What is stress and distress? What are their causes? What is the impact of man-made disaster, natural disasters, military conflicts and terrorist acts on the psyche of the people? Why are we so prone to stress and how to resist them? Stress and distress
Nowadays, the concept of "stress" has become very fashionable and popular. They we explain its depressed condition, caused by intensive work, physical or mental stress, family problems, retirement, bereavement, news about disasters and so on, Not only ordinary people, but some scholars tend to identify biological stress with a strong emotional state that is fundamentally wrong, although nervous excitement and is one of the manifestations of stress.
Stress is not considered a violation, it is quite natural state, has both positive and negative aspect. Any situation, whether it be theatre, the first kiss, the game of checkers, sports victory, can cause stress, which, however, does not cause any harm to the body. In modern psychology there are two concepts: stress as a nonspecific response of the activation of biological and mental abilities of the body to any requirement against him, and distress of negative emotional stress response, significantly exceed the adaptive resources of the person.
Pain, fear, exhaustion, humiliation, blood loss, unexpected success, love, i.e. everything that can lead to radical change of lifestyle or established ideas, refers to stressogenic factors, which, strictly speaking, generate stress as a physiological condition.
Speaking of stress, we will mainly be borne in mind distress, because it can cause real harm to our physical and mental health. He is exposed to, for example, air traffic controllers, from which depend the lives of hundreds of people, athletes, managers and depositors of the Bank, on the verge of bankruptcy, driver, towards which suddenly jumps out of the car or pedestrian, people, sitting at the bedside of a hopeless patient, etc.
The circumstances that cause stress (stressors), provoke the body's response to irritation. Paradoxically, from the perspective of biochemistry, no matter positive or negative emotions experienced by the person. It is only important that the body must change and adapt to new circumstances. So, during the war, the woman received a "death notice" on his only son, very grieved at the loss. But a few years later was considered lost suddenly entered the house - and the joy aroused mother a real shock. Thus, sorrow, and happiness involved in the body the same adaptation mechanisms that allowed him to cope with the shock and restore inner balance.
Mission impossible?
Today's rapidly changing world imposes stringent requirements on the adaptive abilities of our body. From this point of view, stress can be regarded not only as a reaction to extreme circumstances, but also as the engine of progress: people simply would not survive, not whether they have internal protective mechanisms to adapt to circumstances. If a person suddenly stands up difficult or seemingly impossible task, in response to a call to mobilise all mental and physical strength to overcome obstacles.
In an extreme situation in the man sometimes I Wake up remarkable abilities: the mother, protecting the child can turn over the car to lift a huge log, move the beam. There are cases when not having special physical strength teenagers rescued drowning or pulled out of the fire of adults and fragile nurses throughout the war carried from the battlefield wounded.
Most people perform feats, not giving himself in this report. But sometimes the mobilization of domestic resources is consciously: prisoners of concentration camps, for example, to the end fought for life, helped each other, enabling them in inhuman conditions, not only to survive but to preserve human dignity. Another example: when shipwrecked often saved the one who grabs the last straw and not lose hope.
Thus, stress is a major factor of survival, which gives a person the strength to answer the call of destiny, to fight injustice, to find and not to surrender. This allows you to fully enjoy the beauty of life, the joy of victory, creative boost, it can certainly be positive component of stress. But there are "adrenaline alcoholics: people, consciously (or unconsciously) seeking again and again to experience the "heady" strong emotions that go beyond the ordinary. Hence the gambling, jumping from a height, extreme driving, etc. But the chase for thrills can lead to very sad consequences.
Sometimes people become slaves to their own appetites and themselves, and at the same time and create another crisis situation, are constantly on the verge of stress, but it eventually become boring and pushes to new follies.
The man known... the stress
Unfortunately, the extreme situation of war, acts of terrorism, natural and manmade disasters - have become, in a sense, the phenomenon of everyday life. They generate ontological anxiety, in other words, the concern underlying fear.
But at the same stress circumstances are different individual characteristics in sensitivity and manifestations of stress reactions. That one nuisance for another tragedy. One learns about the trouble, will cry, will be wringing his hands, screaming, and the other will remain calm, will look even indifferent, will try to hide their emotions from others and support, to reassure those who need it. After receiving good news, someone to show the joy, would laugh, clap, cheer and jump like a child, someone only moderately smile, and the third will shed happy tears. In extreme situations, people are able to gather, analyze, soberly assess the situation and begin to act according to circumstances, while others are lost and panic.
Nothing reveals the peculiarities of national character better than the reaction to the assassination of peace in the country.
