Contents
When a person says:
— Such is my character! — he disclaims responsibility for his manifestations …
How can I judge my character! — he liberates himself from self-understanding and self-control…
— Character is my own business! — rejects claims and attempts to correct it …
In these familiar phrases, first of all, the position of irresponsibility, laziness of thinking, thoughtlessness. And yet — just a lack of knowledge and involuntary imitation of others, a habit. Sometimes — militant ignorance.
Children especially easily adopt those positions that do not require mental effort. And above all — the position of irresponsibility. Moreover, they (naturally!) become infected with forms of behavior from elders. When this makes life difficult for the Elder, he is indignant:
Why are you like this?
And what else could he be? An apple from an apple tree…
Whoever of the parents was able to think about his character (and therefore, about his behavior), he can become a friend of his children. There are parents (educators) for whom a “push” of a good article, conversation, and certain information is enough. And then they think … At least about what character is. The exact scientific formulation is not so important. If only it came into consciousness that in the content of the concept of «character» the main thing is the attitude of a person to everything and everyone and the ways of expressing it. In this work, it is important for us how a person relates to people and to himself, and how this is expressed precisely in communication.
Many years of practice as a medical psychologist reveals what prevails — alas! — the very attitude that is expressed in those three common phrases about character … In everyday communication, elements reign. And this is one of the main reasons for the difficulties in raising children, their social and pedagogical neglect, their neurotic development and pathological personality formation.
Communication needs sanitation (improvement). Everywhere persistent educational work is needed, it is necessary to carry, plant, root psychohygiene of communication. And you have to start with your parents.
Of course, the inertia of irresponsibility will resist, and for a long time! What was easy? What kind of work did it cost to instill in people at least elementary skills of general hygiene? So let’s go back to it for a while in order to better understand the place and essence of the psychohygiene of communication.
The word «hygiene» immediately evokes images of the attributes of cleanliness: soap, toothbrush, water, clean linen … However, hygiene is far from being only cleanliness and not only the practice of preserving and maintaining health. This is medical science. It has its own research institutes, where they study the influence of environmental factors on a person and develop measures to prevent the occurrence of diseases. And although we sometimes forget that “hygiene” is a science, we no longer have to be convinced of the need for its practical achievements. We even tend to grumble if its influence is not noticeable in some area of our lives. We demand her intervention in the work of textile workers, shoemakers, builders … Our annoyance in front of the closed door of the canteen or store is softened by the sight of a sign «Prevention» or «Sanitary Day». Everything is clear: this is done to improve the place, that is, to prevent possible diseases, to eliminate their causes. Necessary!
Hygiene has firmly entered our life at work — through the safety and labor protection service, through dispensaries and entire complexes of «offices» within the walls of the enterprise, where a person will not be allowed to get sick or get sick. Moreover, now it is no longer a curiosity and a room for psychological relief at enterprises.
There is also the so-called mental hygiene — a branch of general hygiene. The task of mental hygiene is to form and maintain neuropsychic health. It is closely related to psychoprophylaxis (this is the prevention of specific mental disorders) and psychotherapy (and this is a targeted therapeutic effect on the psyche in addition to drugs).
The mentioned rooms of psychological unloading serve the purposes of mental hygiene and perform one of its specific tasks, namely: in 10-15 minutes of staying in this room, a person is released from the accumulated neuropsychic stress. Everyone who has received at least one session of «psychological relief» becomes a staunch supporter of it.
At present, the introduction of mental hygiene into work activity is not a problem, especially since doctors and psychologists everywhere have excellent assistants — very competent amateurs who can be called masters of auto-training and «commissioners» of mental hygiene.
Among the sections of mental hygiene, the most important for all educators is the mental hygiene of communication. This section requires special attention. This branch of mental hygiene, without losing its significance as a medical science, came so close to psychology that in psychiatric institutions it received a residence permit in the psychologist’s office, in the zone of his competence. This is because it is psychology that considers the laws of communication and the ways of its conscious regulation. Then what is here from medicine?
Primarily — principle «Do no harm!». Do no harm to the neuropsychic health of a person, group, or society. In addition, the information on which this principle is based relates to medical psychology. And medical psychology has absorbed a lot from neurology and psychiatry.
