrary, I enjoyed both spiritual and physical strength,

592 Topic 14. Personal development

What I rarely saw among my peers: physically I could work in the mowing, keeping up with the men; mentally I could work for 8-10 hours straight without experiencing any consequences from such stress...

What will come of what I do today, what will I do tomorrow, what will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why should I desire anything, why should I do anything? Is there any meaning in my life that would not be destroyed by the inevitable death that awaits me?

These questions are the simplest thing in the world. They sound in the soul of every person - from a stupid child to a wise old man. As I have seen from my own experience, it is impossible to continue living without an answer to them 1 .

About yours mental turmoil Tolstoy wrote when he was fifty years old, and it is impossible to assume that at that time he was a healthy person. This brings us back to the original question: what is a healthy personality? So far we have only talked about what it is not. And there is a good reason for this - we do not know what constitutes a healthy personality, because there is little agreement among psychologists working in this area. There are quite a few definitions of a healthy personality - so many that they can be collected in the form of a small book. The best we can achieve at this level of our knowledge is to explore those concepts of real psychological health that seem to us most complete, and understand what they say about us.

I will discuss models of healthy personality proposed by Gordon Allport, Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung, Viktor Frankl, and Fritz Perls. These theories are selected among others as the most developed, recognized, influential and attention-grabbing in modern psychology. Although not all of these theorists are personal growth psychologists, each of them believes that there is a certain level personal development, located above normal, and according to this criterion fits into general direction psychology of personal growth.

The concept of a healthy personality has a vital important. Its content is difficult to understand, it is complex, controversial, there are a lot of gaps, half-truths and, undoubtedly, there is something strange and bizarre. As such, it reflects the area it is trying to cover - the person's personality.

Many psychologists believe that the study of healthy personality should be the focus of psychology; What other discipline should study human health? (human condition)? What, if not a person, can change the world for the better or the worst side?

1 James W. The Varieties of Religious Experience. N.Y.: Longmans, Green, 1920. P. 153-153. This passage is almost entirely quoted from the Russian edition of W. James “The Variety of Religious Experience” (St. Petersburg: Andreev and Sons, 1910/1992, pp. 130-131), the translators of which, in turn, used one of the published versions of the text of “Confession” » L.N. Tolstoy. For a slightly different version, see, for example, in the collection: Tolstoy L.N. I can't remain silent. M.: Soviet Russia, 1985. S. 50, 54.

Schultz D Healthy personality 593

Does anything have a greater impact on the content of our lives than the degree of psychological health with which we solve our problems?

As Abraham Maslow put it so clearly: “If you deliberately plan to become less than you can be, I warn you that you will be miserable for the rest of your life.” 1<.„>

Man has placed clothing and hearth, home and arable land, culture and civilization between himself and nature. And with every hundred years she had less and less opportunities to influence the human body. Many anthropologists agree that biological species homo sapiens(homo sapiens) basically ended with the beginning of the social evolution of mankind. But basically, this does not mean completely.

Having become the master of nature, man remained her son. He has retained the ability to change, and nature shows the remnants of its former power, causing and maintaining some changes in the appearance of people living in different places on the earth. And scientists tend to associate other changes (also relatively small) with the long-term effect of certain aspects of socio-economic conditions, for example, with the nature of food.

Scientists argue about the reasons for some changes. But where they do not argue, the situation is usually even worse: this means that even dubious hypotheses do not cast their faint light on the problem.

WHERE PEOPLE ARE EASIER!

People live from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego, from New Zealand to Arabia. And the place of life, the geographical environment leave their mark on a person. Who doesn’t know that white-skinned people live in Europe, blacks live in Africa, and the indigenous inhabitants of America are Indians...

However, not only skin color depends on where a person lives. An Indian from the Central American Mayan tribe weighs on average a quarter less than an Indian from a tribe living in Northern Canada! And this is not an accident.

In Europe, northerners are also heavier than southerners. The average weight of an adult Finn is a little over 64 kilograms, and that of a Spaniard is about 60 kilograms. A Berber living in North Africa is another four kilograms lighter. Of course, the standard of living (which in Spain, for example, is lower than in Finland), and hereditary national characteristics should play a role here...

In Brazil - in the Amazon Valley - the average weight of people increases the further from the equator (to the south) they live. Moreover, regardless of whether they are Indians or descendants of aliens from Europe. In Chile, the average weight of people of the same nationality is higher on the high, cold plateaus than on the warm coast. In Asia, Northern Chinese are on average about one-fifth heavier than Vietnamese Annamites. How do scientists know all this?

It’s very simple: they have at their disposal both materials from doctors related to the conscription of young people into the army, and the results of anthropological sample surveys. Anthropologists are interested not only in the past of humanity, but also in its present.

So, the cold seems to weigh people down. However, to some extent this is how it should be. Subcutaneous fat, which is an extra burden for an inhabitant of low latitudes, becomes almost necessary in a cold region.

In favor of increasing the size of a person in the north, ... geometry is also spoken out. With increasing size, the surface of the body increases in proportion to the square of the elongation, and the volume - to the cube. (Remember! Gulliver was 12 times taller than the Lilliputians, the surface of his body was 144 times larger, and the volume was 1728 times larger). The surface of the body is used by a person to give off heat, and the volume is used to accumulate it. The taller a person is of normal proportions, the greater the ratio of body volume to surface area. In the north, larger people retain heat better in their bodies.

