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

Mastering behavior is also part of works of art and art. All that is covered by the category of “feat”, including mastering behavior, is presented in many forms in literature, theater, and cinema. The feat always means going beyond the limits of something given, required, rationed, or due. The original act that exceeds the dictate of society. But mastering behavior is not obvious (“not rationalized”) according to its origins: “Madness of the brave we sing a song” (M. Gorky).

Folklore is another part of the Ideofield of Culture. Among the numerous examples of patterns and anti-patterns that induce or repulse certain behaviors in a DLS, we shall choose only one example from the “Proverbs of the Russian people” by Vladimir Dahl, expressing more precisely the peculiarities of the national mentality: “Yes... This is not a good thing... But let us try!...” (masteringThe readers should judge themselves whether this is a pattern or an anti-pattern of behavior.). The peculiarities of the ethno-cultural determination of the forms of addressing DLS and the ways of understanding these forms can be the subject of a special study In Russian culture, in contrast to Japanese culture, it seems unlikely that such proverbs inspiring coping could have taken root: “if you see a big wave, duck your head under”, “tot up your losses before you declare a profit”, “before boxing someone's ears look at whose head it is”. However, it cannot be emphatically said that such proverbs are specific to Japanese culture: a large-scale comparative analysis of a large array of Russian and Japanese proverbs is necessary (not only philological, but also psychological, from the point of view of perception and evaluation of existential significance).

Due to the fact that the Ideofield of Culture is significantly expanding through the “Internet folklore” (it sounds paradoxical, but the people doesn't not remain silent!), there have been new witty examples of cultural prescriptions relevant to different faiths; they “teach” how a person should behave if a “misfortune” suddenly came (another word is used in the original texts).

• Buddhism: If “misfortune” happened, then in reality it is not “misfortune”.

• Hinduism: This “misfortune” happened before too.

• Catholicism: The “misfortune” happened because you were bad.

• Orthodox, Has “misfortune” happened? Well, wear it.

• Judaism: And why is this “misfortune” happening only to us?

In the Internet folklore we also find the parodically expressed principles of reacting to difficult life situations in various psychotherapeutic systems:

• Gestalt approach: If “misfortune” happened, experience it.

• Freudism: “Misfortune” happened in early childhood.

• Jung: The fact that the “misfortune” happened is a manifestation of the Great Mother's archetype.

• Hellinger: This “misfortune” happened yet to my great-grandmother.

• Berne: This “misfortune” happened because I have got a loser's script.

(The use of the decent replacement word “misfortune” unfortunately reduces the instructive and psychotherapeutic effect of the proposed insights and teachings).

Of course, these humorous “generalizations” do not in any way express the deep essence of the ideas presented by world religions and psychotherapeutic systems. But we are primarily interested in how these complex ideas “live” in the everyday consciousness of people that is contradictory and inconsistent, including in the perception of representatives of psychotherapeutic “confessions” who always ridicule each other.

Earlier we noted that the “I”, occupying a meta-position at different distances from the plane of the four forms of addressing DLS, has the freedom to choose ways of understanding what is happening.

But this means that when entering into a dialogue with the “I”, the psychologist-practitioner (consultant, psychotherapist, coach) can influence the person as a subject of self-understanding and, accordingly, the behavior in a DLS.

Practice. Synthesis of the “Three Cultures” as a Guide for Handling Difficulties

In this case, there is a union (synthesis) of the three cultures for mediating human activity in difficult life situations: the culture of psychological knowledge, the Ideofield of Culture and the culture of individual experience. As a result, a state of consciously and rationally addressing difficult life situations can be achieved in a person to overcome illusions and prejudices overshadowing the reality of actions taken and attitudes towards them.

As an illustration, we shall give two ways of rebuilding a person's attitude to difficult life situations.

* A technique for working with metaphoric cards

Metaphoric Associative Cards (MAC) and Coaching Associative Cards (CAC The “CAC” cards are an opportunity to use an additional tool in the work of a professional coach, both a life-coach and a specialist in business and executive coaching. The “CAC” cards consist of two decks, the first deck has cards containing different coaching models, the second one has cards with images revealing possible contents of the models used. There are a large number of different card combinations when two decks are used together. The main feature of this deck is its wide applicability in coaching practice that enables applying both to one's own personal potential indicated as the second I (DAVID, couldn't find anything like that in references) by one of the co-founders and developers of coaching Timothy Gallwey, and to the resources of human consciousness and intellectual experience (Shmelev & Gracheva, 2017).), unlike some other options.

The client is offered to draw on an A4 sheet the “line of his/her life” and note the periods when he/she had little experience, as well as periods of gaining experience. It is important to remember the key decisions, as well as “what made you who you are now”. It is necessary to draw the line from left to right, mark on it the points of the main events, and comment on them using one or two words. The year of birth and the date of the session are also indicated.

The coach says: “Choose a card, a word, and a picture card that symbolize your experience until today. What is shown on the map? What is the metaphor image?

How does this relate to your experience? What is the value of your experience? How has it influenced your life? What are you grateful to your experience for? What decisions did you make that allowed you to travel the path and appear where you are? What is the meaning of this experience for you?”

Next: “Take a look at your entire life. Specify what you would like to achieve, and what qualities you would like to acquire in the next few decades (to build a relationship, to get a promotion, etc.). So, imagine that 10 years have passed. Choose a word map card and a picture card symbolizing your achievements after 10 years. What is shown in the picture? What is the metaphor image? How does this metaphor image relate to what you have achieved in 10 years? What is the value of your experience in this decade? How has it influenced your life? What are you grateful to your experience for? What decisions did you make that allowed you to travel the path and attain what you have attain over the ten years? What is the meaning of this experience for you?”

