Lecture
The concept of emotional stress. Stress as a non-specific reaction of the body. The main stages of stress but G. Selye. Classification of mental stress. Conditions of occurrence of informational stress. Features of the manifestation of emotional stress. Alarm classification. Individual features and manifestations of stress.
Regulation of emotional states. Mechanisms of regulation of mental states according to F. B. Berezin. Functions of psychological protection and classification of types of psychological protection. The role of frustration in the formation of stressful states. Needs and their role in the development of stress. Intrapsychic conflict. Features of the construction of integrated behavior.
Being simultaneously an independent physiological, mental and social phenomenon, stress in its essence is another type of emotional state. This condition is characterized by increased physiological and mental activity. In this case, one of the main characteristics of stress is its extreme instability. Under favorable conditions, this state can be transformed into an optimal state, and under not favorable conditions, into a state of neuro-emotional tension, which is characterized by a decrease in the efficiency and functioning of systems and organs, and depletion of energy resources.
What is stress? Under stress understand the nonspecific response of the body to its external or internal requirements. This concept was proposed by G. Selye. He managed to establish that not *** adverse effects of various kinds, such as cold, fatigue, fear, humiliation, pain and much more, the body responds not only with a specific protective response for each impact, but also with a general, one-type complex response regardless of what kind of stimulus acts on the body. At the same time, in the interval between the exposure and the response of the organism, certain processes unfold. These processes were described in the classic studies of G. Selye, proving that stress stages are characteristic of any adaptation process. In particular, they include a direct response to the impact, requiring adaptive adjustment (the so-called phase of anxiety and mobilization), the period of the most effective adaptation (phase of resistance) and violation of the adaptation process in the event of a *** unfavorable outcome (failure of adaptation).
In the first phase - the phase of anxiety - the mobilization of the body's defenses is carried out, increasing its stability. In this case, the body functions
with great tension. However, at this stage, he is still coping with the load with the help of surface, or functional, mobilization of reserves, without deep structural changes. Physiologically, the primary mobilization is manifested, as a rule, in the following: the blood thickens, the content of chlorine ions in it drops, there is an increased excretion of nitrogen, phosphates, potassium, an increase in the liver or spleen, etc. A majority of people have a slight increase performance.
After the first phase comes the second. It is usually called the phase of resistance (stabilization), or the most effective adaptation. At this stage, there is a balance in the expenditure of adaptive reserves of the body. All parameters unbalanced in the first phase are fixed at a new level. This provides little different from the norm of the body's response to influencing environmental factors. But if the stress continues for a long time or the acting stressors are extremely intense, then the third phase inevitably begins - the exhaustion phase. Since the functional reserves are exhausted in the first and second phases, structural changes take place in the body, but when there is not enough of them for normal functioning, further adaptation to the changed environmental conditions and activities is carried out due to the irreplaceable energy resources of the body, which sooner or later ends in exhaustion.
It should be noted that not every impact causes stress. Weak effects do not lead to stress, it occurs only when the influence of a stressor (an object, a phenomenon unusual for a person, or any other environmental factors) exceeds the usual adaptive abilities of the individual. When stressful effects in the blood begin to secrete certain hormones. Under their influence changes the mode of operation of organs and body systems. For example, the heart rate increases, blood clotting increases, the protective properties of the organism change.
Thus, stress occurs when the body is forced to adapt to new conditions, i.e., stress is inseparable from the process of adaptation.
The essence of the stress response is the “preparatory” arousal and activation of the body, which is necessary to be ready for physical exertion. Consequently, we have the right to believe that stress always precedes a significant waste of the body’s energy resources, and then is accompanied by it, which in itself can lead to the depletion of functional reserves. At the same time, stress in no way can be considered as a negative phenomenon, since it is only thanks to him that adaptation is possible. In addition, moderate stress has a positive effect on both the general condition of the body and the mental characteristics of the individual. For example, with moderate stress, there is a positive change in such mental characteristics as indicators of attention, memory, thinking, etc. Thus, stress, as a holistic phenomenon, should be considered as a positive adaptive response that causes mobilization of the organism. Nevertheless, there are stress reactions that, conversely, lead to the demobilization of body systems. This extremely negative manifestation of stress in the scientific literature has been called distress. It is distress that bears in itself the factors destructive
acting on the body. The transformation of stress into distress occurs when an excessively intense influence of environmental factors and conditions of life, under which the functional reserves of the body are very quickly depleted or the activity of the mechanisms of mental regulation is disrupted.
