“I read in books what I understand,” Igor Semenovich Kon once told me. For many years I have never regretted using this reading rule. I hope you will not regret it either, although the work of one of the leading Russian psychologists, summarizing 30 years of research, is not the easiest reading even for a professional.
It seems that man has always felt himself a person, just as we feel today. But the very concept of personality appeared only in the XNUMXth century — before that we were communal beings. The boundaries of social and personal spaces are changing, and with them the content of many concepts. Shame, freedom, happiness, choice, responsibility take a different place in life and are understood differently than before. The experience of oneself in the world also becomes different. Once the «I» was guided by the traditions and morals of the «we» that gave rise to it. Today, «we» emerges from a multitude of «Selves» projecting themselves under conditions of uncertainty, at their own peril and risk.
- Elena Sokolova: “Indifference to the feelings of another person is one of the forms of violence”
In a nutshell, this is a book about how we, in today’s culture, feel as individuals and how we deal with the myriad circumstances that in one way or another affect the construction of the Self, the experience of ourselves, and relationships with others. This is a book about the formation and at the same time the preservation of self-identity, but also about numerous personality anomalies.
How does the self-creation of a person affect his self-esteem? How is individuality related to loneliness and how does this affect aggressive behaviors? What happens to the «I» of those who are engaged in prostitution, and those who use their services? How are experiences of the “I” proper and experiences of oneself as a representative of the sex intertwined? What happens to the “I” during forced migration? And is psychotherapy able to prevent disorders associated with the state of «I», and if so, how? These are just some of the landmarks for orientation in the content of the book. In the afterword to it, psychologist Alexander Asmolov calls the direction created by the author «cultural-human psychology of personality.» Why? “Because pain for a person, his suffering and drama in the ocean of uncertainty and the search for the meanings of the “I” pierces the sensual fabric of the most diverse studies of Elena Teodorovna Sokolova and breaks through the indifference of meanings into our personal meanings.”
I can only join his words in the hope that the book will help the reader to better determine their personal meanings and remain themselves in our very difficult world.