Socrates’ famous statement, “Know yourself”, was addressed to all of us and is, fortunately, out of our reach. Fortunately, because complete knowledge of that most complex phenomenon of nature – the human personality – would mean a stop to the the development of our collective intellect, in fact to progress altogether. And so the process…
Dreams have always been thought to be among the most mysterious manifestations of the human psyche. Each of us has experienced the intuitive feeling that some of our dreams have a meaning that is important for us, but one which we cannot fully interpret. It’s no coincidence that dreams often accompany strong emotions such as…
This chapter is about the concept of search activity, which I mentioned briefly in the previous chapter about dreams. The concept of search activity was born of despair. Too many contradictions had crept into the study of stress and the science of the origins of psychosomatic illness. Psychosomatic illnesses are those in which psychological or…
In the previous chapter we discussed the question of search activity as a guarantor of physical health. This chapter covers the psychological prerequisites of search behaviour. It may be more productive, though, to begin by examining the psychological prerequisites of its opposite, renunciation of search, because this condition is much easier to produce in an…
“Let us suppose you did manage to break a hole in the wall with your head. What will you do in the room next door?” Stanislav Jerzy Lec This acid, wise, sceptical and very Jewish aphorism from ‘pan Stanislav’ has long been one of my favourites. I have always felt that its clear understanding of…
In previous chapters I described in some detail the concept of search activity (developed only 35 years ago and so still regarded by the scientific community as novel and original). According to this concept, active behaviour in conditions of uncertainty (search behaviour) is the most important factor in somatic health, prevents the development of psychosomatic…
About 60 years ago researchers discovered the phenomenon of paradoxical (REM) sleep, which is when dreams occur. They called it paradoxical because the pronounced activation of the brain during this period of sleep, comparable with the activation of the brain during the most intense wakefulness, is combined in a paradoxical way with maximum relaxation of…
The science of the brain, its functions and mechanisms, has come a very long way in recent decades. We should note a new understanding of the complex biochemical ‘kitchen’ of the brain, the creation of an elegant theory of the perception and processing of visual information, the development of a science of sleep and the…
I don’t recall who should take the credit for the famous joke about the sciences being divided into the natural and the unnatural. In the first category we find, of course, such respected disciplines as physics and chemistry, with biology hanging in there as a poor, but respectable relation. True, following the discoveries made in…
The splitting of the brain by Professor Sperry and his colleagues revealed significant differences in the way the two hemispheres worked. It was obvious that functions were distributed between the hemispheres, but the most important question remained unanswered: is there some fundamental principle behind this distribution? Is it possible to suggest a concept which would…
Numerous experiments have shown that the right hemisphere dominates the first 2 to 3 years of a child’s life. A child has a vital need for holistic perception, it needs to ‘grab’ objects and phenomena of the outside world so as to define them as either attractive or dangerous. It is the right hemisphere which…
Once, while still in the Soviet Union, I took part in a round table discussion on the subject of upbringing, education and health. Opposite me sat a very prim and proper elderly gentleman. He gave the impression of a top official, and by his look alone made sure he kept a good distance between himself…
Which is easier – to create something new or proceed along a well-trodden path? Which is more exhausting – routine or creative activity? Since creativity has always been infinitely rarer and much more highly valued than stereotyped, routine work, an unspoken assumption has developed suggesting that creativity is not only more prestigious, but also more…
This chapter is very different from all the others in this book. While I can provide support for all the many hypotheses and concepts, even the most controversial ones, I describe in the other chapters with scientifically proven facts and experimental findings, in this chapter the foundations for my hypotheses are fairly shaky. Leaps across…
At the end of the 1960’s, when I was working at the 1st Moscow Medical Institute, I ran a number of experiments on the disruption of sleep patterns in cases of neurosis. I would systematically wake my patients during REM sleep and ask them what they had been experiencing before I woke them. Healthy subjects…
Psychoanalysis, one of the most defining developments of the 20th century with a profound impact on medicine, psychology, philosophy and culturology, was initially focused on explaining the nature of neuroses. It was the first systematic, scientific attempt to create an integrated system of ideas about this phenomenon. Over time the approach developed, some of the…
The problem of schizophrenia, its mechanisms and treatment is one of the most troublesome in psychiatry. Although far less widespread than other mental illnesses like depression and neuroses, which are now encountered on a mass scale, schizophrenia is what symbolises psychiatry for society at large. Any hint of success in solving this riddle attracts huge…
Anorexia nervosa – persistent and prolonged refusal to eat – is one of the most insidious and at the same time mysterious mental disorders. If I was asked for a metaphor for the illness, I would suggest the dragon from Evgeny Shvartz’s play of the same name. The townspeople would bring the dragon virgins as…
(The mother-child relationship) We all spring from our childhood, as Janosz Korczak once said, and we bear the traces of our family origins all our lives. In his time Freud showed extraordinary intuition when he started investigating in detail the impressions and experiences of the earliest period of infancy and concluded that the first year…
In the last chapter I described the role of the mother-child relationship during the first year of infancy. Naturally, the principles of these relations remain significant subsequently, but when the child begins to walk and talk and interact more independently with the outside world, these principles must be supplemented and expanded. Taken at its widest,…
(How and why Jewish reality does not correspond with the norms of psychological science) The history of the Jewish people is full of miracles and paradoxes, and the biggest paradox and miracle of all is that it still exists. In conditions of diaspora and hostile encirclement, relentless persecution and the impossibility of fighting back, when…
When people refer to human communication, they usually mean speech communication. That’s natural. After all, it is speech communication that we use to ensure unambiguous mutual understanding. Without that no common activity would be possible and, consequently, no development of human society. Without a written record there would be no way of transmitting human culture…
There is a saying common among physicists, which is actually applicable to any science: “There is nothing more practical than good theory”. This statement is especially relevant to clinical psychology. The theory a psychologist adheres to determines his entire attitude to his client and, in the final analysis, the success or failure of his psychological…