Self-consciousness of the individual and her life path. Chapter xx. self-consciousness of the individual and her life path Self-consciousness of the individual and her life path

Rubinshtein S.L.

A psychology that is more than a field for the leisurely exercise of learned bookworms, a psychology that is worth man's giving his life and strength to it, cannot confine itself to the abstract study of individual functions; it must, passing through the study of functions, processes, etc., ultimately lead to a real knowledge of real life, living people.

The true meaning of the path we have traversed lies in the fact that it was nothing more than a step-by-step paved path for our cognitive penetration into the mental life of the individual. Psychophysiological functions were included in various mental processes. The mental processes that were first subjected to analytical study, being in reality aspects, moments of concrete activity in which they are actually formed and manifested, were included in this latter; in accordance with this, the study of mental processes passed into the study of activity - in that specific ratio, which is determined by the conditions of its actual implementation. The study of the psychology of activity, which always really proceeds from the individual as the subject of this activity, was, in essence, the study of the psychology of the individual in his activity - his motives (motives), goals, tasks. Therefore, the study of the psychology of activity naturally and naturally turns into the study of personality traits - its attitudes, abilities, character traits that are manifested and formed in activity. Thus, the whole variety of mental phenomena - functions, processes, mental properties of activity - enters into the personality and closes in its unity.

Precisely because any activity proceeds from the personality as its subject and, thus, at each given stage, the personality is the initial, initial one, the psychology of the personality as a whole can only be the result, the completion of the entire path traversed by psychological knowledge, covering the whole variety of mental manifestations, consistently revealed in it by psychological knowledge in their integrity and unity. Therefore, in any attempt to begin the construction of psychology with the doctrine of personality, any concrete psychological content inevitably falls out of it; personality appears psychologically as an empty abstraction. Due to the impossibility of revealing its mental content at first, it is replaced by the biological characteristics of the organism, metaphysical reasoning about the subject, spirit, etc. or social analysis of the individual, whose social nature is psychologized in this case.

However great the importance of the problem of personality in psychology, the personality as a whole cannot in any way be included in this science. Such a psychologization of personality is unjustified. Personality is not identical with either consciousness or self-consciousness. Analyzing the mistakes of Hegel's "Phenomenology of the Spirit", K. Marx notes among the main ones that for Hegel the subject is always consciousness or self-consciousness. Of course, it is not the metaphysics of German idealism - I. Kant, J. Fichte and G. Hegel - that should form the basis of our psychology. Personality, the subject is not "pure consciousness" (Kant and the Kantians), not always equal to itself "I" ("I + I" - Fichte) and not a self-developing "spirit" (Hegel); it is a concrete, historical, living individual, included in real relations to the real world. Essential, determining, leading for a person as a whole are not biological, but social patterns of his development. The task of psychology is to study the psyche, consciousness and self-consciousness of the individual, but the essence of the matter is that it should study them precisely as the psyche and consciousness of "real living individuals" in their real conditioning.

But if a personality is irreducible to its consciousness and self-consciousness, then it is impossible without them. A person is a personality only insofar as he distinguishes himself from nature, and his relation to nature and to other people is given to him as a relation, i.e. because he has consciousness. The process of becoming, the human personality, therefore, includes as an integral component the formation of his consciousness and self-consciousness: this is the process of development of a conscious personality. If any interpretation of consciousness outside the personality can only be idealistic, then any interpretation of personality that does not include its consciousness and self-consciousness can only be mechanistic. Without consciousness and self-consciousness there is no personality. A person as a conscious subject is aware not only of the environment, but also of himself in his relations with the environment. If it is impossible to reduce the personality to its self-consciousness, to the "I", then it is also impossible to separate one from the other. Therefore, the last final question that confronts us in terms of the psychological study of the personality is the question of its self-consciousness, of the personality as "I", which, as a subject, consciously appropriates everything that a person does, refers to itself all the deeds emanating from him. and actions and consciously takes responsibility for them as their author and creator. The problem of the psychological study of the personality does not end with the study of the mental properties of the personality - its abilities, temperament and character; it ends with the disclosure of the self-consciousness of the individual.

First of all, this unity of the personality as a conscious subject with self-consciousness is not a primordial given. It is known that the child does not immediately recognize himself as "I": during the first years he himself very often calls himself by name, as those around him call him; he exists at first, even for himself, rather as an object for other people than as an independent subject in relation to them. Awareness of oneself as "I" is thus the result of development. At the same time, the development of self-consciousness in a person takes place in the very process of the formation and development of the independence of the individual as a real subject of activity. Self-consciousness is not externally built over the personality, but is included in it; self-consciousness therefore does not have an independent path of development, separate from the development of the personality, it is included in this process of development of the personality as a real subject as its moment, side, component.

The unity of the organism and the independence of its organic life are the first material prerequisite for the unity of the personality, but this is only a prerequisite. And accordingly, the elementary mental states of general organic sensitivity ("senesthesia"), associated with organic functions, are obviously a prerequisite for the unity of self-consciousness, since the clinic has shown that elementary, gross violations of the unity of consciousness in pathological cases of the so-called split or disintegration of the personality (depersonalization ) are associated with violations of organic sensitivity. But this reflection of the unity of organic life in a common organic sensitivity is only a prerequisite for the development of self-consciousness, and by no means its source. The source of self-consciousness does not have to be looked for in the "relationships of the organism with itself", expressed in reflex acts that serve to regulate its functions (in which, for example, P. Janet looks for them). The true source and driving forces of the development of self-consciousness must be sought in the growing real independence of the individual, expressed in a change in his relationship with others.

It is not consciousness that is born from self-consciousness, from the "I", but self-consciousness arises in the course of the development of the consciousness of the individual, as it becomes an independent subject. Before becoming the subject of practical and theoretical activity, the "I" itself is formed in it. The real, not mystified history of the development of self-consciousness is inextricably linked with the real development of the individual and the main events of her life path.

The first stage in the formation of personality as an independent subject, standing out from the environment, is associated with the mastery of one's own body, with the emergence of voluntary movements. These latter are developed in the process of formation of the first objective actions.

The next step on the same path is the beginning of walking, independent movement. And in this second case, as in the first case, what is significant is not so much the technique of this matter itself, but rather the change in the relationship of the individual with the people around him, to which the possibility of independent movement leads, as well as independent mastery of the object through grasping movements. One, like the other, one together with the other gives rise to a certain independence of the child in relation to other people. The child really begins to become a relatively independent subject of various actions, really standing out from the environment. With the realization of this objective fact, the emergence of the self-consciousness of the individual, the first idea of her about her "I" is connected. At the same time, a person realizes his independence, his isolation from the environment only through his relations with the people around him, and he comes to self-consciousness, to the knowledge of his own "I" through the knowledge of other people. There is no "I" outside the relationship to "you", and there is no self-consciousness outside the awareness of another person as an independent subject. Self-consciousness is a relatively late product of the development of consciousness, assuming as its basis the child's becoming a practical subject, consciously separating himself from his environment.

