Personology of difficult life situations: at the intersection of three cultures

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National Research University Higher School of Economics

PERSONOLOGY OF DIFFICULT LIFE SITUATIONS: AT THE INTERSECTION OF THREE CULTURES

V.A. PETROVSKY, I.M. SHMELEV

Abstract

The paper focuses on the analysis of phenomena involving the individual's handling of difficult life situations (DLS). Handling DLS is interpreted in the context of “three cultures”: in the interrelation of the culture of scientific knowledge, the “ideofield of culture” and the culture of individual experience. Existing theories of individual response to difficult situations are analyzed; it is shown that the methodological core of most concepts is the “postulate of conformity” (“adaptability”) when interpreting human behavior. Along with the well-known “defensive” and “coping” behaviors that are adaptive in nature, non-adaptive forms are distinguished (“selfdestruction” and “mastering”), and a two-dimensional typology of addressing DLS is proposed based on the distinction between “activity/passivity” and “adaptability/non-adaptability”. Selfdestruction is characterized as passive non-adaptive behavior (disadaptation); “defense” means passive adaptive behavior (actually, adaptation to the situation); coping is active adaptive behavior (overcoming the situation); and mastering is active non-adaptive behavior (overcoming difficulties). Three ways of mastering are described: post-factum simulation of situations; a testing of the individual's capabilities in a previously unknown situation (“emotional flutter”); and “emergency simulation for future use”. The ways to reflect upon the person's own behavior in a DLS are also considered to transform the two-dimensional model into a three-dimensional one to reveal the attitude of an individual to difficult life situations. It is demonstrated that in the subjective plane (the semantic aspect of self-reflection) a picture of the methods used to handle a DLS that is “drawn” by an individual may significantly differ from the objective picture of what is happening (that is established according to the criteria of scientific knowledge). This paper presents a model of the personological synthesis of the three cultures for interpreting and correlating the forms of the person's handling DLS. In this context, some techniques are described that enable the co-organization of individual experience, elements of the “ideofield of culture” and scientific knowledge to contribute to altering the individual's attitude to difficult life situations and increasing the meaningfulness of their personal behavior.

Keywords: personology, culture, difficult life situation, addressing difficulties, self-destruction, defense, coping, mastering, meaning, attitude, meta-position. personological difficult life situation

Àííîòàöèÿ

Ïåðñîíîëîãèÿ òðóäíûõ æèçíåííûõ ñèòóàöèé: íà ïåðåêðåñòå òðåõ êóëüòóð

Â.À. Ïåòðîâñêèé, È.Ì. Øìåëåâ

Íàöèîíàëüíûé èññëåäîâàòåëüñêèé óíèâåðñèòåò «Âûñøàÿ øêîëà ýêîíîìèêè»

