Communicative self-realization in early adolescence in conditions of psychological symbiosis in the family

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National Aviation University

Communicative self-realization in early adolescence in conditions of psychological symbiosis in the family

Rudyk S.A.

At the present stage of development of society, success is of particular importance for boys and girls. Through success, they determine their place in society, evaluate themselves and build a further strategy of behavior. Success is promised at trainings and psychological programs, people strive for it, dream about it. The youthful age is especially sensitive to the pressure and expectations of society. They have hopes for a bright future for all. Some boys and girls fall into depressive states due to lack of confidence in their strengths, inability to carry this load, lack of motivation, lack of faith in themselves. The natural opportunities for human development provide an ideal basis for the growth of a strong representative of a new generation. Family or significant adults should help, support, inspire the child to believe in himself, the concept of his own worth and the incredible possibilities of human as a great creation. However, the increased anxiety of significant adults, being in dependent or co-dependent relationships, does not allow raising a child who accepts himself as undoubtedly and unconditionally valuable, independent of the expectations of society. Parents themselves do not trust the world around them so much, they have such destructive life positions that a complete merger with the child, life with him as one life seems to them quite reasonable and the most safe.

The term «symbiosis» was introduced into science in the XIX century. A. de Bari to designate «the phenomena of coexistence of dissimilar organisms» [1]. In nature, the phenomenon of symbiosis is quite natural and in many cases quite productive. Erich Fromm first introduced the concept of «psychological symbiosis», characterizing the relationship of the infant with the mother. «The biological model of a symbiotic union is the relationship between a pregnant woman and her fetus. There are two of them, and yet they are one: With psychological symbiosis, the bodies are not connected with each other, but there is a similar psychological attachment» [9]. These two organisms partly interact with the outside world as a single organism, build a complex functional system in which one link is carried out by one, the other by another, and together a normal cycle is obtained. Life concepts and interactions begin to make sense as the mother interprets them as meaningful, and then they also begin to make sense for a child as well.

In the course of the destruction of psychological symbiosis, there should be a gradual emancipation, separation of a person from this psychological umbilical cord. Gradually, the child grows and learns to control himself. To make decisions independently and take decisive steps towards development. However, in some families it happens that the mother or other significant adult does not allow the child to carry out the mandatory process of separation required for the success of development. They continue to protect, worry, live a shared life, shared concerns, goals. Attitude to the child as an object implies a lack of consideration of his true, rather than imposed interests, disrespect for his borders, authoritarian imposition of his own attitudes, indisputable knowledge, «how to do it right». The mother does not allow him to develop, but does a lot in his place, thereby binding him to herself. Self-asserting at his expense, takes away his right to independence. Growing up, this child receives a verbal or non-verbal message: «I need you, and you need me» and, as an adult, this person still looks at his mother, makes decisions that will suit her, sometimes to the detriment of his true needs. Moreover, he often understands the abnormality of his situation (and therefore often becomes dependent on alcohol, drugs, computer games, etc., where he is again comfortable and where there is an «island of freedom» from maternal guardianship). The reasons for the misfortunes of such a person are that he literally does not belong to himself: there is no coordination between thoughts, feelings and actions, and this imbalance can aggravate addiction, depression.

Representations of psychological symbiosis were contained in many works of psychoanalysts who studied the relationship between an infant and a mother. In particular, the concept of symbiosis was used by such psychoanalysts as A. Balint, T.Benedict, M.Mahler. However, more generally, reflections on symbiosis took place by E. Fromm (1900-1980). In the conception of J. Piaget, in adolescence «the last fundamental decentration takes place - the child is released from the specific attachment to data in the field of perception of objects and begins to view the world in terms of how it can be changed. According to J. Piaget, at this age, a personality is finally formed, a life program is being built» [7].