An essential link in a number of major events in the history of the formation of self-consciousness is the mastery of speech, which is a form of existence of thinking and consciousness as a whole. Playing a significant role in the development of the child's consciousness, speech at the same time significantly increases the effective possibilities of the child, changing his relationship with others. Instead of being the object of the actions of the surrounding adults directed at him, the child, mastering speech, acquires the ability to direct the actions of the people around him at will and through other people to influence the world. All these changes in the child's behavior and in his relationships with others give rise, being realized, to changes in his consciousness, and changes in his consciousness, in turn, lead to a change in his behavior and his internal attitude towards other people.

The question of whether an individual is a subject with a developed self-consciousness and distinguishes himself from the environment, is aware of his attitude towards him as an attitude, cannot be solved metaphysically. There are a number of stages in the development of personality and its self-awareness. In a number of external events in the life of a person, this includes everything that makes a person an independent subject of public and personal life: from the ability to self-service to the start of labor activity, which makes him financially independent. Each of these external events has its own internal side; an objective, external, change in the relationship of a person with others, reflected in his consciousness, changes the internal, mental state of a person, rebuilds his consciousness, his internal attitude both to other people and to himself.

However, these external events and the internal changes that they cause do not exhaust the process of formation and development of the personality.

The independence of the subject is by no means limited to the ability to perform certain tasks. It includes a more significant ability to independently, consciously set certain tasks, goals, and determine the direction of one's activity. This requires a lot of inner work, involves the ability to think independently and is associated with the development of an integral worldview. Only in a teenager, in a young man, this work is done: critical thinking is developed, a worldview is formed, since the approach of the time of entry into an independent life with particular acuteness raises the question of what he is suitable for, for which he has special inclinations and abilities; this makes one think more seriously about oneself and leads to a noticeable development in the adolescent and youth of self-consciousness. The development of self-consciousness goes through a series of steps - from naive ignorance of oneself to more and more in-depth self-knowledge, which is then combined with more and more definite and sometimes sharply fluctuating self-esteem. In the process of developing self-consciousness, the center of gravity for the adolescent is increasingly shifted from the external side of the personality to its internal side, from more or less random traits to the character as a whole. Associated with this is the awareness - sometimes exaggerated - of one's originality and the transition to the spiritual, ideological scales of self-esteem. As a result, a person defines himself as a person at a higher level.

At these higher stages of the development of the personality and its self-consciousness, individual differences are especially significant. Every person is a person, a conscious subject, possessing and known self-consciousness; but not in every person those qualities of him, by virtue of which he is recognized by us as a personality, are presented in equal measure, with the same brightness and strength. With some people, it is this impression that in this person we are dealing with a person in some special sense of the word that dominates everything else. We will not confuse this impression even with that very close, it would seem, feeling to him, which we usually express when we say of a person that he is an individuality. "Individuality" - we are talking about a bright person, i.e. distinguished by a well-known peculiarity. But when we specifically emphasize that a given person is a person, this means something more and different. A person in the specific sense of the word is a person who has his own positions, his own pronounced conscious attitude to life, a worldview, to which he came as a result of great conscious work. The personality has its own face. Such a person does not just stand out in the impression he makes on another; he consciously separates himself from the environment. In its highest manifestations, this presupposes a certain independence of thought, non-banality of feeling, willpower, some kind of composure and inner passion. At the same time, in any significant personality there is always some departure from reality, but one that leads to a deeper penetration into it. The depth and richness of a person presupposes the depth and richness of her connections with the world, with other people; the rupture of these ties, self-isolation devastates her. But a person is not a being who has simply grown into the environment; a person is only a person who is able to distinguish himself from his environment in order to contact him in a new, purely selective way. A person is only a person who relates in a certain way to the environment, consciously establishes this attitude in such a way that it is revealed in his entire being.

A true personality, by the certainty of his attitude to the main phenomena of life, makes others self-determine. A person who has a personality is seldom treated with indifference, just as he himself is not treated with indifference to others; he is loved or hated; he always has enemies and there are real friends. No matter how peacefully outwardly the life of such a person flows, internally there is always something active, offensively affirming in him.

Be that as it may, each person, being a conscious social being, the subject of practice, history, is thus a person. By defining his attitude towards other people, he defines himself. This conscious self-determination is expressed in his self-consciousness. Personality in its real existence, in its self-consciousness is what a person, realizing himself as a subject, calls his "I". "I" is a person as a whole, in the unity of all aspects of being, reflected in self-consciousness. The radical-idealistic currents of psychology usually reduce the personality to self-consciousness. W. James built on the subject's self-consciousness as a spiritual personality over a physical and social personality. In reality, the personality is not reduced to self-consciousness, and the spiritual personality is not built on top of the physical and social. There is only one person - a man of flesh and blood, who is a conscious social being. As "I" he acts, because with the development of self-consciousness he realizes himself as a subject of practical and theoretical activity.

A person relates his body to his personality, since he takes possession of it and the organs become the first instruments of influence on the world. Being formed on the basis of the unity of the organism, the personality of this body appropriates it to itself, relates it to its "I", insofar as it masters it, masters it. A person more or less firmly and closely connects his personality with a certain external appearance, since it contains expressive moments and reflects the way of his life and style of activity. Therefore, although both the body of a person and his consciousness are included in the personality, it is by no means necessary to speak (as James did) about the physical personality and the spiritual personality, since the inclusion of the body in the personality or attributing it to it is based precisely on the relationship between the physical and spiritual side of personality. To a lesser, if not more, degree, this applies to the spiritual side of the personality; there is no special spiritual personality in the form of some pure incorporeal spirit; it is an independent subject only because, being a material being, it is capable of exerting a material influence on the environment. Thus, the physical and the spiritual are aspects that enter the personality only in their unity and internal interconnection.

To his "I" a person, to an even greater extent than his body, refers the internal mental content. But not all of it he equally includes in his own personality. From the mental sphere, a person refers to his "I" mainly his abilities and especially his character and temperament - those personality traits that determine his behavior, giving it originality. In a very broad sense, everything experienced by a person, all the mental content of his life, is part of the personality. But in his more specific sense, relating to his "I", a person does not recognize everything that is reflected in his psyche, but only what he experienced in the specific sense of the word, entering the history of his inner life. Not every thought that has visited his mind, a person equally recognizes as his own, but only one that he did not accept in finished form, but mastered, thought through, i.e. one that was the result of his own activities.

In the same way, not every feeling that has fleetingly touched his heart, a person equally recognizes as his own, but only one that determined his life and work. But all this - thoughts, feelings, and in the same way desires - a person for the most part, at best, recognizes as his own, but in his own "I" he will include only the properties of his personality - his character and temperament, his abilities, and will add to them he is perhaps a thought to which he gave all his strength, and feelings with which his whole life has grown together.

