People don't change - true or not? How people change. Brief comment

Can the psychology of people change depending on external or internal causes? For the majority, changes represent a serious conflict, because regardless of the circumstances, a person always wants to save his “face”, not to lose his individuality.

Does a person change over time - the opinion of psychologists

Indeed, it is believed that changes are unusual for a person, he prefers to adapt to the world, while maintaining his inherent qualities.

An example of this point of view is the dependence of people on bad habits, which are sometimes incredibly difficult to get rid of.

However, psychiatry completely refutes this statement, proving that it is possible to change a person, provided that this is his sincere desire.

Most often, people crave change because of the presence of a psychological problem.

These include conflict behavior, low self-esteem, insecurity, inadequacy, unreasonable manifestation of negativity. If a person begins to look for the cause of discomfort in the surrounding manifestations, even an experienced psychotherapist is unlikely to help him. But when an individual realizes that the cause of the negativity is hidden inside him, it can be stated that the person is ready for change.

There are several common reasons that literally make a person change:

• Mental shock, usually associated with changes in attitude. It can be the birth of a child or a tragedy that happened to a loved one. People can change for the sake of loved ones or after learning about their own deadly disease. The emotional shock can be so strong that it completely changes the essence of a person;
• The development of consciousness - spiritual growth occurs imperceptibly to others. Slowly and gradually, a person improves himself, every day learning new aspects of the universe and developing consciousness. Relatives may not notice changes in the psychology of such a person for a long time, but old acquaintances, whom they meet quite rarely, quickly notice the changes. By the way, this type of changing psychology can be attributed to the test of age, when the accumulated experience makes you take a fresh look at the world. Of course, a person does not always change with age, it all depends on his ability to evaluate the path traveled;
• Circumstances are a source of rather strong emotional experiences, the strength of which sometimes seems overwhelming. For example, people can change after prison, both for the better and for the worse. Changes are possible due to moving to another city or in connection with a change of place of work. True, in most cases, psychology remains unchanged and the person returns to the previous behavior, returning to already familiar conditions. But sometimes the influence of the environment really affects psychology. After leaving prison, a rare person is able to cleanse the soul, and once in the company of smart self-sufficient people, many begin to imitate them, improving imperceptibly even for themselves;
• Finance is a powerful stimulus for change, both positive and negative. negative side. Often, a real revolution takes place in a previously closed soul, forcing a person to spend money on charity and burn it without regrets, and some people who were previously open and good-natured find such traits as stinginess in their character and completely withdraw from the world.

Temperament is one of the innate qualities, changes in which require a lot of work on oneself. However, rarely does a person's temperament change radically, it can only be restrained.

How can you change yourself?

If something does not suit a person in his life, you can try to change yourself for the sake of a comfortable existence, while exposing the personality to minimal changes.

1. Dependence on someone else's opinion gives rise to low self-esteem. You can correct the situation if you make your own positive opinion about your qualities stable and learn to trust your own ideas about yourself as a person;
2. Fear of failure is another condition that intensifies over time and interferes with self-realization. In this case, it is recommended not to resort to independent attempts to correct the situation, since a negative result can be achieved, which will significantly complicate life. It is best to seek the help of a professional psychologist who can choose effective methodology to get rid of the fear of failure and uncertainty;
3. Tendency to depressive states is a common reason that people do not change in better side. The usual cause of depression is that a person does not want to live by certain rules, but is not able to step over an internal prohibition. The result is a slow loss of interest in life. To achieve change, you need to find the motivation to move forward. It should be remembered that after the rain the sun always appears and there are many ways to make life richer, among which you just need to find the best path for yourself.

Whether a person's character changes under the influence of circumstances or as a result of careful work on oneself, it is important that these are positive changes.

Incredible Facts

people become taller, fatter and live longer than ever before in history. And all these changes have occurred over the past century, scientists say.

However, it is not only about evolution, since one century is not enough for such changes.

Scientists believe that most of the transformations that have occurred over such a period of time are the body's response to changing conditions, such as improved nutrition, health and hygiene.

Here are the main changes that have occurred to people over the past century.

Increasing human height

People got taller

The latest study showed that in developed countries people have become taller, and the highest average height in the world - 1.85 cm is observed in the Netherlands. Although Americans were the tallest people in the world during World War II (1.77 cm), by the end of the 20th century growth rates had stalled.

