Psychological Counseling and Psychotherapy

Gender-role features of the influence of conformity on the formation of value orientations of adolescents

M. Antonovych — 2023-06-30

The article examines the multifaceted phenomenon of adolescents’s value orientations, the mechanisms of its formation, and emphasizes the significant influence of gender-role conformity features on this hierarchy of the individual’s motivational structure. The influence of the level of adolescent conformity on the formation of value orientations of the individual was considered. Since the social situation actively begins to change during the transitional age, adolescents often enter into confrontation with adults, the process of separation begins, and at the same time, adolescents begin to unite in reference groups to strengthen their opinion, receive support and acceptance. Often, with a high level of conformity, they begin to focus on the norms, behavior patterns, sex-role expectations, goals of their peers in order to be accepted by their reference group, which can influence the formation of adolescent value orientations. Were invastigated that the contribution of the phenomenon of conformity to the formation of adolescents’s value orientations is 82.3%. Makes a positive contribution to the formation of such a value orientation as help and mercy to others; does not make such a contribution to the formation of a high social status and people’s management. Separately, it was found that the contribution of gender-role characteristics to the formation of adolescents’ value orientations, is 32.1%. The scale of femininity contributes to the formation of such a value orientation as: love. It does not have such an impact on the formation of such a value orientation as pleasant pastime and recreation. The scale of masculinity contributes to the formation of such value orientations as material well-being and high social status and people management. Does not have such an impact on health as value orientation.

Validation of the scale of essentiality/infernality (E/I) questionnaire for the diagnosis of essential self-regulation (QDES)

I. Kocharian — 2023-06-30

The article is devoted to the study of the validity of one of the scales of the QDES psychodiagnostic method "Questionnaire for the diagnosis of essential self-regulation" - Essentiality/Infernality (E/I). The construct Essentiality/Infernality is a constituent element of the concept of essential self-regulation, which ensures the realization of a person's tendency to self-actualization. Essentiality is the result of a person's conscious or unconscious choice towards personal growth and development, the realization of a true tendency towards self-actualization. Such a choice can be called essential. The antagonist of the true tendency to self-actualization is the infernal choice - towards the distortion of the tendency to self-actualization. E/I is a special scale that is aimed at determining the ability of the examinee to choose communicative messages that have signs of essentiality - essential self-actualization, or, on the contrary, to choose messages that have signs of infernality - distorted self-actualization. That is, the ability to either make an essential choice in life or an infernal one. The work presents the tasks of the scale, the signs of essentiality and infernality are provided. The tasks of the E/I scale differ from the tasks of other scales of the QDES method. In general, the QDES technique is built on the basis of statements with which the examinees either agree or disagree. The tasks of the E/I scale are built on the basis of the statements of prominent persons - people who realized themselves in the profession (writers, philosophers, psychologists, etc.) and people with distorted self-actualization - serial killers. Each task is evaluated for the presence of essential and infernal features. The results of a correlational study of the E/I scale and other scales of the QDES methodology and 15 other psychodiagnostic methodologies are given. Descriptors of the E/I scale among other scales of the QDES methodology are defined. The result of the work is confirmation of the criterion validity of the E/I scale.

Psychological factors of subjective loneliness feelings in adolescents

Alla M. Lisenaya — 2023-06-30

This article investigates psychological causes of subjective loneliness feelings in adolescents. It presents a theoretical analysis of the loneliness phenomenon, as well as empirical research of this phenomenon in young people. The relevance of studying this psychological phenomenon is determined by the war in Ukraine, forced resettlement, and moving to a new city, or even to another country, distance learning, broken relationships and family separations, and the need to establish new social connections. Loneliness is often considered a problem of older generations, but under current conditions, it is adolescents who increasingly feel lonely. In addition to external objective reasons, individual factors may also affect the development of loneliness. Studying these factors allows for a more in-depth assessment of the scale of loneliness and creates a stronger basis for studying the phenomenon. The characteristics of adolescent loneliness stem from fundamental changes in the affective, motivational, and behavioral spheres of life and the impact of this state on socialization. The article discusses various theoretical approaches to the concept of loneliness in psychological research. The results indicate that the symptom complex of the loneliness concept includes a sense of psychological alienation, the inability to build normal relationships, and the inability to form strong attachments. The article considers three types of loneliness: chronic, situational, and temporary, and outlines characteristics of loneliness feeling experiences in adolescence. The article also identifies factors that influence the development of loneliness in adolescence. In addition, the article empirically studies psychological factors of subjective loneliness in adolescents, including personal and situational anxiety, indicators of aggressiveness, level of self-esteem, and level of sociability in adolescents.