In a healthy family system, there is unconditional love for the child. It is strong and absolute, but does not provide for eternal control, merger and anxiety. It implies, first of all, mood. Mood is a good contact with oneself in the process of contact with a child [10]. The set up parent carefully watches the child, responds to his reactions and gives the baby the opportunity to learn. Among the numerous studies of the concept of «psychological symbiosis» (M. Mironova, E. Sokolova, M. Mahler, F. Payne, A. Bergmak, J. Shotter and others), we did not find a scientifically valid classification of signs by which the presence of symbiotic relationships in familiescould be noted. Today we can only talk about some markers that give us the opportunity to suggest a symbiotic relationship. In particular, in the writings of I. G. Malkin-Pykh «Victimology. Psychology of the victim's behavior», we find the following styles of raising a child in the family:

Dominant hyperprotection: heightened attention and care for a teenager is combined with petty control, an abundance of restrictions and prohibitions, which enhances non-independence, lack of initiative, indecision, inability to stand up for oneself.

Condusive hyperprotection: parenting like the «idol of the family», indulging in all the desires of the child, excessive patronage and adoration, resulting in an exorbitantly high level of claims by the teenager, unbridled desire for leadership and superiority, combined with insufficient perseverance and reliance on one's own resources.

Emotional rejection: ignoring the needs of a teenager, often abusing him. The hidden emotional rejection is manifested in the global discontent with the child, the constant feeling of the parents that he is not «that», not «like», for example, «not courageous enough for his age, forgives everyone, and everyone can walk on him». Sometimes it is masked by exaggerated care and attention, but pretends to be irritation, a lack of sincerity in communication, an unconscious desire to avoid close contacts, and, if necessary, to free oneself somehow from the burden.

Increased moral responsibility: the requirements of uncompromising honesty, a sense of duty, decency, imposing responsibility on the adolescent for the life and well-being of loved ones, persistent expectations of great success in life that do not correspond to the age and real capabilities of the child - all this is naturally combined with ignoring the real needs of the child, his own interests, insufficient attention to its psychophysical features. Under the conditions of such upbringing, the status of «head of the family» is forcibly attributed to a teenager with all the ensuing requirements for the care and guardianship of «mother-child».

Unpredictable emotional reactions: it is about parents who are prone to unexpected changes in mood and attitude towards children. The change in attitude is due to the internal state of the parents, the characteristics of their personality. The inability to predict such changes has a negative effect on children who do not know what to expect from their parents in the morning, after coming from school, from a walk. For the same thing one can be punished and caressed. Children feel insecure, they do not feel parental love. Gradually, self-doubt becomes a character trait and is subsequently projected onto relationships with other people who are perceived on the basis of the familiar parental model. The result is conflicting interpersonal relationships, disbelief in the stability of friendship, marriage, etc.

Inconsistent education: in one family, each of the parents, and even more so grandparents, can adhere to different educational styles. For example, there may be emotional rejection by the parents and an indulgent hyperprotection by the grandmother (Lichko, 1979; Eidemiller, 1980) [9].

Boys and girls, confirming the listed parenting styles in their families, find signs of increased victimization, behaviors, more characteristic of a small child than an adult. The most common victimization characteristics are as follows:

Difficulty in making decisions.

Expressed desire to rely on advice, support of other people. They create situations on purpose when someone else decides for them. They allow other people to manage their lives.

Often they do things that are unpleasant for them, but necessary for others, believing that they are binding other people to themselves. In the absence of contact, they feel helpless and uncomfortable, even if the contact is destructive. They do everything to be irreplaceable. The manifestation of concern for others, playing the role of a «martyr».

Helplessness in response to criticism and disapproval. Attempt to restore a positive attitude towards oneself at any cost. Dependent on the assessment of others.

The fuzzy border of «I», the manifestation of any initiative is accompanied by a feeling of fear. They do not know where their personality ends and where the personality of another person begins.

Many suppressed emotions erupt in the form of anger and aggression, leaving behind a feeling of guilt and shame.