While average growth has increased in many countries, it has not been uniform. In some countries, afflicted by disease, war, and other problems, average growth has declined from time to time.

The researchers believe that this suggests that negative factors such as famine or epidemics affect the next generations, and it takes about 5 generations to overcome these factors.

According to recent studies, it has been relationship between growth and quality of life, but tall people perceived as smarter and more powerful.

Obesity problem

People are getting fatter

Since the 1970s, researchers have studied the growth dynamics of Mayan children and their families in Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States. When the Maya moved to the US, they became 11.4 cm taller than their counterparts in Guatemala and Mexico. However, their weight also increased, and they were more likely to suffer from obesity.

There is also an upward trend in weight gain around the world. So in 2013 29 percent of the world's population suffers from excess weight or obesity.

The question of why people get fat is the subject of scientific debate. Some researchers believe that everything is to blame overeating and absence physical activity . But there is also a theory that genetics plays a role here, as well as viruses that are associated with obesity. Contrary to popular belief, many studies have found a link between being overweight and being poor.

Some researchers suggest that this trend is due to epigenetics or inherited changes that affect how the body stores excess energy from food.

For example, if your mother and grandmother went through hard times, this is passed on to the next generations, and when it comes Good times, the body tries to store extra energy in the form of fat.

early puberty

In many countries, children mature earlier, especially girls. Many studies have shown that over the past half century the age at which girls reach puberty has decreased.

For example, a US study showed that the age of menarche fell by 0.3 years per decade from the mid-1800s, when the first menstruation occurred at age 17, until the 1960s.

Research also indicates that there is association between overweight and early puberty, and girls with a high body mass index reach puberty at an earlier age.

This can have negative health implications, as studies have shown that early puberty is associated with the development of hypertension and diabetes later in life.

There are also social consequences. In some cultures, a girl who has reached puberty is considered old enough for marriage, which means she has fewer opportunities to continue her education or career.

Human longevity and its negative consequences

People are now living longer than ever. According to the WHO, average duration life around the world has grown from 30 years in the 20th century up to 70 years in 2012. Experts predict that the global life expectancy of women born in 2030 will rise to 85 years.

Increased life expectancy is associated with advances in medicine, improvements sanitation and access to clean water.

However, while these factors have reduced the death rate from infectious diseases, the death rate from degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, heart disease and cancer has risen.

In other words, people began to live longer, but die from other diseases, than in the past.

Rise in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes, some have linked with improved hygiene. That is, when the body is exposed to too few microbes, the immune system overreacts to even the most harmless microbes.

Human development in the future

What awaits people in the future, given how quickly technology is changing our world?

There is some concern that the future of evolution will be determined genetic engineering. Bionic implants, nanotechnologies and new drugs can further extend human life.

Some scientists believe that we can achieve immortality with technology in the next 30 years. While this sounds like science fiction, it's clear that humans are evolving rapidly and technology is having an impact. big influence.

I recently had an argument with an old friend about whether people change. We did not come to any consensus, and by the end of the discussion I no longer understood which statement I was on the side of. In order to understand this issue, today I will talk about whether people change, or rather, how exactly they are able to change, using the format of a discussion with myself for this purpose.

Reasons to change

If we take as a hypothesis the statement that people are able to change, then, proving it, the first thing to do is to divide the causes of changes into external and internal. But even here everything turns out to be not so simple: if a person changes under the influence of circumstances, these are internal reasons, but! I believe that we ourselves attract certain circumstances into our lives, and therefore this is an internal reason too. Without much prelude, let's see what drives a person to change.

Strong upheavals

One of the most compelling reasons, if you believe that people change, is serious upheavals, events of a large scale. There are both positive and negative ones among them: the birth of a child, the death of someone close, a serious illness or accident, a strong love, winning the lottery, etc. These are, if I may say so, situational changes, but sometimes penetrating into the very essence of a person, since shocks can really change. For example, after a person begins to perceive differently not only people of the opposite sex, but also their patterns of behavior in.

Speaking for the opposite side, it seems to me not unreasonable to assume that strong shocks do not change people, but simply become themselves to a greater extent. We are all bound by bonds of social contracts, the whole world rests on our ability to restrain ourselves. When something strongly shakes your world, there is no desire and need to pretend to be someone, and the human essence blooms either in all its beauty or in ugliness.

