Deprivation is a state of mind of individuals, provoked by the loss of the opportunity to satisfy fundamental life needs and needs, for example, sexual desire, food intake, sleep, housing, communication between a child and a parent, or the loss of benefits and living conditions familiar to a particular individual. The term presented comes from an English concept that means deprivation or loss. Moreover, this term has a negative meaning, a strong negative orientation and carries not just a loss, but rather the deprivation of something very significant and vital.
Deprivation in psychology means a lack of sensory stimuli and social motives, depriving an individual of social contacts, living sensations and impressions. The concept of “deprivation” is related (although not identical) to the term “” in terms of content and psychological meaning. The deprived state, in comparison with the frustration reaction, is a much more severe, painful, and often even personally destructive state. It is distinguished by the highest degree of rigidity and consistency. In a variety of everyday situations and life circumstances, completely different needs may be deprived.
Types of deprivation
Deprived states are usually divided depending on the unmet need.
Most often, there are 4 types of this mental state, in particular: stimulus or sensory, cognitive, emotional and social. Most authors adhere to the classification below.
Sensory or stimulus mental deprivation is a decrease in the number of sensory motives or their limited variability and modality. Often, sensory deprivation can be described by the term “depleted environment”, in other words, an environment in which the subject does not receive the required amount of visual stimuli, auditory impulses, tactile and other stimuli. This environment can accompany child development, or can be included in the everyday situations of an adult.
Cognitive deprivation or deprivation of meaning arises as a result of an overly changeable, chaotic structure of the external world, which does not have a clear ordering and specific meaning, which does not make it possible to comprehend, predict and control what is happening from the outside.
Cognitive deprivation is also called information deprivation. It prevents the formation of adequate forms of the surrounding world. If an individual does not receive the necessary data, ideas about the relationships between objects or events, then he creates “false connections”, as a result of which he develops erroneous beliefs.
Emotional deprivation consists in the insufficiency of opportunities to establish an intimate emotional relationship with any person or the breakdown of a connection if it was previously created. This type of mental state can be encountered by individuals at different ages. The term “maternal deprivation” is often used for children, thereby emphasizing the importance for children of an emotional connection with their parent, the deficiency or rupture of which leads to a chain of mental health problems in children. So, for example, the deprivation of orphans consists of separation from their parents and can be both maternal and paternal, that is, paternal.
Social deprivation or identity deprivation consists of limiting opportunities for acquiring an independent social role.
Social deprivation affects children living in orphanages or studying in closed educational institutions, adults isolated from society or having limited contact with other individuals, and pensioners.
In ordinary life, the listed types of deprivation can be intertwined, combined, or a consequence of another.
In addition to the above types of deprivation, there are also others. For example, motor deprivation occurs when an individual faces the problem of limited movement due to injury or illness. This type of condition is not mental, but has a strong impact on the psyche of the individual.
In addition to the species classification, forms of manifestation of deprivation are distinguished - obvious or hidden. Obvious mental deprivation is of an obvious nature (for example, a person being in social isolation, prolonged loneliness, a child being in an orphanage), that is, in cultural terms, this is a visible deviation from the norm established in society. Hidden or partial is not so obvious. It arises under apparently favorable circumstances, which still do not provide the opportunity to satisfy fundamental needs for individuals.
Thus, deprivation in psychology is a multidimensional phenomenon that affects various areas of human life.
Sleep deprivation
Deficiency or complete deprivation of the ability to satisfy the fundamental need for sleep. Occur due to sleep disturbance due to the presence of illness, as a result of conscious choice or coercion, for example, as torture. Depressive conditions are often successfully treated with the help of deliberate sleep deprivation.
Human individuals cannot stay awake all the time. However, he is able to reduce this process to a minimum (for example, to a couple of hours a day) - partial sleep deprivation.
Total sleep deprivation is the process of being deprived of sleep for at least several days.
There are also certain techniques for using deprivation as a treatment. However, to this day there is much controversy regarding the usefulness of deprivation as a therapeutic agent. So, for example, it leads to a decrease in the secretion of growth hormone, which is responsible for converting calories into muscle mass. With its deficiency, calories are transformed not into muscle tissue, but into fat.
