For some people, the automatic process of thinking is interrupted, or rather, an additional process is turned on in parallel with it, and the person suddenly looks at the surrounding reality and begins to ask himself: “Am I right? Do I understand what is happening? Is everything around me really old? Where I am? Who am I? And who are you?» And he begins — with interest, curiosity, passion and diligence — begins to think.
What turns on this «suddenly» that starts the head, which begins to think? Let? Happenes. And it happens that it doesn’t launch … Or, maybe, it’s not “what” launches, but “who”? And then who is this — who?
At least for some people, this turns on when they begin to deal with something themselves, best of all — they are distracted from themselves and switch their attention to the people around them.
N.V. tells Zhutikova:
There is a kind of psychological help, not easy, but grateful, which is aimed at developing at least registering control. This contributes to the development of self-understanding and attention to other people, and can help in restructuring the motives of behavior. In the course of this work, self-consciousness and the germ of spirituality are awakened.
This is not the first time Vera K. has come to us: she has already made five suicide attempts. This time she ate a whole handful of sleeping pills, and they brought her to us after a long stay in the intensive care unit. A psychiatrist sent her to a psychologist to examine her personality: if Vera is mentally healthy, then why is she trying to kill herself? (Fifth time!)
Faith is 25 years old. She graduated from a pedagogical school and works as a teacher in a kindergarten. Two children. Divorced from her husband. Her appearance could be the envy of a film actress: a beautiful build, beautiful features, huge eyes … Only now she is somehow untidy. The impression of slovenliness comes from disheveled hair, from carelessly painted eyes, from a dressing gown torn at the seam.
I see it as an image. It doesn’t bother her at all. She sits quietly and motionlessly looks somewhere into the void. Her whole pose radiates calmness of carelessness. In the look — no hint of at least a glimpse of thought! Embodied insanity…
I draw her into the conversation gradually, overcoming the inertia of her thoughtless peace. There are many pretexts for contact: she is a woman, a mother, a daughter of her parents, a teacher — you can find something to talk about. She just replies—shortly, formally, with a superficial smile. In the same vein, she talks about how she swallowed pills. It turns out that she always completely thoughtlessly reacts to everything that is unpleasant for her: either she immediately scolds the offender so that he runs away from her, or, if the offender «takes over», which happens less often, she grabs the children, takes them to her mother, locks himself up and… tries to sleep forever.
How can I awaken in her at least some good feeling, so that there is something to cling to thoughts? I appeal to her maternal feelings, I ask about her daughters. Her face suddenly warms up. It turns out that she took her daughters to her mother so as not to harm them, not to frighten them.
“Have you ever thought about what would have happened to them if you hadn’t been saved?”
No, she didn’t think about it.
“It was just so hard for me that I didn’t think about anything.
I try to induce her to a story that most accurately conveys all her actions during the poisoning, all her thoughts, images, feelings, the entire previous situation. At the same time, I draw her a picture of the orphanhood of her babies (daughters 3 and 2 years old), I bring her to tears. She loves them, but has never bothered to think about their future!
So, a thoughtless, purely emotional response to a psychological difficulty and leaving it (even to death, if only to leave), complete lack of spirituality and thoughtlessness — these are the reasons for Vera’s repeated suicide attempts.
Letting her go to the department, I instruct her to figure it out, remember and tell me which of the women in her ward is more friendly with whom, what brings them together. Which of the nurses and nurses is more attractive to her and than, and who is less and, again, than. In such exercises, we develop her ability to notice and fix in her memory her thoughts, images, tendencies during incidents with the most unpleasant people for her. Faith is more and more alive. She is interested. And when she was able to inspire herself — consciously! — given physical sensations, from heaviness to weightlessness, she believed in the possibility of mastering the world of her emotions.
Now she received tasks of this kind: in situations that lead to a quarrel with a grumpy nurse, to achieve such a turn that the «old grumbler» would be satisfied with Vera, i.e. Vera must master the situation in order to improve her emotional background and her result. With what joyful surprise she came running to me to tell me: “It worked!”
— Happened! She told me. “Duck, you’re a good girl, you see, but why were you fooling around?”
Vera came to me even after I was discharged. One day she said: “And how could I live without thinking? As in a dream! Weird. Now I walk, I feel, I understand, I can control myself … Sometimes I break down, but at least in hindsight I think about why I broke down. And I could die without knowing how people live! How to live! What a horror! It will never happen again…”
Years have passed. Now she is one of the most interesting and beloved teachers of Russian language and literature in one of the rural schools. In her lessons she teaches to think…