They are afraid of loneliness, make great efforts not to be left alone. Alone, they are confused and anxious.

There is no sense of inner significance. They do not feel themselves, it is difficult for them to express feelings.

A «sticking» relationship to another, without which they cannot survive.

Do not know how to survive their emotions. The reference point is external. Communication with another person leads to absorption.

They take responsibility for the feeling, condition of another person. Life is centered around what other people think about them. The desire to be «good». The main goal is to guess the desire of others and satisfy them, to know and feel what they like and what others don't like. If they manage to become the way others see them, they will feel safe.

They put themselves at the center of events with a constant, exorbitant expansion of responsibility. They take responsibility for the feelings of others, for the content of their thoughts, for their life. It is soft but deadly egocentricity. Despite the apparent softness, it is difficult to convince them of anything, to propose an alternative.

Dishonesty - they seek to create the appearance of absence of problems, crisis in relations. Their characteristic secrecy, double morality. Children live a double life [9].

Thus, participants in symbiotic relationships are often forced to play. They live an external life, ignoring their own internal needs. Often this even turns into a magnificent adaptive skill of self-management in society with a pathological inability to cope with one's own inner world and internal processes, which invariably leads to depressive states.

Purpose: At the theoretical and empirical level, to study the relationship of the parents' behavioral attitudes in the family (positive interest, directivity, hostility, autonomy, inconsistency) and the occurrence of depressive states in 1st, 2nd year students of humanitarian and technical specialties, taking into account the level of communicative self-control in adolescence.

Hypothesis:

In families with psychological symbiosis, the level of self-control in communication will be high due to the child's fear of not meeting the expectations of his parent and remaining good for everyone.

Boys and girls who assess relationships in their families as symbiotic are prone to depression.

Method. The study involved 88 people, including 44 girls and 44 boys aged 17-18, first-year students of technical and humanitarian departments of the National Aviation University, Kiev, Ukraine. The participants of the study were asked to fill out an author's questionnaire in which they subjectively determine the style of upbringing in parental families, assess their ability to control the process of communication and selfmanagement at the time of communication, as well as assess the quality of their mood lately. Also, respondents were asked to take the M. Snyder test, which gives an assessment of selfcontrol in communication. The author of the methodology believes that people with high communicative control constantly monitor themselves, know well where and how to behave, control the expression of their emotions. At the same time, they have difficulty in spontaneity of self-expression, they do not like unpredictable situations. People with low communicative control are more direct and open, they have a more stable «I», little susceptible to changes in various situations. Since we did not find valid methods for determining the presence of psychological symbiosis in the family that would allow us to study only the opinion of the child, we used the existing valid methodology «Parent behavior and the attitude of adolescents to them» in the modification of Vasserman L.I., Gorkova I.A. Romitsyna E.E.

The methodology studies the attitudes, behavior and methods of parenting as their children see in adolescence and allows us to describe the relationship with the parent according to the most common manifestations: friendliness, hostility, autonomy, directivity and inconsistency of the parent. This questionnaire is suitable for adolescents 17-18 years old, which corresponds to the age of our respondents. To make a diagnosis of a state of the respondents, they were asked to go through the methodology «Beck Depression Scale», which is used to diagnose depression levels. The depression test questionnaire (Beck Depression Inventory) was proposed by Aaron T. Beck in 1961 based on clinical observations that revealed a list of symptoms of depression. After that, we carried out a correlation analysis of the data obtained by the Spearman's T-criterion.