Sleep deprivation is characterized by several main stages. The initial stage, which lasts from one to six days, is characterized by the individual’s constant struggle with sleep. People try to fall asleep for a fairly short period of time (no more than two hours). And the main thing here is not to break down, maintaining psychological calm. To this end, individuals try to diversify their activities and do something previously unknown and interesting. When choosing a new activity, preference is given not to a monotonous, but to a more active activity. You need to understand that during the initial stage, individuals may be plagued by nervous tension, emotional disorders, and poor health. At the end of the initial stage, the feeling of poor health goes away. The next stage, lasting up to ten days, is shock therapy. The second stage is characterized by disorders of consciousness: human individuals will seem like robots, disturbances in the perception of the surrounding reality may be observed, and malfunctions may also appear in the cognitive sphere. For example, an individual may forget what happened a moment ago or confuse the past and present. Light possible. This stage is characterized by constant insomnia, to which the body has already adapted. The work of all systems is intensified, and processes are accelerated. There is a clearer perception of the world, and feelings are heightened. If you continue to deprive yourself of sleep, the third stage will begin, which is considered quite dangerous for the health of individuals. And it is marked by the emergence of visual vision.
Today, doctors successfully use sleep deprivation techniques to bring people out of their deepest depression. The essence of the method is a gradual change in sleep cycles: reducing the amount of time spent asleep and increasing the period of wakefulness.
Sleep deprivation, as most doctors believe, selectively affects certain areas of the brain that are responsible for people falling into depressive states.
Sensory deprivation
Partial or absolute deprivation of one analyzer or several sense organs of external influence is called sensory or stimulus deprivation. The simplest artificial means that cause a state of loss of perception include earplugs or blindfolds, which remove or reduce the impact on the visual or auditory analyzer. There are also more complex mechanisms that simultaneously turn off several analyzer systems, for example, olfactory, tactile, taste and temperature receptors.
Stimulus deprivation is successfully used in various psychological experiments, alternative medicine, BDSM games, meditation and as torture. Short periods of deprivation have a relaxing effect, as they trigger internal processes of subconscious analysis, organizing and sorting information, self-tuning and stabilization of mental activity. Meanwhile, prolonged deprivation of external stimuli can provoke excessive anxiety, hallucinations, depression and antisocial behavior.
Scientists from McGill University in the fifties of the twentieth century asked volunteers to stay for the longest possible period of time in a special chamber that protected them from external impulses. The subjects were located in a small enclosed space in a supine position, in which all sounds were drowned out by the monotonous noise of the air conditioner motor. Their hands were inserted into special cardboard sleeves, and their eyes were covered with tinted glasses that let in only faint, diffuse light. Most subjects were unable to endure this experiment for longer than 3 days. This is due to the turning of human consciousness, deprived of the usual external stimuli, into the depths of the subconscious, from which quite bizarre and most incredible images and false sensations began to emerge, reminiscent of hallucinations to the tested individuals. Such imaginary perceptions frightened the subjects, and they demanded to complete the experiment. This study allowed scientists to conclude that sensory stimulation is vital for the normal development and functioning of consciousness, and deprivation of sensory sensations leads to degradation of mental activity and the personality itself. The inevitable consequences of long-term stimulus deprivation will be impairments in the cognitive sphere, namely memory, attention and thought processes, anxiety, sleep-wake cycle disorders, mood swings from depression to euphoria and vice versa, and the inability to distinguish reality from hallucinations.
Further research has shown that the occurrence of the listed symptoms is determined not by the fact of deprivation, but by the individual’s attitude towards the loss of sensory perceptions. The very deprivation of external influence on analyzers is not scary for an adult individual - it is just a change in environmental conditions, to which the human body easily adapts by restructuring its functioning.
So, for example, food deprivation will not necessarily be accompanied by suffering. Unpleasant sensations appear only in those individuals for whom fasting is unusual or they are forcibly deprived of food. People who consciously practice therapeutic fasting feel light in their bodies on the third day and can easily endure a ten-day fast.
Sensory and emotional deprivation of young children manifests itself in a lack of opportunities to establish an emotionally intimate relationship with a certain person or in the severance of an established connection. Children who find themselves in an orphanage, boarding school or hospital often find themselves in an impoverished environment that causes sensory starvation. Such an environment is harmful for individuals of any age, but it has a particularly detrimental effect on children.
Numerous psychological studies have proven that a necessary condition for the normal formation of the brain in an early age is the presence of a sufficient number of external impressions, since it is during the receipt of various information from the external environment into the brain and its further processing that the training of analyzer systems and corresponding brain structures occurs.
Social deprivation
The complete absence or reduction of the opportunity to communicate with people around us, to live interacting with society, is social deprivation. Violation of personal contacts with society can provoke a certain mental state, which serves as a pathogenic factor causing the development of a number of painful symptoms. The occurrence of violations is due to social isolation, the level of severity of which varies, which in turn establishes the degree of severity of the deprivation situation.
