State of emotional tension: what pushes and what protects from an “explosion”?

Causes of stress, How to cope with stress Irina Vasilyeva The state of emotional stress is sometimes difficult to notice and be wary of in time. First of all, because for others it arises and proceeds completely differently from the way it does for you and me. And we often don’t even look in the right direction.

Good afternoon, dear reader! Admit it honestly, how many times have the experiences of your friends, relatives, and acquaintances seemed “nonsense” to you? How often, while busy with more “important” things, have you “brushed aside” obvious manifestations of deep stress in children or elderly parents? How to deal with this, how to distinguish “nonsense” from obvious signs that a loved one is experiencing emotional stress and, most likely, needs professional help?

After reading today’s publication, you will definitely be able to, if not diagnose, then at least clearly identify the presence of neuro-emotional tension in a person. And, therefore, you will come to his aid in time, without bringing the situation to a nervous breakdown.

Manifestations of nervous tension in adolescents

Puberty is almost always a continuous period of emotional stress. Remember yourself. For most of us, in just one day, for no apparent reason, several “moods” could change: from deep sadness to immoderate delight.

It is impossible to ignore manifestations of negativism, impulsiveness, sudden mood swings and emotional lability. But you shouldn’t “sound the alarm” or suspect a teenager of mental disorders either.

Treat such manifestations as an inevitable age-related stage of growth and development. Teenagers always require more gentle, careful treatment, despite the apparent “maturity” and “prickliness”.

Manifestations of nervous tension in a teenager can have both childhood and adult characteristics. And this is not surprising. After all, puberty is precisely the process of transition from the “period of carefreeness” to harsh reality.

Also, do not constantly put pressure on the child; remember that in addition to emotional instability, this age is characterized by increased fatigue, especially from monotonous actions.

Psychotechnicians for behavior correction tasks

Decreased arousal

Effectively use:

• distraction and switching of attention;
• goal setting (consider different options);
• physical relaxation;
• psychomuscular and autogenic training;
• breathing exercises for relaxation.

Resource Activation

Effectively use:

• autogenic training for mobilization;
• increased motivation;
• breathing exercises for activity;
• plot performances;
• memories of active emotional states and the situations that caused them;
• mental and sensory stimulation;
• heterosuggestion.

Mental desensitization

Effective:

• presentation of successful behavior;
• self-hypnosis of confidence and neutral attitude towards harmful factors;
• deliberate passive attitude.

Effective:

• listening to music;
• relaxation;
• substitution;
• rationalization;
• fantasy.

Effective:

• meditation;
• suggested dream;
• self-hypnosis for quick recovery.

Symptoms of experiencing emotional stress in an adult

1. Feeling of endless tasks, difficulties in distinguishing between time for work and time for rest.
2. Loss of interest in other people, a feeling of irritation with them and a simultaneous fear of solitude, fear of loneliness.
3. Ready to “explode” at any moment.
4. The feeling that I don’t “trust” anyone, the feeling of hostility in the world around me.
5. Loss of the ability to laugh, lack of a sense of humor, inability to express positive emotions.
6. Decreased concentration, memory problems, rigidity of thinking, inability to be creative, create new ideas and images.
7. Fear of the future, constant expectation of failure, a “rainy day,” a feeling of personal inadequacy.
8. Fear of showing true emotions, feelings, thoughts, fear of being misunderstood.
9. A feeling of one’s own unattractiveness, a feeling of shame for one’s appearance.
10. Fear of getting sick.
11. Constant feeling of guilt.
12. Loss of interest in life.

If you find yourself with three or more of the above signs, it’s time to think about your own well-being.

Reflect on the symptoms indicated: are there any typical situations after which such feelings arise. Does your lifestyle meet your expectations and needs? Do you often allow yourself to rest? And is there any increased emotional and intellectual stress in your life?

Or maybe it’s time to take your stress tolerance more seriously?

For those who want to change their emotional life for the better, I wrote the book “How to Allow Yourself to Strong Experiences, Emotions and Feelings Without Destroying Yourself and Others.”

Disturbances in the sphere of emotional reactions

They manifest themselves as disproportionate in intensity or inadequate in quality emotional reactions in response to changes in situations that are essential for patients.

Emotional explosiveness or explosiveness . It manifests itself as an increased readiness for emotional reactions in the form of affects or disorders close to such, in response to various emotiogenic stimuli. From the outside, one may get the impression that violent emotional reactions arise over completely trivial matters (a rude word, an ironic remark, etc.). But these are usually “trifles” that greatly hurt the individual’s wounded pride. Reactions of expressed dissatisfaction, anger with verbal, and often physical aggression predominate. It happens that in such an impulse the victim is seriously injured, sometimes incompatible with life. Sometimes such patients exhibit “free-floating aggressiveness,” so that external aggression can immediately transform into auto-aggression. Such aggressors do not value their own lives or those of others. Most often they are psychopaths. During the reaction, self-control is significantly reduced, patients mostly act impulsively.