A real person who, reflected in his self-consciousness, is aware of himself as "I", as the subject of his activity, is a social being included in social relations and performing certain social functions. The real existence of a person is essentially determined by his social role: therefore, reflected in self-consciousness, this social role is also included by a person in his "I".<...>

This attitude of the individual is also reflected in the psychological literature. Having asked the question of what includes the personality of a person, W. James noted that the personality of a person is the total sum of everything that he can call his own. In other words: a man is what he has; his property is his essence, his property absorbs his personality.<...>

In a certain sense, we can, of course, say that it is difficult to draw a line between what a person calls himself and some of what he considers his own. What a person considers his own, to a large extent determines what he himself is. But only this proposition acquires for us a different and in some respects opposite meaning. A person considers his own not so much the things that he appropriated to himself, but rather the cause to which he gave himself, the social whole in which he included himself. A person considers his area of work to be his, he considers his homeland to be his, he considers her interests, the interests of mankind to be his: they are his, because he is theirs.

For us, a person is defined primarily not by his relationship to his property, but by his relationship to his work.<...>Therefore, his self-esteem is determined by what he, as a social individual, does for society. This conscious, social attitude to work is the pivot on which the entire psychology of the individual is rebuilt; it also becomes the basis and core of its self-consciousness.

Self-consciousness of a person, reflecting the real being of a person, does this - like consciousness in general - not passively, not a mirror image. A person's idea of himself, even of his own mental properties and qualities, does not always adequately reflect them; the motives that a person puts forward, justifying his behavior to other people and to himself, even when he strives to correctly understand his motives and is subjectively quite sincere, by no means always objectively reflect his motives, which really determine his actions. Human self-consciousness is not given directly in experiences, it is the result of cognition, which requires awareness of the real conditionality of one's experiences. It may be more or less adequate. Self-awareness, including one or another attitude towards oneself, is closely related to self-esteem. A person's self-esteem is essentially conditioned by the worldview that determines the norms of evaluation.

Human consciousness is generally not only theoretical, cognitive, but also moral consciousness. It has its roots in the social being of the individual. It receives its psychologically real expression in the inner meaning that everything that happens around him and by himself acquires for man.

Self-consciousness is not an initial given inherent in a person, but a product of development; at the same time, self-consciousness does not have its own line of development separate from the personality, but is included as a side in the process of its real development. In the course of this development, as a person acquires life experience, not only new aspects of being open up before him, but also a more or less profound rethinking of life takes place. This process of its rethinking, passing through the whole life of a person, forms the most intimate and basic content of his being, determines the motives of his actions and the inner meaning of the tasks that he solves in life. The ability, developed in the course of life in some people, to comprehend life on a grand scale and recognize what is truly significant in it, the ability not only to find means for solving problems that have accidentally popped up, but also to determine the tasks themselves and the purpose of life in such a way that they truly to know where in life to go and why is something infinitely superior to any scholarship, even if it has a large stock of special knowledge, this precious and rare property is wisdom.

Personal life path

As we have seen, a person is not born as a personality; he becomes a person. This development of the personality is essentially different from the development of the organism, which takes place in the process of simple organic maturation. The essence of the human personality finds its final expression in the fact that it not only develops like any organism, but also has its own history.

Unlike other living beings, humanity has a history, and not just repetitive cycles of development, because the activities of people, changing reality, are objectified in the products of material and spiritual culture, which are transmitted from generation to generation. Through them, a succession is created between generations, thanks to which subsequent generations do not repeat, but continue the work of the previous ones and rely on what their predecessors have done, even when they come into conflict with them.

What applies to humanity as a whole cannot but apply in a certain sense to each individual. Not only humanity, but every person is to some extent a participant and subject of the history of mankind and in a certain sense he himself has a history. Every person has his own history, since the development of the individual is mediated by the result of his activity, just as the development of mankind is mediated by the products of social practice, through which the historical continuity of generations is established. Therefore, in order to understand the path of one's development in its true human essence, a person must consider it in a certain aspect: what was I? - What I've done? – what have I become? It would be wrong to think that in one's deeds, in the products of one's activity, one's labor, a person only reveals himself, being already ready before and apart from them and remaining the same after them as he was. A person who has done something significant becomes, in a certain sense, a different person. Of course, it is also correct that in order to do something significant, you need to have some kind of internal capabilities for this. However, these possibilities and potentialities of a person stall and die if they are not realized; only to the extent that a person is objectively realized in the products of his labor does he grow and form through them. Between the personality and the products of its labor, between what it is and what it has done, there is a peculiar dialectic. It is not at all necessary that a person exhaust himself in the work that he has done; on the contrary, people about whom we feel that they have exhausted themselves by what they have done usually lose purely personal interest for us. At the same time, when we see that no matter how much a person has invested himself in what he has done, he has not exhausted himself with what he has done, we feel that a living person is behind the deed, whose personality is of particular interest. Such people have an internally freer attitude towards their work, towards the products of their activity; without exhausting themselves in them, they retain inner strength and opportunities for new achievements.

The point, then, is not to reduce the history of human life to a series of external affairs. Least of all, such a reduction is acceptable for psychology, for which the inner mental content and mental development of the personality are essential; but the essence of the matter is that the very mental development of the personality is mediated by its practical and theoretical activity, its deeds. The line from what a man was at one stage of his history to what he became at the next runs through what he has done. In the activity of a person, in his deeds, practical and theoretical, the mental, spiritual development of a person is not only manifested, but also accomplished.

This is the key to understanding the development of personality - how it is formed, making its life path. Her psychic abilities are not only a prerequisite, but also the result of her actions and deeds. In them, it is not only revealed, but also formed. The thought of a scientist is formed as he formulates it in his works, the thought of a public, political figure - in his deeds. If his deeds are born from his thoughts, plans, plans, then his thoughts themselves are generated by his deeds. The consciousness of a historical figure is formed and developed as an awareness of what happens through him and with his participation, like when a sculptor’s chisel carves a human image from a block of stone, it determines not only the features of the depicted, but also the artistic face of the sculptor himself. The artist's style is an expression of his individuality, but his very individuality as an artist is formed in his work on the style of his works. The character of a person is manifested in his actions, but in his actions he is formed; the character of a person is both a prerequisite and the result of his real behavior in specific life situations; conditioning his behavior, he is in the same behavior and develops. A bold man acts boldly and a noble man behaves noblely; but, in order to become brave, you need to do bold deeds in your life, and to become truly noble, you need to commit deeds that would put this seal of nobility on a person. A disciplined person usually behaves in a disciplined manner, but how does one become disciplined? Only by subordinating your behavior from day to day, from hour to hour, to unswerving discipline.