Some people are more resistible, but not insensitive, others easily fall under the power of circumstances. The first most often are those who have found themselves in difficult situations and safely out of them. On their side - hope, experience, and hence the confidence that they will be able to overcome. People of the second category are more vulnerable and dependent on external circumstances. Failures, the collapse of hopes and illusions knock them the ground from under his feet. They are more in need of help and support.
In critical situations, most clearly manifest themselves as the best and worst of human qualities. As you know, a friend in trouble. It happens that even the closest people behave badly, and I commend it when we do not have anyone to lean on. This frustration, overtaking the person in the most difficult moments of his life, always painful, but necessary to survive. Moreover, from my own suffering should learn to build on their sad experience, to try to improve yourself or to reconsider its attitude to the world.
People changing and evolving until deep old age, and the course of this evolution depends largely on himself. "My year - my wealth", sings the famous song Vakhtang Kikabidze. It's true that with age comes understanding self and others, kindness, and wisdom. Of course, if people were able to take your life. However, sometimes a negative perception of one's own life, and then the man turns into a grumpy, cantankerous and greedy old man, whose sunset deprived of grace.
The weak link
The most significant differences of perception associated with age. Especially vulnerable children and the elderly. But here we must bear in mind a very wide range of individual differences in the perception of values in life and in a protective adaptation mechanisms. It is generally accepted that older people are susceptible to death as such, because it always reminds us of the completion of their own existence. But there are examples and other types. Someone will put the fear of death under the protective mask of indifference, cynicism and even gloated: "Let he died but I'm alive! " Sick, helpless, lonely, lost everything that once made sense of life, may wish for death as a release from unbearable suffering. Writer Romain Gary (aka Emile ajar), hero of the Second world war, received the Legion of Honor from the hands of de Gaulle, twice winner of the Prix Goncourt, committed suicide just when seemingly reached almost perfection. And the hero of his autobiographical novel "Promise at dawn" by bequeathed to his mother and fulfilling FILIAL duty, goes to sea-the ocean, the eternal symbol of peace, boundless maternal love and death.
Awareness of the finiteness of life and acceptance of death comes quite late, together with life experience, along with a special, little is available, humility and forgiving wisdom. So thought the old woman Anna from "Last time" Valentin Rasputin: "it is not True that all people have a death - skinny as a skeleton, evil old woman with a scythe over his shoulder. The old woman believed that each person has their own own death, created in his image and likeness".
For children the same death as a concept does not exist. But they are deeply survive the collapse of their views of the world, the abrupt change in the normal flow of life. Ideally, the picture of the children of the world is simple and positive iconic landmarks: the mother is the most beautiful and the good, dad is the strong and brave, my grandfather is the most fair and wise, my grandma is the most caring and loving, his younger sister is helpless and vulnerable and t. d. The child tends to romanticize and exaggerate. Created by his imagination and passion warm children's world creates a sense of security and confidence. But sometimes there comes a time when infant ideas about life are crumbling - for example, when the father goes to another family. For a child it is like the earthquake in their homes. Such an event may be the first serious stress for the little man, the crash of the basics of the universe and the loss of values that are associated primarily with family. The gap between parents very deeply experienced children and adolescents, because it destroys stable and clear picture of the world, casts doubt on the firmness of the very foundations of their emotional relationships with others and self-esteem: "I was profoundly mistaken in the loved ones, they were quite different - it means that henceforth no one can be trusted! ".
The suffering of the child expressed a peculiar, almost speechless. In the lexicon and the experience of the baby's simply not enough words with which he can Express all of the horror that feels.
Attentive parents on a number of grounds can understand how strong the suffering of their child. His mental state often takes the form of a purely physiological disorders and ailments: sore tummy, fever, the child suddenly becomes self eat and dress, becomes distracted, irritable, tearful. The kid literally sick. Thus he manifested the immediate acute state of stress on the so-called somatic level, as if we, adults, complaining about your body language.
If time does not help, the consequences of the experience can be very serious. Both children and adults need the support of loved ones to experience the grief, fear, tragedy, loss, which fell to his share, or helping professionals. Sometimes it requires not only special psychotherapeutic techniques, and drug therapy. However, at a certain stage of stress time said a kind word may be more important than any pills.
The raging of the elements
We live in an open world, where every second something happens. Today, the media instantly spread around the world the news of a terrible and sinister events, whether the war in Iraq, the crash, the death of the astronauts, hurricanes, earthquakes, man-made disaster, etc.
Threads bombarding people negative information, the constant expectation of something terrible, fear of uncertainty give rise to stress.