Explosiveness is often found in patients with psychopathic-like disorders of various origins (TBI, schizophrenia, etc.). E. Bleuler about and attacks of despair with attempted suicide, as well as “fear or even stuporous states.” Let us remember that we are not talking here about acute reactions to stress or reactions to repeated stress, when the first, as it were, prepared the ground for a reaction to the latter (“mental anaphylaxis”, “mental allergy”). Sometimes hysterical patients can “work themselves up” to the point of passion, especially if they have developed such a defensive reaction somewhere in the zone.

Defensiveness is emotional viscosity. It manifests itself as a persistent fixation of predominantly negative emotional reactions that arose in a situation of frustration. Typical in this case are rancor, vindictiveness, and aggressive fantasies. The patient, for example, talks about a long-standing conflict with his colleague and at the same time plays with his nodules, clenching his fists as if we were talking about a very recent skirmish. He does not forget to add that if he came across this man now, “I would settle accounts with him in full.” Another patient, 15 years later, brutally beat a classmate because he “made fun of me at school in front of everyone.” Such patients overcome mental trauma for a long time and with difficulty, unable to switch to something else. They seem to be invariant and strictly adhere to previous habits and patterns of behavior. Defensiveness can also manifest itself in relation to positive emotions and attachments. Patients say that they are “monogamous” and cannot start a second family if their husband or wife dies, they prefer to live in one place, it is very difficult for them to change their occupation, hobbies, entertainment, they keep old things for a long time, but they cannot get used to new ones. quite difficult, they listen to the same music and watch old films they once loved many times, do not include new people in their circle of friends, etc. Emotional viscosity is characteristic of epileptoid psychopaths, epilepsy, individuals with age-related personality changes, and has been described in parkinsonism and postencephalitic mental disorders.

Emotive lability is a slight, capricious changeability of mood under the influence of the most insignificant reasons, sometimes not noticed by the patient himself, much less by those around him - tachythymia. The wind rose, the sun set, rain splashed, a heel broke, the pen stopped writing, a stain appeared on the blouse - all this can significantly ruin the mood. But it easily rises if pleasant little things happen right away: the seller didn’t shortchange, someone said a compliment, smiled, gave up his seat on the bus - and the mood is good again, life makes you happy again, you like all the people, and rainbow mirages appear ahead again. In some cases, emotional lability reaches the level of emotional hyperesthesia, when the mood becomes dependent on an infinite number of random details of what is happening.

These are mimosa-type people, impressionists who cringe at a random glance, the intonation of a voice, the smell of sweat, the sight of a wilting flower. Such painful fragility makes it difficult to live, maintain smooth relationships with people, think about something serious, and generally creates a feeling of ephemeral, airy existence, in which everything is so conditional and changeable. Emotive lability is a sign of corresponding psychopathy, foreshadowing the possibility of more serious affective pathology.

Emotional incontinence is the inability to control not only your emotions, but also their external manifestations. The disorder was described by E. Bleuler in mental retardation, as well as in mentally ill people. Characterizes a significant decrease in the ability of self-control and dysfunction of higher integrative authorities.

Weakness - compassionate tearfulness, excessive sentimentality, manifested when perceiving or remembering touching events. One of the early signs of cerebral atherosclerosis. Weakness is often associated with traumatic events of the past and in such cases reminds us of the approaching symptom of “living in the past.” Weakness also occurs in states of neuropsychic asthenia, when a rational attitude to what is happening is replaced by a sterile emotional one. Excessive tearfulness often occurs with mild depression and hysteria. Sometimes tears characterize impotent anger, self-pity and resentment towards someone, a state of tenderness, a release of emotional stress, and the ability to share the suffering of someone. There are also tears of joy. The latter things do not relate to weak-willedness itself.

Weakness should not be confused with forced crying, which, like forced laughter, occurs with pseudobulbar disorders. “Hysterics” with sometimes uncontrollable sobs are associated with the fact that patients fall into the corresponding role, needing consolation, but cannot immediately get out of it on their own. Tearfulness in patients with painful insensibility does not relate to weakness: here the tears flow as if on their own, mechanically, not accompanied by the experience of corresponding emotions. There are also “made tears” - someone “forces the patient to cry or he feels that it is not he who is crying, but someone else instead of him.” Tears, like laughter, have many meanings.