In the same way, in order to master the heights of science and art, certain abilities are needed, of course. But, being realized in some activity, abilities are not only revealed in it; they are formed and developed in it. Between the abilities of a person and the products of his activity, his labor, there is a profound relationship and the closest interaction. A person's abilities develop and work out on what he does. The practice of life provides at every step the richest factual material, testifying to how people's abilities are developed and developed at work, in study and work.<...>

For a person, his biography, a kind of history of his "life path" is not an accidental, external and psychologically indifferent circumstance. It is not for nothing that a person’s biography includes, first of all, where and what he studied, where and how he worked, what he did, his works. This means that the history of a person, which should characterize him, includes, first of all, what he mastered in the course of education from the results of the previous historical development of mankind and what he himself did for its further advancement - how he was included in the succession of historical development.

In those cases when, being included in the history of mankind, an individual performs historical deeds, i.e. affairs that are included not only in his personal history, but also in the history of society - in the history of science itself, and not only the scientific education and mental development of a given person, in the history of art, and not only the aesthetic education and development of a given personality, etc. — she becomes a historical personality in the proper sense of the word. But every person, every human personality has its own history. Every person has a history insofar as he is included in the history of mankind. It can even be said that a person is only a person insofar as he has his own history. In the course of this individual history, there are also "events" - key moments and turning points in the individual's life path, when a person's life path is determined by the adoption of one or another decision for a more or less long period.

At the same time, everything that a person does is mediated by his attitude towards other people and therefore is saturated with social human content. In this regard, the things that a person does usually outgrow him, since they are public affairs. But at the same time, a person outgrows his business, since his consciousness is a social consciousness. It is determined not only by the attitude of a person to the products of his own activity, it is formed by the attitude to all areas of historically developing human practice, human culture. Through the medium of the objective products of his labor and creativity, man becomes a man, because through the products of his labor, through everything that he does, man always relates to man.

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Behind every theory there is always some ideology in the end; Behind every psychological theory there is some general conception of man, which receives in it a more or less specialized refraction. Thus, a certain concept of the human personality stood behind traditional, purely contemplative, intellectualized psychology, in particular, associative psychology, which depicted mental life as a smooth flow of ideas, as a process flowing entirely in one plane, regulated by the linkage of associations, like an uninterruptedly working machine in which all parts attached to each other; and in exactly the same way, its own conception of man as a machine, or rather, an appendage to a machine, lies at the basis of behavioral psychology.

Its own concept of the human personality is behind all the constructions of our psychology. This is a real living person of flesh and blood; internal contradictions are not alien to him, he has not only sensations, ideas, thoughts, but also needs and drives; there are conflicts in his life. But the sphere and the real significance of the higher levels of consciousness are expanding and strengthening in him. These higher levels of conscious life are not externally built on top of the lower ones; they penetrate deeper and deeper into them and rebuild them; human needs are increasingly becoming truly human needs; without losing anything in their natural naturalness, they themselves, and not just the ideal manifestations of man built on top of them, are increasingly turning into manifestations of the historical, social, truly human essence of man.

This development of man's consciousness, its growth and its rooting in him, take place in the process of man's real activity. Consciousness of a person is inextricably linked with reality, and efficiency - with consciousness. Only due to the fact that a person, driven by his needs and interests, objectively objectively generates ever new and more and more perfect products of his labor, in which he objectifies himself, all new areas, all higher levels of consciousness are formed and developed in him. Through the products of his labor and his creativity, which are always products of social labor and social creativity, since man himself is a social being, a conscious personality develops, its conscious life expands and strengthens. It is also a whole psychological concept in a folded form. Behind it, as its real prototype, emerges the image of a human creator who, by changing nature and rebuilding society, changes his own nature, who in his social practice, generating new social relations and in collective labor creating a new culture, forges a new, truly human the shape of a person.

Rubinshtein S.L. A psychology that is something more than a field for the leisurely exercise of learned bookworms, a psychology that is worth man's giving his life and strength to it, cannot confine itself to the abstract study of individual

Self-awareness of the individual and her life path

Rubinshtein S.L.

However, these external events and the internal changes that they cause do not exhaust the process of formation and development of the personality.

Personal life path

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Bibliography

For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://www.i-u.ru/

conceptself-awareness. Components of self-awareness. I am the concept of personality.

People differ from everything else that is created on the planet Earth by the most important property - self-consciousness. The presence of self-awareness is a prerequisite for a formed personality. The animal does not distinguish itself from its life activity, it forms one inseparable whole with it. The animal, as it were, lives "along with life", not noticing it: it sleeps, eats, runs away from danger. Everything is driven by the instinct of survival in the environment. Man, on the other hand, subordinates his life activity to his own will and consciousness. He singles himself out from the environment, subjectively experiences the factor of time, his past and present, and can imagine his future.

Self-consciousness allows a person not only to reflect the external world, but also to determine his place in it, to transform the external world into his own microcosm. Self-consciousness allows a person to relate to himself in one way or another, evaluate his actions, understand the motives and results of his actions.

Self-consciousness is a system of a person's ideas about himself, on the basis of which he builds his interaction with other people and treats himself accordingly.

In other words, self-consciousness is an image of oneself and an attitude towards oneself. It is not an innate given, but a product of human development.

The main source of the formation of self-awareness is the generalization of a person's knowledge about other people, the comparison of their life experience with their position in public, work and personal life.

Acquiring in the process of development the ability to immerse himself in himself, in his experiences, a person opens his inner world, his own "I".

"I" - this is the result of self-consciousness or selection by a person of himself from the environment.

Self-image includes three main components:

informative- self-awareness of oneself;

emotional - self-esteem;

behavioral - self-regulation of their behavior.

All three components act simultaneously and are interconnected, causing a holistic view of oneself, of the I-image.

The components of the I-image are:

- real me - representation of the individual about himself at the present time;

- perfect me- what the individual, in his opinion, should become, focusing on moral standards.

The discrepancy between the I-real and I-ideal can lead to both positive and negative consequences, can become a source of serious intrapersonal conflicts and, conversely, a source of self-improvement of the individual. An unfavorable "I-concept" (weak self-confidence, fear of rejection, low self-esteem) leads to the following behavioral disorders:

Decreased self-esteem and, as a result, social degradation, aggressiveness and crime;

The appearance of conformist (adaptive) reactions in difficult situations - people are easily influenced by others, drawn into criminal acts;

Profound changes in perception - people with negative self-esteem are poorly aware that they are doing good deeds, because they consider themselves incapable of them.

Self-awareness, depending on the goals and objectives facing a person, can manifest itself in the form of self-knowledge, self-esteem, self-control and self-acceptance.

self-knowledge- a complex process of studying by the individual himself, his capabilities. To know oneself without doing anything and without communicating with anyone is impossible. The mechanism of self-knowledge includes identification and reflection.

