"Psychotherapists do not have much knowledge or wisdom about how to live. What they bring to the process of psychotherapy is professional skills that help clients explore their internal representations and conflicts, understand existing problems and bring about changes in their own thoughts, emotions and behavior. ."

British psychologist William Stiles proposed a model of problem experience assimilation to understand the process of change in the course of psychotherapy. In this model, psychotherapy is understood as an activity through which the client becomes able to master or "assimilate" the painful experiences for which he sought help. A problem experience or experience can be a feeling, idea, memory, impulse, desire, or attitude that is experienced by the client as some kind of threat and disturbs his emotional balance.
Level 0: Aversion to the problem. The client is not aware of the problem. There is an active avoidance of topics that bring him out of emotional balance. Emotions may be minimal, indicating successful avoidance, or a vague negative affect, usually anxiety, is experienced.

Level 1: Unwanted thoughts. There are thoughts associated with the experienced discomfort. The client prefers not to think about it; topics for conversation are brought in either by the external life circumstances of the client or by the therapist. Strong negative feelings rise: anxiety, fear, anger, sadness. Despite the intensity of the feelings, their relationship to the content may not be clear.

Level 2: A vague awareness of the problem. The client acknowledges the existence of the problem experience and describes the thoughts associated with it and causing discomfort, but he is not yet able to articulate the problem clearly. There is acute psychological pain or panic associated with thoughts or feelings about an existing problem. Thereafter, as the clarity of the disturbing content increases, the intensity of the emotion decreases.

Level 3: Statement and clarification of the problem. At this stage, the client can make a clear statement of the problem, which can now be worked on and influenced. Emotions are negative, but bearable. Active, concentrated work begins to understand the problem experience.

Level 4: Understanding/Insight. Problem experience is formulated and comprehended; connections are made with relevant facts. Emotions can be mixed. Awareness achieved through insights can cause painful feelings, but can also be accompanied by interest or even pleasant surprise such as "Aha". At this stage, a greater clarity and scope of understanding of the problem is achieved, which usually leads to an increase in positive emotions.

Level 5: Testing in practice / development. Understanding is used to work on a problem; Concrete efforts are being considered to resolve the problem, but without complete success. The client may describe the alternatives considered, or systematically review different behaviors. The emotional tone is positive, businesslike and optimistic. At this stage, there is gradual progress in solving problems in everyday life.

Level 6: Problem solving. The client achieves a successful resolution of a specific problem. Emotions are positive, in particular, the client experiences satisfaction and pride in the achievement. Attempts are being made to bring similar changes to other areas of everyday life, to solve other problems. As the problem subsides, the emotions become more neutral.

Level 7: Mastery. The client successfully uses the acquired way of solving problems in new situations; sometimes it happens involuntarily. When this topic rises emotions positive or neutral (this is no longer something that excites).

2. Phenomena arising from the assimilation of the unconscious

The consequences of the assimilation of the unconscious entail very remarkable phenomena. In some subjects, the result of such a process is an undoubted and even tiringly emphasized Ego-consciousness: they know everything, they are informed about everything that happens in their unconscious, they know and understand everything that emerges in the bowels of the unconscious. Others, on the contrary, having become acquainted with the contents of the unconscious, become more and more discouraged; they lose their self-respect, lose their self-confidence and come to dull humility, meeting with extraordinary and incomprehensible phenomena from the sphere of the unconscious. The former, in exaggerated self-aggrandizement, take responsibility for their unconscious, which goes too far, beyond any real possibility; others, in the end, relieve themselves of all responsibility, crushed by the oppressive consciousness of their impotence in the face of fate, which declares itself through the unconscious.

However, if we analyze these two types more carefully, it will be found that behind the optimistic self-consciousness of the first lies a helplessness, although unconscious, but very deep, perhaps deeper than in a person of the second type; his conscious optimism is nothing but an unfortunate compensation. On the contrary, behind the pessimistic humility of the second type lies a stubborn will, also unconscious, but confident and stubborn, and in its strength many times greater than the conscious optimism of the first type.

Such a state of personality is successfully characterized by the term "God-like", to which Adler paid special attention in his time. When the devil wrote to the student in his memory book the words of the serpent: "Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum", he added:

Snakes, my grandma, follow the saying

Having lost the likeness of God in prison!