Emotional dullness is the underdevelopment or loss of higher feelings while maintaining or even reviving simpler emotions. Patients lack such feelings as compassion, tenderness, a sense of justice, remorse, a sense of beauty, a religious feeling, intellectual feelings, etc. Emotionally stupid individuals are callous, cruel, not prone to repentance, many of them do not even know the feeling of shame. They do not care at all what feelings they form as parents and teachers. Many parents today teach their children to be selfish, to love only themselves, not to stand on ceremony with those who are weaker, to refuse help and to learn to say a firm “no” when asked for something, and if they hit, even when they are down. The leitmotif of such teachings is the conviction that “now you can’t live as a good person and you must win your place in the sun by force.”

Here is an example of the emotional dullness of a school teacher who, due to illness, was transferred to disability. The patient is a teacher-mathematician by profession; she taught physics and mathematics in high school. She said that she had developed a new system for teaching her disciplines and that after six months her class was unrecognizable: the eternal C students began to show miracles in solving problems. That is why - out of envy - she was suspended from lessons. Her method was to create problems of the type that would be interesting to schoolchildren. Over the course of a year, she came up with four hundred such problems and was extremely proud of it. Here are some of them. “A brick is sliding on the roof of a five-story building. The length of the sliding path is 5 m. The height of the house is H, the sliding speed is X. An old man is approaching the house at speed Y. From the place where the brick is supposed to fall, it is located at a distance B. The question is: will the brick fall on the head of this bald old man?” Or: “A climber fell from a cliff 250 m high. The question is: how long will it take him to reach the gorge and at what speed will he crash on its bottom?” The saddest thing about this story about emotional stupidity was that all the children liked the problems, and none of their parents protested.

A somewhat lesser degree of emotional dullness is designated as emotional impoverishment or impoverishment. The attachments, altruistic feelings, and empathy of such patients are significantly weakened, fragile and quickly dry up. Thus, a 30-year-old patient reports that he is still not married and does not intend to get married, that he has never been interested in anyone before, has never been in love and has never liked anyone.

“Love,” he explains, “is animal magnetism, the relationship between a male and a female. Why marry - to mate? And then, even if you get married, you have to adapt to society, and tedious legal procedures will follow.” He doesn’t think about becoming a father at all. “What is this, what is the point of having children, I don’t love them, and caring for them disgusts me.” I got a job several times, even for good pay. After 1–2 months, he quit his job, but did not formalize his dismissal, without notifying him in advance of his intention. Questions about duties, responsibilities, and the fact that he had let someone down were ignored. His motivation to leave work was: “The work is boring, monotonous, I would like bright impressions, but everything gets boring quickly.” He does not visit his parents, does not write letters to them. I had only one friend at school. He is not interested in anything at the moment, does not communicate with anyone, and practically does not leave the house. Lives on the help of his parents. At home he sometimes plays computer games, sometimes watches TV, and occasionally reads anything he can get his hands on.

“Of course, I would have to work, but there is nothing that I would like.”

The degree of emotional impoverishment varies, of course, but usually it concerns higher feelings: affection, love, friendship, gratitude, cordiality, respect, compassion. Even minor emotional changes play, according to E. Bleuler, “an outstanding role” and “especially because in any disorder it is the affective mechanisms that first reveal symptoms.”

Emotional paradox is a disproportion between the intensity of affective reactions and the objective significance of emerging situations and developing circumstances. Thus, a 31-year-old patient, a prosector at a children's hospital, is satisfied with his work, it does not depress him, does not darken his mood. Explains: “At the cellular level, the corpse is not visible.” A good photographer, he especially likes to photograph children. Loves nature, serious music, “pop music disgusts me.” Very vulnerable - “one word is enough to ruin your mood for the whole day.” Not married, never been in a close relationship: “This is pure physiology; love was invented so as not to feel like beasts.”

He tolerates the environment of the psychiatric ward (located in the general ward) calmly, is not burdened by being here, communicates with patients on equal terms, goes with them to lunch and to work. He accepted the offer to undergo treatment without resistance. Informed by the doctor that he is ill, and quite seriously. He listened to this calmly and did not ask why he was sick. He didn’t ask about the threat of this disease or how it would affect his life. I calmly accepted the offer to register for disability. For some reason I remembered that I once spent the night in the morgue for a whole month. “The only bad thing there is that it’s hot.” Another patient reports: “I’m not afraid of fights, men fight bloody, with knives, and I try to separate them. Lately, one has broken up seven fights. “More than anything else, I’m afraid of mysticism and watching thrillers.”

Another patient stoically endures the atmosphere of the department, the noise, quarrels, fights between patients, he is not traumatized by the fact of the disease (he knows what he is sick with), and the not very bright prospects of remaining virtually thrown out of life. And yet one day he suddenly became very indignant, shouted, and was agitated - the reason was that he was moved to another bed in the ward.

