When the obstacles are inadequate moral prohibitions, prejudices, complexes, fears and so on, the solution may require not only overcoming the initial impulse but liberating from the obstacle. Since the psychological obstacle can hold back the initial impulse because it is also supported by certain chronic emotions, the essence of the work doesn’t change – the doctor works at overcoming the emotional fixation state.
The problem state in every case may be called a deadlock state. If the actual feelings are strong and there is no way out, some undesirable consequences take place. The initial reaction is most often aggression. The person who got into such situation tries to destroy the barrier but can be aggressive to himself, to his own desire, to the object of his desire, even to strangers. Most people restrain their aggression but constant restrain [control] leads to new difficulties and problems. Another form of reaction is to suppress or oust [suppressing, ousting] one’s own feelings, one’s own desire, grief, anger… The third form is when people transfer their feelings over to other safer objects [transfer]. In the fourth case, people start to avoid any situations in which they may express their feelings [escapism]. In the fifth case, they behave as helpless little children [regression]. In the sixth case, they ascribe to other people their own feelings and desires [projection]. In the seventh case, they quit active life altogether [autism]. In the eighth case, they create symptoms of some illness to justify their failure and not to do something prohibited [forming a symptom]. And so on…
Defenses used by a person help him to adapt but don’t solve the problem. They only preserve the problem and create new problems distorting his interaction with surrounding reality. The key factor determining the degree and the character of the distortions is the energy power of the locked-up feelings and the method of adaptation chosen by the individual. In some cases, this method may become a permanent trait of character or a form of emotional disturbances. The same reason generates chronic muscle tensions [blocks] and various psychosomatic symptoms.
To describe our conception of a psychological problem structure more brightly we can use the following metaphor. In India, they catch monkeys in the following way: hollow out a pumpkin, put some bait inside and leave a small hole, the monkey puts its paw through the hole, grabs the bait, but can’t pull its little fist out because it is bigger than the hole. The hunter comes and catches it easily because it can’t guess to unclench its fist.
People do the same. In their imagination, they have already got the bait and sometimes with the other hand they hold the barrier, and, well, they are caught! Every time you should think what “paw” the client must unclench. At times, there may be quite many such “paws”, but the initial problem is still only one. When it is solved all the rest happens by itself, because “the monkey” is free. The conclusion is: the basis of psychological health is inner freedom. A young man liberated from the unrequited or unfortunate love may say the words of a merry song: “If you bride goes to another man, we don’t know who will be happy in the end!” It means that he unclenched his “paw”. And the one who failed to do it may fall into depression or aggression as in that drama: “Then no one will have you!”
But this is not the only model, there are five main initial problem situations [see further], at present no other variants have been discovered. All complicated problems which seem to have many symptoms and causes in fact go back to one initial conflict, one of five possible cases.
So the initial psychological problem can be presented in one if the five schemes given below [see Fig. 2]. On all schemes the circle means some object desired or rejected by the individual, vertical rectangle is the barrier and the arrow – either the desire of the individual or negative pressure from the object on the subject [which may be called a negative desire of the subject].
The schemes given in Figure 2 show the possible types of the initial problem structure:
A. the feeling is aimed at reaching the aim, the aim and the barrier may be real or imagined, the aim may be really or illusively unreachable, or it may be forbidden;
B. the feeling is aimed at saving from undesirable object, the object may be both real and imagined, it may also be external in relation to the object [for example, an aggressor] or internal [for example, some unpleasant memories; simultaneously with repulsion the object be attracted by an unconscious feeling [“an invisible paw”];
C. the subject has ambivalent feelings about the same object, here is no barrier but the subject has contradictory feelings of repulsion and attraction;
D. two feelings of the same strength are experienced towards incompatible objects [the problem of choice];
E. the subject seeks to get rid of an undesirable object, but he can do it only in contact with another undesirable object [the choice between the two evils].
Fig.2
In all the above given cases we used the word “object” and the object can be not only some thing or another person but some activity, situation, moral assessment, emotional state and so on, which are desirable or on the contrary unacceptable to the subject.
These schemes reflect only initial [primary] problem structure. Further on the problem develops and grows, generating numerous symptoms, creating new difficulties, revealing themselves in different spheres of the person’s life.
Let us give some examples of frequently occurring [but not all possible] problems that we will classify according to their inner structure.
The following psychological problems have type one structure [Fig. 2a]
2. grief, bereavement, unfortunate love and so on.;
3. the desire to change the past, to correct what is impossible to correct, to return “last year’s snow”;
4. morally prohibited sexual, aggressive and other desires;
5.the desire to change other people according to your own standards which is impossible;
6.idealistic, fantastic, exaggerated desires.
Other variants are possible.
The following psychological problems have the structure of the second type:
1. the desire to get rid of the undesirable influence of the environment or other people, who are impossible to get rid of or there is a psychological prohibition to do it;
2. obsessive fears, fixed ideas, obsessive actions and the struggle with them;
3. guilt feelings for something done, suicidal tendencies, anxiety about some past shame, disgrace etcetera;
4. post-tress experience [as a result of an attack, catastrophe, terrorist act, rape etcetera;
5. the desire to get rid of some shortcomings in accordance with some unrealized principles or standards;
6. the struggle with one’s own dependence of various types [emotional, alcohol, narcotic and so on] In other words the second type problem may be based on the first type problem formed before;
7. the denial of oneself.
Other variants are also possible.
In a particular case the second type problem may lead to a vicious circle when the struggle with a symptom or persistent desire strengthens the symptom which gives rise to another round of struggle, etcetera. This circle model was described by L [68] before. This is how some phobias or obtrusiveness, panic attacks can be formed.
Scheme