Of course, the tragedy of the number of victims was happening at all times. However, no information was spread as rapidly as it is today. However, there were a disaster, so shocked the world that the memory of them has survived a century and became a symbol of the disaster. This is the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in 79 ad, an earthquake of 1908, destroyed in Italy Messina and 25 more cities, which became a legend of the death of "Titanic".
Natural disasters, of course, is not always perceived as a tragedy. For example, if you have frozen water, we believe that the accident occurred on a local scale, but the snow drifts able to paralyze the life of the whole city, to stop the traffic on the motorways and the airport. Many people in these situations feel cut off from civilization, helpless and abandoned to the mercy of fate. This perception of reality is reflected in modern art, for example, in the novel by Arthur Hailey Airport, which was shot the same film, or in the Soviet film "the Crew".
But actually now we are more protected from the vagaries of the weather than people of past centuries. Several hundred years ago man was more closely associated with nature, his life is largely depended on hitting any rain, hail, snow, whether drought and t. d.he was defenseless against the elements, but perceived them as a given and inevitable evil. Our ancestors much easier belonged to slush, rain or snowfall, which could not prevent them to go outside, because otherwise they risked to remain without food, water, heat. And about natural disasters that took place at the other end of the Earth, nobody've never heard. Moreover, the raging of the elements was seen as God's punishment, t. e. something not only inevitable, but as a punishment for some sins, which must endure with humility and suffering to purify. From the point of view of modern psychology it was a very wise approach: if you can't change the circumstances, change your attitude to it.
Everything is automated!
Industrial society in which we live, with all the trappings of civilization - cars, planes, water, electricity, information technology, telephone, home automation work, an extensive network of supermarkets, creates an illusory sense of security from any adversity, including household. But what if the mechanism is broken, doesn't work? What happens if viruses to penetrate computer networks and paralyze the work of the banks? Suddenly fails power supply? Many ingenious machines liberate man from the washing, cooking, easy Ironing, cleaning, robotics invades our everyday life and makes it comfortable. We used to live with all the amenities so broken washing machine or burned in a microwave oven dinner can cause real stress. What to talk about more serious accidents! Modern man has completely forgotten how to do something yourself and feel absolutely helpless when the usual appliances suddenly refuse. Fear of becoming dependent mechanisms may also purchase exaggerated form. This contradiction between the modern level of technical development and specifics of the psychological perception of individuals is reflected in the cinema of recent years, one of the most striking examples was the film "Terminator 3. Rise of the machines" directed by Jonathan Mostow.
Some homes
It seems that modern man stress lurking at every step. It would seem that moving to a new house - what could be better? But, as popular wisdom says, relocation and repair of equivalent natural disaster. After the excitement associated with the relocation, left behind, new comfortable apartment should please the newcomer. However, here is a new cause of stress: change the habitual way of life and environment can cause unpredictable reactions. Today, every area of Moscow is like a small city, so moving to another area or relocation of the building in a large apartment building can dramatically change the way of life of a person.
Leaving the past with the old courtyards have become the embodiment of a certain way of life with its gardens, grandmothers, on the benches, selflessly plenitudine and watching the lives of neighbors, old men playing dominoes and checkers and discussing the latest news, kids in the sandbox, teenagers with guitars, dog lover. It was like a kind of club, a member of which everybody could be. For older people this pastime was often the only way of communication, the ability to feel in the thick of things.
Residents of new huge multi-storey complexes, as a rule, remain strangers to each other, even the neighbors are often not familiar. Modern citizens are actually deprived of communication territorially. Before the neighbors, if not friends, then helped each other: it was considered in the order of things to ask the neighbors to sit with the children to borrow three rubles till payday. Even in communal apartments, despite the inconvenience and horrific living conditions, people feel much more United. Many older people almost nostalgically remember those days when we lived in crowded, poorly, but their memories, friendship, and fun (the scandals in the communal kitchens were a kind of rule of the game and almost fun). Of course, the sense of belonging to a certain society was illusory, however, gave a real sense of logistics, security. Today, in an age of individualism, people are left alone with their problems. The problem of loneliness in the big city is becoming increasingly important and often leads to serious stress. Especially suffer from loneliness elders.
The wrong side of progress
Hard rhythm and instability, the industrialization of society and life in megacities provoke constant stress and a desire to hide from it. However, the rejection of progress - not news. Remember Oblomov, who "woke up" in a new, alien rational world, where he became uncomfortable, went into the village and lay on the sofa. Modern man is also typical of such an escape from reality, which takes various forms. Some are immersed in a virtual, others in the underwater world of fashion in recent years, ecotourism and the desire to spend a holiday in the far Islands, which had not stepped on. All these are attempts to regain composure. But not everyone has the ability and desire to withdraw into his own little world. Modern man has to wait for a trick even where it shouldn't be. So, the opportunity to travel, see the world - an absolute boon. But the need is often for a while to move from country to country, often associated with work or study abroad, requires any time to adjust to different time zones, customs, languages, types of dwellings, features cuisine and t. d. As a result, the human condition unstable, he has a feeling that he was uprooted from his native soil, became homeless and unwanted, lost in the huge soulless space.
