Asthenic is a person with increased neuropsychic sensitivity, excitability and, at the same time, rapid exhaustion. Asthenic is a psychotype, a characteristic personality pattern. Sometimes — accentuation of character.
Asthenics are difficult in social life. The weakness and exhaustion of asthenics leads to the fact that their activity, as a rule, turns out to be ineffective. They do not succeed well in business, do not occupy high positions. Due to frequent failures, they develop low self-esteem and morbid pride. Their claims are usually higher than their capabilities. They are vain, proud and at the same time cannot achieve all that they strive for. As a result, they develop and intensify such character traits as timidity, uncertainty, suspiciousness.
In the case of neurasthenia, some more somatic disorders are added here: a person complains of recurrent discomfort, pain, tingling, poor bowel function, poor sleep, increased heart rate, etc.
The astheno-neurotic type is characterized by increased fatigue and irritability. Astheno-neurotic people are prone to hypochondria, they have high fatigue during competitive activities. They may experience sudden affective outbursts for an insignificant reason, an emotional breakdown in case of realizing the impracticability of their plans. They are meticulous and disciplined. Often their sex life starts early.
Psychasthenics do not have somatic disorders, but another quality is added — fearfulness, indecision, doubts about everything. On the other hand, if the psychasthenic has already decided something, then he must implement it immediately; in other words, he is extremely impatient.
Asthenics mostly suffer from their own character. But they have some features that make those around them suffer. The fact is that petty insults, humiliations and injections of pride, which are many in the life of an asthenic, accumulate and require a way out. And then they erupt in the form of angry outbursts, bouts of irritation. But this happens, as a rule, not among strangers — there the asthenic prefers to restrain himself, but at home, in the circle of loved ones. As a result, a timid asthenic can become a real tyrant of the family. However, emotional outbursts quickly subside and end in tears and remorse.
P. B. Gannushkin does not give examples of specific people — carriers of pathological characters. However, it is very important to acquire experience in recognizing pronounced traits and types of characters in their life manifestations. Therefore, as an exercise, we will analyze one image from fiction.
There is a character in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot, which, it seems to me, is discovered by many. psychic traits. This is Gavriil Ardalionovich Ivolgin, or simply Ganya, as he is called in the novel.
Ganya is a petty official, he serves as a secretary for General Yepanchin. From the very beginning, Dostoevsky makes us feel some kind of inner tension inherent in this hero. So, at the first meeting with him, it seemed to Prince Myshkin that Ganya’s smile was too thin, and his eyes were unnatural. “He must, when he is alone, not look at all like that and, perhaps, he never laughs,” thought the prince [35, vol. 8. p. 21].
Indeed, Ghani’s inner world is a tangle of petty passions, contradictions, unsatisfied desires. He is very vain, he believes that he deserves a position much higher than that which he occupies. For this, he seems to agree to marry Nastasya Filippovna for a large sum of money, which the general offers him. However, this decision is far from final. He is full of doubts. He spends two months in painful hesitation, and on the last day, when he must give a final answer, he tells the general that yes, he agrees, the general’s wife that no, he will never do this, and Aglaya writes that at her first word he will break this agreement finally.
At the same time, Ganya suspects that Nastasya Filippovna knows his true motives, that she laughs at him, despises him and, moreover, that she is plotting something against him.
In the same two months, he draws and dreams of painful scenes of the meeting of Nastasya Filippovna with his mother and sister. Note that these are dreams about the upcoming future. “Perhaps,” notes Dostoevsky, “he exaggerated the misfortune beyond measure; but it always happens with vainglorious people” [35, vol. 8, p. 90].
In the company of the general, members of his family, and other persons from high society, Ganya is restrained, decent, and polite. However, the mask of secular marker flies off him when he is left alone or in the company of a prince, whom he does not value. So, having received a contemptuous answer from Aglaya, he arranges an angry scene in the presence of the prince: “Ah! so that’s how! — he gnashed <...> — Ah! She does not enter the auction! — so I will enter! And we’ll see! <...> I’ll turn into a ram’s horn! <...>
He grimaced, turned pale, foamed; shook his fist” [35, v. 8, p. 74].
In the house, he is a despot who does not want to reckon with the feelings, interests, and even the pleas of his mother and sister.
However, sharp scenes are not for him. Giving the prince a slap in the face, he immediately droops, gets lost, asks for forgiveness. At the words of the prince about Rogozhin, that such a man, perhaps, will marry, and then slaughter him in a week, he shudders so much that the prince recoils from him. Finally, in one of the climactic scenes of the novel, when Nastasya Filippovna throws the 100 thousand brought to her by Rogozhin into the fire, Ganya faints.
So, the image of Ganya contains many features characteristic of asthenic type persons: morbid pride, vanity, doubts, indecision, angry outbursts in the circle of loved ones and timidity in public, suspiciousness, anxiety and gloomy fantasizing about future events, nervous weakness and exhaustion.
Development direction
If you observe the features of an asthenic in yourself and want to correct your characteristics, then your task is to change the palette of emotions, emotional stability in positive emotions, the transition from negative emotions to positive ones, and for this — a little change in life philosophy. How to move towards this? Check out the articles:
- Asthenik: how to work on yourself
- Positive personality development