Ñòàòüÿ ïîñâÿùåíà àíàëèçó ôåíîìåíîâ îáðàùåíèÿ ëè÷íîñòè ñ òðóäíûìè æèçíåííûìè ñèòóàöèÿìè (ÒÆÑ). Îáðàùåíèå ñ ÒÆÑ òðàêòóåòñÿ â êîíòåêñòå «òðåõ êóëüòóð» -- âî âçàèìîñâÿçè êóëüòóðû íàó÷íîãî çíàíèÿ, «èäåîïîëÿ êóëüòóðû» è êóëüòóðû èíäèâèäóàëüíîãî îïûòà. Àíàëèçèðóþòñÿ ñóùåñòâóþùèå òåîðèè ðåàãèðîâàíèÿ èíäèâèäà íà òðóäíûå ñèòóàöèè; ïîêàçàíî, ÷òî ìåòîäîëîãè÷åñêèì ÿäðîì áîëüøèíñòâà êîíöåïöèé ÿâëÿåòñÿ «ïîñòóëàò ñîîáðàçíîñòè» («àäàïòèâíîñòè») â òðàêòîâêå ïîâåäåíèÿ ÷åëîâåêà. Íàðÿäó ñ îáùåèçâåñòíûìè «çàùèòíûì» è «êîïèíãîâûì» ïîâåäåíèÿìè, èìåþùèìè àäàïòèâíûé õàðàêòåð, âûäåëÿþòñÿ íåàäàïòèâíûå ôîðìû -- «ñàìîäåñòðóêöèÿ» è «îâëàäåâàíèå» è ïðåäëàãàåòñÿ äâóìåðíàÿ òèïîëîãèÿ ôîðì îáðàùåíèÿ ñ ÒÆÑ, îñíîâàííàÿ íà ðàçëè÷åíèè «àêòèâíîñòè -- ïàññèâíîñòè» è «àäàïòèâíîñòè -- íåàäàïòèâíîñòè». Ñàìîäåñòðóêöèÿ õàðàêòåðèçóåòñÿ êàê ïàññèâíî-íåàäàïòèâíîå ïîâåäåíèå (äåçàäàïòàöèÿ); çàùèòà -- ïàññèâíî-àäàïòèâíîå ïîâåäåíèå (ñîáñòâåííî, ïðèñïîñîáëåíèå ê ñèòóàöèè); êîïèíã -- àêòèâíî-àäàïòèâíîå ïîâåäåíèå (ïðåîäîëåíèå ñèòóàöèè); îâëàäåâàíèå -- àêòèâíî-íåàäàïòèâíîå ïîâåäåíèå (ïðåâîñõîæäåíèå òðóäíîñòåé). Âûäåëÿþòñÿ òðè ñïîñîáà îâëàäåâàíèÿ: ìîäåëèðîâàíèå ñèòóàöèé ïîñòôàêòóì; èñïûòàíèå ñâîèõ âîçìîæíîñòåé â ðàíåå íåèçâåñòíîé ñèòóàöèè -- «ýìîöèîíàëüíûé ôëàòòåð»; «àâàðèéíîå ìîäåëèðîâàíèå âïðîê». Ðàññìàòðèâàþòñÿ òàêæå ñïîñîáû îñìûñëåíèÿ ëè÷íîñòüþ ñîáñòâåííîãî ïîâåäåíèÿ â ÒÆÑ, ÷òî òðàíñôîðìèðóåò äâóõìåðíóþ ìîäåëü â òðåõìåðíóþ, õàðàêòåðèçóþùóþ îòíîøåíèå ëè÷íîñòè ê òðóäíûì æèçíåííûì ñèòóàöèÿì. Ïîêàçàíî, ÷òî â ñóáúåêòèâíîì ïëàíå (ñìûñëîâîé àñïåêò ñàìîðåôëåêñèè) «ðèñóåìàÿ» èíäèâèäîì êàðòèíà èñïîëüçóåìûõ ñïîñîáîâ îáðàùåíèÿ ñ ÒÆÑ ìîæåò ñóùåñòâåííî íå ñîâïàäàòü ñ îáúåêòèâíîé êàðòèíîé ïðîèñõîäÿùåãî (óñòàíàâëèâàåìîé ñîãëàñíî êðèòåðèÿì íàó÷íîãî çíàíèÿ). Ïðåäñòàâëåíà ìîäåëü ïåðñîíîëîãè÷åñêîãî ñèíòåçà òðåõ êóëüòóð èíòåðïðåòàöèè è ñîîòíåñåíèÿ ôîðì îáðàùåíèÿ ëè÷íîñòè ñ ÒÆÑ.  ýòîì êîíòåêñòå ðàññìàòðèâàþòñÿ íåêîòîðûå òåõíèêè ñîîðãàíèçöèè èíäèâèäóàëüíîãî îïûòà, ýëåìåíòîâ «èäåîïîëÿ êóëüòóðû» è íàó÷íîãî çíàíèÿ, ÷òî ñïîñîáñòâóåò èçìåíåíèþ îòíîøåíèÿ ëè÷íîñòè ê òðóäíûì æèçíåííûì ñèòóàöèÿì è ïîâûøåíèþ îñìûñëåííîñòè ñîáñòâåííîãî ïîâåäåíèÿ.