The victim well-being
Oddly enough, the satisfaction of desires, wealth, opportunities, success is still not make people happy. At a certain stage they become hostages of their own well-being.
People who consider themselves successful as a person, want good and your loved ones. But this desire often takes only the external form, devoid of content, warmth and sincerity. Some seek in whatever was to haul in the happiness of my family, without their own opinion, in splendid blinding not doubting that they are one the knowledge of the immutable formula of happiness. Others reduce their benefit to providing purely external well-being. Both situations can lead to all participants of serious stress. Serious violations of danger and pursuit of success, and suffers not only physical and mental health, and family life. The last time loyal customers psychologists and psychotherapists are increasingly becoming businessmen, top managers. And their wives.
Help yourself
When dramatic events occur, at the site of tragedy go doctors, psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers, designed to provide emergency assistance to victims, many of whom are in critical condition. But what to do until help has not come yet?
Almost everyone is able to wrap cut finger, the same way whenever a person is in a critical situation, should be able to render yourself "emergency psychiatric assistance".
The first thing you need to do any non-standard situation is to tell myself to calm down and analyze their situation. Of course, it all depends on the specific circumstances. Thus, in the plane certainly instructed: "In the case of depressurization first put the mask on yourself and then on the baby." It would seem more logical to look first to the most helpless, and then about more enduring. Actually all very reasonable: if an adult loses consciousness, the child no one will save you.
Once pinned, you need to assess the situation. If an arm or a leg trapped, you can try to free herself, but if this is not possible, it is better not to make any unnecessary movements, save power, do not panic, wait for help, not allowing himself to despair. In addition, you should pay attention to others. The realization that you are not alone and that there are people around can have a powerful psychological support. Common pain can and should unite victims.
Especially difficult are experiencing a crisis situation, individuals who believe that they are alone in the world, should only rely on yourself and no one will not help them. But once they discover that they are surrounded by people who are in the same position and ready to lend a helping hand. And then, perhaps, there will be a miracle man, not the mind, and skin, gut, his whole being suddenly feel: "I am not alone, I close with others, they are next to me, we will help each other! " It awakens a desire not only to save themselves but to help fellow sufferers. And this is not panic, not apathy, hopelessness, but based on a sober assessment of the situation, active, constructive and sympathetic cooperative relation to an emergency.
Dramatic stress that one they mobilize, and other demoralizing. The worst manifestation of stress - universal panic, which as a chain reaction is passed from person to person and prevents to act rationally. Alternative panic - purposeful and reasonable help yourself and others. When man goes beyond his own suffering and seeks to alleviate the plight of others, it thereby overcomes own pain, fear and stress.
To overcome stress
After the explosions underground, the collapse in the Park some people try rarely leave the house, afraid to go in public transport and in crowded places. In the subway they have unreasonable fear, suffocation, are lost, are on the verge of fainting, legs become wadded. This condition may be associated with vegetative-vascular dystonia, but more often it occurs as a reaction to fear, even if unfounded. In such situation it is necessary to look at others who behave calmly and adequately, think about what caused the malaise. If you have experience of overcoming such situations, they need to use. If not, get together with the forces and say to yourself: "I will not allow myself to lose consciousness, everything is fine, I feel good, and I'm not in danger. Will do now breathe in, breathe out" and t. d. Sick and really retreats. When a person thinks that he is at the mercy of painful emotions, it is necessary to follow a simple everyday rule and count to ten - this will help to shift attention and to regain the ability to think soberly.
To overcome the stress immediately after the tragedy often helps art therapy is one of the treatments through creative expression, giving the possibility to Express emotions. This method is effective when the person is still unable to speak coherently, but may, for example, to draw. For example, after the accident in the subway to the psychologist asked the woman, who witnessed the tragedy. She was not injured, but she needed to talk, to explain and to understand what happened, to understand why she was so badly tormented. Her speech was slurred, his thoughts confused. In such cases, experts recommend to try to speak in other languages, if the patient owns them, or draw their condition. During conversations with the psychologist of people in trouble, draws, and from picture to picture begins to change color, from pointless, but emotionally saturated images, transmitting stress, the patient goes to conditionally subject, peaceful images. Gradually, people began to realize what had happened to him and how to live on. Practice shows that people with post-traumatic stress disorder, as a rule, require monitoring specialists, and often in a long and complex psychiatric help using the so-called cognitive psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.