There are several forms of social deprivation, which differ not only in the level of its severity, but in the person who is the initiator. That is, there is a certain personality that establishes the deprivative nature of the relationship of an individual or group of individuals with the wider society. In accordance with this, the following options for social deprivation are distinguished: forced, forced, voluntary and voluntary-forced isolation.
Forced isolation occurs when an individual or group of people find themselves, due to insurmountable circumstances, cut off from society. Such circumstances do not depend on their will or the will of society. For example, the crew of a sea vessel that ended up on a desert island as a result of a wreck.
Forced isolation occurs when society isolates individuals regardless of their aspirations and desires, and often in spite of them. An example of such isolation is provided by prisoners in correctional institutions or closed social groups, being in which does not imply restrictions on rights and does not imply a decrease in the social status of the individual (conscript soldiers, children in orphanages).
Voluntary isolation occurs when individuals voluntarily distance themselves from society (for example, monks or sectarians).
Voluntary-forced isolation occurs when the achievement of a certain goal that is significant for an individual or group of people implies the need to significantly narrow one’s own contacts with a familiar environment. For example, sports boarding schools.
Man is the most perfect creature on planet Earth, but at the same time, during the neonatal period and in infancy, he is the most helpless creature, since he does not have any ready-made forms of behavioral response.
Deprivation of young children leads to a decrease in their success in understanding society and difficulties in building communications with individual subjects and society as a whole, which in the future will significantly affect the effectiveness of their life activities.
In addition, being in closed institutions does not remain without detrimental consequences for children's developing psyche.
Social deprivation of orphans sharply activates the formation of undesirable personality traits, such as: infantilism, self-doubt, dependency, lack of independence, low self-esteem. All this slows down the process of socialization and leads to disharmony in the social development of orphans.
Child deprivation
The shortage of any conditions, objects or means that satisfy material needs, spiritual and mental needs, in conditions of constant shortage, can be chronic, that is, chronic deprivation. In addition, it can be periodic, partial or spontaneous and depends on the duration of the loss.
Long-term deprivation of children delays their development. The lack of social stimuli and sensory stimuli in the process of childhood formation leads to inhibition and distortion of mental and emotional development.
For the full formation of children, a variety of stimuli of various modalities (auditory, tactile, etc.) are needed. Their deficiency gives rise to stimulus deprivation.
Unsatisfactory conditions for learning and mastering various skills, a chaotic structure of the external environment, which does not provide the opportunity to comprehend, predict and control what is happening from the outside, gives rise to cognitive deprivation.
Social contacts with the adult environment and, first of all, with the mother, ensure the formation of personality, and their deficiency leads to emotional deprivation.
Emotional deprivation affects children in the following ways. Children become lethargic, their orientation activity decreases, they do not strive to move, and physical health inevitably begins to weaken. There is also a delay in development in all major parameters.
Maternal deprivation does not lose the destructive power of its own effects at all stages of childhood growth. As a result of maternal deprivation, the child’s attitude towards himself is distorted, and the child may experience rejection of his own body or auto-aggression. In addition, the child loses the opportunity to establish full-fledged relationships with other persons.
Limiting the possibilities of social fulfillment through the assimilation of certain social roles, as well as through familiarization with social ideas and goals, leads to social deprivation.
A pronounced result of a slowdown or disturbance in the development of children, which occurs as a result of some form of deprivation, is called hospitalism. 
Psychological deprivation is grief that follows on the heels. .
Psychological deprivation is a topic that we regularly encounter in consultation with a psychologist. In this article we tell you what psychological deprivation is, where it comes from, what consequences it leads to, and what to do about it. We remind you that all our articles on psychology are written with significant simplifications and are intended for the average person, and not for a professional psychologist. Our articles on psychology are intended to broaden people's horizons, improve mutual understanding between the client and the psychologist, and are not a practical guide to psychological help for someone or oneself. If you really need psychological help, contact a good psychologist.
What is psychological deprivation?
The term psychological deprivation comes from the Latin word deprivatio, which means loss or deprivation. In fact, psychological deprivation- this is a long-term psychological experience that arises as a result of the fact that a person was deprived of something very important in life, and was deprived against his desire; he cannot live normally without it, and is unable to change the situation. Those. To put it simply, psychological deprivation is the experience of violent deprivation of something very important, and a person becomes fixated on this experience for a long time, sometimes for the rest of his life.