Development, expansion of consciousness

The changes I most want to believe in are consistent. Everyone knows stories about people who barely make ends meet and win the jackpot in the lottery. The vast majority lost this state in the shortest possible time and returned to their former existence. The problem is they weren't ready. Strong shocks are the same lottery. On the other hand, methodical, gradual development allows you to consolidate the results achieved at each of the steps, and when this chain leads to glory, the world, a person no longer goes off the rails, because he's ready to all these blessings.

A person can change gradually, engaging in his own development, making efforts for this. IN new life since Monday I do not believe, do not believe that someone can become a new person in a few days. A person can change a lot, but it is a long work.

Influence of circumstances

If we take a change in circumstances that does not fit the description of strong shocks, for example, new job, change of residence, then such changes in a person - temporary. Our instincts are to adapt, and when we find ourselves in a new environment, we do just that. If it seems to you that a person has really changed due to changed circumstances, return him to the old environment - to the previous job, to the previous place of residence, to the old partner - and you will see how he will return to the way it was. This is the effect of a spring, it always returns to its place, since changes under the influence of circumstances are nothing but opportunism.

On the other hand, getting into a new environment that promotes development, a person can change without adjusting. For example, communication with developed personalities enriches, expands consciousness and promotes revealing one's own talents. This has happened to me many times.

Autotraining

Some people are able to convince themselves and others that they have changed. The more often you pronounce and prove it to someone, the greater your own belief becomes that changes have taken place, although this does not correspond to the truth. How to define such a "change"? Very simple: the most frequent topic of conversation for him is how he has changed, gradually his story acquires new details. If someone suggests or simply hints that these changes are not true, the person loses his temper - this is a sign of insecurity and a willingness to defend his lie with foam at the mouth.

Convincing yourself is easier than actually changing, but this is not the path that leads to happiness.

Kernel

I believe that in every person there is a certain core - a set of his personal qualities that cannot be changed. This is what makes each of us is unique why we are called individuals. The shell and other layers of personality may change, but the core remains the same from birth to death. Otherwise, we would all have a plasticine personality that can be changed as you like.

You can’t analyze the question “do people change” and not ask yourself the same question. Have I changed in the last, say, 8 years? Yes, it has changed enough for me and my loved ones to notice it, but not so much that I could not be recognized. The changes that took place inside me were caused by various reasons: both upheavals, and consistent development, and deflection under circumstances, followed by a return back. The experience of persuading oneself is also available. I have changed, but some things have remained the same: I am still sentimental, still kind to people, I still do not know how to save money, preferring to spend it right away, and I still believe in love, despite all the shocks.

Have you changed, and what were the reasons for this? Do you think people can change at all?

586 Topic 14. Personal development

Some of them may even contradict the conclusions reached by the authors. These are thoughts caused by the entire spectrum of materials presented in this collection.

1. The only general rule is that in each
In the event of a change, we must carefully analyze the special
cipher of this situation. Recognition that no other generalizations are
exists, leads to one important conclusion: any attempt to consider
to see the situation through the prism of a predetermined scheme, most likely,
will be unsuccessful. We will be able to effectively use what we have from
known, only if we realize how little we know.

2. Understanding the conditions of a particular situation will allow us to develop
intervention appropriate to change the situation. IN
depending on the situation, the details may vary, but they are in any case
tea is, and we always need to be attentive to them.

3. In any condition, change upsets the balance. When it
occurs, often there are both external and internal pressures,
aimed at canceling it and restoring the balance.
But if the equilibrium is restored to a new and higher level, then
there will be forces that support this new, more preferable
new position. To ensure the stability of the change, its agent
you must work with the consequences of this change until
this stage will not be reached.

4. Purely arbitrary change is extremely rare. Here's how
mu direct prohibition turns out to be simplistic and ineffective. People
always act in such a way that it is better for them, although in a very peculiar way
grounds. Perhaps these foundations will be weak and unconstructive.
effective, but they can be considered sufficient if we understand especially
of the conditions of life of a particular individual. If a person changes, then we
must bear in mind that he is refusing something and therefore has
full right expect to get something in return for what he was from
forced to refuse. Robert Ruark 1 once wrote a book "Something about
values”, dedicated to changes in customs and relationships in
modern Africa. In the introduction he says that if you want to
people have given up what is dear to them, then in return you should offer
something more valuable to them. This should not be forgotten when we plan
I intervene to change. On the early stage something valuable
can provide a relationship with a psychotherapist, but then it must
be supported by the world in which the patient lives.

