Recently, a sensation has been wandering around various publications, the beginning of which was laid by an article in the newspaper Arguments and Facts (No. 38 of 21.09.2005/70/40) “Schizophrenia is like a cold. Contagious.» It presented the point of view of a psychiatrist, doctor of medical sciences Etelius Kazanets. “For the first time, the psychiatrist Kazanets thought about the infectious origin of schizophrenia in the early 10s, when he worked at the Research Institute of Psychiatry of the Ministry of Health. Once he heard a story about a girl. She lived in a communal apartment and allegedly contracted schizophrenia from her friend. At first, the scientist reacted to this with distrust, but after analyzing the statistics for more than XNUMX houses in the area of the Izmailovskaya metro station, he received unexpected results: in those apartments, mostly communal, where people suffering from schizophrenia lived, about XNUMX% of people fall ill, voluntarily or involuntarily. communicating with them … This means that the incidence depends on the proximity to the schizophrenic and the duration of contact with him. The conclusion suggested itself: schizophrenia is a contagious disease … Infection occurs by airborne droplets or by air.
Another doctor of sciences, Isaac Gurovich, commented on Kazanets’ version as follows: assumptions about the infectious nature of insanity were indeed repeatedly put forward, but were not scientifically confirmed, but “as for the crowding of patients with schizophrenia in some houses: once the head doctors of neuropsychiatric dispensaries were part of the distribution committee living space and sought to improve conditions for their patients. And sometimes they appeared at home, where there were a lot of our patients.” However, the sensation was picked up by other publications, which treated the idea of Etelius Kazanets with more confidence.
In my opinion, this is actually the transmission mechanism of abnormal behavior (I talk more about this in my book The Theory of Dominance). The strongest human instinct is the instinct of self-preservation. Therefore, he first of all adopts from those around him those behavioral traits that allow the latter, gu.e. in other words, «to conquer others» or, in terms of psychology, to dominate. This is especially true for children. The child does not copy the behavior of all his relatives, but only the dominant one — the one with whom others, as it seems to him, «cannot cope.» Moreover, he does not copy everything, but only what, in the opinion of the child, gives him power over other people. If among the inner circle there is a person with abnormal behavior (due to mental illness or simply because of looseness and tyranny), the child sees that other family members cannot do anything with this person and even fear him and indulge his whims. This convinces the child that behaving abnormally can be beneficial. The same mechanism operates in the alleged genetic inheritance of many other negative traits of relatives.
For example, if the dominant person in the family is a drinking father, in front of whom everyone else «tiptoes», fearing that he will beat them when drunk, one should expect that the son or daughter will also drink alcohol, considering this a proven means of intimidating others. If the mother of the child forgives any sins to her husband, who has been in prison many times, so that he does not become furious (or out of pity that his “life was hard”), the children will take note of this. True, if a brave district policeman appears on the horizon, who will debunk in their eyes the myth of the “invincibility” of an unbridled parent, the children will decide that the policeman is “stronger”, and this random person will play a huge role in their life. It is very likely that in the future they will want to devote their lives to law enforcement, since in their eyes this activity is a sign of fortitude.
The well-known fact that often even adults who have been in the conditions of hazing or in the zone, subsequently become like their tormentors, is explained by the same. The man argues: “So-and-so defeated me, which means he is stronger. Others did not try to protect me, which means that he is stronger than not only me, but also others. This means that his way of leading is the most profitable, and I should become the same.
School teachers are well aware that if a child appears in the class who behaves cheekily, and the class teacher cannot or does not want to call him to order, after a while 70% of classmates begin to imitate him. As you can see, the adoption by children and adolescents of the abnormal behavior of another person occurs only if the environment of this person comes to terms with his behavior and allows him to do whatever he wants. Indulge every foolishness, forgive, justify your tormentor, obey him, and your children will grow up not like you, but like the one you obey. And do not tell tales about your kindness and patience: children do not copy the behavior of weaklings!