It should be noted that in humans, adaptation occurs differently than in animals. This is due to the fact that man possesses consciousness and that he is by nature a biosocial being, that is, at the same time a representative of a specific biological species and society. Therefore, the causes of stress in humans are more diverse than the causes of adaptive responses in animals. Thus, both physical and social stimuli, both real and probable, can be stressors for a person. And the person reacts not only to the actual physical danger, but also to the threat or reminder of it.
The multidimensionality of the phenomenon of stress in humans is so great that it took the development of a whole typology of its manifestations. Currently, it is customary to divide stress into two main types: systemic (physiological) and mental. Since man is a social being and the mental sphere plays the leading role in the activity of his integral systems, it is often mental stress that is most significant for the process of regulation.
Some authors divide the factors causing mental stress into two large groups. Therefore, mental stress, they are conventionally divided into two types: informational and emotional. Information stress arises in situations of significant information overload, when a person does not cope with the task of processing incoming information and does not have time to make the right decisions at the required pace, especially with high responsibility for the consequences of the decisions made. The emergence of emotional stress, most authors associate with situations of threat, danger, resentment, etc. From this point of view, it is customary to distinguish three forms of emotional stress: impulsive, inhibitory, and generalized. When emotional stress occurs, certain changes in the mental sphere, including changes in mental processes, emotional changes, the transformation of the motivational structure of activity, disorders of motor and speech behavior.
It should be emphasized that such a division of mental stress into informational and emotional is very conditional. This classification is based on the main characteristics of the factors causing stress. In practice, it is very rarely possible to separate informational and emotional stressors and determine which of the stressors are the leading ones. Most often, in a stressful situation, informational and emotional stressors are inseparable, since the formation of feelings is always associated with the processing of information. Very often, as a result of an erroneous assessment of the situation, a person has a feeling of resentment or anger. In turn, the so-called informational stress is always accompanied by high emotional arousal and certain feelings. However, the feelings arising from this can occur in other situations not related to the processing of information. In most of the works, mental and emotional types of stress are identified.
It should be noted that emotional stress causes the same changes in the body as physiological stress. For example, before the exit of the spacecraft ***, I beat the American astronaut E. Borman to the lunar orbit of the heart with a frequency of 130 beats per minute, and at the time of landing on the moon the pulse of another astronaut, E. Armstrong, reached 156 beats per minute instead of normal 77. A similar picture was observed in another astronaut, C. Erwin, whose pulse was 180 beats per minute when a malfunction of the power system was detected. The pilots at the time of refueling the aircraft in the air pulse increases to 186 beats per minute.
Such physiological changes are caused not only by danger, but also by situations involving high responsibility for the activities performed and the expectation of new information, completely non-standard and unusual information. For example, during the descent of the Soviet lunar rover from the landing pad to the surface of the moon, the pulse rate of land crew members increased dramatically and reached 130-135 beats per minute, although there was no danger to their lives.
Thus, mental stress can be characterized as a state of the body that occurs in the process of interaction of an individual with the external environment, accompanied by significant emotional stress in conditions when the normal adaptive response is insufficient.
As the main condition for the occurrence of stress, many authors indicate the presence of a threat. But it is indisputable that the onset and course of stress depends primarily on the individual characteristics of the person. People react to the same load in different ways. Some have increased activity. Under stress, the effectiveness of their activity continues to grow for a long time (the so-called “stress of the lion”). In other people, on the contrary, there is a decrease in activity, their effectiveness decreases rapidly (“rabbit stress”). In this case, stress factors can be both psychosocial and physical.
Among the personality traits that determine the likelihood of stress, anxiety takes the leading place , which in terms of adaptation can manifest itself in a variety of mental reactions, izvestnyh as anxiety reactions . Anxiety is a sense of an unconscious threat, a sense of apprehension and anxious expectation, or a feeling of uncertain anxiety. This sensation serves as a signal indicating excessive tension of regulatory mechanisms or impaired adaptation processes.