Êëþ÷åâûå ñëîâà: ïåðñîíîëîãèÿ, êóëüòóðà, òðóäíàÿ æèçíåííàÿ ñèòóàöèÿ, îáðàùåíèå ñ òðóäíîñòÿìè, ñàìîäåñòðóêöèÿ, çàùèòà, êîïèíã, îâëàäåâàíèå, ñìûñë, îòíîøåíèå, ìåòàïîçèöèÿ.

Introduction

We believe that the Personology of Difficult Life Situations (DLS) is one of the new directions in the psychology of personality. We should recall that “general personology” (the science of personality) is a methodology for the synthesis of fundamental, practical and cultural psychology (Petrovsky, 2003; Petrovsky & Starovoytenko, 2012). The focus of personology is the non-trivial and informative aspects and existential significance of scientific propositions and facts (as well as of cultural texts) as potential “psychological tools” of personality change and development in the context of consultations.

We should emphasize the originality of the study. The apparent plethora of studies on the personal manifestations of people in DLS, and the undoubted importance of solving this problem for practice, leave unasked the question of how fundamental psychology (theoretical-empirical - ^A-1) and practical psychology (psychological counseling, psychotherapy - ^A-2) correlate in this field; the other question is of the role the cultural psychology of personality (^A-3) could play in the correlation of “two psychologies” (Petrovsky & Starovoytenko, 2012).

In the psychological literature there is a situation that could be called a “balance of deficiencies”: psychotherapists and consultants from various schools lack the accuracy of test diagnostics of the individual in a situation of DLS, while “academic psychologists” lack the subtleties of phenomenological analysis.

“One result of this wider fissure is that psychodynamic formulations of personality and psychopathology, which emerged more from clinical experience and naturalistic observation than from the laboratories of academic psychologists, have too often been portrayed to university students as archaic, irrelevant, and empirically discredited. Although decades of research on analytic concepts are typically ignored when current critics idealize specific evidence-based treatments--in their 1985 and 1996 books, Fisher and Greenberg reviewed over 2,500 such studies--the paucity of randomized controlled trials of open-ended psychodynamic therapy has cost us dearly. In addition, the arrogance of many analysts in the heyday of psychoanalysis, especially their belief that what they experienced with each patient was too idiosyncratic to be researchable, contributed to negative stereotypes held by nonclinical colleagues” (McWilliams, 2015).

When we look from the side (through the eyes of a general personologist) there is a relationship between ^A-1 and ^A-2 of mutual compensation, although both of them, it would seem, do not need any kind of replenishment from “subcontractors”. But, within the approach of general personology the question is not to recognize the balance of deficits and the possibility of mutual compensation of ^A-1 and ^A-2. Rather, it is necessary to establish cooperation providing the effect of synergy and the synthesis of theoretical-empirical and practice-oriented approaches. In this context ^A-3 reveals its function playing the role of a mediator.

What, specifically, could be a condition for the synthesis

First of all, it is necessary to formulate ideas about DLS that would be equally acceptable for the development of fundamental and practical psychology, and to offer in this context a common name that can be used for all, without exception, personal manifestations in DLS.

Secondly, to develop such a typology of personality's activity in DLS that, being the result of theoretical and empirical developments, could act as a guideline for the work of a practitioner psychologist on reorganizing individual ways of people's handling such situations.

Thirdly, to give a hypothetical description of the differences between the life meaning of the personality's manifestations of a person in DLS, and the personality meaning of acts delivered in such conditions.

Fourthly, to consider possible cultural prototypes of personal manifestations in DLS.

Fifth, to suggest possible ways to promote the individual in building conscious, rational forms of behavior in a DLS.

In general, we mean the task of the personological synthesis of the culture of scientific knowledge, the ideofield of culture, and the culture of a personality's individual experience in difficult situations of life.