Examples of psychological deprivation
Typical examples of psychological deprivation are tactile and emotional deprivation.
In the case of tactile deprivation, a child during the sensitive period does not receive the required amount of tactile sensations from his parents: touching, stroking, etc. This is very similar, for example, to hunger suffered in childhood. There are high chances that in adult life there will be consequences of tactile deprivation suffered in childhood. For example, when a child grows up, an insatiable neurotic need for tactile sensations may arise, expressed in sexually indiscriminate behavior with frequent changes of partners - if only someone would stroke and caress. And the roots of this adult behavior are that in the past, parents, due to busyness, negligence or their own character, were not attentive enough to the tactile needs of the child.
In the case of emotional deprivation, the same thing happens with emotions. Emotionally cold, alienated or busy parents did not give the child the amount of emotions and the types of emotions that are necessary for psychological comfort. However, why only parents?! Emotional deprivation can also appear in an adult when living with an emotionally dry or alienated partner. As a result, a natural hunger for emotions arises (sometimes in the form of an affective disorder): for example, a person constantly looks for emotions on the side (like hungry people look for food). He is looking for a lot of emotions, strong emotions, this neurotic need is insatiable, relief does not come, but the person cannot stop his pursuit of emotions.
Close and interrelated concepts
Psychological deprivation is close to the concepts of grief, frustration and neuroticism.
The feeling of acute grief and the state of mourning occurs in a person with a one-time irreparable loss, for example, in the event of the death of a loved one. And psychological deprivation occurs when there is a chronic (rather than one-time) deprivation of something important, and the victim often has the feeling that the situation can be corrected if, for example, he explains his desires and needs to another person. Grief and psychological deprivation are very similar. Metaphorically speaking, psychological deprivation is grief that follows a person’s heels. In essence, psychological deprivation is grief over psychological deprivation stretched out over years with the illusion that everything can be fixed. And due to the duration of negative experiences and the presence of such illusions, chronic psychological deprivation often causes more damage to the human psyche than a one-time acute grief without illusions.
Psychological deprivation is close to the state of frustration - the experience of failure. After all, a person with psychological deprivation often experiences the feeling that he is a failure in satisfying those desires and needs that are the basis of his psychological comfort.
And of course, psychological deprivation is close to the concept of neuroticism, because Psychological deprivation very often causes a neurotic, insatiable need for what a person was deprived of before or now.
The concepts: psychological deprivation, grief, frustration, neuroticism, etc., are not just close to each other terminologically, but are naturally related to each other by mechanisms of psychological response. After all, in essence, all of these are various forms of a person’s reaction to a subjectively uncomfortable or unbearable life imposed on him by loved ones or society. That is why psychological deprivation often occurs in cases that in English literature are designated by the word abuse - mistreatment of children and loved ones, as well as in cases where this mistreatment is caused by unceremonious interference of society in a person’s private life. Psychological deprivation and related phenomena are often the negative consequences of psychological violence against the desires and needs of a person who could not get out of the position of victim.
Social causes of psychological deprivation
Social causes of psychological deprivation are typical.
– Insufficient competence or psychological uniqueness of parents in matters of upbringing and mental health of their child. For example, in some families, parents are not attentive enough to feedback from the child, and, as a result, the child does not receive something very important in his life, which the parents themselves may mistakenly consider to be of secondary importance. For example, the child does not receive enough of those tactile sensations or positive emotions.
– Unsuccessful choice of a partner in adulthood, which often continues the scenario started by the parents. And then these two negative scenarios of psychological deprivation - parental and partner - add up, and the person lives psychologically very uncomfortable.
– Cultural and subcultural traditions, when it is not customary to satisfy the basic psychological needs of a person, but because of this they do not cease to exist. For example, the need to express emotions outwardly, which is very important, but can be suppressed in some families or even communities - for example, when teaching "masculinity" in boys.
– State and social interests of superiors, when the desires and psychological needs of a person do not matter to these superiors.
Individual causes of psychological deprivation
Individual causes of psychological deprivation are also typical.
– Inadequacy or clinical uniqueness of parents and any superiors, on whom the mental health and psychological comfort of a person depends.
– Individual low resistance to psychological deprivation, similar to what happens with low stress resistance.
Psychological reactions of victims of psychological deprivation.
The psychological reactions of a victim of psychological deprivation are so individual that they can be listed endlessly. For example, isolation, social maladjustment, aggression or auto-aggression, neurotic disorders, psychosomatic diseases, depression and various affective disorders, dissatisfaction in sexual and personal life are often encountered. As often happens in psychology, psychological reactions of the same form can be generated by completely different reasons. That's why you need to avoid the temptation to quickly make a psychological diagnosis of yourself or another person based on superficial observations and a few reading articles on psychology. There is a very good chance that the diagnosis you made for yourself will be incorrect.