Irritability is a tendency to frequent and relatively shallow reactions of dissatisfaction for various, usually minor reasons, which often have no direct relationship to the true causes of the disorder. One of the most common causes of irritability is the egocentrism of patients - many of them are dissatisfied only because “everything is not done as it should be,” that is, “not my way.” An egocentric person gets irritated when people don’t listen to him: how can you not listen to me, others are capable of talking nonsense, but not me. It infuriates him when he is interrupted, although he himself does not allow anyone to open their mouth: “he also interrupts, boorish, it would be better for him to keep quiet, listen to what smart people say.” An egocentric person constantly reproaches someone, lectures, instructs, gives very impartial assessments, he is generally irritated by everything that, in his opinion, is unfair, that is, it hurts his exorbitant pride. They are irritable to the point of scandals and hysterics: they are offended that they are not appreciated, not understood, not thanked at every step, they need their path to be strewn with roses of admiration.

Often, irritability is a way of releasing accumulated resentment on someone. Resentment and tension spill out onto household members, children, animals; goes to objects too. Dishes are shattered, clothes are torn to shreds, pens and pencils are broken. One patient smashed his car with a hammer because it would not start. The transfer of emotions from one object to another is sometimes called the transportation of emotions. Patients, irritated, often want at all costs to maintain the illusion of their control over what is happening by demonstrating aggression, the strength of their ego. Irritability can be a consequence of dissatisfaction with themselves: few are able to understand themselves in order to understand what is wrong with them . The easiest way is to find the culprit in order to distract your attention from yourself with a flash of irritation, as if to crowd out dissatisfaction with yourself, and at the same time restore self-esteem. Sometimes irritation is a mild form of expressing indignation, that is, dissatisfaction with the essence of the matter, which does not affect the dignity of another; such people are often dissatisfied with themselves, or rather, with the fact that they did something wrong, at the wrong time, let someone down, and generally did something unworthy of themselves.

Usually they are immediately ready to apologize and correct the situation as soon as possible. Finally, irritability is a constant companion to asthenia - irritable weakness or “failure of the brakes” - hypersthenia. Such patients are at first indignant, then they think, and then they realize that they “got excited” and were wrong. Emotions are generally difficult to bring under control, but losing control over them is much easier. And when this happens, they always have the first word. If irritability is combined with other manifestations of increased emotional sensitivity, it may be a sign of excessive impressionability in depressed patients. So, irritability can be characteristic of patients with various disorders; we think we have identified some of its main causes.

Emotional coarsening is the loss of subtle, differentiated emotional reactions associated with a mild decrease in intelligence with organic brain damage in persons who are disharmonious in terms of premorbid personality. Due to an overly simplified, incomplete, fragmentary or one-sided understanding of what is happening, patients become quite inadequate: tactless, naked, familiar, boastful or even dishonest, since deception and cunning are in the order of things for them. Their sense of proportion, delicacy, courtesy, tolerance often betrays them; in polite society they resemble a bull in a china shop. They cannot understand that their inappropriate behavior will shock someone, may injure someone with an obscene phrase, offend or cause self-loathing. They also love to joke. But their jokes are vulgar, obscene and often repeated to the accompaniment of their own laughter.

Because of their importunity, they shamelessly barge into someone else’s conversation and try to lead him in their direction, where they wash someone’s bones. They speak loudly, a lot, as if they are trying to shout someone down. Their phraseology is very far from subtlety, the statements of prostitutes, the beginning and end of the latter are rarely on the same line of reasoning. Patients easily cross the boundaries of subordination, interfere with personal relationships with employees, and do not take into account the self-respect and ethical position of the interlocutor. And if the interlocutor is also a subordinate, he finds himself in the position of a “fool” who should not be taken into account at all. Patients are often very cheeky, they can be rude and even mock people who are dependent on them. They are incapable of dialogue: they interrupt the interlocutor, do not allow him to complete his thought, do not try to understand him, impose their opinion, and then draw dubious conclusions from the conversation, relating not so much to the problem being discussed, but to interpersonal relationships.

Subordinates rarely leave the office of such a boss with a light heart, unless they use flattery or something else to appease the “deity.” Such dialogue is somewhat reminiscent of the communication disorder in the form of double dialogue described in families of patients with schizophrenia (J. Batesson, 1956). For example, a son, rejoicing at his mother’s visit, puts his hand on her shoulder. The mother responds with a grimace of disapproval. The patient withdraws his hand, to which the mother reproaches him for not loving her. The patient blushes, but the mother reprimands him, saying that he shouldn’t be so embarrassed. In other circumstances, emotionally hardened patients may behave completely differently: they ingratiate themselves, please, humiliate themselves, agree with everything and eat with the eyes of their boss, trying to speak less so as not to inadvertently anger him. Someone rightly said: silence is a shield for a fool, a fool is smart as long as he remains silent. The essence of the matter does not change from this change of dishes. The coarsening of emotions and feelings occurs quite often and usually comes to the fore, while intellectual decline remains, as it were, in the shadows, and gross violations are often not detected.