“Three Cultures”

Speaking about the culture of scientific knowledge, we mean, first of all, what T. Kuhn called the “paradigm”. The scientific paradigm is a set of knowledge, methods, and models of problem solving; it also includes values shared by the scientific community. As applied to the problem of DLS, the question of the paradigm that is “functional” at present (does exist, or are psychologists at the level of pre-paradigm knowledge; are there values shared today by the whole scientific being?) cannot be considered solved. Only recently, in the seventies of the twentieth century, the dominant principle in the understanding of human behavior and consciousness was the “conformity postulate”, a hidden methodological setting to interpret the manifestations of all living things, including humans, from the position of adaptability and the urge to follow an internal goal, a deviation from which was considered a pathology or a sign of immaturity (Petrovsky, 1975). From this point of view, a difficult life situation could be considered (and was considered) as a cause for manifesting the ability to “adapt” (more details on this further in the paper). Nowadays a different view is gradually being asserted: the motives are identified for development (Allport, 2002), heterostasis (Rogers, 1951; Maslow, 1981), preadaptivity (Simonov, 1975; Asmolov, Cherenorizov, & Shekhter, 2017), and “supra-situational activity” (Petrovsky, 1975, 1996, 2010). A general view of a person as an adaptively non-adaptive being is born, the paradigm of subjectnessAt the time when one of the authors was writing and defending the thesis “The Phenomenon of Subjectness in Personality Psychology” (Petrovsky, 1992), the term “subjectness” was actually absent in the scientific literature. Today it is one of the high-frequency terms in Russian psychology..

The ideofield of culture. We use this successful term that was introduced not without grace by V. S. Mukhina as a family name for many phenomena that characterize the public consciousness (“collective representations”, “the all-inclusive and unconditional consciousness”, “semiosphere”, etc.). The similarities are quite obvious between the “ideofield of culture” and “social (collective) representations” in the theories of Durkheim (Durkheim, 1995), Moscovici (Moscovici, 1995), etc.; however, V. S. Mukhina (Mukhina, 2009) places a special and important focus for us on language elements and archetypical images in the behavior patterns of cultural heroes (the list of archetypes under consideration is much broader than the

Jungian oneOn the concept of the “The Great Ideofield of Culture” V. S. Mukhina (see Petrovsky, 2015).). In addition, the word “field” embodies the idea of attraction and the hidden synthesis of its constituent elements, in contrast to the “totality” depicting the cultural environment of a person as something fragmentary. In the context of the analysis of DLS we will discuss below the specific components of the ideofield of culture.

The culture of individual experience. When distinguishing this “hypostasis” of culture, we mean implicit theories of personality, “meanings”, “idiolects” (individualized languages), and attitudes of personality. In this study we emphasize the discrepancy between the means by which a person interprets his/her difficulties, the way he/she understands them, and how these ideas “exist in the science and in the ideofield of culture.

The Difficult Life Situation; “Addressing” Difficulties -- a Scientific View

Normally a difficult life situation is understood as any situation with high levels of uncertainty and significance for a person. At the subjective level it is perceived as interfering with the achievement of a goal and can cause feelings of distress. Usually these are stressful situations, with an increasing sense of anxiety; conflict situations that contribute to the activation of psychological defenses; frustrating situations in which the ambivalence of feelings manifests itself, as well as cognitive and behavioral disorientation; situations that cause a feeling of neuro-psychological stress; traumatic situations with a high risk of threat to life followed by posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); extreme situations contributing to the mobilization of human strength and capabilities; life threatening emergency situations (for example, floods or earthquakes) (Libina, 2008).

The last three of them (traumatic, extreme, and emergency) are not considered to belong to the category of DLS that we study: the way they occur, the amount of time that they last and the nature of their influence are virtually independent of the person. We are interested in situations, the nature and effects of which are mediated by the activity of the person themselves. This distinction should be clarified since most of the “difficult life situations” are interpreted in the ordinary perception of people as an objective reality, and this perception contradicts the essence of what is happening (we will further indicate studies that show that experiencing difficulty is mediated by cognitive assessment of situations From a broader perspective, handling DLS can be considered as the main content of psychological counseling and psychotherapeutic work, - in fact, as the subject of these disciplines.).

So, in our understanding, a “difficult life situation” is a situation experienced by the subject as interfering with the achievement of his/her goals (realization of their interests) and at the same time containing a hidden resource that allows them to be realized. DLS can exist “here and now” (at this moment of a person's life), but also “there and then” (in the past or in the future): as something “lived through” or something probable, expected. The reliance on the hidden resource may be active or passive in nature.