With the help of identification (lat. identificar - to identify), the individual ascribes to himself, transfers to himself the characteristics of other people on the basis of accepting their values and norms. He also comprehends and penetrates the experiences of another person, putting himself in his place and at the same time showing a willingness to emotionally respond to his problems.

Reflection (lat. reflexio - turned back, reflection) - self-knowledge by the individual of his internal mental states. It characterizes the ability of consciousness to focus on itself.

Self-esteem not only makes it possible to see the "I", but also to see him with his past and future. Self-esteem allows a person to understand the roots of his strengths and weaknesses, to find and use more adequate models of his behavior in various situations.

American psychologist W. James proposed a formula for self-esteem.

Success is the fact of achieving certain results. The level of claims is the level that an individual seeks to achieve in various areas of life (career, status, etc.). Self-esteem can be increased either by reducing the level of claims, or by increasing success - the results of one's activities. Self-esteem can be overpriced, adequate and underestimated.

At inflated self-esteem human:

Acquires a superiority complex;

Has an idealized idea of himself, his abilities and capabilities;

Becomes "mentally ill";

Easily acquires traits such as arrogance, arrogance, striving for superiority, rudeness, aggressiveness, etc.

At low self-esteem human:

Unsure of himself, indecisive, overly cautious;

In dire need of support;

Easily influenced by other people;

Suffering from an "inferiority complex";

Bored, annoys others with trifles, which leads to conflicts.

The attitude of others has the greatest influence on self-esteem. After all, self-esteem is formed by constantly comparing yourself with other people.

Self-esteem is also related to self-esteem. Each of us must see ourselves from the outside: who am I; what others expect from me; where our interests coincide and diverge.

Self-esteem is directly related to self-regulation. Self-regulation (Latin regular - to put in order, adjust) is a systemic impact of an individual on his psyche in order to change its characteristics in the desired direction.

I-personality concept. AT The first 20 years of each person's life play a special role, when a system of ideas about oneself, about one's own personality - ideas united by the concept of "I-concept" develops. Studying these problems, scientists are inevitably faced with the need to study in detail the question of the influence of the self-concept on the behavior of the individual. The environment has a significant impact on the formation of both positive and negative self-concepts. Parents, teachers, peers provide feedback that forms a person's ideas about their own importance or uselessness.

In our opinion, the most convincing version of the self-concept belongs to one of the leading English psychologists, Robert Burns. In accordance with it, the self-concept is formed in the course of individual development with the formation and growth of a person and is laid down at the first stage, which lasts from birth to 18 months. During this period, the child gain confidence in the environment. In an environment conducive to trust, the individual feels that he is loved, that he is always ready to accept. The second stage of an individual's development lasts from one and a half to three to four years. The child begins to say "I" about himself, to recognize himself in the mirror and in photographs of himself, to understand his needs and desires. He seeks to express himself through his own actions ("I myself!"). Related to this is the so-called crisis of three years.

The third stage of development begins at about 4 years of age. At this time, the child has the first ideas about what kind of person he can become, determines the boundaries of what is permitted. He already feels more confident, as he can move freely, speaks enough to ask questions.

The reaction of parents to the behavior of the child is very important. The main danger of this period is the possibility of the child feeling guilty for his curiosity and activity, which can suppress the sense of initiative.

At the age of 6-7, another significant shift in self-awareness takes place - the child begins to look at himself as if from the outside, to imagine how he looks in the eyes of others. This period is called "crisis of immediacy".

The fourth stage covers school years. During this period, the child tries to win recognition and earn approval by carrying out a variety of activities.

Although the basis of the self-concept is laid at preschool age, the self-image of students still retains to a large extent flexibility and mobility, thanks to which the teacher can change it, if necessary, in a positive direction.

A significant shift in the development of self-awareness occurs in adolescence and youth. A person begins to purposefully think about himself, to ask himself the questions “Who am I?”, “What am I?”, “Who should I be?”, “What should I be?”, “What is the meaning of my life?”, “Can I respect yourself and why?", i.e. think of yourself as a person. It is no coincidence that adolescence and youthful age is called the age of the second birth of a person.

The main functions of self-consciousness are self-knowledge, self-improvement and the search for the meaning of life. The search for the meaning of life is one of the most important functions of self-consciousness, but it is possible in adulthood. In youth, there are many spontaneously arising motives, and, first of all, you need to plunge into life, go through some of its stages, so that inner work begins to comprehend your own life.

The specificity of a person’s conscious way of life lies in his ability to separate his “I” from his life environment in the representation of himself, to make his inner world the subject of reflection and understanding. This process is called the formation human self-awareness.

There are several points of view regarding the formation of human self-consciousness.

1. Self-consciousness is the original, genetically primary form of human consciousness. Supporters of this concept argue that on the basis of primary self-sensitivity (self-perception) there is a synthesis of two different systems of ideas about oneself as "I" and about everything else as "not-I". Thus, the feeling of "I" exists as something completely autonomous from the processes of perception by the psyche of external (for it) facts.

2. Self-consciousness is the highest kind of consciousness that arises as a result of the previous development of consciousness (the point of view of S. L. Rubinshtein). This concept is built on the assumption of an exclusively external orientation of our psyche at the very first stage of its development, and only at some point a person is able to perceive himself. Reflection of the outside world is a universal channel of socialization, a defining aspect of consciousness.

3. Consciousness of the external world and self-consciousness arose and developed simultaneously, uniformly and interdependently (IM Sechenov). The prerequisites for self-consciousness are laid down in the so-called "systemic feelings", which are of a psychosomatic nature. Moreover, the first half of the "feelings" correspond to the objects of the external world, the second - to the body's own states - self-perceptions. As “objective sensations” are combined, a person’s idea of the external world is formed, and as a result of the synthesis of self-perceptions, an idea of himself, i.e. the emerging consciousness reflects its carrier and mental reactions as one of the sides of this interaction. The accumulating pole of the psyche becomes the basis for the formation of individual self-consciousness.

self-awareness - a conscious attitude of a person to his needs and abilities, inclinations and motives of behavior, experiences and thoughts.

Self-consciousness is expressed in a person's emotional and semantic assessment of his subjective capabilities, which serves as the basis for the expediency of actions and deeds. Being involved in the activity, the individual becomes the object of social assessment - as satisfying or not satisfying its technological requirements. A person turns into a condition for the realization (actualization) of himself. The “I”, considered by the actor as a condition for self-realization, acquires a personal meaning. The meaning of "I", thus, is the unit of self-consciousness. As a unit of self-consciousness, the meaning of "I" contains cognitive, emotional and relational components, it is associated with the activity of the subject that occurs outside of consciousness, i.e. his social activities. Self-consciousness allows a person to reveal his social value and the meaning of his being, forms and changes ideas about his future, past and present (V. V. Stolin). At the individual level, the meaning of "I" is partially identical to self-esteem.