Psychohygiene of communication, as well as psychohygiene in general, can acquire different accents and profiles depending on the area of its application. For example, the application of the mental hygiene of communication to the work of medical institutions is medical deontology — the science of medical professional ethics. Here the same principle “Do no harm!”, But its basic information has a medical profile, although it remains in the competence of a psychologist. This is the science of the norms of behavior of medical staff in dealing with patients. The application of psychohygiene of communication to the work of educators is pedagogical deontology. Specific provisions, norms and rules of deontology are determined by the specifics of the institution, profession. But everywhere they are subject to the principle «Do no harm!».
This principle cannot be limited by the framework of institutions, since the entire sphere of communication needs sanitation (recovery).
Every modern person (especially urban) communicates with an innumerable variety of human individuals, and each person is a whole world. Therefore, the field of communication is extremely complex. It is connected with absolutely all aspects of human life. Communication of adults with a human cub makes him a man. In the sphere of communication, value and other orientations of a person are formed. The sphere of communication is the most powerful source of those factors that determine our mental state, up to neuropsychic health and its disorders …
In addition to mental hygiene, is there any other normative regulation in the field of communication? Exist.
Normative regulation in the field of communication
What instruments of social control carry it out?
Primarily — right, i.e., the legal norms of human behavior established by the state. The will of the majority of the people in our country, elevated to law, prohibits such forms of behavior that cause harm to society and its members. But legal institutions will never be able to provide sufficient normalization of the sphere of communication. Laws «written» do not have control over every deed and word.
There is another type of social control over the sphere of communication: moral and ethical. Every action and every word of a person (less strictly — almost every one) contributes to either good or evil in varying degrees, brings either benefit or harm. Even inaction and inactivity have their own sign. All this can be evaluated in accordance with its values by the most sensitive controller — moral or ethical consciousness. It reflects the historical experience of all mankind over many millennia, plus the specifics of a given society and a given time. And this experience is refracted into moral assessments and demands on oneself and social reality. Morality, as a special form of social consciousness, is one of the most important regulators of human relationships in society.
As a synonym for moral, moral practice, the word «ethics» is often used, while ethics is primarily a doctrine, the science of morality, its theory. However, this science, in addition to theoretical tasks, has an important area of social and practical application for us — these are the problems of the moral education of a person.
Morality never comes out on its own. It always manifests itself in something and is not limited to any particular sphere of phenomena. So any circumstances can be used for moral education, especially in the sphere of communication.
The transfer of moral experience is realized through the interaction of individuals primarily as infection, imitation, suggestion. In the same way, immorality is transmitted. It does not require the effort that «positive» moral education entails. Its contagiousness increases in conditions of reduced benevolence and a negative emotional background of communication.
The rhythm of modern life, especially in big cities, more and more tangibly builds up such tension, in which negative emotional arousal arises too easily. In places of the greatest forced congestion of people, where interests and claims collide, in queues, between the squeezed bodies of urban transport passengers, explosive emotional tension is especially felt. She breaks through in conflicts. Conflicts — in the service sector, at work, at home. In this element of communication, everyone defends himself as best he can; someone with a reactive readiness for a retaliatory strike, for a caustic barb — if only it hurts more! Some — by going into the world of dreams, some — by indifference, cynicism …
The neuropsychic endurance of a person is reduced. In recent years, the number of diseases with neuroses has increased. The need to sanitize the sphere of communication is too convincing for us, medical psychologists.
In the practice of communication itself, such a high degree of organic connection between ethics (moral practice) and the mental hygiene of communication is expressed that it is difficult to notice where one ends and the other begins. Compliance with the principle «Do no harm!» coincides with the positive sign of morality, that is, it serves the good. Violation of this principle of mental hygiene always opens the floodgates of evil. That is, the mental hygiene of communication itself (both science and practice), being in the service of protecting neuropsychic health, at the same time contributes to moral control.