Results

The results of the survey showed that the percentage of the subjective assessment of the level of communicative self-control coincides with the subjective opinion of students about the presence of psychological symbiosis in parental families. 76.1% (67 people) of the respondents rated their own level of communicative self-control as high, of which 61.4% (54 people) found signs of symbiotic relationships in the behaviors of their families. Correlation analysis by Spearman's T-criterion for all categories showed the following results (Table 1). As can be seen from the general table 1, the correlation connections on firm the hypothesis that the positive interest of both parents in their child reduces the level of depression, and the scale of the positive interest of the mother has a direct correlation with the assessment of the level of communicative self-control. There can be several explanations of why would the child need high communicative self-control, if the mother has a positive interest in him. In a conversation with a psychologist, respondents who noted a positive interest with their mothers report that they often do not want to offend them, because they love them very much and therefore they can't feel relaxed in conversations at home or in society. Also in the conversations it turned out that students with such indicators have either religious or conservative eyes.

Table 1.

Correlation analysis by Spearman's T-criterion according to the results of tests of students of humanitarian and technical specialties of NAU 1, 2 year, n = 88

In our opinion, this correlation requires further testing on a larger sample and careful selection of respondents according to the criterion of «conservative views in the family». Researchers are interested in the scales of directivity of the mother, inconsistency of the mother, and inconsistency of the father. As we can see, all respondents have signs of depression with high values of these scales, and we also observe high communicative control, which confirms our hypothesis that in families where there are symbiotic relationships, children want to show that they are good and worthy of love. They take responsibility for the emotions of their parents, and consider themselves the cause of pain and poor mood of their parents. Inconsistency of parents in raising a child leads to a number of problems with the child's self-esteem, increases anxiety, and leads to depression. Nevertheless, many respondents who note inconsistent parental behavior as the leading type of parenting in families demonstrate a high level of self-management objectively based on test results, which coincides with their subjective indicators in the questionnaires.

Also from the Table 1 we see that the behavior of the mother has a stronger correlation with the assessment score of communicative self-control than the behavior of the father. We are forced to leave this question for further research. In this sample, we did not find out on whom, father or mother, the main educational function of this group of subjects lay. The conclusion about the regularity of the greater influence of the mother on the state of the respondents can be made only by making sure that the sample is homogeneous according to the criterion «father's participation in the upbringing».

Discussion

communicative self realization adolescence

In accordance with the results obtained, all correlations correspond to the logic of psychological processes. Positive interest in the child in the family helps to reduce the level of depressive states. The question of a direct correlation of the level of communicative self-control with a positive attitude of parents requires further study, since the sample was not investigated for conservative or religious education in families. The respondents themselves, whose indicators were high relative to the level of communicative self-control and who expressed a positive attitude towards both parents, reported traditional conservative parenting, which may also indicate a hidden relationship of psychological symbiosis.

Therefore, this item requires clarification and further research. Especially significant correlations are observed in scales related to the attitude of the mother, which confirms the widespread opinion about the leading role of maternal education (E. From, 1990). Of particular interest are the inconsistency scales of the mother and the inconsistency of the father. Here we observe a direct correlation with the level of communicative self-control and, at the same time, we observe strong correlation with the scale of depressive states. This gives us the opportunity to say that respondents with similar results observe a phenomenon of psychological symbiosis in the family. The results of the survey in the form of a subjective assessment of the respondents confirm this. Thus, it can be argued that the inconsistent behavior of the mother and father is one of the signs by which the phenomenon of psychological symbiosis in families can be determined.

Conclusions

The results of the study confirm the stated hypotheses: in families with psychological symbiosis, the level of self-control in communication will be high due to the child's fear of not meeting the expectations of his parent and the desire to remain good for everyone. Boys and girls who value relationships in their families as symbiotic tend to be depressed. Inconsistent behavior of mother and father is one of the signs by which the phenomenon of psychological symbiosis in families can be determined. In our further studies, we plan to derive and scientifically substantiate, through indirect testing, the criteria by which the presence of symbiotic relationships in families can be determined.

To test the author's questionnaire for the phenomenon of psychological symbiosis in families, which will suggest the presence of this phenomenon only from the respondent. A deeper study of the influence of symbiotic relationships on the development of important, socially significant abilities and skills in adolescence and clarification of methods for correcting destructive conditions that occur in families with psychological symbiosis.

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