In this definition, unlike the definitions proposed by some authors, for example A. V. Filippov and S. V. Kovalev (Filippov & Kovalev, 1986), N. G. Osukhova et al., emphasizes the presence of a subjective element constituting DLS. The same idea is presented in the work of E. V. Bityutskaya and V. A. Petrovsky (Bityutskaya, Petrovsky, 2016) indicating, in particular, the involvement of the fund of biological experience when forming the initial “reading” of circumstances as difficult; thus, in our opinion, the fact is noted of the actualization of unconscious reactions to stimuli that exist “on the other side” of personal experience, and this would be difficult to classify as a subjective appraisal. It is logical to assume that these are motivational and affective reactions. Such an understanding follows from the classical works of R. Lazarus and S. Folkman, where “primary” and “secondary” appraisals are described (Folkman & Lazarus, 1998).

It is implied that in a difficult life situation the internal resources for moving toward a goal that are additional to individual standards are actualized and realized.

Speaking about personal manifestations of an individual in a DLS, we use a new phrase: addressing difficult life situations (difficulties), referring to two categories of phenomena: reactions to current DLSs and actions related to potential DLSs.

A characteristic feature of all (without exception) conceptual constructs of psychologists working with DLS, is the emphasis on the adaptive nature of people's response in situations that can be classified as difficult (stress, frustration, crisis, collapse, etc.). Such a view wholly corresponds to the canons of empirical psychology of personality that interpret the behavior and consciousness of people as a manifestation of an adaptive (in a broader sense, teleological) orientation. This canon appears in psychology under the name of the “conformity postulate” (Petrovsky, 1975). It is implied that there is a certain common Goal (hedonistic, pragmatic, homeostatic, etc.) that underlies all private goals and motivational tendencies of an individual (including products of fantasy, dreams, etc.). The multifaceted theoretical and empirical criticism of the “postulate” has been provided by V. A. Petrovsky and his colleagues during all these years until recently, but the power of the postulate is such that its traces of it can be found in most modern works: researchers believe (although they do not declare this) that in situations of real or potential difficulties there is the only one way of behavior, -- adaptive⁴.

The teleological orientation (the “conformity postulate”) is traced in such approaches to the problem of addressing DLS in all, without exception, trends in the empirical and clinical psychology of personality. Among the most famous approaches there are:

1. The psychoanalytic approach. Representatives of this approach implemented in the context of the problem under discussion are G. Vaillant (Vaillant, 1977), N. Haan In the most recent years exceptions to this rule have been appearing. For example, the large-scale and deeply grounded work of E. V. Bityutskaya (that we find rather close to our ideas in the approach and, we would say, akin in meaning), examines the determinants of the activity of the individual towards difficult life situations. This approach, as the author of the study notes, is based, in particular, on the idea of supra-situational activity that implies the actions of a person “above the threshold of situational necessity” that goes beyond adaptation to the situation (Bityutskaya, 2018, p. 43). (Haan, 1965; 1977; 1969) and T. C. Kroeberg (Kroeberg, 1963). It originates from the classical psychoanalysis of S. Freud and A. Freud. Resolving difficult life situations is seen as a way to eliminate tension. Protection mechanisms are treated as functioning without the involvement of consciousness and used for self-defense.

2. The situational approach that draws attention to the analysis of problem- focused/emotionally-focused coping strategies. R. Lazarus and S. Folkman (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Folkman & Lazarus, 1998) are the founders of this approach. They linked specific strategies of coping behavior to a specific situation. From their point of view, the situation itself (and not the personal qualities of an individual) sets the choice of style in the individual behavior. R. Lazarus and S. Folkman defined “coping behavior” as the sum of the cognitive and behavioral efforts that a person applies to reduce the effects of stress (Nartova-Bochaver, 1997).

3. The procedural approach, in which researchers propose classifications, where coping strategies are separated based on identifying three types of processes: emotional, behavioral, and cognitive, E. K. Koplik (Koplik, Lamping, & Reznikoff, 1992). All processes are intended as adaptive.