Anniversary reactions are the appearance or intensification of feelings of grief on the date of the tragic event. This happens, for example, on Parents' Day, on days of remembrance of victims of war or terrorist attacks, disasters, etc. For example, participants in battles in hot spots get together from time to time to remember their fallen combat friends. Usually reserved in talking about mourning events with outsiders, here they indulge in detailed memories, reviving in their memory the smallest details of what happened. At the same time, it cannot be done without a feast. They drink to remember the dead, to soften the severity of the loss and to suppress the guilt of the survivors. In hindsight, it often seems that the disaster could have been prevented.

Parathymia is an inversion of emotional reactions, the replacement of adequate emotions with the exact opposite. So, a mother congratulates her daughter on her birthday as follows: “Galina! I don't wish you a happy birthday. I don't wish you happiness. I curse you, your mother’s curse is the worst!” The girl was raped in a group; her friends held her legs. In shock, she returned home, did not say anything to her loved ones, went into the bathroom, lay down in the water with her clothes on and burst out laughing. Another patient recalled that at the age of seven she fell into the water, got scared, and began to drown. She was saved by a woman passing by. Instead of the joy of salvation and gratitude to the woman, “I scolded the savior in all sorts of ways, told her that she was a fool and ugly.”

Idiosyncrasy to emotions - intolerance of various emotions: “I perceive my emotions too acutely. And good ones too. After them there is palpitation, discomfort, I feel very bad. I try not to worry or be happy at all.” This symptom seems to be the opposite of painful insensibility. In the latter case, patients suffer from the fact that they have ceased to be aware of their emotions. In the second case, on the contrary, the patient is too acutely aware of her emotions and suffers for this reason.

Emotional ambivalence is the coexistence of polar feelings in relation to the same object or phenomenon: “I seem to have two selves: one loves my mother, the other hates her... I am attached to my husband, I am tender with him and at the same time he infuriates me, I’m ready to kill him”... The patient wants his wife to die, but when he sees her dead in hallucinations, he falls into despair. The disorder indicates a splitting of the ego.

Escalation of affectivity - excessive expressiveness (in gestures, facial expressions, postures, voice intonations) in hysterics as a means of suppressing others, self-affirmation and as a mechanism for discharging excess motivation (teaching a lesson, punishing someone, moderating libido, etc.). Patients start small: they raise their voices, cry, nervously walk around the room. Then, gradually and as if involuntarily, they inflate themselves to such an extent that they can no longer get out of the role on their own unless they are saved by fainting.

Emotional burnout is a symptom complex that includes emotional and (or) physical exhaustion, depersonalization and decreased performance (Pelmann, Hartman, 1982). Emotional exhaustion is experienced as internal emptiness, depletion of affective resources, and emotional overstrain. Interest in work is lost, the patient goes there as if “to hard labor”, without inspiration and enthusiasm, but rather with disgust. Depersonalization is expressed by a feeling of depersonalization of people; they all seem equally unpleasant.

Relations with them become purely formal; employees often cause irritation, hostility, dissatisfaction and indignation. Conflicts with them are quite likely if colleagues do not realize that they are dealing with a person whose mental strength has left them. The decline in performance is associated with such reasons as the emergence of a negative assessment of oneself as a professional, self-doubt, feelings of uselessness, doubts about one’s competence, dissatisfaction with oneself, and decreased motivation to work.

Emotional burnout occurs in individuals who are in intensive and close communication with clients, patients, students, students and colleagues when providing professional assistance. Characteristic of emotional people who do not know how to protect themselves from excessive affective reactions to work situations. The surgeon should not die with every patient, the psychiatrist should not go crazy with the patient, accepting his grief as his own; The teacher should not worry about the failures of his students as if he himself received ones and twos. Work should not exceed the optimal level of tension, otherwise it will lead to fatigue and many mistakes in simple situations. The amount of workload should be rational and in no case go beyond the scope of mental hygiene. Managers do not know anything like this or do not want to know, overloading their subordinates; Usually, unfortunately, they care more about themselves and their prestige in the eyes of their superiors.

The disorder develops at the age of 30–40 years, more often in women with these professions, as well as in scientists and managers. It is sometimes called compassion fatigue. It is necessary to timely identify patients and provide rehabilitation assistance using psychotherapy and psychopharmacotherapy (small doses of antidepressants, nootropics, sleep normalization, physiotherapy, etc.).