5. Another issue is related to the arbitrariness of the change. Some
Some people do not change, although they have the desire to change. Others
change, despite the fact that they do not want to and do not understand that they can
change. People who want to change put nothing in front of us.

1 See: Ruark R. Something of Value. garden city. N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955.

Curtis R., Stricker E. How People Change Inside and Out of Therapy 587

No problem, except for testing our skills. But what are the ethical consequences above the prescribed (instituting) process of change, if a person does not want and does not understand them? I don't have an answer to this question. But I want you to be more aware of the problems that can arise when we do not have a contractual relationship with a patient or we violate it.

6. The erudition of a psychotherapist is not limited to therapy. Here's how
both clinical and social psychologists have much to teach
us and each other. This possibility is sometimes veiled because they
study different problems in different laboratories, and the problem under study
ma often sets the structure of its solution. The main source of resistance
which, leading to change, researchers can see in their own way
mu depending on the problem under study, but this should not lead us
sense to such an extent that we neglect all other sources
nicknames.

7. What to focus on: how people change, or how
we Can we encourage them to change? Should we aim for
change of personality as such, or the main thing for us should be
the process by which this change occurs? Perhaps exactly
here is the boundary between social and clinical psychologist
mi. Should we focus on external reality, how are things
social psychologists, or, like clinical psychologists,
focus mainly on inner change? This is a reminder
there is no discussion on the problem of the relationship between the individual and the environment, the most
the economical solution of which lies in the concept of their interaction.
The Social Psychologist Ignoring the Dynamics of Internal Change
individual and not seeing his active response to an intervention attempt,
will be doomed to failure at least sometimes or with some people
mi. Clinical psychologist trying to change the inner world without
taking into account whether reality will support this change, it is hardly
yields a significant and lasting result. Our perspective is
recognition of the interaction between internal and external, rather than in the choice
between them.

8. If we want the effect of our external interventions
was strong, it must be remembered that their value is determined by the
the effect they have on internal structures. We are trying
we want to change feelings, cognitive processes (cognitions), knowledge,
human expectations and motivation. Thus, we provide
ability to respond to your environment in a different way. If ok
If the control does not support the changes caused, then most likely they are not
will be long. Here again, we need to expand, not
reap our perspective.

9. Education is the main vehicle for human change.
It is much more than the transfer of information. ABOUT

588 Topic 14. Personal development

The need for education (experiential learning) speak continuously, while pointing out the key role of the teacher. The success of a teacher's activity is determined both by what he does and, most importantly, by what he represents as a person. In an intense relationship between the teacher and students, contact is formed, but resistance, often unconscious, prevents joint progress towards a common goal. The skill of the change agent is manifested to the extent that he manages to promote the development and maintenance of these relationships, opening up the possibility of building them in such a way that can facilitate change.

10. In the light of ideas about the decisive role of the agent of change, the question arises, is it possible to become a psychotherapist or do they need to be born? There are some qualities such as sensitivity, contact and sociability (as capacity for human sensitivity, relatedness, and connectivity), which are not easy to acquire. They are absolutely necessary, but not sufficient for change to occur. However, there are certain techniques that we can learn, certain skills that we can hone, and there are certain knowledge, theory and understanding of how to lead the change process. As Bettelheim writes in the title of his book: "Love alone is not enough" 1 .

In this book, we have seen a huge number of examples and different explanations of the process of change. Which of the explanations is correct? It should not be forgotten that theories cannot be true or false. We can say that they can be useful or useless for the correct perception and understanding of reality. Instead of looking for one correct explanation, I would suggest that you keep all the explanations in mind and select those from which you can build a coherent, factual explanation that helps you understand and bring about change. Some explanations are more appropriate for some people than others, and some are more appropriate for some situations than others. Many explanations can be developed, the creative combination of which can be so powerful that it pushes us to greater understanding and puts us on a more promising path to fulfill our destiny of helping people change.

1 See: Bettelheim W. Love is Not Enough: The Treatment of Emotionally Disturbed Children. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1950.