4. The existential approach. Existential psychology is of particular importance in the study of coping (V. Frankl, I. Yalom, R. May, A. Langle, and others). DLSs encourage people to overcome the emotional and spiritual vacuum and their experiences of the meaninglessness of being.

5. The integrative approach. It is characterized by the analysis of effective or ineffective coping strategies according to the criterion of adaptability in its pragmatic interpretation (the measurement of efficiency and inefficiency) (Frydenberg, Lewis, 2000).

6. The cultural and phenomenological approach. So far absent. The development of this approach in the format of general personology could complete the picture (this paper presents an attempt to outline the contours of the cultural and phenomenological approach).

By rejecting the totality of the “conformity postulate” as the only possible way of interpreting the phenomenon we are interested in, we are expanding the range of forms of the personality's possible manifestations in difficult life situations, assuming their cultural mediation, and this forms the methodological guideline of the study being undertaken.

Traditionally, of all the ways of dealing with a DLS only reactions to difficulties encountered are considered: defensive behavior and coping (that have an exclusively adaptive nature). Copings (coping behavior) are contrasted to defenses that possess an unconscious nature; however, non-adaptive responses to such situations are not considered.

Going beyond the limits of the action of the “conformity postulate”, we single out non-adaptive forms of handling DLS and among them maladaptive reactions, as well as actively non-adaptive manifestations of the subject.

In a special empirical study (Shmelev, 2017) we tried to distinguish between such forms of addressing DLS as defense, coping and mastering behavior. An exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was done of the respondents” answers to the questions of Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) developed by R. Lazarus and S. Folkman⁵, E. Heim's “Method for the Determination of Individual Coping Strategies” (MDICS) and the method of expert assessments (the total number of respondents was 335; 96 men and 239 women 18 to 32 years old); it was possible to distinguish three forms of dealing with difficult life situations, “defense”, “coping”, and “mastering” (the fourth form, “self-destruction”, is outlined hypothetically).

Defense is represented by the following answers to the WCQ questionnaire about possible ways of addressing difficult life situations: “venting one's annoyance at those who got me into this trouble”; “was looking for someone's sympathy and understanding”; “spoke to someone about my feelings”; “generally avoided contact with people”; “projected it onto other people”; “imagined and fantasized how all this might have played out”; “asked for advice from a relative or my respected friend”.

Coping was represented in the following answers: “I resigned myself to fate: it happens that I have no luck”; “I spoke to someone who could give me some practical help in this situation”.

Mastering was presented in the following answers: “I was attempting to see the advantages of the situation”; “I was changing or growing as a person in a positive direction”; “rediscovered something important for myself”; “I was aware of what should be done and redoubled my efforts to fix everything”; “I changed something in myself”; “I found a couple of alternative ways to solve the problem”.

So, the proposed typological model for addressing DLS includes the following forms determined by the oppositions of activity/passivity and adaptability/non- adaptability (Shmelev, 2017) (see Table 1):

1. defense, passive adaptive behavior;

2. coping, active adaptive behavior;

3. mastering, active non-adaptive behavior;

4. self-destruction, passive non-adaptive behavior.

Table 1

A Model of the Description of Addressing Difficult Life Situations

Personal meaning is another matter. It always shows the person's attitude to what he/she is doing. As a rule, the person believes that everything he/she creates is meaningful (Petrovsky, 2013). Personal meaning always exists determined by the extent of the person entering into a relationship with themselves as an actor. As a rule, the person will insist on the meaningfulness of his/her own actions, even when, from the point of view of most people (from the point of view of common sense), his/her actions are estimated as ridiculous. Thus, a two-dimensional model of the methods of handling DLS is not enough to fully describe what is happening.