Learned helplessness is a condition caused by “being caught in harmful, unpleasant situations” that “can neither be avoided nor prevented” (Seligman). In experiments on animals, the helplessness of the latter becomes such that even the emerging opportunity to get out of the situation is not used. Some authors see in this disorder a factor contributing to the emergence or intensification of depression. V. Frankl observed the complete loss of the ability to resist in the Nazi death camps; For some reason such prisoners were called Muslims, perhaps because they pinned their hopes only on the Almighty.

Dyshomophilia - tension, anxiety during homoerotic fantasies. It is observed in homo-, heterosexuals and even asexual people. It is recommended not to confuse the disorder with “egodystonic homosexuality.”

Emotional paralysis of Beltz (1901), or affective anesthesia. Described as a variant of psychogenic stupor without impairment of consciousness with complete shutdown of emotions without subsequent amnesia. Derealization is also observed, the patient perceives what is happening detachedly, from the outside, as something apparent to him. At the same time, he can move and behave outwardly quite adequately.

The loss of syntony manifests itself in the fact that the patient does not feel the emotional context in someone’s conversation with him, and thus cannot discover the meaning of the speech addressed to him. Thus, the patient perceives the doctor’s usual sympathetic questions about his well-being as an “interrogation” and says that “they are getting into his soul.” When asked to clarify what he means, he states that they are pestering him and showing inappropriate curiosity. He considers the advice to get medical treatment as pressure on him, and is indignant at being “dictated” or “imposed” on him. He is offended by a joke, believing that he is being “mocked”; he regards a friendly attitude towards himself as an attempt to “manipulate” him, etc. It is more often observed in patients with schizophrenia.

Vicarious pleasure is the replacement of one’s own dissatisfaction with joy or pleasure for other people. A father is happy, for example, that his son gets an A in math at school, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t do this at one time. The voyeur gets vicarious pleasure by spying on the intimate relationships of other people.

Phobic reactions are excessive fears of something, observed in timid, timid natures. It is important that such patients do not know how to assess the true extent of the danger and do not have sufficient personal experience in dealing with dangerous situations. They are not able to adequately control their fears. The best form of fear control is coping skills in threatening situations. For example, a person sees someone drowning. He runs along the shore in fear and calls for help. Another person silently rushes into the water and saves the drowning man, without feeling any fear. Phobic reactions are not obsessive, although the patient fruitlessly struggles with them, is burdened by them, would like to get rid of them, while understanding that they are something not entirely normal. In addition, he is also ashamed of his fears and tries not to tell anyone about them. V.V. Kovalev defines such fears as overvalued and exaggerated.

Hypophobia is a lack of feeling of fear, leading to an underestimation of the degree of danger or threat of any situations. Described in patients with schizophrenia, in alcoholic intoxication, and with neuroses - “thenic sting of a psychasthenic.” There are cases of complete absence of fear - anaphobia. A 30-year-old patient claims that she does not know what fear is and has never experienced it under any circumstances. She says that during her school years she went to the cemetery alone at midnight, even before school she visited the anatomy class, visited the morgue, and even took her friends there out of curiosity. She never had fears in her dreams, no matter what she dreamed. From the very beginning, she watched horror films completely calmly and said: “I don’t understand what people find scary in them.” She jumped from a parachute and “wasn’t afraid at all, even the instructor was surprised,” she drowned and “wasn’t scared at all: if I drown, I’ll drown, so that’s how it’s supposed to be.” “I wasn’t afraid of the psychiatric hospital, I came myself, what’s there to be scared of.”

Without fear, she walked at night along the unlit streets of the city, where “I know they killed, robbed, and raped.” “I’m not brave, no, I just don’t have developed fear. Well, there are people without legs, I have something similar to this.” There is also a known phenomenon called contophobia - the desire to get into dangerous situations for the sake of acute impressions that are not accompanied by fear.

Satomura syndrome (1979) is a peculiar fear of superiors or other high-ranking officials. This is the fear of appearing funny or unpleasant in their eyes. It is considered as a neurosis characteristic of the Japanese. Apparently, it occurs not only among them.

Disorders of the sense of humor are the inability to see something worthy of compassion behind the comical, playful form. First of all, the sense of humor changes when perceiving real life situations of a humorous nature. At the same time, the sense of humor in relation to oneself suffers. The perception of humor in corresponding images (cartoons, etc.) seems to be preserved to a greater extent (Bleicher, Kruk, 1986).

According to our preliminary impressions, the loss of a sense of humor first manifests itself, apparently, in the fact that when an individual meets an object of humor, he becomes very happy, his mood rises, so that he himself is not averse to making someone laugh, and then having a pleasant time the rest of time. The second, hidden level of humor is not distinguished, light sadness and in-depth reflections about human nature, and about oneself usually do not exist. The next stage of a sense of humor deficit occurs when an individual becomes funny, very funny, when he encounters manifestations of humor. He is sometimes filled with Homeric laughter, and he does not think about anything serious.