(I.-V. Goethe. Faust. I. Faust's workroom)

"God-likeness" is a concept, though not a scientific one, but it perfectly describes the mental state in question. We still have to investigate the question of the origin of such mental state, as well as why it was called "god-like". This word itself indicates what exactly the patient's abnormal condition consists of. The anomaly is that the patient ascribes to himself qualities that do not belong to him and which do not belong to him: for resemblance to the sacred means resemblance to a spirit that surpasses the spirit of man.

If we decompose the concept of god-likeness for a psychological purpose, we find that it expresses not only a given dynamic phenomenon, which I studied in my work Metamorphoses and Symbols of the Libido, but also a certain mental function, distinguished by supra-individual, collective qualities. It must not be forgotten that the individual is not only a single, isolated being, but is also part of society, so that the human mind is both an isolated, wholly individual fact and a collective function. And as an individual there are certain social functions or drives that are contrary to his personal, egocentric interests, and human mind there are functions and drives which, owing to their collective character, contradict personal mental functions. Each person is born with a brain that is completely differentiated, capable of a variety of mental functions. Ontogenetically, a person could neither acquire nor develop such functions. But as the brains of entire generations gradually differentiate, the function of thinking that is possible with this high level differentiation becomes collective and universal. This fact, by the way, also explains the fact that in the unconscious of entire peoples and races, the most distant from each other in time and space, there are amazing coincidences, for example, a striking (unusual) correspondence of original (autochthonous) mythical forms and motifs.

Thanks to the universal similarity in the structure of the brain, the possibility of the existence of a universal, identical mental function for all people arises. Such a function is what we call collective mental or collective psyche. The collective psyche, in turn, is subdivided into collective mind and collective soul. Since there are differences according to race, tribe, and family, there is also a collective psyche determined by race, tribe, or family, but less profound than the "universal" collective psyche. The collective psyche embraces, in the words of Pierre Janet, the "parties inférieures" of mental functions, namely, those areas of the individual psychic function that are once and for all established and everywhere existing, innate and automatically acting, that is, areas supra-personal or impersonal. Personal consciousness and the unconscious constitute the "parties superieures" of mental functions, that is, those parts of them that were acquired and developed ontogenetically and were the result of personal differentiation.

So, an individual who has added to his ontogenetically acquired psychic contents also the collective psyche, inherent in him a priori and unconsciously, thus illegitimately expands the area of ​​his personality and accordingly suffers from the consequences. And the consequences are as follows: on the one hand, insofar as the collective psyche consists of a "partie inferieure" of mental functions and is subordinated to the personality, which serves as the basis, insofar as it burdens and devalues ​​the personality. This is manifested in the belittling of the ego-consciousness and in the unconscious exaggeration of one's own importance, reaching the point of a painful manifestation of the will to power. On the other hand, since this collective mentality is higher than the personality, being for him native soil, on which only personal differences are possible, and the mental function is the same for all individuals, insofar as the communion of the collective mentality with the personality causes hypertrophy of ego-consciousness, which in turn in the unconscious offset by feelings of inferiority and self-deprecation.

By assimilating the unconscious, we attach the collective mental to the area of ​​personal mental functions, where the personal sphere decomposed into a number of paired groups, combined in contrast, forming "pairs of opposites". We have already mentioned such a pair of opposites: delusions of grandeur = feelings of inferiority. This pair comes to light especially brightly in a neurosis. There are many other pairings in contrast; I will give only one thing: good and evil. ("Scientes bonum et malum!") The formation of such a pair is accompanied by an increase and decrease in self-confidence. The composition of the collective psyche, among other things, also includes the virtues and vices inherent in a single person. Here, too, people of the same type regard collective virtue as their personal merit; people of another type consider the collective vice as their personal fault. Both are delusions, just like megalomania or self-abasement. For imaginary virtues and imaginary vices are nothing but moral pairings in contrast, embedded in the collective psyche, made available to our sensations or artificially brought to awareness. To what extent these pairs of opposites are inherent in the collective psyche, we see in the example primitive people whose virtues are praised by some observers, while other observers are just as zealously condemned as vices. For primitive man, whose personal difference is, as we know, only in its infancy, both are true, for his mentality is predominantly of a collective nature. Primitive man is more or less identical with the collective psyche; therefore, he has collective virtues and vices that are not inherent in his personality as such and do not cause internal discord in him. Discord arises when the conscious and personal mental development and when the mind comes to the knowledge of the incompatibility of contradictory mental phenomena. And this causes a struggle associated with the process displacement. When a person wants to be good, he is forced to repress all evil; it could be called the lost paradise of the collective psyche.

