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Why do adults, already established professionals, receive a second, third, fourth education, take various courses – from foreign languages and acting to modeling and calligraphy? Sometimes we, being carried away by the next process, do not even realize why we need it. Let’s try to figure it out.
“The physics department and graduate school, then the law academy — it was both interesting and useful,” 38-year-old Katerina recalls where and what she studied. – Then your own business and, accordingly, business education. And dancing is for the soul. Now I’m taking a writing class. But I’m already thinking about what I’m going to do next.” Katerina is one of many who do not stop there and go to get new knowledge.
Someone needs “crusts” for work, someone wants to meet like-minded people, and someone follows the fashion for education that has swept Russians over the past 30 years. There are other reasons, and not always realized, says psychoanalytic therapist Ilya Suslov.
“Before you rush in search of a new education, you should understand your needs,” he is convinced. — It is possible that there is a shorter way to their satisfaction. And also, understanding what we want, we can make training as effective as possible.”
The psychotherapist tells a case from her practice: “A client admitted that she went to a sewing course without knowing why: “I don’t like sewing and I’m unlikely to, but something pulled me.” In the work it turned out that her mother sewed well, whom she misses a lot: they live in different cities. And everything fell into place, because knowledge from the point of view of psychology is an analogue of food. And food, in turn, is warmth and love. Maybe it is their lack that we make up for through regular courses and master classes?
“There are many who were once ordered to study by their parents, and, in fact, they have an unclosed gestalt: they never managed to get an education to their liking,” continues Ilya Suslov. “Years later, they come across something that interests them, they have a strong motivation to learn.” Conscious learning opens up a second wind in a career, expands contacts, allows you to constantly “be in the know”, in an atmosphere of “movement”, which is especially important for creative people. “Behind professional studies is the desire to be “faster, higher, stronger,” notes Yulia Punina, a medical psychologist and neuropsychologist. – And in a hobby, you can also improve, getting even more pleasure from the process and the result.
There is always some goal and motive – without this, the learning process cannot be organized. But we usually set goals consciously, but the motives often remain beyond awareness, sometimes preventing us from achieving our goals.
At various courses, trainings, theater and film clubs, we are sometimes led by a lack of bright and strong feelings in everyday life.
“Low self-esteem can make someone who thinks that without a PhD or an MBA diploma he is not a full-fledged specialist to constantly study,” explains Ilya Suslov. But having received the desired degree, he discovers that there is another, even more significant and honorable …
The fear of moving from theory to practice also turns us into “eternal students”: “You know, in our profession, students study for 8-10 years, or even their whole lives.” “Such Peter Pans have secondary benefits,” explains Ilya Suslov. “I’m still young, I shine among students, and this protects me from doubts whether I will be as special behind the doors of the university.”
At various courses, trainings, theater and film clubs, we are sometimes led by a lack of bright and strong feelings in everyday life. And here you can get access to sincere feelings, get angry and cry – feel alive. But is this a problem? “Only if it turns into an addiction to emotional doping,” the psychotherapist clarifies.
It is also difficult to stop for those who, once having got to the guru, continue to go to him for all the programs in a row. “They see the teacher as an ideal, accepting, kind father or mother,” continues Ilya Suslov. “They create attachment with the image of an important and close person, which, perhaps, they did not have in reality.”
For family reasons
Through further education, we secretly hope to heal the wounds of the past. Ilya Suslov gives an example: “My client, who entered the sommelier course, had a father who was an alcoholic. And he had an unconscious fantasy: if we had a culture of drinking in our family, then there would be no trouble. So he’s trying to fix the family history.”
Mastering the skills that the deceased relatives owned, we cope with grief: we knit like a grandmother, or we paint a wall like a dad. “We identify with a departed loved one – this is how one of the defenses of the psyche works,” explains the psychotherapist. “And it gets easier for us.”
But gaining knowledge can also be a form of protest against family prescriptions, an attempt to find one’s own unique path.
“The manager sits at a routine job, although he dreamed of singing as a child, but his parents did not send him to a music school; or dreamed of ballet, and the family had no money for a studio, Ilya Suslov reflects. “When the therapy manages to remove the inhibitions, the clients eagerly try everything for several months: vocals, modeling, dancing, drawing – everything that they didn’t get as a child.”
It happens that creative experiments end quickly, but someone continues to look for himself for years, rushing from one extreme to another. “In adulthood, it is difficult to build a career anew, and it is not necessary to radically change a profession for the sake of a hobby,” notes Yulia Punina. “It can become a favorite hobby that gives strength and energy.”
When is the right time to learn a language?
There is such a stereotype – the sooner you teach a child a foreign language, the better. And many adults complain: they say, if I taught him from early childhood, now I would speak freely. Often, as parents, we try to provide children with the opportunities that we were deprived of. But don’t force things, neuropsychologist Yulia Punina is convinced.
There is a most favorable, biologically predetermined sensitive period for mastering each skill. Such a period for the development of speech is up to 3 years, and in general, the development of speaking skills, understanding of speech and language occurs in a child under 6 years of age. If he grows up in an interethnic family, then the addition of a second language will be natural – the baby will be able to learn to understand both and speak them. But often, parents, following the fashionable trend of early development, introduce social learning into the life of the child: they take them to language courses, arrange classes at home. This is where the danger lies: the child’s brain is not ready to “write” the second language onto the hard drive, and if there are difficulties in mastering the first, the second will not be assimilated and the study of the native will begin to “slow down”. At primary school age, a child who has successfully mastered the system of his native language is ready to learn a foreign language. And the learning process will already be little different for a child and an adult.
brain training
From the point of view of neuropsychology, learning is definitely a useful thing. “The brain is a complex system with its own laws of development,” recalls Yulia Punina. “Any learned skill forms new neural connections in both a child and an adult.” The ability to create new connections can be decisive in the fight for active longevity.
“Our brain, as part of a biological organism, begins to age early: according to some reports, irreversible degradation processes start after the age of 25,” says the neuropsychologist. “But we can slow them down by loading the brain!”
What is more effective – solving mathematical problems or embroidery? “Both are useful,” Yulia Punina is sure. – Needlework stimulates more the parts of the brain responsible for motor skills and imaginative thinking, mathematics and chess – for logic and spatial representations, learning languages activates the processes of memory, speech perception and associative thinking. Whatever you choose as a hobby or additional training, your choice is in favor of neural connections in the brain.
For absolute pitch, one must be born with good cortical areas of the brain and develop abilities from childhood.
And there are skills that we acquire once and for all: for example, swimming or cycling. “There are brain structures that store information at the level of deep motor memory “forever”, if health is in order,” explains the neuropsychologist. The acquired skill saved the life of 42-year-old Alexander: “I took extreme driving courses out of curiosity. Somehow I turn off the Moscow Ring Road, and there is a highway repair. I thought I would crash, but I braked a meter before the bump stop. The reflex worked out!
Is it possible to develop an ear for music in adulthood? “For absolute pitch, one must be born with good cortical areas of the brain and develop abilities from childhood,” says Yulia Punina. – But even if a bear steps on our ear, we will get a chance to sing a familiar melody without falseness. By playing a musical instrument, we globally engage all parts of the brain and many processes.”
An excellent remedy for aging is dancing. This is not only a physical activity, but also a real therapy. These activities combine movement, coordination, perception of music and your own sense of rhythm. All this increases the production of dopamine – the hormone of pleasure, reducing stress and tension.