Methods of self-regulation for successful learning
Andrey Ermoshin
Translator Maria Sapozhnikova
Translator Elena Lysenko
Editor Mary Larry
Editor William Schultz
Cover designer Maria Ermoshina
Illustrator Daria Ermoshina
© Andrey Ermoshin, 2018
© Maria Sapozhnikova, translation, 2018
© Elena Lysenko, translation, 2018
© Maria Ermoshina, cover design, 2018
© Daria Ermoshina, illustrations, 2018
ISBN 978-5-4490-1806-9
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
To the English-speaking Readers
This book is an introduction to psychotherapy and self-regulation methods without offering a person to admit that he or she is sick.
This book will help you learn foreign languages and turn this process into an easy and pleasant adventure. I also expect this book to do a bit more than that: the solution to the problem might also serve as an entrance to the world of self-regulation, the way you can maintain your health and pave your way to success.
Having begun to solve a specific problem, to study a language, in particular, a person understands that most of the obstacles to success in learning are inside.
The accumulated stress in the nervous system and the undeveloped pathways for perception of information can prevent him or her from getting new knowledge and forming new skills.
The stress is associated with the injuries, such as disappointment, deception, injustice, betrayal, unkindness, fear, etc. It can be also caused by stagnant strains, which have been formed during important periods of life: entering pre-school institutions or school, moving to another place of residence, changing job and other difficult situations. These are trace mobilization contours. All of them can be worked out, up to the most severe phobias.
Another important aspect of working with yourself is to pave a path for the new knowledge in the space of your consciousness…
The language is taken as a model. Any other task can be in that place, for example, the mastery of painting or the achievement of success in business. The algorithms for inner work, suggested in this book, can be used by any person and within any field of activity. Especially it can be useful for all teachers and students.
Thanks to the psychocatalysis practices, the readers will quickly restore their integrity and balance, supplement the competence and, by the end of the work, it will turn out that they have also learned the language, doing it easily, as if imperceptibly for themselves. What is more, the self-regulation skills will become even greater acquisition for the users of the method of psychocatalysis.
This is the second of my books, translated into English. The first one is “Phobias”. It describes the work with mental traumas. In Russian there are also the books “The Objects in the Body: psychotherapeutic method of work with sensations”, “Geometry of the Experiences: a constructive drawing of a person in psychotherapeutic practice,” “The Enigmatic Syndrome: panic attacks and how to treat them”, which describe other details of the methodology.
Originally, this book was addressed to the Russian-speaking readers. In Russia, people are willing to learn foreign languages, so this topic was taken as an example of the task, which is solved by many. In other countries, there may be other preferences, but I am sure that everyone will find useful the techniques of self-regulation offered in this book.
During reading and practicing you will learn a lot about yourself, grow up psychologically and you can be even healed.
Psychocatalysis offers the effective methods of improving your attention, motivation, ability to perceive the required knowledge, and other aspects of your personal achievements.
I wish you success in your self-regulation practices. This will be not only the contribution to your successful studying, but also an important factor of your personal growth and wellbeing.
Andrey Ermoshin
INTRODUCTION
How did this method appear?
“The head like a stone and the wooden feet’
“There’s no rush, but you’ve got to learn Chinese by the morning!” I think that sounds like a familiar situation not only to military interpreters who often use this phrase. Most of us live in a constant rush. We never have enough time to learn a foreign language although we urgently need it.
Some time ago, the author of the book found himself in the same situation. Fortunately, he managed to resolve it successfully, but it was not easy.
My head is ‘splitting’
At the end of 1992, I received a very interesting invitation to Italy for a course. The organizers paid all expenses, but there was one condition: I had to speak Italian, as there would be no interpreter1. The course was to begin in three months.
A group of about 10 people willing to go was organized. We found a very good teacher of Italian and plunged into the learning process. However, two weeks later, I started experiencing some unpleasant symptoms: I was having splitting headaches, my cheeks were burning, and my feet would get cold. When I shared this with my colleagues, it turned out that they were not doing great too: some were having headaches, and one of us even had a hypertonic crisis.
Fig. 1. An old TV with a big box and long thin legs. This is the way a person usually feels in a situation of information
overload: a hot heavy head of immense size and cold ‘shrunken’ wooden feet.
Later, when I began investigating this question, I found out that this problem is rather frequent: people of different age told me about similar symptoms in the situations when there was some information overload.
One patient described what he was experiencing in the following way: “My head was like a big old TV set, and the rest of my body was like those thin long legs TV sets used to have.”
Another patient of mine worked as a manager for one company, and this is what she was experiencing after one training course: “My head feels like a computer monitor, and as if there is a floppy disc stuck at the back of my neck. My legs are wooden2.”
Here is a story told by one of the participants. He is a pilot, and this is what he went through in the flight school.
The 17th class syndrome
There are about 680 English terms, which every pilot has to know. In reality, they use only 50 more or less, but they have to know all of them. Flight school is intense with six hours of English classes daily. By the time students reach class number seventeen, they find nothing better than to start drinking vodka. This is what they call “the syndrome of the seventeenth class’3.
Even little children can suffer from the syndrome of brain overload. “My head is filled with stones, and I cannot think straight,” – this is what pupils at school often say. Could it be the reason why they end up skipping classes?
There has to be a reasonable solution!
Alcohol is the worst solution to this problem: ethanol not only removes the information, but it also affects the hardware, so to speak. Running away from the studies does not help either: after