Psychology is a subtle and mysterious science, since the human mental activity, its development and functioning is an ambiguous and not one-sided parameter: it varies and constantly changes. A person is a versatile person who, depending on the situation, external factors, desires and preferences, behaves differently, thinks outside the box, is influenced by others, or, conversely, opposes these requirements. The tasks of modern psychology include analysis, research and decoding of the problems of the formation and development of the human personality, which will be described in more detail below.
The development of psychology as a science
Currently, psychology has expanded the scope of theoretical and practical problems, and if initially its main task was to study the laws of the work of mental activity and its development, then at this stage of the formation of science new directions and disciplines arose. Nothing stands still, the evolution of human brain activity poses new experimental, non-standard tasks for modern psychology, which develops their interesting solutions.
The aforementioned science studies a vast field of phenomena, encompassing the human condition, processes, and properties of varying degrees of complexity, which can manifest themselves in identifying signs that affect the senses of the object, and even in the struggle of personality motives. Something has already been studied enough, and another is just waiting for psychologists interested in this area.
Theory in the modern concept of psychology is inextricably intertwined with practice. This relationship helps to identify gaps in the theory, and, conversely, once again confirm it.
B. F. Lomov and his basic categories of psychology
At one time, the Soviet psychologist B. F. Lomov set about identifying the so-called main groups of the described science, showing their systemic relationship, universality and their irreducibility to each other. He defined the concepts of “biological” and “social” and noted the following categories:
- reflection;
- activities;
- personality;
- communication.
Actual Directions
Modern psychology as a science works in a rather diverse and wide range of studied aspects of human activity. There is no consensus on psychology and the system of psychological knowledge. There are scientists, researchers, founders of certain standards and methods of work - each school of psychology is different in its approach, presenting to the world its own vision of solving problems and problems.
For example, speech therapy as a psychotherapeutic strategy was developed by one of the most famous psychologists W. Frankl in the 40s of the XX century. He was sure that the development of personality cannot occur without the search and realization of the meaning of life. And help to the client is based on his acquisition through a Socratic dialogue, revealing the existing experiences, discussing personal experience. Such a psychological technique is effective for neurosis, phobia, fear, depression, overcoming psychological trauma.
Humanistic psychology is a set of philosophical views on the activities and development of man, on the basis of which researchers have built a therapeutic process. The basis of teaching psychology in this area was the thoughts of E. Fromm, C. Rogers, A. Maslow and others. Their opinion was that a person has a desire for self-realization from birth, to achieve which the balance of the inner innermost level of consciousness and its degree in space are important society. External reality, depending on society, is conditional, since the true reality lies in the experiences of the person himself.
Such therapy helps to resolve internal conflicts, find oneself, make difficult decisions, get out of depression, overcome loneliness, and learn how to enjoy life.
Existential psychology studies the problems of being and time, the dilemmas of freedom and choice, love and loneliness, the essence of God. The most famous psychologists and philosophers L. Binswanger, M. Boss, R. May set the goal of this therapy to solve the problem of restoring the authenticity of a particular person, achieving a correspondence between her being and inner nature.
Gestalt psychology is based on integral structures, the essence of which is that a person sees a picture of the world around him much easier than it really is, highlighting only what he needs, leaving everything else outside of interest. Unmet needs in the psychology of modern man leads to a scarce lifestyle. Therapy helps a person to realize his need, which will lead in the future to more organized and effective actions, will help get rid of depression. The technique of gestalt therapy is based on focusing attention, taking responsibility, working with polarities.
The work of memory, the processes of cognition, motivation and behavior are the tasks of modern psychology of a cognitive nature. The therapy developed by A. Beck is based on emphasizing cognition of the place of the main determinant of the emergence of emotions, which determines the meaning of holistic behavior. The occurrence of various kinds of mental disorders is due to the incorrect construction of a description of your personality. Answers to questions like: “How do I see myself? What future awaits me? ”May or may not correspond to modern reality. Inadequate answers lead a person to erroneous actions.