Self-esteem (sometimes: self-attitude, subjective attitude towards oneself, self-concept) - a stable structural formation endowed with a personality to indicate its own value and significance and influencing its development, activity and behavior.

A person's self-esteem is formed on the basis of assessments by those around him of his activities, the ratio of the real and ideal self-image. From the point of view of T. Shibutani, each person places himself as an object inside his symbolic environment. A person's idea of himself is not a direct reflection of what he is or what he does. A person comprehends himself with the help of linguistic categories and the general premises of his culture. SL Rubinshtein emphasized that "my attitude towards myself is mediated by the attitude of another towards me." Empirically in a person's life, the attitude of other people towards him determines his attitude towards them.

The incentive-constructive role of positive self-esteem is associated with the formation of important socio-psychological qualities in a person that have a strong motivational potential: a person begins to experience himself as an active subject of actions, a creator of alternatives responsible for their choice and implementation, strive for self-improvement and the possibility of self-affirmation (R. M . Granovskaya).

It is shown that all situations of coercion and pressure that threaten the self-respect of the individual, deprive him of the right to choose, negatively affect the actualization of human capabilities (L. I. Antsyferova). A negative attitude towards oneself acts as an obstacle to developing social influences in the field of professional and educational activities, communication and family life. In search of ways of self-affirmation, a person often resorts to non-constructive forms of behavior.

Self-assessment creates the basis for the perception of one's own success and failure, the achievement of goals of a certain level, i.e. the level of claims of the individual (the term was introduced into psychology by K. Levin and his students).

The level of claims of the individual - the desire of a person to achieve the goals of the complexity for which he considers himself capable.

The level of a person's claims is formed as a result of the person's experience of his achievements as successful or unsuccessful. The level of claims can be adequate to the capabilities of the individual and inadequate (overestimated or underestimated).

Thus, the essence of the psychological mechanism of individual self-consciousness should be considered as a system of self-givenness of the basic mental processes of the personality integrated into a holistic personifying center, as a quality of human nature, thanks to which each of us turns from a “subject in itself” into a “subject for itself”.

Investigating the impact of society on the individual, we can say that the influence of the norms and prescriptions of society, customs and institutions depends on the volume and method of organizing knowledge, on the beliefs and worldview of the individual, on his ability to correctly comprehend social situations, adequately perceive interlocutors, see significant contradictions in problematic situations. circumstances. Psychology has accumulated many concepts related to different sections of the worldview: "cognitive map of the world", "subjective picture of the world", "system of personal constructs" and others.

Within the framework of humanistic psychology, self-consciousness is designated by the term "inner self". To designate this concept as a transpersonal (ie, impersonal) psychic reality, G. I. Gurdjieff and his followers (P. D. Uspensky) use the term "essence" (essense). This term, which goes back to the Latin word essere - being, in a similar sense (essence in itself - In-se) is also used in the conceptual apparatus of A. Meneghetti's ontopsychology. In analytical psychology, the central psychic instance is designated by the term "I" or "self" (seif). In psychosynthesis, to designate this center of the psyche, hidden behind the "shell of the personality" and constituting the "heart of the human psyche" (R. Assagioli), the term "higher self" is used. A. A. Radugin, when analyzing the structure of self-consciousness, uses the concepts: the current "I" and the personal "I".

The most simple in science model of the structure of self-consciousness proposed K. Jung and is based on the opposition of conscious and unconscious elements of the human psyche. He singled out two levels of its self-image:

1) the subject of the human psyche is the so-called "self", which contains mostly unconscious processes, i.e. the person that we are;

2) the form of manifestation of "selfhood" on the surface of consciousness, the so-called conscious "I", a secondary product of the conscious and unconscious existence of a person.

Domestic psychology (S. L. Rubinshtein), considering self-consciousness as the formation of qualitatively new capabilities of the individual, presents the following structure of self-consciousness:

1. Directly sensory level, through which psychosomatic reactions and processes are reflected in the self-consciousness of the individual (self-perception).

2. Whole-personal level (personifying), associated with the perceptual mechanisms of personality centers (perception, experience and awareness of oneself as an active principle).

3. Intellectual-analytical level, which serves as the basis and means of the theoretical stage of self-cognitive activity (self-observation, self-analysis, self-understanding).

4. Purposeful-activity level, acting as a kind of synthesis of the three examined, through which the reflection and correction of the feedback of the psyche with the objective and own subjective reality is carried out.

The leading functions of self-consciousness are connected with the purposeful-activity level of the structure of self-consciousness: regulative-behavioral and motivational.

The subjective picture of the life path in the self-consciousness of a person is built in accordance with individual and social development, commensurate with biographical and historical facts. To correlate oneself with the forms of social life in which one has to live and act, revealing one's capabilities, features, and on this basis to determine one's place in these forms, structures - this is one of the main tasks of individual life. S. Buhler was the first to try to understand the life of a person not as a chain of accidents, but through its regular stages. She called individual, or personal, life the life path of the individual.

Personal life path - the life of a particular person, having certain patterns, amenable to description and explanation; personality evolution, the sequence of age stages of personality development, stages of her biography; the movement of the personality to higher, more perfect forms, to the best manifestations of the human psyche.

S. L. Rubinshtein represented the life path of a person as a whole, in which each age stage prepares and influences the next. As structures of life and units of analysis of the life path, S. Bueller singles out events, S. L. Rubinshtein - turning stages in a person's life, which are determined by personality. A person organizes his life, regulates its course, chooses and carries out its direction. S. L. Rubinshtein singled out the special role of self-consciousness in the organization of a person's life.

The life path is subject to periodization, not only age-related (childhood, youth, maturity, old age), but also personal, which may not coincide with age. Personal qualities act as the driving force of life dynamics, the content of life. Motivations for action, claims, abilities, intentions, orientation, interests are expressed in the life manifestations of the individual. The ability of a person to organize life, to solve its contradictions, to build value relations is called a life position, which is a special life and personal formation.

Life position- a way of self-determination of a person in life, generalized on the basis of his life values and meeting the basic needs of the person, which is the result of the interaction of the person with her own life, her own achievement.

Life position is characterized by personality contradictions and ways to resolve them. An illustration of the inability to resolve life's contradictions are two phenomena - leaving and laying responsibility on another. The inflexibility of one's life position is manifested in the desire to maintain one's views on life, "principles", habits, social circle, etc. unchanged.

The life position of a person can be defined through its activity as a way of social life, a place in the profession, a way of self-expression, a set of attitudes of the individual to life. The realization of a life position in time and circumstances of life, corresponding to the dynamic characteristics of the life path, is called a life line.

life line- this is a certain sequence (or inconsistency) of the individual in carrying out, implementing his life position, loyalty to his principles and relationships in changing circumstances.

The main characteristic of a progressive life line is the continuous feedback of the results of the previous stage (decisions, actions, etc.) on the next one.

Satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with life is an indicator of the real problematic (presence of contradictions) of the individual. The strategy of a person's life consists in revealing and resolving the true causes of emerging contradictions, and not in avoiding them through life changes. The ability of a person to resolve contradictions is a measure of his socio-psychological maturity, courage, steadfastness and adherence to principles.

life strategy- these are ways of changing, transforming the conditions, situations of life in accordance with the values of the individual; building life based on their individual capabilities and capabilities developed in life.

The fundamental content of the life strategy consists not only in a kind of structuring, in the organization of life, but also in the creation of its spiritual value, spiritual and ethical level and method, which brings genuine satisfaction to a person.

Questions for discussion and reflection

1. We invite you to take part in the dispute between two thinkers of the era

enlightenment and determine their attitude to the dispute. K. Helvetii: “I have people with an ordinary normal organization!

the same mental capacity. D. Diderot: “Mr. Helvetia, answer a small question. Here are five hundred

newly born children. They are ready to give you upbringing

your system. Tell me how many of them will you make brilliant

people? Why not all five hundred?”

2. What is the difference between character and temperament? What character accentuations
occur in people and, perhaps, are planned for you?

3. Can you change your temperament?

4. Can there be an outstanding personality with a bad character? That is
an objective prerequisite for the divergence of character and personality?

5. Are the character of a person and his destiny connected?

6. Sometimes people, in order to explain their not quite adequate behavior,
They say: "That's my character." Should a person carry
responsibility for your character? Can character be changed?

7. "The one who wants and believes that one (sooner or later). What mental
properties denote the highlighted words in this aphorism by N. Kozlov?

8. Is it possible to prepare a person "for all occasions", a person with
universal abilities?

9. Does orientation affect the fate of a person? Can you
formulate your main goals in life?

6.1. Self-consciousness and the image of the world.

self-awareness - a set of mental processes through which an individual is aware of himself as a subject of life. Self-consciousness is not a primordial given inherent in man, but a product of development. As a person acquires life experience, not only new aspects of being open up before him, but a more or less deep understanding of himself takes place.

The generalization of a person's practical knowledge of other people is the main source of the formation of attitudes towards oneself. Self-consciousness is formed only in the process of generalization of these self-relationships; generalized knowledge of one's personality. Any change in the life position of a person in social, labor, personal life not only changes the activity of a person, but also changes a person's attitude towards himself. Gaining the ability to immerse himself in his experiences (this is especially true for adolescence and youth), a person opens up a whole world of new emotions, the beauty of nature, the sounds of music. Thanks to self-consciousness, a person begins to perceive and comprehend his emotions no longer as derivatives of some external events, but as a state of his own "I". Together with the realization of one's uniqueness, originality, unlikeness to others, a feeling of loneliness very often comes. The discovery of one's "I" is often an eventful, sudden process.

Self-consciousness, depending on the goals and objectives facing a person, can manifest itself as self-knowledge, as self-esteem, as self-control, as self-acceptance.

Self-knowledge is a person's focus on studying his physical (bodily), mental capabilities and qualities, his place among other people. Self-knowledge is accomplished: 1) in the analysis of the results of one's own activity, one's behavior; 2) when realizing the relationship of others to oneself. Therefore, it is impossible to know oneself without doing anything and without communicating with anyone.

Self-esteem is a component of self-consciousness, which includes a person's knowledge of himself, an assessment of himself and a scale of values in relation to which this assessment is determined. Self-esteem is an important regulator of behavior, it determines the level of a person's claims. Self-esteem can be adequate and inadequate.

Self-acceptance - awareness of oneself as a worthy person.

Self-control is manifested in the regulation of one's own actions and states on the basis of requirements and norms.

Self-concept is a relatively stable, holistic system of an individual's ideas about himself. Self-concept is a prerequisite and a consequence of social interaction. Components of the I-concept: I-real and I-ideal.

A person has a strong tendency to build on the basis of ideas about himself not only his behavior, but also the interpretation of his own experience. The self-concept here acts as a kind of internal filter that determines the nature of a person's perception of any situation. People tend to behave in ways that are consistent with their understanding of themselves. For example, young single mothers in difficult financial circumstances have little chance of climbing out of poverty if they do not value themselves.

6.2. Personal development and its life path.

Basic concepts of personality development.

Behaviorism as a science of behavior was substantiated by the American psychologist J. Watson. “From the point of view of behaviorism,” he wrote, “the true subject of psychology (of a person) is the behavior of a person from birth to death.”

The personality of a person, from the point of view of behaviorism, is nothing more than a set of behavioral reactions inherent in a given person. This or that behavioral reaction arises on a certain stimulus, situation. The formula "stimulus - reaction" (S - K.) was the leading one in behaviorism. Thorndike's Law of the Effect elaborates: the relationship between S and R is strengthened if there is a reinforcement. Reinforcement can be positive (praise, getting the desired result, material reward, etc.) or negative (pain, punishment, failure, criticism, etc.). Human behavior most often results from the expectation of positive reinforcement, but sometimes the desire to avoid negative reinforcement first of all prevails, i.e. punishments, pains, etc. Therefore, any type of personality can be formed by order - a worker or a bandit, a poet or a merchant. Watson did not make any distinction between the development of emotional reactions in humans and the salivation reflex in a dog, believing that all the emotional properties of a person (fear, anxiety, joy, anger, etc.) are the result of the development of classical conditioned reflexes.

Thus, from the standpoint of behaviorism, a person is an organized and relatively stable system of skills. Skills are the basis of sustainable behavior, they are adapted to life situations. Changing the situation leads to the formation of new skills.

A person in the concept of behaviorism is understood as reacting, acting. a learning being programmed for certain reactions, actions, behavior. By changing incentives and reinforcements, a person can be programmed for the desired behavior.

In the field of social learning, A. Bandura's views are widely known. In the behavioral model, he highlighted the block - self-efficacy of the individual, which is a cognitive construct "could> - - can not" (faith, expectation of future reinforcement). This block predetermines the success of a certain behavior and the achievement of success throughout the life path. For example, if you decide that you cannot learn Chinese, then no force will make you do it. And if you decide that you can do it, then sooner or later you will learn it.

According to Bandura, there are four main conditions that determine the formation of a person's confidence in what he can and cannot do:

1. past experience (knowledge, skills); for example, if earlier could,
even now, apparently, I can;

2. self-instruction; e.g. "I can do it!";

3. increased emotional mood (alcohol, music,
love);

4. observation, modeling, imitation of the behavior of others
people (observation of real life, watching movies,
reading books, etc.: for example, "If others can, then I can too!"),

Psychoanalysis. The founder of classical psychoanalysis, also known as Freudianism, is the Austrian scientist 3. Freud (1856 - 1939). Not a single direction has gained such loud fame outside of psychology as Freudianism, his ideas influenced art, literature, medicine and other areas related to human knowledge.