As soon as the collective psyche becomes conscious, the process of repression begins; it is necessary for the development of the personality because collective psychology and personal psychology are in a sense mutually exclusive. History teaches us that as soon as any psychological attitude acquires a collective value, the process of split immediately begins. Nowhere is this more evident than in the history of religion. A collective attitude is always dangerous for the individual, even when it is necessary. It is dangerous because it too easily captures and drowns out personal originality. The collective attitude in general and always is capable of capturing and drowning out the individual, for the collective psyche is nothing but the product of the psychological differentiation of a powerful herd instinct in a person. Collective feeling, collective thinking and collective effort are relatively light compared to individual functions or individual efforts; this can easily lead to the dissolution of the individual in the collective, which is so dangerous for its development. The personal damage associated with such a process is unconsciously compensated, since in psychology everything is compensated by a violent fusion and unconscious identification with the collective psyche.

It must be constantly remembered that during the analysis of the unconscious, collective psychology merges with individual psychology; this merger leads to the distressing consequences discussed above. These effects are detrimental to the vital feelings of the subject himself, or else make those around the patient suffer if he has any power over them. The fact is that the subject, identifying his personal psyche with the collective psyche, will certainly impose on others the demands of his own unconscious, because identification with the collective psyche always evokes in the subject a feeling of universal significance (“likeness to God”); and such a feeling makes him simply disregard the psychology of his neighbors, with a psychology of a different kind.

We can avoid many serious mistakes if we clearly understand, first, that there are a wide variety of psychological types and that the psychology of these types cannot be forcibly forced into the framework of our own type. Absolute mutual understanding between individuals different types almost unthinkable; it is absolutely impossible to understand another individuality. Therefore, respect for another's personality during analysis is not only desirable, but absolutely necessary, otherwise the development of the analysand's personality can be completely stifled.

Let us also note that people of different types understand freedom in different ways: some think that they give freedom to their neighbors when they give them freedom. actions; others, when they allow their freedom thoughts. In analysis it is necessary to provide both, as this allows the analyst to create an atmosphere of immediacy and integrity. An exaggerated desire to understand or enlighten a patient can be just as detrimental as a complete lack of understanding. Analyzing the unconscious, we reveal the real existence of collective motives and forms of human thinking, its feelings and bring it to consciousness; but a conscious personality cannot fully assimilate the functions of the collective psyche without harm to itself. It follows from the foregoing that, in applying the psychoanalytic method, one should never lose sight of an extremely important goal, namely the individual development of the subject. If we perceive the collective psyche as our personal property - whether in a good or a bad way - then our personality will be subjected to such a temptation or oppression from which it is almost impossible to escape. Therefore, a precise distinction between the individual psyche and the collective psyche is urgently required in analysis. But it is not easy to draw such a sharp line, because everything individual grows out of the collective psyche and is closely connected with it. As a result, it is difficult to say which mental elements can be called collective and which individual. There is no doubt, for example, that archaic-symbolic manifestations, so often encountered in fantasies and dreams, belong to collective factors. All basic instincts and all fundamental forms of thought are also collective. Collectively, everything that people, by common agreement, recognized as universal, as well as that which is universally understood, expressed and carried out. Careful observation reveals what an enormous number of collective elements are hidden in our so-called individual psychology, and our surprise from this only increases. There are so many collective elements that the individual, so to speak, is completely immersed in them. But individuality is an absolute psychological necessity: therefore, in view of the vast predominance of the collective elements, it becomes clear to us how carefully and carefully we must deal with "individuality", this delicate sprout, so that the collective elements do not completely stifle it.

Man has the ability to imitate; this ability, from the point of view of the collective, is very useful; it harms the individual to no end. Collective psychology is absolutely unthinkable without imitation, because without imitation mass organizations are impossible, state and social order. In a certain sense, society is created not by force of law, but by the desire of people to imitate, as well as by suggestion and moral infection. We see daily how people use the mechanism of imitation, or rather, how they abuse it in order to differentiate the personality. To achieve this goal, people simply imitate some outstanding personality - her high quality or wonderful deeds; by this method people achieve an imaginary superiority over their environment. The consequence of this is, so to speak, punishment, which lies in the fact that the similarity of the subject's psyche with the mental of his environment, which exists in spite of everything, increases to an unconscious, but obsessive enslavement of the subject by the psychic of his environment, from which he wanted to stand out. Such an attempt at individual differentiation, falsified by imitation, usually fails and degenerates into affectation; a person remains at the same stage on which he stood before, and, moreover, becomes even more fruitless than before. In order to find out what, strictly speaking, is individual in us, it is necessary to reflect on this thoroughly; the fruit of such reflections may be the realization of how great the difficulties of discovering individuality in oneself.