The therapy includes three stages, where at first the patient discovers errors in his own judgments, then correlates them with the objective situation, and at the end builds an optimal awareness of himself and his own actions. Thus, a person trains his consciousness in the psychology of extreme situations, in accordance with adequate solutions to the problem in a calm environment.
Transpersonal psychology takes into account the intrauterine period of life. Its founder, S. Groff, believed that this approach allows a broader view of both negative and positive conflicts in human life. Consciousness in this approach is studied in multidimensional being, in the highest state in terms of the parapsychological phenomenon of meta-value and meta-need. The therapy uses meditation, active imagination, holotropic breathing, mystical and religious experience. This approach is used in training for personal growth, treatment of drug addiction and alcoholism, psychosis and neurosis.
Neuro-linguistic programming originated in the USA, R. Bandler and D. Grinder are considered its founders. The task of modern psychology using this technique is the following: based on the study of the behavior patterns of successful individuals, help the client quickly and effectively change their thoughts, correct behavior, and reconsider beliefs that impede the achievement of goals. NLP Techniques:
- six-step reframing;
- generator of new behavior;
- model wave;
- Museum of New Beliefs;
- anchoring of resource states , etc.
The weakness of such therapy is the lack of understanding of the full “picture of the world”, the construction of adequate patterns of behavior that could work effectively in changing conditions of reality.
Coaching is a fairly new training concept that emerged at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. The principles of modern psychology of this method combined philosophy, management, sports and psychological concepts in achieving success in almost all areas of activity. Such non-formal training in an interview format is used in marketing, finance, and other business units, as well as in sports, health, art, etc.
The essence of the training is to unblock the person’s internal potential through the psychological interaction of the coach and the client-player. As a result, the client gets the ability to quickly navigate in changing conditions.
Principles of Psychological Science
It is customary to single out the following principles of modern psychology:
- determinism;
- unity of consciousness and activity;
- development of the psyche;
- questioning (open / closed);
- conversation method;
- interview method;
- expert opinions.
The principles of the science in question are provisions that can determine the understanding of the psyche of people, how it was formed, what its system of functioning and forms of manifestation are.
Many sciences, such as philosophy and physiology, sociology and political science, economics and aesthetics, have contributed to the development of principles. Everything works in collaboration. At one time, the Soviet psychologist A.N. Leontyev made a comparison according to this example: the food that enters the stomach is determined by social circumstances, and the digestion process is part of the law of physiology.
Stress and Shocks
The modern idea of psychology is numerous schools that allow clients to achieve certain results in the psychology of personality. Most often, people who have experienced fear, stress, and who have become hostages of the consequences of emergency situations turn to the help of specialists. When a person has to deal with unfamiliar circumstances, the reaction can follow both adequate and not quite, and sometimes even too harsh with sad consequences for mental health.
Responses of this kind, possible actions, and protective reflexes should be studied so that in the future more often there is an opportunity to prevent undesirable consequences provoked by psychological trauma. Armed with the necessary knowledge, you can become a support to the person in need of help and moral support. Psychology of extreme situations considers two types of stressful effects: physical, manifested in the form of hunger, pain, overload, etc., psychological - this is fear, risk, deception, resentment and others.
In the modern world, personality disorder often occurs due to an accident, a serious illness, loss of material stability, a change in social status, conflicts with loved ones.
Urgency of the problem
Modern applied psychology considers emotional stress as the most harmful, because it can bring consciousness to a dangerous form of frustration. Every year a person faces a lot of difficulties, and psychological preparation for him becomes simply an indispensable factor. For this, preventive measures have been developed to help people navigate difficult tasks, such as accidents, terrorist attacks, natural disasters. Help in such difficult trials is provided by the concept of psychology of extreme situations.
