term and mechanism) is triggered. Repression (suppression) is one of the mechanisms of psychological defense. It is triggered as an active, motivated elimination of something from consciousness into the unconscious, usually manifesting itself in the form of unmotivated forgetting or ignoring some moments of a traumatic situation due to protective inhibition (neurophysiological mechanism). Clinically these “forgettings” are described as various amnesias (A. Tadevosyan, 2011).
Since memory lapses violate the integrity of the inner mental world of a traumatized person, in everyday life, specialists have the expression “holey memory”. Repressed experiences, let’s conditionally call them “lost memory puzzle” are in a “semi-active state”, in all probability, making up operative memory. The stored information as operative memory is between the consciousness and unconscious (in the pre-consciousness, according to Freud) and systematically breaks into the sphere of consciousness through nightmares, flashbacks that are described as symptoms of PTSD. We view these mental paradigms not as psychopathology but as a normal functioning of the mental apparatus in a state of post-trauma, which has a threefold meaning.
1. The appearance of nightmares, flashbacks makes it possible for the consciousness to “fill in the gaps in the memory”, to restore the integrity of the mental world torn by amnesias. Cognitive processing of them, spontaneous or in the office of a psychoanalyst, is the therapy of the trauma itself.
2. At the same time recurring memories together with the work of consciousness form a leading reflection as a person’s readiness for repeated traumas, thereby reducing their destructive impact on the psyche; and this is an increase in stress resistance.
3. If cognitive processing of the obtained traumatic experience does not occur timely (within 6 months on the average) and in the right direction, the appearing phenomena are fixed and can acquire an obsessive character (the mechanism of the mental apparatus) becoming symptoms of post-stress disorder.
Cognitive echo-stressor. This type of traumatic event memorizing is of a conscious nature. A traumatic event can be retained in the form of memories or images that the individual randomly recalls in memory. When alone, he can mentally “play back” the events, and by active use of his imagination, man can distort reality. Imagination and fantasies can reduce a pathogenic effect of a stressor using one of the mechanisms of psychological defense; however they can also amplify a traumatic event, resulting eventually in affectivity growing like a snowball. Having been processed by consciousness, recollections acquire a personally significant meaning and can entirely devour a person. A constructed subjective mental reality replaces the objective reality, forcing a person to adapt within the framework of its new priorities. This kind of mental “echo” has an arbitrary character and results from man’s evolution.
The state of stress outprice (when alone) produces self-generation of “echo-stress”. A thought is a stressor to which the brain responds by one of the components: anxiety, strain, or exhaustion. Each time recollections of events again trigger a stressor response, stressogenesis with some of its links dropping out, e.g., the orientation reflex, the anxiety stage. The psychophysiological response can be stipulated by one of the neuro-endocrinal axes of the anxiety phase, while as the stressor in this case can appear the cognitive senses (thoughts) of man. Since the end organs permanently receive the stress hormones, somatoform disorders acquire an organic basis. So, it is the presence of cognitive “echo stressor” that converts acute stress into chronic. The peculiarities of the brain and psyche based upon their rules and mechanisms make it possible to generate the interiorized (internal) distress (neurophysiological term) or intrapersonal conflict (psychoanalytical term) keeping man under condition of prolonged stress.
A stressor response, having a discrete nature, is manifested by functional disorders. Stressogenesis, due to the frequency of conscious flashback to the experienced trauma, actually becomes non-stop, resulting in increase of the degree of disrupting the homeostasis that in turn can lead to transition of functional disorders into the structural ones. As shown by clinical experience, if “echo-stressors” exist due to the bioelectric mechanism, functional disorders, regardless of the duration of symptoms, practically do not pass into the organic. However, if the “echo-process” involves the endocrine system, and the stimulation of the end organ is done through hormones in the blood system, then the development of organic disorders becomes more probable.
Availability of different varieties of “echo-stressors” explains the commonly known fact that a traumatic event affects man years later, manifesting itself by one of the varieties of a delayed post-stress disorder or behavioral disorders. The appearance of delayed effects is a peculiarity of APES.
The total response is a vector of complex internal processes that manifest themselves as a personal experience of trauma. The complexity of this response requires an integrated approach due to the peculiarities of APES, its multisensory nature, complexity and ability to produce the whole range of health and behavior disorders manifesting itself as one of variants of the stress- phase-oriented model of the mentioned disorders.
“Boring, oh, how boring, it’s horribly boring… And you do it”
Patient’s drawing.
Part Two
PSYCHOLOGY OF MALE PERSONALITY
Quite often the truth is cruel,
If you live in the imaginary world
Painting by Joel Rea.
The man and his interaction with the elements –
the main theme of the Australian artist
The first part of the book highlights modern knowledge about a person, key features and components that determine specificity of his/her SBA basis, on which arise, develop, spread and then fade away various momentary, short- and long-term states – vibrations of the ocean of human life along which like waves fly life collisions, dramas, comedies and tragedies changing the quality of life and reducing it. The SBA is a chip inside of which the psychic world (subjective reality) of man is being formed and only by virtue of interaction and interpenetration of these opposites man lives and develops.
There is a great deal of literature, researches relating to the man’s psychic world. There are even more discussions around this subject. The presence of the Internet has opened up easy access to the accumulated knowledge, to comprehend which is not always easy, even to a professional, because of the complexity of the research subject, its versatility, availability of different approaches to the study, different schools and different theoretical concepts. Multiple reiterations, terminological diversity depending on the chosen approach complicate understanding. We are not inclined to retell them, analyze or all the more to prove or disprove anything.
As required, we will refer to a particular source for the sole purpose to bring a reader to treat many issues of interest in a different way, overcoming the persistence of stereotypes. Offering our vision of this or that problem – we follow our authors’ logic. Perhaps we are mistaken. We are always ready to listen to another point of view and change our own, if the evidences are convincing. But we are going our way to the Temple where a person, both a professional and amateur (to both of them “all that is human is not alien”) will find those anchors, life buoys, sweeps, islands using which, taking hold of which will be able to overcome anxieties of the life ocean easier. On our way we gathered pearls of the foregone generations abundantly scattered in the fields of physiology and neurophysiology, psychology and psychoanalysis, logic and philosophy. Summarizing many years’ professional experience of the psychiatrist (“Psyche”) and the urologist (“Eros”) we weaved the found “pearls” of knowledge into a single necklace “Stressology” and through its lens tried to address the current health problems of men in particular, and medicine in general.
PECULIARITIES OF MALE SENSITIVITY
We view the study of the inner mental world of a man as the most reliable way to explore deep mental processes that affect health, life and healthy longevity. Unfortunately, these issues are ignored in medicine.