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Assimilation is a psychological term that refers to one part of the adaptation process. The term assimilation was first introduced by Professor Jean Piaget.

In the process of assimilation, we take in new information or experiences and weave them into the ideas we already have. The process of assimilation is to some extent subjective, because we have a tendency to modify experience or information in such a way that it fits with the ideas, ideas, beliefs that we already have.

Assimilation plays an important role in how we explore the world around us.

AT early childhood Children are constantly assimilating new information and experiences into their existing knowledge of the world. However, this process does not stop during growth, it continues in adults. Faced with novelty and interpreting this experience, people constantly make small and large corrections to their existing ideas about the world around them.

Let's take a closer look at assimilation and its role in the learning process.

How does assimilation work?

Piaget believed that there are 2 main ways in which we adapt to new experiences and information. Assimilation is the easiest method because it doesn't require a lot of tweaking. Through this process, we add new information to the existing knowledge base, sometimes while reinterpreting this new experience in a way that fits with existing information.

For example, let's imagine that your neighbors have a daughter whom you have always perceived as sweet, polite and kind.

One day you look out the window and see this girl throwing a snowball at your car. You perceive this as something rude and unkind, not at all what you would expect from this girl. How do you interpret this new information? If you resort to the process of assimilation, you will not dwell on the girl's behavior, assuming that she did what she saw her classmates do and that she did not want to be impolite.

You will not radically revise your opinion about the girl, you will simply add new information to your existing knowledge. She is a kind girl, but now you know that she also has a "naughty" part of her personality.

If you applied Piaget's second method of adaptation, the girl's behavior would make you change your mind about her. This is a process that Piaget called accommodation, in which old ideas are replaced by new information.

Assimilation and accommodation work in tandem as part of the learning process. Some information is simply incorporated into existing schemas through the process of assimilation, and some information leads to the development of new schemas or completely transforms old ones through the process of accommodation.

More examples of assimilation

• A student studying the operation of a new computer program.
• A small child sees a new breed of dog that he has not seen before, and immediately points his finger at the animal and says "Dog!"
• A chef learning a new culinary technique.
• A programmer learning a new programming language.

In each of these examples, a person is adding new information to an existing schema. Therefore it is described as "assimilation". These people do not change or completely modify existing ideas, as accommodation would.

One of the attributes of adaptation, which can be considered within the framework of the development of human intelligence, is assimilation. This is a kind of conditional mechanism, thanks to which the individual has the opportunity to put into practice previously acquired skills, abilities, without subjecting them to a significant transformation. What is this mechanism and who introduced this concept into psychology, we will describe in more detail later.

Basic terms and concepts

The world learned about such a concept as assimilation thanks to Jean Piaget, who was the founder of the Center for Genetic Psychology in Geneva (1955). Being engaged in the development of his theory about the direction of the knowledge of nature in psychology (genetic epistemology), he first spoke about assimilation, using the term in the context of the manifestation of the adaptive abilities of an individual in a changing environment.

Along with the term "assimilation" in psychology, the designation of another process arose - (also thanks to the largest psychologist of our time, Jean Piaget). According to him, these processes are connected, and therefore the existence of one of them without the second is simply impossible.

According to the ideas of the scientist, assimilation is not only opposite to accommodation, but is also closely interconnected with it. Such a psychological connection ensures the harmonious existence of these two mechanisms in the human mind and is the realm of true intelligence. If we draw a parallel with biology, balancing assimilation and accommodation allows us to judge the cognitive person.

The views and theories that Professor J. Piaget once voiced regarding assimilation became very popular, which ensured their recognition in psychology. They are so firmly rooted in psychology that modern scientists do not question their validity.

At the same time, in order to find out the meaning of the word "assimilation" and get a more detailed interpretation of the term with psychological point vision, it is necessary to study the nature of the phenomenon in more depth.

Jean Piaget considered assimilative processes to be evidence for the existence of structures. In essence, this is a statement that the influence of the factors of the external environment of the individual can change the patterns of his behavior or influence them to the extent that the relationship of the individual with the existing structure is strong.