D. P. Schultz HEALTHY PERSONALITY 1

What is a healthy personality? What are character traits a person with a healthy personality? How does such a person act, think and feel? Can you or I become a healthy person?

These questions are increasingly being asked not only by psychologists, but also by millions of other people. As you might expect, these questions are followed by a wide variety of answers. There are many self-help books out there, manuals that promise a new life. Some of them are trite, pompous, and empty of content, while others have the potential value of helping us better understand ourselves.

Many Americans attend trainings, participate in various forms of group therapy, where they explore and flaunt their inner being (and also bodies). Criminals and drug addicts, students and teachers, workers and managers, young and old, thin and fat, participating in such experiments, apparently, discover in themselves such changes and resources that they had not even suspected before.

The main theme of this highly popular movement is to find and define a healthier personality. The emphasis in this movement is not so much on healing conflicts that arose in childhood and past emotional traumas, but on releasing hidden talents, reserves of creativity, energy and motivation. The main thing is what a person can become, and not what he is now or what he was in the past.

In psychology, which has studied primarily mental illness rather than mental health, the study of the potential for personal growth of a person has long been neglected. But in recent years more and more psychologists have begun to recognize the ability to change and grow in personality.

1 Schultz D.P. Growth Psychology: Models of the Healthy Personality. N.Y. etc.: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1977. P. 1-5, 143-146. (Translated by EL. Zagryazhskaya.)

590 Topic 14. Personal development

"Psychologists of personal growth" (most of them consider themselves humanistic psychologists) offer a new perspective on human nature. The type of personality they have in mind is different from those previously described in the traditional areas of psychology: behaviorism and psychoanalysis.

Humanistic psychologists criticize traditional approaches because they believe that behaviorism and psychoanalysis hold narrow views of human nature and do not take into account the peaks that people can climb. They accuse behaviorism of treating man as a machine - "a complex system whose behavior occurs in a regular way" 1 . Behaviorists describe the individual as an ordered, regulated, predetermined organism, no more spontaneous, alive and creative than, for example, a thermostat. Psychoanalysis only shows us the sick or mutilated side of human nature, as it focuses on neurotic and psychotic behavior. Freud and his followers do not study a healthy person, but a person with emotional disorders, i.e. the worst, not the best, in human nature.

Neither behaviorism nor psychoanalysis deals with our potential for personal growth, with our desire to become bigger and better than we are. In fact, they paint us a rather pessimistic picture of human nature. Behaviorists see us as passive reactants to external stimuli, while psychoanalysts see us as victims of biological forces and childhood conflicts.

For psychologists of personal growth, a person is much more than this. They do not consider a person to be the eternal victim of these forces, although most of them do not deny that external stimuli, instincts and childhood conflicts influence the personality. We can and must rise above our past, our biological nature and the circumstances of our environment. We must develop and grow as individuals independently of these potentially overpowering forces. Personal growth psychologists paint an optimistic and hopeful picture of the individual. They believe in our ability to expand and enrich ourselves, to develop and fulfill our potential, to become who we are capable of becoming.

Proponents of the human potential realization movement assume that there is a desired level of personal growth and development that is above "normal" and argue that a person must strive for this higher level in order to realize fully. update your potential. In other words, it is not enough to get rid of emotional disorders - the absence of neurotic or psychotic behavior is not a sufficient criterion for determining a healthy personality. This is only the first, although it is obligatory

1 Skinner B.F. Beyond Freedom and Didnity. N.Y.: Knopf, 1971. P. 202.

Schultz E. Healthy personality 591

An exciting step towards personal growth and self-realization. The individual must strive for more.

This view can be frustrating to those who believe that avoiding mental illness is already quite difficult. Now they are told that being normal is not enough, that they are missing out on the opportunity to reach a higher level of personal growth, i.e. some "supernormal". But what's wrong with just being normal? Why should one strive for a higher level of development if your life (without neuroses and psychoses) is rich and meaningful? Perhaps you know the answers to these questions from your own experience. After all, you can be quite healthy (in the sense of the absence of emotional disorders and subject to sufficient satisfaction of needs and drives) and at the same time unhappy.