Then the next 10 years (and so on ascending 4 to 5 times).

“... So, you are at the edge of your life and you look back. Choose a card, a word card and a picture card symbolizing your achievements by this time... What was your main life purpose or a leitmotif of your life in the light of the previous answers? For what are you grateful to yourself? What are you grateful to your experience for? What is the value of your life experience? How has it influenced your life? What could you wish to yourself in the “past” from yourself “on the edge of a life lived”?

Take a look at yourself (“as if” you were an outsider) and examine the line of your life. What decisions were the most important in your life? What was the meaning of your life for you?

Now enter the “point” of the present and make new decisions regarding your future.

Thank yourself for the work.”

* A technique of working with TAT modification

Working with a client is different than it is in working with projective techniques.

Consultant: “Make as accurate as possible a psychological picture of the character in the picture. Look at the image. What will your intuition tell you? This situation may in some ways resemble incidents from your own life; but try to speak only about what you see in front of you. Assume the role of a psychologist who is constructing a psychological portrait of this character.

Consider that you know something about this situation. For example, you know that all this has happened many times in the life of this character... The woman cried, avoided people, and felt hopeless... What does she think or feel, what will she do? How will this situation end? What thoughts will visit the character in the picture? What conclusions will be made? What will be the character's thoughts about themselves in the end? How reasonable is the behavior, are the thoughts justified, are the estimates adequate? What alternatives are there?”

The last questions in the series give rise to a “session” shared with the client of counseling, therapy, and coaching for the virtual character. Near the end of the “session” the psychologist asks the client about the difference between the response of the virtual character to a difficult life situation depicted in the picture, and how the client would see themselves in such a situation. Thereby there is a distinction partly made between the perceived (“I feel, think and behave differently than the character”) and unconscious (“what happens not with me, but with the virtual character”) patterns.

The inversion of roles of the real client and the virtual client creates a wonderful opportunity to work with the client (“what would the character in the picture say about you as a person in this difficult life situation?”). This technique, in particular, allows the client (in the course of further work) sometimes “on the chairs”, to rethink, or, in transactional and analytical terms, “redefine” the existing forms of dealing with the situation (Petrovsky, 2001).

Upon completion of the work, the consultant may ask what the client has discovered during the shared activity.

The conditional situations offered by the consultant in one case (metaphorical cards) are symbols of what is happening (indefinite and multivalued, like any symbol); in the other case, these are signs of reality, illustrations of life situations in which the client resides. With all the differences in the cultural symbols and signs involved, they acquire a unique meaning in contact with the client's individual experience, an “emergent” property The “emergent” (generated) property in this case is like a spark running between a person and a symbol (sign), giving rise to a unique semantic meaning, the “reading” of the symbol/sign. In this way, the personal meaning of the individual's acts of dealing with difficult life situations is revealed., not directly recorded in them. According to one of the founders of semiotics, C. Morris, this is a predisposition to action (it is between the sign and the action). We consider it important to note that a certain “increment” to the understanding of a situation takes place that initially turned it into a “difficult” one. In other words, between the sign and the action, in the very predisposition to the action, it is planned to go beyond the limits of the image of a situation prevailing in the individual's mind, and, thus, its rethinking. Now, the forms of dealing with difficult life situations previously undertaken or planned by the client are analyzed or evaluated in terms of their possible life meaning: is it coping? Defense? Mastering? Self-destruction? What are the results? What “parts” of the personality are involved in it? And so on. As a result of teamwork with the client, the client's personal meanings correlate in his/her mind with the “life meaning” of this action as understood by the consultant. At the same time, the consultant proceeds from his/her own professional competences (psychological knowledge, clinical experience), but the client has the right to choose how to understand the situation and what to do next.

Thus, the culture of individual experience, the ideofield of culture and the culture of scientific knowledge come together in the work with metaphorical cards and projective pictures. “If a person goes from a point where knowledge does not help, he/she goes in the direction of meaning” (M. K. Mamardashvili).

The client walks along this path together with the consultant.

Conclusions

1. Psychology of difficult life situations (DLS) has an inherent “equilibrium of deficits”: psychotherapists and consultants lack the accuracy of individual test diagnostics in the case of a DLS, while “academic psychologists” lack the subtleties of phenomenological analysis. Cultural psychology of the individual is the condition for the synthesis of theoretical-empirical and practice-oriented approaches to the understanding of the personal manifestations of an individual in DLS.

2. In the general landscape of culture, the interpretation of DLS and the attitude to difficulties there are the paradigms of scientific knowledge, the ideofield of culture, and the culture of individual experience.

3. The “conformity (in the broad sense, adaptability) postulate” is the dominant form of understanding personal manifestations in DLS in the interpretation of human behavior and consciousness, which limits the range of categories of typology for the individual forms of addressing difficulties.

4. There are four forms of personal handling DLS: self-destruction, defense, coping and mastering.

5. A two-dimensional typology of the forms of handling DLS is proposed based on the distinction between “activity/passivity” and “adaptability/non-adaptabili- ty”: self-destruction is characterized as passive non-adaptive behavior; defense as passive adaptive behavior (adaptation to the situation); coping as active adaptive behavior (overcoming the situation); mastering as active non-adaptive behavior (overcoming difficulties).

6. 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”.

7. Unique ways of understanding by the individual their own behavior in a DLS generate a picture of the discrepancy between the forms of the person's addressing DLS and their interpretation from the “I” position.

8. A model of the personological synthesis of the three cultures of interpreting human activity in difficult life situations is presented, including the techniques of coorganizing individual experience, the Ideofield of Culture and scientific knowledge.

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