Typical shock situations are considered:
- spatial disorientation;
- monotony - an unchanged state for a long time;
- temporary disorientation;
- loneliness;
- constant risk to life;
- restriction of information;
- lack of autonomy.
First aid
It is very important at the right time to be able to become a psychologist in need, because the specialist is not always there. The problems of modern psychology affect everyone, but sometimes not everyone wants to accept their condition or believe in the emotional disturbances of a loved one, to see his changes in the mental mechanism. Do not close your eyes, if there are preconditions for deviations from the norm, it is necessary to take measures:
- with apathy, try to arouse interest in any little thing;
- Having noticed hallucinations and a delusional state, to lead to a quiet place, not to argue, to remove dangerous objects;
- when a person is in a stupor, one should massage the points located above the eyes on the forehead;
- in an aggressive state it is necessary to let out emotions in relation to a subject safe for a person;
- with overexcitation - take away from people and calmly talk;
- crying subsides well when talking about experiences;
- the fear goes away if a person is given a massage of the stressed parts of the body, and at the same time conduct a dialogue;
- a person in hysteria must be brought to his senses by an unexpected action: to break something, hit him on the cheek or shout, and then lay the victim to rest.
Such techniques in the training of psychology will help everyone to be more prepared to survive stress and to save their nerves in shock situations.
Deviation from accepted standards
Not all areas of modern psychology are considered recognized, as well as fully understood. Many still do not want to be recognized by scientists, or remain an unexplored area for those who want to solve the mystery of telepathy and clairvoyance.
Parapsychology - what kind of science is it and what tasks does it set for itself? Not universally recognized science is engaged in the study of paranormal phenomena, phenomena, inexplicable facts. Types of forms of paranormal sensitivity are expressed in the form of telepathy (mental communication between people), clairvoyance (receiving data through inexplicable flows of information from the outside through the senses), foresight (a kind of clairvoyance based on predicting the future). They also study dowsing (searching using a curved metal wire), psychokinesis (influencing surrounding objects with the help of thoughts), paramedicine (studying inexplicable treatment methods).
Does something unite all of the above areas of parapsychology? What could it be? The fact that they are mysterious, mysterious and too far from the generally accepted reality.
In Europe, back in 1882, the organization "Society for the Study of Psychological Phenomena" was created in London, and by the 30s of the XX century there were more than 240 laboratories in 30 countries. Exposing the hypotheses of parapsychologists further inspired confidence in followers who were looking for evidence of their theories.
Over time, thanks to the contribution of engineers and physicists, it was found that the human brain is associated with scientific physical processes, respectively, some of the phenomena studied were determined by traditional research methods. Inexplicability and incorrectness in terms of methodology causes distrust from the outside, but parapsychological phenomena exist, and require a scientific psychological and physical explanation, which is what parapsychologists do in scientific institutions.
Simply space
Space psychology is studying the psychological characteristics of the cosmonaut's activities, as well as factors, ways and methods of organizing his work: weightlessness, sensory deprivation, preparation for flight, etc. Aviation psychology, which is associated with extreme working conditions and is characterized by complexity, is similar in tasks and functional features. performed actions. The group of related and common parameters also includes engineering, pedagogical, social and medical psychology.
In order to prepare a person for space flight as much as possible, approximate conditions, situations, problems that may arise outside the earth's surface are preliminarily created.
Space psychology helps to prepare a person for possible stressful circumstances, stress, which allows him to quickly navigate in unusual conditions. The young branch of natural science at this stage cannot fully prove itself as a science, its full development is expected in the future. But she faces serious and complex tasks today, since on the basis of useful data obtained over the years, using existing experience, one must learn to make a reasonable forecast of the features and possibilities of human mental activity in space flight. Drawing up a cosmonaut's professiogram requires a huge amount of research and experimentation.
Keeping up with the times
Unexplored areas are increasingly becoming the subject of modern psychology, because it is the unknown that inspires experimentation, pushes new ideas that are transformed into an unproven theory that must be confirmed by facts.