Anxiety is often seen as a form of adaptation for acute or chronic stress. However, anxiety has a personal conditionality and, according to the direction of its manifestation, can perform both protective, mobilizing and disorganizing functions. In the case when the level of anxiety is inadequate to the situation, an overstrain of regulatory mechanisms occurs, which, as a rule, ends with a violation of behavioral regulation. Human behavior ceases to correspond to the situation.
In the majority of works devoted to the study of anxiety, normal and pathological anxiety is distinguished. The fundamental division of anxiety into normal and pathological led to the separation of its many aspects and
varieties: normal, situational, neurotic, psychotic, etc. At the same time, most authors regard anxiety as a single phenomenon, which, with an inadequate increase in the intensity of manifestation, can acquire a pathological character. Analysis of the pathogenic role of anxiety in psychopathological phenomena, which are clinically pronounced disorders of mental adaptation, suggests that anxiety is responsible for most of the disorders in which these disorders manifest. Such a statement is based on the fact that there is a close relationship between anxiety and certain physiological parameters, which was found in the study of the mechanisms of emotional stress. Thus, in many studies, anxiety is associated with an ergotropic syndrome - a pronounced increase in the activity of the sympathoadrenal system, accompanied by shifts in vegetative and motor regulation.
Thus, the role of anxiety in the adaptation process may significantly change depending on its intensity and requirements for the adaptation mechanisms of the individual. If the mismatch in the man-environment system does not reach a significant degree and the level of anxiety does not exceed average values, then its motivational role comes to the fore, and then anxiety causes the activation of purposeful behavior. With a marked imbalance in the “man-environment” system, when over-tension of the regulation mechanisms occurs, anxiety increases significantly, reflecting the formation of a state of emotional stress, which can become chronic and reduce the effectiveness of mental adaptation, which, in turn, is one of the prerequisites for development of the disease.
However, considering the interdependence of anxiety with some physiological indicators, it should be borne in mind that anxiety is primarily a subjective phenomenon, the level of manifestation and the nature of which depends on the personality characteristics of the individual. Nowadays, it is well known that personality traits directly influence the nature of the body’s response to environmental influences.
It was established that the nature of the reaction predetermines the diseases arising from stress. For example, as a result of a survey of 88 doctors from the medical faculty of Washington University, it turned out that out of 96 serious diseases that they had suffered in the past 10 years, 90 were in the year immediately following the shock. Who of them was particularly shocked, they got sick or were injured more quickly - within 8 months after it. In addition, it was found that of the cheerful and good-natured doctors who participated in the experiment, only 25% died after 25 years, and 14% of those who were irritable and evil. (At first, they were all 25 years old.) Similarly, among lawyers: 4% and 20%, respectively. Thus, those who are often angry and annoyed risk losing not only the location of friends, but also life. Too much adrenaline is produced and supplied to the blood.
There is also evidence that a person who is constantly overwhelming with outbursts of anger develops various psychosomatic symptoms, since during anger and rage the acid content in the stomach increases. Although repressed anger is not the only cause of these diseases, it has been shown
that he is involved in the development of rheumatoid arthritis, urticaria, psoriasis, stomach ulcers , migraines, hypertension. Long-term sadness is also not in vain. Grief, which does not manifest itself in tears, makes other organs "cry". As the results of the study show, in 80% of myocardial infarction cases, the disease was preceded by either acute mental trauma or prolonged mental stress.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have established a relationship between human somatic diseases and his personal characteristics, as well as the psychological climate in which he lives and works. For example, if a person seeks to occupy a place in a team that does not correspond to their real capabilities, that is, has a higher level of claims, then he is more susceptible to the development of cardiovascular pathology.Chronic coronary diseases are much more common in people with pronounced purposefulness, ambition and intolerance towards their immediate environment. And the main feature of a person suffering from hypertension is rancor. At the same time, it was found that situations that prevent a person from successfully fighting for the recognition of his own personality by others can lead to hypertension. If a person is suppressed, ignored by others, then he develops a feeling of constant discontent with himself, not finding a way out and forcing him to “swallow an insult” daily.