Assimilation, as one of the attributes that determine the adaptation of the individual, plays an important role in the study of the environment by a person. In the process of adapting to society, a person tends to acquire new information, skills and experience, assimilating which he gets the opportunity to realize his ideas. At the same time, the acquired information can be assimilated in order to correspond to already existing ideas and behaviors.

The most striking example of the existence of structures is children at an early age. Each child constantly absorbs new information and acquires new skills, adapting them to previously established ideas about the environment. But even in adulthood, such processes do not stop in our minds.

Meeting with previously unknown phenomena, objects or events, an adult interprets the experience. Thanks to this, he is able to modify his own ideas and knowledge about the world with assimilated data, constantly amending the base that was formed in the mind much earlier.

How the mechanisms work, according to the scientist (example)

According to Piaget's ideas, there are only two options that determine human adaptation processes. Let's look at each of them with an example.

Let's say your acquaintances have a daughter whom you considered the embodiment of "holiness". However, this girl commits a misdemeanor before your eyes, which (as you thought) she is not capable of. What will change in your mind? How will you apply the new information?

1st option. New information will be assimilated by your consciousness in such a way that you will not change your idea of ​​a girl and will not pay attention to her behavior. Instead, you will assume that she was only repeating the bad example of her more ill-mannered peers. As a result, you will still think that this girl is good, but you will already know about " dark side» her personality.

2nd option. Using the method of accommodation to process the information received, you will find the girl's behavior unacceptable and radically change your opinion about the child. So, during accommodation, opposite processes occur that do not allow information to be assimilated, as a result, not the acquired experience changes, but previously formed ideas.

As you can see, assimilation is the easiest way for an individual to adapt to something new, which is due to the ease of adding new information to existing knowledge. And the information that will be assimilated by a person will sometimes allow him to consider new ideas from a perspective that would maximally correspond to the already existing ideas of the subject. Author: Elena Suvorova

Accommodation (from lat. accomodato - adaptation to ch.-l.) - in the concept of intelligence by J. Piaget - property, side of the process adaptation.

Content Accommodations, according to Piaget, is the adaptation of behavior patterns to a situation that requires certain forms of activity from the body. Piaget emphasizes the fundamental unity of biological and cognitive accommodation, the essence of which is the process of adaptation to the various requirements put forward to the individual by the objective world. Accommodation is inseparable from assimilation, together with which they are constant attributes of any act of adaptation. [Big Psychological Dictionary]

Assimilation(from lat.assimilatio - fusion, assimilation, assimilation) - in the concept of the development of intelligence by J. Piaget - an attribute, an aspect of adaptation. The content of Assimilation is the assimilation of certain material by already existing patterns of behavior, "pulling up" real event to the cognitive structures of the individual.

According to Piaget, cognitive assimilation does not fundamentally differ from biological assimilation. Assimilation is inseparable from accommodation in any act of adaptation, adaptation. In the early stages of development, any mental operation is a compromise between 2 tendencies: assimilation and accommodation. Piaget calls primary assimilation "deforming", because when a new object meets an existing scheme, its features are distorted, and the scheme changes as a result of accommodation. Antagonism of assimilation and accommodation generates irreversibility of thought . When assimilation and accommodation begin to complement each other, the child's thinking changes. The transition to objectivity, reciprocity, relativity is based on the progressive interaction of assimilation and accommodation. When harmony is established between 2 tendencies, reversibility of thought , release from egocentrism . Any logical contradiction, according to Piaget, is the result of a genetically existing conflict between accommodation and assimilation, and such a situation is biologically inevitable.

Examples: Assimilation is a biological concept. Digesting food, the body assimilates the environment; it means that environment obeys the internal structure, but does not change it. A sparrow that pecks at seeds will not become a seed; it is the seed that becomes the sparrow. This is assimilation. The same for psychological level. No matter what the stimulus is, it integrates with internal structures.

Accommodation - for example, an infant who has just discovered that he can grasp what he sees. From that moment on, everything he sees is assimilated according to grasping patterns, i.e. the object becomes an object of grasping just as much as an object of looking or sucking. But if it is a large object, then the child needs both hands, and if it is very small, the child must move the fingers of only one hand to grasp it. This changes the grip pattern. He will change his regulation. This is what is called "accommodation" - the adaptation of the schema to specific conditions.

Accommodation is determined by the object, while assimilation is determined by the subject. But, there is no accommodation without assimilation, because it is always an accommodation to something that will be assimilated along one pattern or another.