Once he starts laughing, he will do it all evening (for example, at a laughter concert) and at very dubious jokes. As soon as you provoke some “decoy duck” to laugh, the rest of the humor lovers begin to laugh together, as if on command. A funny person resembles a stoned drug addict who laughs at everything you show him. A. Maslow, meanwhile, noticed that people with a genuine sense of humor usually do not have fun and laugh, only a sad smile runs across their face. Statistics say there are only 1–3 such people per hundred. The continuing degradation of the sense of humor is expressed in the fact that the individual will laugh with pleasure when someone is laughed at. But he does not accept jokes directed at himself; moreover, he may be offended by this or, worse, get angry. Finally, humor dies when it is taken “seriously,” that is, not taken at all.

The lack of a sense of humor is especially acute in patients with schizophrenia, who are educated, intelligent, knowledgeable, but who take jokes and allegories very literally. The best sense of humor, as is well known, is developed among pessimists, who see the weaknesses and shortcomings of people better than others and, nevertheless, treat them with particular delicacy and care. However, in depressed patients, their sense of humor, like other high feelings, is blocked, which makes it extremely difficult for them to survive depression - they are deprived of the internal support that only helps people in misfortune. Patients with epilepsy are deprived of a sense of humor once and for all.

With their rigidity, getting bogged down in trifles, they do not have time to notice how this spark of God flashes over them - a moment of humor. With alcoholism, the sense of humor degrades to banality, vulgarity, cynicism with an indispensable element of greasiness - mentions of betrayal, meetings with passionate beauties and something else like that. One would like to call such humor genital. “Black humor” has only one similarity with genuine humor - the use of a comic configuration. In its depths lies not compassion, not high sadness, but merciless cynicism, ready to strike all the saints and everything that is called the existential, enduring and eternal values ​​of human existence.

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Massage for muscle strain

An obligatory component of complex therapy, how to relieve tension in the body during neurosis, is one of the massage techniques. The main movements are soft, stroking pressure. Tapping and pinching are unacceptable. It is recommended to perform the procedures in specialized rooms, where an experienced specialist, even with a cursory examination, will identify tense muscle areas - blocks.

Objectives of massage:

• reduce the influence of the autonomic nervous system;
• restore the patient’s psycho-emotional state;
• improve sleep;
• relieve hypertonicity of muscle groups;
• restore metabolic processes in tissues;
• increase lymph flow and blood circulation.

However, massage for neurosis is not always possible. Absolute contraindications are hyperthermia or severe psycho-emotional disorder with hysteria.

At home, it is permissible to perform self-massage - use soft stroking and pressure to knead the tense muscles of the back of the head, neck, face, and limbs. This will reduce the negative impact of stress and restore the emotional background. Whereas to relax your back muscles, it is better to use the services of a professional massage therapist.

Symptoms

With nervous tension, symptoms do not appear immediately - signs of muscle neurosis appear in response to a chronic, prolonged stay in a state of stress. At the beginning, people notice periodic, local tingling in a certain part of the body, or numbness in it. With this “bell”, muscle overstrain makes itself known. With timely provision of medical assistance, it is possible to quickly cope with such a health disorder.

If the psychological state does not improve - the situation remains emotionally unstable and difficult for a person, then emotional tension is transformed into muscle tension. Its symptoms:

• myofascial pain – a person accurately indicates the most problematic area;
• burning with tingling gradually increases in intensity of manifestations;
• the level of anxiety and nervous excitability increases;
• when the neck muscles are overstrained, headaches appear - diffuse, dull;
• various problems with sleep appear - with falling asleep, or intermittency, as well as a feeling of weakness in the body in the morning;
• if the facial muscles become tense, then facial expressions are distorted - involuntary twitching of its different parts;
• on the part of the cardiovascular system, manifestations will be in the form of tachycardia or cardialgia - pain in the heart muscle when muscles tense in the diaphragm area.

In a severe mental state, tension in the head with neurosis alone does not end the matter - convulsions and epilepsy form. Treatment tactics will require a comprehensive and long-term approach.

Stress and psycho-emotional tension

Stress is a state consisting of a complex of negative internal processes. Tension is individual moments that arise due to stress factors and entail serious consequences for the further development of a person.

These concepts indicate the psychological state of a person. Psycho-emotional stress causes physical and mental stress, characterized by a partial loss of control: in this state, a person overcomes difficulties without being sure of the result of his actions. Stress is the body’s reaction to factors that, for a number of reasons, the human mind perceives as overwhelming difficulties that cannot be overcome.