Features of the structural organization of the identity of the borderline personality

O. Kocharian — 2023-06-30

The article is devoted to the analysis of the features of the structural organization of individuals who are organized borderline. At the psychotherapeutic reception today, borderline organized personalities make up a significant proportion. The given data indicate that the proportion of such individuals in the population can reach 25%, and at least twice as much at the reception of a psychotherapist. Therefore, knowing the characteristics of these personalities is useful, and is the basis for successful psychotherapy. The personal identity of borderline individuals is described as diffuse: instability and variability of ideas about themselves and the world, values, goals, desires, inconsistent and contradictory behavior associated with the actualization of various "split" parts of their identity. Another important feature of such people is polarization - "black and white" perception, when he perceives himself and others either only as "good" or only as "bad": they are not able to perceive themselves and others in the unity of bad and good. Their world can either stably split into bad and good objects, or the same objects at one time are only good, and at another - only obnoxious. Such people do not have a stable and articulated self-concept, they do not know what they want, what they strive for, experiencing an “emptiness” that cannot be filled inside. This may manifest itself in the fact that they cannot decide on professional interests, areas of employment, choice of a partner, etc. At the same time, there is no description in the literature of specific phenomena of the organization of the identity of a person with a borderline organization. We used the case analysis, as such, which describes the individual feature of the structural organization of identity. As a result, specific features of the personal identity of borderline organized individuals were revealed: ego-dystonicity of some parts of the identity; their insufficient articulation; their irrational organization according to the type of mystery and magic; polarization and contrariety of parts of identity; their fantasies coming from some parts of their identity cannot be translated into reality; parts of identity exist in different chronological spaces, which deprives them of the possibility of communication and internal dialogue; the parts of the identity themselves are internally heterogeneous, contradictory, inconsistent; identity is characterized by the presence of some "closed" parts that are internally negatively connoted (shame, fear, etc.) and have no opportunities for manifestation.

The technique of schematic visualization of the emotional sphere in group psychotherapy work with clients who have a low level of reflexivity

A. Kharchenko — 2023-06-30

The article aims to describe the technique of schematic visualization of the client's emotional sphere, which is developed for use in group psychotherapy and is aimed at increasing the level of the client's reflexivity by increasing the quality of the process of reflection in this sphere. For productive work with the client in most psychotherapeutic methods, especially the humanistic paradigm, one of the important factors is such a property of the client's personality as the possibility of the existence of the process of self-knowledge, i.e. the client's reflexivity, but it is not always developed to a level sufficient for psychotherapeutic work (in this case, "reflexivity” is used as a broader concept than “reflection”). To solve this issue, it is necessary to develop new techniques, which is proposed by the author of the work. The use of this technique contributes to increasing the ability to manifest one's own emotions and feelings and to the client's visual demonstration and awareness of the features of the structure of his emotional sphere and formations in it, which are characteristic of persons with traumatic emotional experience. For example: "gluing" of emotions of asthenic and sthenic circles; destructive connotation of positive emotions with negative ones; inability to feel "pure" emotion; the phenomenon of potentiation of negative emotionality; loss of resourcefulness of certain emotions, which are contaminated by other emotions; the existence of "through" emotions, which become core characteristics of the emotional sphere of the individual. During the application of the technique, the work is structured in such a way as to maximally involve the dynamics of the group, emotional, cognitive and behavioral levels to increase the quality of reflection of the emotional sphere and the client's reflexivity as a whole. The classification of reflexivity is used for the analytical part in the application of the technique (for example, the comparison of emotional manifestations characteristic of the client in retrospective, prospective and situational vectors), and the idea of "surreality" at the stage of transformation and modeling. In this work, 9 stages of technique application are provided in detail and the role and tasks of the psychotherapist, client and group members at each of them are described.

Masturbation and its consequences in the light of scientific ideas and empirical data

G. Коcharyan — 2023-06-30

Information is presented on the dynamics of attitudes toward masturbation in relation to changing perceptions about its possible pathogenicity. For many centuries, masturbation was thought to be extremely harmful and such that could lead to the development of many diseases. Over time, attitudes about the severity of the possible negative consequences of masturbation have softened. At first, the most severe ones were excluded, and then, over time, the prevailing view was that masturbation could not lead to any negative results other than feelings of guilt. This article presents the classification of masturbation according to Vasilchenko (1977). The analysis of this classification shows that in the majority of cases it has no negative influence. Moreover, masturbation of the period of youthful hypersexuality promotes sexual development, and vicarious masturbation has a substitute function. At the same time, perseverative-compulsive masturbation is carried out in a mode significantly exceeding the constitutional optimum. The classification of possible adverse effects of masturbation developed by the author of the article is also presented (Kocharyan, 2006, 2007). In our opinion, the combined use of these two classifications of masturbation allows to estimate the possibility of its influence, including pathogenic one, on a human body in complex, because different kinds of masturbation (including of the period of youthful hypersexuality according to Vasilchenko classification) in some cases can have negative influence on a human body (at present mostly through behavioral mechanisms). It is noted that masturbation, however, can also have positive effects. In particular, it is expressed in the fact that it can promote sexual development, perform a compensatory function. It also has an antidepressant and anti-anxiety effect. It is widely used to treat various sexual disorders. Based on the analysis, the author concludes that masturbation should not be excluded from the list of phenomena responsible for the occurrence of human health disorders. Attempts to fully rehabilitate it in this sense are untrue.