If we trust what growth psychologists (and perhaps our own experience), then we agree that it is possible to be satisfied in all areas of life and at the same time suffer from excruciating boredom, stagnation, hopelessness and meaninglessness. Apparently, even under ideal conditions, we can feel the gaping emptiness of our life, as if there is something essential in it, although we are not able to determine what is still wrong. We can live comfortably Good work, a warm and loving family, not to worry and at the same time we will not have great joy, all-encompassing enthusiasm, a bright sense of calling or duty (dedication or commitment). Obviously, in this case, we feel that not everything is so good. Despite external well-being, our life is not as full as it could be.

A vivid description of a man who, at first glance, everything was perfect, was given by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. This man was so crushed by an overwhelming sense of the meaninglessness of existence that he was on the verge of suicide. He asked: "Why should I live?" Tolstoy was well aware of the suffering he described, because he wrote about himself.

I felt that what I was standing on gave way, that there was nothing for me to stand on, that what I lived by was gone, that I had nothing to live on... My life had stopped...

And then I, a happy man, hid the rope from me so as not to hang myself on the crossbar between the cabinets in my room, where every evening I ... [undressed]; I stopped going hunting with a gun so as not to be too tempted the easy way getting rid of life. I didn't know what I wanted. I was afraid of life, I longed to get away from it, and meanwhile I expected something else from it.

And this happened to me at a time when, on all sides, I had what is considered perfect happiness. I had a kind, loving and beloved wife, good children and a large estate, which without difficulty on my part grew and increased. I was respected by relatives and acquaintances, more than ever before, was praised by strangers and could consider that my name was glorious without much self-delusion. At the same time, not only was I not crazy or spiritually unhealthy, on the contrary, I used strength both spiritual and bodily,

592 Topic 14. Personal development

Which I rarely met in my peers: bodily, I could work on the mowing, keeping up with the peasants; mentally, I could work for 8-10 hours in a row, without experiencing any consequences from such stress ...

What will come out of what I do today, what will I do tomorrow - what will come out of my whole life? Why should I live, why want anything, why do anything? Is there any meaning in my life that would not be destroyed by the inevitable death that is coming to me?

These questions are the simplest thing in the world. They sound in the soul of every person - from a stupid child to a wise old man. As I have seen from my own experience, without an answer to them it is impossible to continue to live 1 .

Tolstoy wrote about his spiritual confusion when he was fifty years old, and it is impossible to assume that at that time he was a healthy person. This brings us back to the original question: what is a healthy personality? So far, we have only talked about what it is not. And there is a good reason for this - we do not know what constitutes a healthy personality, because there is little agreement among psychologists working in this field. There are quite a few definitions of a healthy personality - so many that they can be collected in the form of a small book. The best we can achieve at this level of our knowledge is to explore those concepts of real psychological health that seem to us the most complete, and understand what they say about us.

I will be discussing the healthy personality models proposed by Gordon Allport, Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung, Viktor Frankl, and Fritz Perls. These theories are selected among others as the most developed, recognized, influential and attention-grabbing in contemporary psychology. Although not all of these theorists are growth psychologists, each of them believes that there is a certain level of personal development, located above the normal, and by this criterion fits into the general direction of the psychology of personal growth.

The concept of a healthy personality is vital importance. Its content is difficult to understand, it is complex, controversial, it has a lot of gaps, half-truths and, undoubtedly, there is something strange and bizarre. As such, it reflects the area it is trying to cover - the person's personality.

Many psychologists believe that the study of the healthy personality should be the focus of psychology; what other discipline should deal with the study of human health (human condition)? What, if not a person, can change the world for better or worse?

1 James W. The Varieties of Religious Experience. N.Y.: Longmans, Green, 1920. P. 153-153. Almost completely this passage is quoted from the Russian edition of V. James "The Variety of Religious Experience" (St. Petersburg: Andreev and Sons, 1910/1992, pp. 130-131), the translators of which, in turn, used one of the published versions of the text "Confessions » L.N. Tolstoy. For a slightly different version, see, for example, in: Tolstoy L.N. I can't be silent. M.: Soviet Russia, 1985. S. 50, 54.

Schultz E Healthy personality 593

Does anything have a greater impact on the content of our lives than the degree of psychological health through which we solve our problems?