We offer a three-dimensional model, in which the third dimension consists of the person's attitude towards themselves as the subject that addresses a DLS, expressing themselves in the personal meanings of the acts undertaken. The third dimension is based on the construct of “attitude” that has a long history in the philosophy of culture (K. Marx, E. Cassirer, E. Husserl, E. Mounier, E. Gilson, J. P. Sartre, I. K. Mamardashvili, etc.) and psychology (D. Winnicott, J. Bowlby, M. Klein, O. Kernberg, H. Kohut; A. F. Lazursky, M. Ya. Basov, V. N. Myasishchev, F. Ye. Vasilyuk, S. L. Rubinstein, E. B. Starovoytenko and others).

The analysis of the “attitude” category is not part of the objective of this study. Here we shall confine ourselves to a working definition, according to which “attitude” is the distance experienced between the I and the Object that is dynamic in nature and resides between the “poles” of the “I = Object” merge and the opposing “I ^ Object”. We believe that the “attitude” implies different degrees of the freedom of an individual as a subject of activity: the more tightly the I and the Object are “linked”, the less free the person is in his/her manifestations; the greater the distance is, the more liberated the person is. This understanding seems to correspond to the views of S. L. Rubinstein in his book “Man and the World” (Rubinstein,); a multifaceted development of his ideas is found in the cycle of works by E. B. Starovoytenko (Starovoytenko, 2010; 2015).

We shall call the phenomenologically distinguished “point” of the I in the space of possible attitudes towards the Object a meta-position, and we shall hypothetically describe what meanings a person is able to endow the form of handling DLS. In doing so, we may be dealing with some unobvious results:

• Self-destruction can be justified (comprehended) in a variety of ways, including such as “paying for personal sins”, “working off karma”, “such is fate”, etc. Such forms of rehabilitating self-destruction in everyday language may be called “excuses”, but the person themselves may see them as full of meaning.

• Defense may be interpreted by a person as a necessary and natural coping strategy to address the situation (for example, a primitive protective mechanism of “isolation” in the form of spontaneous sleep can be recognized as a condition for “recharging” for future use, which means coping for the subject). On the other hand, the defense can become a pretext for self-accusation, for interpreting one's position as surrender in the face of difficulties, when a person suddenly feels that he/she is “burying his head in the sand” (while isolating), “looking for a lighter spot” (when repressing), “losing way in broad daylight” (during regression), “letting off steam” (when acting out), etc.

• Coping can be interpreted by a person as a manifestation of weakness (in the case of a search for support, “call a buddy”), as rationalizing (search for information, reflection), as a manifestation of one's own heartlessness (distancing as overcoming negative experiences by reducing the significance and the degree of emotional involvement), as the construction of “castles in the air” (planning for problem-solving). Without knowing the special terms, people easily find words that replace the names of defenses that exist in psychology and psychotherapy. It is also possible to “improve” the status of coping in the direction of mastering. It seems to a person that the efforts shown are a way of self-testing, proof of their abilities and courage, an experience of transcending difficulties through the testing of own capabilities. At the same time such a “transcendence” may be a super incentive to handle a DLS, which, as is known from the Yerkes-Dodson law, is not the optimal way to stimulate achievements.

• mastering behavior (from the point of view of life meaning) is a manifestation of active non-adaptability that originates in an excess of forces, one of the variants of “supra-situational activity”. But at the same time the person may think that he/she uses the only chance to resolve the situation, that “there is no way back” (as it might have been when first overcoming a flutter), that “everybody would act like that in his/her place”. In other words, mastering behavior is considered in the individual's consciousness as reduced to the rank of coping.

Sometimes giving in to the need to cope with own destructive impulses can be interpreted by a person as mastering, or transcending difficulties.

There are opposing “inversions” of meaning when mastering behavior is experienced by the person as self-destruction (“jumping in at the deep end”), although such actions (that seem to the person to be reckless) can be justified by the situation. And vice versa: a behavior in the face of difficulties that consists in the need to restrain one's impulses, not to be tempted, not to put oneself at risk, is characterized by lack of restraint, lack of control, passion of fearlessness, and spontaneity, which, of course, involves negative consequences (self-destruction under the guise of mastering behavior). “I know that this is ridiculous, but I will do it anyway!”; “I feel that I should keep silent, but I must say!”; “... I'm standing on thin air, // I drink the wind, I gulp the fog, // I experience terrible joy // that I am lost, I am lost...” (but at the same time, “along the precipice, over the abyss, along the very edge // I flay my horses with a whip, I skin them...) (V. Vysotsky).

Sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish between different forms of dealing with danger, even when we try to understand what is happening by taking the position of the subject of activity, that is, being guided by the personal meaning of what is happening. The phenomenon of Valery Chkalov could be an example of the ambiguous interpretation of “dealing with danger” (he was an “air hooligan”, according to one version, and an outstanding pilot, according to another). The story of Chkalov, who for his love of risk, “flew a loop” under the Trinity Bridge in Leningrad, turned out to be a myth believed by millions of people after the release of M. Kalatozov's film “Valery Chkalov in 1941”. The truth was that Chkalov had been in prison for his fantastically audacious aerial stunts, before Stalin lifted him to the rank of hero. But the reality was, according to the recollections of his elder sister, he did swim across the Volga at the age of eight and would dive under the rafts of the floating trees. What does all this mean: mastering behavior? Coping? Defense? Or, perhaps, self-destruction as the inability to resist the “irrational impulse” of the Thanatos (according to S. Freud)? To the latest version: “All, all that threatens to destroy, Holds for the mortal heart a joy Of inexplicable delight”Translated by Nancy K. Anderson

See Petrovsky (2016) on the concept introduced by V. S. Mukhina. (A. S. Pushkin).

As you can see, the presence of the “I” in a meta-position (that makes it possible to impart personal meaning to the four selected means of handling DLS) can lead to rearrangements in this “quartet” by way of replacing coping with defense, defense with self-destruction, self-mastering with mastering, mastering with copings, etc.

Acknowledging the possibility of such permutations, we shall raise the question of what caused the observed transformations.

It is easy to make certain that each of the methods of subjective “reading” of any four forms described contains cultural prototypes: culture here sets the patterns and anti-patterns of behavior that underlie a person's “self-understanding” in DLS (Figure 2).

Dealing with Difficulties: the Ideofield of Culture

Here, the “Great Ideofield of Culture” opens up in front of us (Mukhina, 2009“). Religion, myths, parables, art, folklore, heroes of books and fairy tales, characters of jokes, film characters, etc., contain patterns and anti-patterns of how people behave in difficult life situations.

Figure 2 Conflict of Interpretations: the Cultural Mediation

Artistic images in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky can make an example of cultural prototypes of self-destruction (in the form of anti-patterns) (Kirillov “freely” killing himself and, thereby, “liberating” humanity in his face from the fear of death), the non-commissioned officer's widow, who, according to the town governor, in “The Inspector-General” of N. Gogol, “flogged herself”, the “Fatalist” of M. Yu. Lermontov and many others.

Psychological defenses (as a negative phenomenon) are presented in many works of the classics (for example, repression, etc., explaining the behavior of Anna Karenina and Karenin himself²; “The Wise Gudgeon,” “The Man Who Lives in a Shell” (A. Chekhov) are also negative patterns of protective behavior rooted in the public consciousness. It is important for us that the cultural image of defense mechanisms differs significantly from the interpretations presented in the special (psychoanalytic) literature, where “defenses” are considered as fundamental (core) constituents of character, and, therefore, they should not be “left out” as self- inflicted evil.

Coping is another thing. In this matter, culture is unanimous, starting with the image of the mouse that churns up the butter and thus gets out, and finishing with the cunning and heroic ways out of incredible situations in the works of writers, playwrights, journalists, narrators of various genres (the heroes of coping live on In the Soviet Union, where Freudian psychoanalysis was not in much favour, the first attempt to legalize the idea of defense mechanisms in a psychology textbook for universities (we emphasize, a textbook!) was made in the 60s by A. V. Petrovsky using the example of the analysis of Karenin's personality, a character of the novel “Anna Karenina” by L. N. Tolstoy. pages of millions of books, stories, and essays, inspiring readers to overcome adversity and difficulties, and fight for life). In these written (and oral) stories copings possess the ultimate value and are the standard of effort in difficult life situations.