People perceive stress differently. If some traumatic experience mentally tempers, others, on the contrary, destroys. One of these consequences can become a kind of "lifetime victimization". The latter is very dangerous feeling himself a victim of abuse, people often again and again gets in a similar situation, and tired of being a victim, often turns into a ruthless avenger, begins to show aggression.
Children require a different approach. Small victims of physical or sexual violence often fall into a stupor. To help them, their unobtrusive engage in spontaneous action, including liberating movement - dancing, drawing, so that they can non-verbal body language to Express their grief, fear, suffering through the gradual harmonization of movements, not destructive acts such as the smashing of crockery, fights and so on, Some people, in an effort to Express its internal state, begin to write poetry. As physical movement and creative impulses become important in combating stress.
Alternative panic - purposeful and reasonable help yourself and others.
If not timely and properly remove the effects of stress, in the future it may affect mental and physical condition of the person, to lead to a sustained deformation of the psyche. In the last decades in psychology and psychiatry have a special term for complex mental disorders and physical ailments associated with the consequences of psychological trauma sustained, "syndrome survivor, or post-traumatic stress syndrome. For the first time it began to be used when working with U.S. soldiers from the so-called Vietnam syndrome. Then it turns out that similar disorders are observed in many people, wandering in an emergency. This and Chernobyl liquidators, and forced migrants, and civilians living in the area of military conflicts.
Now it is known that active therapy and prevention of post-traumatic stress disorders, often have a hidden form and expressed in the form of physical ailments and diseases, which are a reflection of the mental state. Constant depression, inability to get rid of thoughts about what they saw and experienced scattered the head and heart pains, phobias, nightmares can all be consequences of the lingering stress.
The human psyche is complex and closely connected with his mental and physical condition. On the one hand, the fate provoke stress, mobilizing internal resources of the soul and the body. On the other hand they show the limits of its possibilities, to cross that dangerous.
The cleansing power of art
The experience of one person is extremely limited, but there is culture, traditions, rituals, ceremonies, help people, on the one hand, it is easier to experience grief, distracting his attention from the tragic events and forces to focus on specific tasks (such as funerals). On the other hand certain rituals, which have developed over centuries, convey the experience of previous generations, and people following them, knows how to behave in a particular situation. In addition, great art, it can tell you how to react in a particular case, presenting a certain image and life circumstances fictional characters. No wonder they say that art invents the truth by analogy (by the way, psychiatrists and psychologists much draw from literature and painting).
The role of art as a social phenomenon is to lead the person through catharsis. Literature, music, painting, sculpture reveal many secrets of the human soul, showing us the human passions and vices, mental agony and heartbreaking passion, painful doubts and the path to achievements, bitter disappointment and tragic loss.
Outstanding artists and writers know how extremely accurately and clearly to Express the unseen movements of the human soul. The reader, the viewer, through the intricacies of the fate of the characters, indirectly after suffering, which fell to their share, passes through the cleansing process. And the experience of the fictional character becomes his own emotional experience. Good and beautiful in its simplicity and edification of the film "Forrest Gump" Director Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks in the lead role has shaken many, showing that capable people in extreme situations. Exciting, deep, thin, good and touching story is told from the face of the hero Forrest Gump, which probably would have sent in the "forest school" for morons, if not for the dedication of his mother, made for your child everything possible.
Forrest was a cripple, walking with the help of a special leg. But one day he gets into a tight situation, which was to end in his death. In a state of severe stress, on the edge of escaping from rapists, he suddenly ran. And it appeared that he can be very fast to run, and that has affected his whole life. Since then it all succeeded. Psychological empowerment hero is achieved by overcoming external challenges and their own imperfections and shortcomings. The film shows that any difficulties can be overcome, and makes for a fresh look at those people, which in everyday life we try to dissociate themselves or simply not notice, to not be upset and not be uncomfortable.
Speaking of art, I want to draw attention to the book of Booker prize-winning Paul Sanaeva "Bury me behind the baseboard", confessional story of Ruben Gallego "White on black", a novel by Peter Hyogo "Conditionally suitable". All these deeply tragic and light works unobtrusively learn to empathize with others ' suffering, "to jump through puddles and have an enormous therapeutic potential.
Stress constantly accompanies us, so we must be aware of those factors that can cause and be able to control your own emotional state and behavior. People must remember that he is not alone in this world. As great works of art, and emergency help us to understand ourselves and help those who need support.
Author:
Sokolova E., doctor of psychological Sciences
Source:
In the world of science
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