As Abraham Maslow put it so clearly: “If you deliberately plan to become less than you can become, I warn you that you will be miserable for the rest of your life.” 1<.„>

Each of us has faced this issue. After all, it would seem that just yesterday we were talking with one person, and today we face a completely different person. We are at a loss whether this is a mask, a theatrical game, or a harsh reality that denotes constant changes in our environment, which do not always benefit us personally.

It makes no sense to talk about short-term changes or those that we all face throughout life. Perhaps, at the moment when you are reading this text, the person whose changes bother you has already returned to his usual role. In childhood, we believe and consider one thing to be right, in youth another, and in adulthood a third. All this happens not because we deliberately modify our inner world. No. This is because everyone gets their own personal life experience, faces certain situations and reacts to them in different ways. Accordingly, we draw our own conclusions. Short-term changes are more like a game, like a falling meteorite. Usually, like the last one, they quickly flare up and go out just as quickly. “Today I was offered meditation to make me feel happy. On the first day, I was so fascinated by the result that I immediately told all the friends I met about this technique. However, after three sessions, the effect diminished and, in the end, after a week, this meditation was thrown into the trash.” Short-term changes are not interesting also because they are often related to certain people or groups. And we all know very well how easily the opinion of us changes in the eyes of each person and how quickly we move from one socially significant group for him to another. However, there are other changes.

« Yesterday we stood with her for three hours in line for a ticket, hugging and basking in one world for two, and today she stopped loving cinema ... and me.

Each of us will face such changes in the ranks of persons close to him more than once, no matter how sad it may sound. How, in such a short period of time, does the human soul manage to turn everything upside down?

Fortunately, most of these seemingly grandiose changes are actually temporary. It all depends on the person - one can stick to innovations for a couple of hours, the other - for several years. In the latter case, it is extremely difficult to determine whether these changes are important, or whether they have no foundation and will not last forever. However, today, several reasons are precisely known that can change a person in a catastrophically short time period.

5 situations in which you have to get to know a person again

Close to death

In a critical situation, a person is able to make, subsequently inexplicable, efforts. This is called "maximum organism". And imagine what could happen to a person who was on the verge of death? In most cases, he begins to rethink his own values, life, ideas, try to live, And, of course, each of us will find a lot of shortcomings that could be corrected. If we imagine that we have dozens of development paths, then the situation in which you are on the verge of death corresponds to the fact that you did not move, but jumped from one course to another;

Care of loved ones

In the same way as the previous paragraph, it can hurt us very much when people close to us die. We are strongly attached to them, and each of us has our own. The principle of the mechanism remains the same and, falling asleep with one person, we wake up completely different.

"Teacher and pupil"

We are all formed individuals with our own unique views. Most of us, by virtue of our nature and age of self-centeredness, can easily express our own opinion on almost any general issue. However, many of us have come across people who, in our opinion, definitely do not fit into the ordinary, with whom we argue or agree. read, We become attached to the white crows and, at first incredulously, then blindly trusting every sound that comes from the lips of the guru. Accordingly, very soon our friends and acquaintances begin to notice that something is wrong with us. Naturally, we do not agree with them and refuse to accept the truth.

"Bowl of Scales"

On one side is your life, on the other - the life of a second cousin of a grandmother's neighbor. The life of a nephew weighs more? So you need to tighten up and do everything like him! Familiar, isn't it? Won one, lost the other. We are always in the race for the mediocre, meaningless reward of being better than someone else. And, sometimes, one can notice how amazing changes befell a person who got involved in this struggle. However, it is worth noting that only people with high level willpower. For the rest, everything will look serious until a new object for comparison is found on the other side of the scale. At the same time, people with great willpower can be asked - is this person worthy of imitation? Or maybe you should try to form your own, individual, personal story?

"Depressed Army"

The soldiers in this army are familiar to all of us - failures, material difficulties, betrayals, illnesses, stresses. A person loses interest in life, like scientists. This item is the most popular culprit of change. Some of us are only slightly knocked out of the saddle, some are forced to plunge face into the mud. Regardless of the strength of perception, with a frequent clash with this army, any of us finds a lesson for himself and somewhere, very noticeably or not, he will change.

Finally…

If your close person has changed dramatically, one thing remains the same - each person is free to choose his environment and distribute roles in accordance with his own single scenario of life. That is why it is up to you and only you to decide whether to accept a person as he is, has become, will become, or say goodbye to him on a good note, without expecting contradictions and misunderstandings, and go your own unique way.