Without the mental hygiene of communication (without its principle “Do no harm!” And without its information about the psychological patterns of communication), moral practice can quite unexpectedly acquire a negative sign (a person, believing that he is doing good, generates evil, or, with visible observance of legal norms, harm is done to another person ). Non-observance of the principle «Do no harm!» ultimately serves as one of the main causes of many heart diseases and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Compliance with the rules of mental hygiene of communication is one of the most important ways of psychological assistance and its indispensable condition.
The most important principle of general mental hygiene is “Do no harm!” — is basic in the psychohygiene of communication. All its rules are somehow based on this principle.
The most first rule Psychohygiene of communication contains a requirement — to subordinate all your behavior to this principle.
The second rule is a continuation of the first one: by all its behavior (including informational) to contribute to the spread of this principle and the formation of self-control in the minds of people. See →
Third rule demands to contribute with all his behavior to the elimination of the consequences of a violation of this principle among those around him. See →
It is convenient to combine the moral education of our children with the formation of this principle in their minds and the assimilation of these very basic rules. The earlier they organize a person’s behavior, the higher will be the level of his moral consciousness and responsibility, the more harmonious and full he will be as a member of society.
But in order to implement these rules in the daily behavior of children, adults with a strong positive moral character are needed so that they can cause an involuntary desire to imitate them. However, to approve the principle “Do no harm!” in the minds of adults — frankly speaking — it is difficult! Here you need self-control, self-criticism, and altruism. Let us assume that we can ignore people with antisocial tendencies. Let’s assume that in this respect it is possible to ignore that part of society where the consumer attitude to life and people is deeply rooted. Even that part of society that possesses a sufficient degree of moral consciousness or lays claim to it—even these people are reorganized with difficulty. And it’s not just that self-control develops gradually. Self-criticism always requires great courage, honesty. Moreover, a person who is already tired of work and numerous duties in relation to many and to many is offered yet another kind of duty, some other duty! “Even without that, you don’t see the fugitive light, you don’t live for yourself … Some other rules!”; “And I won’t lie anyway!”
Without this grumbling, without internal and without external resistance, the principle «Do no harm!» among adults can only be accepted by people who have reached a high level of moral consciousness and mature self-criticism. That is why, when leading to this principle, it is more expedient to address first of all to the most altruistic natures, to the most responsive and to those who are inclined and have reason to identify themselves with them. A person with a predominance of positive traits of «moral character» would be embarrassed in front of others not to accept this principle. Who wants to look worse than others?!
The most difficult thing is to overcome internal resistance. It prevents the perception of psychological information necessary for the implementation of the rules. However, often this information itself helps to overcome it.
What should this information be?
First of all, it should not frighten off with external scientific similarity and should not burden the perception with redundant theoretical provisions. (A person who is interested in science will find what he needs himself.) Scientific information and psychological patterns are best tied to the direct experience of the addressee (reader, listener). This connects and activates his own thought, develops observation and thus contributes to the development of self-control. The form of presentation of this information can be any, as long as it facilitates their perception.
The information presented in this paper contains only a skeleton of the most necessary provisions. So.
Responsibility for your emotional states. Psychological Information
Can a person in a state of resentment, anger, irritation, etc. create something, perform purposeful mental operations, do good? No. He wants to throw something away, throw it, break it, crush it, tear it, destroy it, in order to give vent to negative emotional stress. In communication, he «rips off evil» on the first one, spreading this evil around him, infecting those around him. It is to this that all the activity of a person who is in the power of such a state is reduced. See →
Taking responsibility for your feelings
The level of awareness of their responsibility among people is not the same. Those who have it higher, they quickly perceive the principle “Do no harm!” But in most cases it is necessary to look for approaches to another level of responsibility. See →
How to calm a person. Examples of psychological help
They ask:
— How to calm a person if he cries «in public»?
— See why you’re crying. If he buries a loved one, do not stop him from crying. Sometimes compassionate friends and girlfriends, at the next bout of grief, grab their shoulders, start shaking: “Stop it now! Get a hold of yourself!» This is not the best kind of help. Grief takes time. It’s like a wound, it needs to heal. Or like an abscess, he needs to open up. It is impossible to forcibly push grief inside a person if it splashes out in tears. Someone may not cry, but someone needs it. See →