In the north, as you know, people need more food, and in most cases their metabolism is more intense. This can also (but not necessarily) contribute to increased growth of the body.

Nowhere, perhaps, does human nature undergo a more severe test than in the desert. Just like animals. Large desert animals are characterized by long legs and necks and thinness. Representatives of the cat family are rarely good runners. But long-legged cheetahs, inhabitants of the desert steppes, run faster than all other animals.

And so, scientists noticed that the blacks of the Southern Sahara, the Bushmen of the Kalahari, the inhabitants of southern India and Ceylon are distinguished by long legs and long thin necks. Little of. The descendants of the English living in the desert regions of Australia acquired the same characteristics. Many peoples living in hot and dry places are also characterized by relatively long and thin arms.

The lengthening of the legs is apparently dictated by the need for large transitions. What about your arms and neck? Here's an attempt at an explanation. In hot weather, heat loss from a person largely occurs from the surface of the neck and arms. For one square centimeter there are 400 sweat glands on the back of the hand, and only 50 per square centimeter of the cheeks. The hands account for something like 5 percent of the body's surface, and 20 percent of the heat given off by the body is lost from them by evaporation.

Let us remember that of two cylinders of the same volume, the one with the smaller diameter and correspondingly larger length has the larger surface area. And the larger the surface, the more heat can be transferred from it. This means that in a hot and dry climate it is more profitable for a person to have long and skinny arms. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the inhabitants of the deserts and semi-deserts that we talked about are distinguished by this feature.

Do you know who the longest-legged people on earth are? Inhabitants of the swampland in southern Senegal, in the upper reaches of the Nile! It is clear that this is also not an accident, but an adaptation to living conditions.

A major role in adaptation of this kind should be played by the peculiarities of the development of organs, caused directly by the influence of the environment and the increased work of the organs themselves. Or, as scientists say, the individual reaction of the body to environmental conditions,

THE SOIL UNDER YOUR FEET

It is not only the climate that sometimes makes its own changes in the appearance of people. Sometimes the soil does the same. According to chemists, an accurate analysis can determine the presence of at least a third of the elements of the periodic table in any lump of earth. But in clods of earth taken from the Central European Upland, the slope of Kilimanjaro or the banks of the Ganges, the ratio of these elements is different.

It is known that a lack of iodine in food causes thyroid disease. Lack of fluoride compounds in water leads to dental caries. The number of medications used by doctors has long included compounds of iron, magnesium, and manganese, which replenish the deficiency of these elements in the body.

There may be a lack of boron, calcium, and potassium in food. Why? Because plants - the mediator between us and the earth - were unable to collect them from too poor soil. The development of some organs and appearance are affected by a long-term lack of a number of elements.

Who doesn't know that in the depths of Central Africa lives a short tribe of pygmies? The average height of men here is less than 150 centimeters. How can we explain the appearance of this people? One hypothesis blames the chemical composition of the soil in the area where the pygmies lived. In the tropics, monstrous downpours erode the soil and deprive it of a number of important microelements. This impoverishes the chemical composition of both plants and animals living here. The same causes cause the same consequences. And almost everywhere in humid tropical regions we find dwarf or stunted tribes next to people of normal height.

African pygmies

IN Central Africa, South India, Indonesia, on the Philippine Islands, in the Amazon basin - with interruptions, but along the entire equator such tribes live, having completely different origins. And in the same Central Africa, in the same places with pygmy people, dwarf animals live - take, for example, the pygmy hippopotamus or the pygmy.

Of course, in the same areas or nearby, as a rule, people of average height or even tall ones live. But we have already stated how complex the problems facing anthropologists are. Some factors may be superimposed by others acting in the opposite direction.

However, such a strong influence of the geochemical composition of soils, as in the equator region, as far as we know, is unique. But in less noticeable forms it should manifest itself much more widely. There is still a lot we simply cannot notice in nature. In mountainous northern Albania, anthropologists say, people living on soils formed from granites are shorter than those who cultivate limestone soils. Again we have to blame microelements, or rather, the lack thereof...

And a few years ago, the French doctor and anthropologist Vassal made an interesting comparison. He placed side by side and compared two maps of Europe - anthropological and geochemical. It must be said, by the way, that according to the shape of the skull, anthropologists divide people into long-headed and round-headed - dolichocephalic and brachycephalic.

So, almost everywhere where there were many brachycephalic people among the population, the geological map marked outcrops of some igneous rocks to the surface. The question immediately arose: a coincidence or a pattern? On the one hand, granites, say, were granites five, ten, and hundreds of thousands of years ago. And round-headed animals - brachycephalics - have become more and more numerous in percentage terms over the last hundreds and thousands of years (this is evidenced by the results of excavations). But couldn't geochemical conditions speed up or slow down a process caused by some other cause? Read the answers to these questions in our next article.

P.S. What else are British scientists talking about: that with changes in a person, it would be very interesting to trace his ability to, for example, study general education subjects, otherwise, according to one theory, human intelligence is developing and modern man is many times more intelligent than his ancient ancestor, and on the other hand, this process may be reversed and our descendants may turn out to be not only smarter, but rather stupider than you and me, modern people. And to prevent this from happening, you should not spare effort on training.