Based on many years of clinical observations, Freud formulated a psychological concept, according to which the psyche, personality consists of three components, levels: "Id", "Ego" and "Superego".

The core of psychoanalysis as a psychological direction was the doctrine of the unconscious. Human psychology began to be interpreted as conditioned by unconscious, irrational forces - drives, instincts. The development of personality is the history of the struggle of a person's instincts with the prohibitions dictated by his conscience.

According to Freud, a person from birth and in his development goes through several stages of psychosexual development: oral (sexuality, which manifests itself in infancy, during breastfeeding; the erogenous zone is the mouth); anal (with toilet training, the focus moves first to the sensations associated with defecation (anal phase), and later on the sensations associated with urination (urethral phase)) and genital (at about the age of four, interest in the genitals begins to predominate). At the same time, the Oedipus complex (or Electra in girls) develops, the essence of which lies in a predominantly positive attitude towards the parent of the opposite sex and aggressive behavior towards the parent of the same sex.

Psychoanalysis gives its own interpretation of the most important sphere of human life - sexual, which radically distinguished it from other currents in psychology.

Cognitive psychology. The word "cognitive" comes from the Latin verb "to know". Proponents of this approach argue that a person is not a machine that blindly and mechanically reacts to internal factors or events of the outside world, on the contrary, more is available to the human mind: to analyze information about reality, make comparisons, make decisions, solve problems that confront him.

According to Bruner's concept, our knowledge is primarily sensory and motor in nature: nothing can be included in thought without first passing through our feelings and motor activity. Therefore, the sensorimotor reflection of reality is decisive in childhood. To this first method of displaying the world, the following method is added - figurative display, when images of perceived real objects are stored in memory. In adolescence, the figurative display of the world is complemented by a symbolic display of objects in the form of concepts. Bruner also emphasizes that language is the most important tool for the development of cognitive processes.

Cognitive theories of personality proceed from the fact that the subjective interpretation of situations is a more true factor in decision making than the "objective" meaning of these situations. Different people see and interpret the situations in which they operate differently.

Psychologist F. Zimbardo, studying the forms of antisocial behavior, concluded that most of these negative actions can be explained by analyzing situational factors, and not by character traits (“he is always like that”), on the contrary, even “good” people can commit negative actions in difficult circumstances and situations. By finding or creating an appropriate - convenient - channel of situational phenomena, it is possible to achieve a fundamental change in people's behavior by manipulating individual characteristics of the situation ("prison experiment", Milgram's experiment).

Psychologist A. Ellis believes that a person's wrong behavior is caused primarily by irrational thoughts that arise in certain situations. In this case, it is necessary to analyze together with the person the situation in which he finds himself. and the conclusions he drew from it. The task of the psychologist is to study the mental processes of the client and bring to his consciousness the irrational moments contained in his thoughts. The development of a more objective perception of events in a person leads him to search for new effective solutions and improve his emotional state. That is, the modification of thoughts leads to a change in behavior and experiences. A mature person is one who is able to control himself by controlling his thoughts.

The American psychologist A. Beck singled out and described the phenomenon of "automatic thoughts" that process current information. They are involuntary, fleeting, unconscious and lead directly to emotional and behavioral reactions. Beck notes that emotional disorders (dreary, anxious affect, increased irritability) automatic thoughts are distinguished by a number of specific features: for example, sadness is associated with thoughts of loss, anger - thoughts about violating some standard, longing - thoughts of negative content about oneself, people, the future (depressive triad), fear - thoughts about external danger and the inability to cope with it. The psychologist must help a person to present his ideas in the form of hypotheses (assumptions), jointly test the truth of these hypotheses and search for alternatives.

Humanistic psychology. K. Rogers' approach to a person: a person's behavior can only be understood on the basis of his subjective perception and knowledge of reality;

people are able to determine their own destiny, i.e. self-determination is an essential part of human nature and people are ultimately responsible for what they are;

people are basically good and have a desire for excellence, naturally move towards autonomy and maturity, realizing personal potential.

Rogers recognized that people sometimes have angry and destructive feelings when they do not behave in accordance with their true inner nature. When people are fully functioning, when nothing prevents them from expressing their inner nature, they appear as positive and intelligent creatures who sincerely want to live in harmony with themselves and with other people. Rogers argued that all people have virtually unlimited potential for self-improvement.

Rogers argued that no one can justifiably claim that his sense of reality is better or more correct than that of someone else: no one has the right to oppose his reality to the reality of others, it is necessary to respect and empathize with the thoughts and membership of others people, even if they differ sharply from our own.Past experiences affect a person's perception of present events, but it is the actual interpretation of past experiences, and not their actual circumstances, that influence a person's present behavior.

Rogers highlights the main condition necessary for the development of a healthy, positive self-conception. It is important for any person to be loved and accepted by others - this is the need for positive attention. Rogers believed that the only way not to interfere with the actualization and development of the personality is to give him unconditional positive attention, i.e. a person is accepted without reservations, as he is.

Concept self-actualizing personality A. Maslow is aimed at studying healthy, harmonious personalities who have reached the pinnacle of personal development, the pinnacle of self-actualization. Such "self-actualizing" personalities, unfortunately, according to A. Maslow, make up only 1 percent of the total number of people, and the rest are at one stage or another of development.

Maslow notes that the lack of goods, the blockade of basic physiological needs for food, rest, security leads to the fact that these needs can become leading for a person (“A person can live by bread alone when there is not enough bread”). But if the basic needs are satisfied, then a person manifests higher needs (needs for development, for understanding one's life).

Self-actualization is not the final state of human perfection. No person becomes so self-actualized as to drop all motives. Self-actualizing personality has the following features.

1. Full acceptance of reality and a comfortable attitude towards it (not
hide from life, but study, understand it).

2. Acceptance of others and yourself ("I do mine and you do yours. I'm in
this world not to live up to your expectations.
And you are not in this world to match mine
expectations. I am me, you are you.)

3. Professional passion for what you love, orientation
to a task, to solving a problem.

4. Autonomy, independence from the social environment,
independence of judgment.

5. The ability to understand other people, attention,
kindness to people, a sincere desire to help.

6. Constant novelty, freshness of assessments, openness to experience, new
experiences ("childishness" of perception).

7. Frequent experiences of "peak" feelings, ecstasy.

8. Spontaneity, natural behavior.

9. Deep interpersonal relationships.

Questions for self-control and repetition

\. What is self-awareness?

2. How does self-consciousness determine the construction of the image of the world?

3. What are the main components of self-awareness? Describe them.

4. How does behaviorism explain personality development?

5 What is the understanding of the psyche and how does 3. Freud explain the development of personality?

6. What is cognitive psychology? How does personality develop in terms of
perspective of cognitive psychologists?

7. Describe the humanistic concept of personality development.

Personal life path

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Self-awareness of the individual and her life path

Personal life path

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Bibliography

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