Relaxation for adults

We are accustomed to mental and muscle tension and perceive it as a natural state, not realizing how harmful it is to health. The school year is in full swing, and it's time to think about the emotional state of teachers and students.

If you do relaxation exercises with students and teachers (especially during preparation for tests and exams), this will help restore strength and relieve increased anxiety.

Relaxation (from Latin relaxatio - reduction of tension) is a state of relaxation, stress relief, achieved spontaneously or during special exercises.

These exercises are a universal remedy and make it possible to better concentrate after relieving tension and excitement. Having mastered relaxation, you can learn to regulate tension and relax at will.

Mastering the ability of muscle relaxation has a positive effect on the formation of motor skills, improves coordination and endurance, and has a positive effect on the development of flexibility and mobility in the joints.

Relaxation exercises are best performed in a lying position and with eyes closed, since the tone of the central nervous system in this state decreases, and this creates good conditions for muscle relaxation.

Colors of rainbow

Sit comfortably, relax. Close your eyes and listen to my voice. Imagine that you are relaxing on the seashore. You sunbathe lying on your back, on fine, warm sand. Your arms are so heavy that you are unable to lift them. You are relaxed, liberated, you feel free and comfortable. Your body is resting. You well.

Pay attention to the sun. It just blinds you with red rays

You look at the sun for a long time, and it takes up all your visual space. You see nothing but this red canvas.

A small orange dot appeared in the upper right corner. You peer at it carefully, it becomes more and more, and now the orange canvas has completely covered the red color. You see a beautiful rich orange color. Against this background, the outlines of an orange pumpkin emerge.

Its color changes and it becomes yellow. This bright sunny color makes you happy. You feel the soft, gentle touch of the yellow rays. You are bathed in these warm rays. The yellow color slowly, slowly fades, turning into a delicate salad color.

The longer you look, the more saturated this color becomes. And here in front of you is a green meadow. You walk into it and feel drops of dew, the smell of grass and wildflowers.

Take a deep breath of this fresh, invigorating aroma. It makes you think about the poetic, the sublime, the unearthly.

You enjoy walking on the grass, but your gaze is distracted by a bell. So small, blue, and tender.

You love this color and you can't take your eyes off it. And this color fills your entire visual space. The blue color is getting darker and darker.

Dark blue smoothly turns into purple, which gradually goes into the distance and becomes just a horizon line.

Flight

Sit comfortably, relax. Close your eyes and listen to my voice.

Imagine that you are in a green meadow. Above you are blue skies and warm sun. You are pleased to admire this beauty and inhale the aromas of summer grass. You feel easy and comfortable.

Imagine that you are a big beautiful bird. You rise high into the sky and soar among the airy white clouds. You fly further and further. A warm breeze blows across your wings. The movements of the wings are light and graceful. Enjoy the feeling of free and smooth flight in the air.

Now, slowly flapping your wings, approach the ground.

Walk

Sit comfortably, relax. Close your eyes and listen to my voice.

Imagine that you are walking through a grove. You are surrounded by the fresh smell of herbs and flowers. You can hear grasshoppers chirping, bees buzzing, and birds singing joyfully.

You feel the gentle touch of the sun's rays. The rays warm your body: arms, legs, face. One ray touched your lips and gave you a smile. You feel very warm and pleasant from these touches. You can hear the babbling of a stream nearby. You put your hands in the water and feel the coolness.

You love being in this grove. I like the blue sky, the playful rays of the sun, the aroma of flowers, the singing of birds, the murmur of water.

Admire the picture that surrounds you. All this fills you with a charge of vivacity and energy. You feel a good mood, joy of life. The exercise comes to an end. On the count of three, open your eyes.

How to relieve muscle spasm

There are many recommendations and useful tips to relieve nervous tension in the muscles. Most of them are based on a reflex change in the nerve innervation of muscle fibers. So, if possible, it is better to completely stop communicating with those people who cause a lot of unpleasant emotions in a person - colleagues, boss, relatives. Of course, this step is radical and requires the application of certain efforts - dismissal from work, divorce from your spouse.

Less “extreme” ways to relieve muscle tension:

• prepare a soothing tea, for example, with chamomile, lemon balm or valerian and a drop of honey - drink in small sips, while still warm;
• turn on your favorite music and enjoy it until you feel like your muscles have relaxed;
• completely turn off all appliances, close the curtains and lie on the sofa with a wet cold towel on the back of your head - 15–20 minutes is enough to relieve mild tension;
• light an incense stick with your favorite scent and sit in silence;
• For those who are used to actively dealing with stress - how to relieve tension in the head, the best option seems to be a long walk in the nearest park or a visit to the pool.

Each person chooses for himself how to deal with muscle tension due to neurosis - just postponing events for a certain period of time is not worth it. Otherwise, medication will be required.