A visible anxiety, and vice versa, the failure-avoidance motivation is accompanied by anxiety.
Since we have started talking about the system of personal relations, it is impossible not to recall V. N. Myasishchev, the author of the concept of personal relations. According to Myasishchev, the system of relations is the core of the individual. This system is formed under the influence of reflection by the consciousness of man around reality. This concept has found wide application in medical psychology, especially in the field of research and treatment of neurosis.
Neurosis - this group of neuropsychiatric disorders, psychogenic in nature, which are the result of prolonged or excessively intense emotional stress. The main cause of neurosis is a violation of the system of regulation of the emotional connection, caused by the contradiction between attitudes and views of the personality and external reality, that is, the violation is based on intrapsychic conflict.
Neurosis, being a neuropsychiatric disorder, is accompanied by vegetative manifestations: muscular tension, tremor, impaired heart function, anxiety, feeling of depression, headaches, weakness. Moreover, these vegetative changes do not occur immediately, but gradually. First of all, the dream changes. He becomes superficial, a person wakes up easily. The sensitivity of a person to external stimuli gradually changes. Sound, light, talk unusually annoying person. Even the usual noise level can become unbearable. Increased sensitivity appears, on the one hand, as an adaptive mechanism to a lack of information, providing an influx of additional signals, with the help of which the situation can be resolved. On the other hand, hypersensitivity makes a person more susceptible to any stimuli and manifests as excessive tearfulness, impatience, explosiveness, and also in the form of pain in response to weak signals from the internal environment that were not previously perceived.
However, the main feature of neurosis is conflict. Conflict is found at the base of most neuroses and is always accompanied by extremely intense experiences. Experiences may be different. For example, the feeling of one’s own guilt, one’s omission, due to which the traumatic situation arose, etc. At the same time, it should be noted that experiences become a source of neurosis only if they are particularly significant for a person. Therefore, most of the emotional, or intra-psychic, conflicts that caused the disease are social in nature. For example, a person falls ill not because he was a victim of injustice, but because the injustice manifested in relation to him (real or apparent) violated his ideas about justice, his faith in good and evil, in the meaning of human existence.
Thus, we come to the fact that emotional stress is most often associated with social phenomena, that is, emotional stress is an inseparable part of a person’s social adaptation. As a result of our many years of experimental research on this problem, we have concluded that there are personality characteristics that determine
success of human adaptation in a variety of conditions. These characteristics are formed during the whole life of a person, and among them, first of all, it is necessary to attribute the level of neuro-psychological stability, self-esteem of the personality, a sense of its importance to others (social reference), the level of conflict, communication experience, moral and ethical orientation, orientation to the requirements of the nearest environment.
All these characteristics in a detailed study turned out to be interrelated with each other. Moreover, they form one integral characteristic, which we called the personal adaptation potential. This characteristic is considered by us as a system property of a person, which consists in the ability of a person to adapt to the conditions of the social environment. The higher the level of development of this property, the more people can adapt to the more stringent and harsh conditions of the social environment.
In the course of experimental studies, it was found that even in conditions of a real threat to life, people with higher adaptive potential not only have a better chance of surviving, but can successfully fulfill their professional duties. It should also be noted that subsequently persons with a higher level of development of the adaptation potential of the individual are more likely than others to restore the functional state of the body and return to normal life.
There are other approaches to addressing the regulation of emotional states and emotional stress. We will not consider them, as in the process of studying other subjects you will get to know them in more detail. This chapter will end with a discussion of the practical aspects of the regulation of emotional states.
R. M. Granovskaya divides all strategies for getting out of a tense situation into three groups: alter or eliminate the problem; reduce its intensity by shifting its point of view on it; facilitate its impact by incorporating a number of ways.
A key role in managing their state is the awareness of life goals and the correlation with them of specific values. The sooner a person determines his life values and goals, the more chances he has to avoid the negative consequences of a sudden emotional overload, since the person who made his main life choice, to a large extent, determined all further decisions and thereby saved himself from colds. and fears. Getting into a difficult situation, he relates its value to his main life reference points. The timeliness of such a weighing normalizes his condition. In this case, the critical situation is considered against the background of a general perspective, for example, the entire life of a person, as a result of which the significance of this situation may sharply decrease. There are many examples where people were accidents, from which it was possible to recover in a few hours. But the reaction to them was so inadequate, so incompatible with the personal scale of values, that significant life crises developed. Therefore, not *** agonizing effects often arise not because of the cases themselves, but because of the reaction to them.
Thus, one of the main ways to avoid excessive emotional stress is the harmonious development of a person’s personality,
mirovanie him independent ideological position. Moreover, this development begins from the first days of a person’s life, and his success largely depends on how skillfully the educational process is built by the child’s parents, and then the teachers in the school, the state cares about bringing up the younger generation, and much more.
The next way to regulate emotional states, according to Granovsky, is to choose the right moment to make a decision or implement your plan. As you know, an extreme situation leads to a narrowing of consciousness, which leads to a violation of orientation in the environment. Anxiety, anxiety, change the strategy of behavior. A person struck by confusion seeks to avoid the slightest risk, is afraid to go in that direction that threatens errors and mistakes, therefore he tries to connect every new information with a similar one already known to him. In this situation, a person very often makes mistakes, making the wrong decision. Therefore, it is necessary to learn how to choose the right moment for the realization of your plans in a difficult, emotionally tense situation.
Another way to reduce emotional stress is to reduce motivation. For example, to refuse for a time from achieving the goal or to reduce emotional tension through an arbitrary shifting of attention, concentrating it not on the significance of the result of the activity performed, but on the analysis of the technical details of the task or tactical techniques.
To create an optimal emotional state, first of all, we need a proper assessment of the significance of the events taking place, since the individual is influenced not so much by the intensity and duration of real events, but by their individual value. When an event is considered as an emergency, even a low intensity factor can cause disadaptation. It should also be borne in mind that with a strong emotional arousal, the personality characteristics of a person play a very significant role in the assessment of an event. So, a good forecast becomes even more optimistic among the optimist, and a bad one even more gloomy with a pessimist. However, in order to properly assess the event, full awareness of it is necessary. The more information a person has on an exciting issue, the less likely there is an emotional breakdown. From this it follows that by all means it is necessary to increase the amount of information about the problem that concerns you. At the same time, awareness should be diverse.
Granovskaya highlights another way to deal with emotional stress and emotional tension. This method consists of pre-prepared retreat strategies. Having a backup behavior in a given situation reduces over-stimulation and makes it more likely that the solution will be successful in the general direction. Without preparing an alternative solution, a person unreasonably pessimistic assesses the situation that may arise in case of failure of the main option. Having a backup course of action, in the case of failure of the first person, it is easier for a person to come to terms with failure and at the same time maintain an optimistic mood. Consequently, alternate strategies reduce the fear of unfavorable developments and thereby create an optimal background for solving the problem.
In addition to these ways out of a stressful situation should be borne in mind that it is meaningless to fight against what is already a fait accompli. In some circumstances, when the continuation of efforts turns into unsuccessful attempts to “smash the wall with the forehead,” it is useful for a person to temporarily abandon efforts to immediately achieve the goal, to realize the real situation and his defeat. Then he will be able to save power for a new attempt in a more favorable environment. In addition, in the event of a defeat it is not harmful to make a general reassessment of the situation according to the “not really wanted” type. Lowering the subjective significance of the event helps to retreat to a previously prepared position and prepare for the next assault without wasting energy. It is no coincidence that in ancient antiquity in the East, people asked in their prayer:
“Lord, give me the strength to cope with what I can do, give me the courage to come to terms with what I cannot do, and give me the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.”
1. Tell about stress as a non-specific reaction of the body.
2. Give a classification of mental stress.
3. What are the conditions of occurrence of informational and emotional stress.
4. What are the individual characteristics in the manifestation of stress?
5. What mechanisms of regulation of mental states do you know?
6. What is intrapsychic conflict?
7. What are some ways to avoid excessive emotional stress?
Comments
To leave a comment
General psychology
Terms: General psychology