Psychological assistance for psychological deprivation
In case of suspected psychological deprivation, the psychologist’s actions are consistent and logical.
– Check your assumptions through a series of psychological consultations, or better (much better!) using a psychodiagnostic procedure.
– If the causes of psychological deprivation continue to exist in the client’s life, lead the client to a real change in conditions, image and lifestyle so that the causes giving rise to psychological deprivation disappear.
– If necessary, conduct a course of psychological assistance (psychotherapy) in order to correct the negative consequences of psychological deprivation that has existed for a long time in a person’s life. Those. Having removed the cause, it is now necessary to remove the effect.
– Carry out social and personal adaptation of a person to a new life.
The process of psychological assistance to a person in case of psychological deprivation is lengthy, because psychological deprivation is often much more destructive in consequences than, for example, cases traditionally considered difficult in the practice of a psychologist: the death of a loved one, one-time psychological trauma, etc. And this is the danger of psychological deprivation for the client and the real difficulties in the work of a psychologist.
© Authors Igor and Larisa Shiryaev. The authors provide advice on issues of personal life and social adaptation (success in society). You can read about the features of the analytical consultation “Successful Brains” by Igor and Larisa Shiryaev on the page.
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Part one
MATERNAL DEPRIVATION
“Only very naive people think that the world will change because of phrases beginning with the word “let”: ... “Let every mother raise a good person, and the world will turn into paradise.” Let it be, but it doesn’t work out.
S. Soloveichik
“Maternal love is a concept that not only evolves, but is filled with different content in different periods of history”
Elizabeth Badinter
I. Mental deprivation
Deprivation: word, term, concept
Deprivation- a term widely used today in psychology and medicine. It came to the Russian language from English - deprivation - and means “loss, deprivation, limitation of opportunities to satisfy vital needs” (Encyclopedic Dictionary of Medical Terms, ...).
To understand the essence of this term, it is important to turn to the etymology of the word. Latin root private, which means “to separate,” is the basis of English, French, and Spanish words translated into Russian as “private, closed, separate”; hence the word “private” used in Russian speech. Prefix de in this case, it conveys an increase, a downward movement, a decrease in the value of the root (by analogy with the word “de-pressure” - “suppression”).
Thus, the etymological analysis of the word shows that when speaking about deprivation, they mean the dissatisfaction of needs that occurs as a result of the separation of a person from the necessary sources of their satisfaction - a separation that has harmful consequences.
It is the psychological side of these consequences that is significant: whether a person’s motor skills are limited, whether he is excommunicated from culture or society, or whether he is deprived of maternal love from early childhood - the manifestations of deprivation are psychologically similar.
To clarify the psychological content of the concept of “deprivation,” it is productive to draw an analogy between mental deprivation and biological deprivation. Biological deprivation is generated by a lack of proteins, vitamins, oxygen and leads to serious disturbances in the development of the body. Accordingly, mental deprivation is caused by a lack of sensory stimuli, social contacts, and stable emotional connections. In both cases, a kind of “starvation” occurs, the results of which - no matter how different their mechanism is - are manifested in weakening, impoverishment, and deterioration of the body and psyche.
The term “deprivation” entered psychology thanks to the English psychologist J. Bowlby.
In the famous work of J. Bowlby, “Maternal Care and Mental Health,” published in 1952 and describing, in particular, the results of a psychological study of children evacuated during the Second World War, it was shown that children deprived of maternal care and love in early childhood experience delays in emotional, physical and intellectual development.
J. Bowlby's discovery of the phenomenon of deprivation turned out to be so important that it gave rise to a whole direction in science that exists and develops to this day.
Let us present some definitions that allow us to understand what content modern psychologists put into the concept of deprivation.
V. Kagan believes that the term deprivation “ used to denote deprivation/loss or insufficiency of something desired/necessary that approaches them in severity and significance for the subject"(Handbook of Psychology..., 1999, p. 43).
According to A. Reber, author of the Great Explanatory Psychological Dictionary, the term “ deprivation" means "the loss of some desired object or person and is used to denote the removal of an object or person or to denote the state of loss itself"(Vol. 1, p. 226).
Charles Rycroft in the dictionary of psychoanalytic terms defines deprivation as “ experience of not getting what you need"(1995, p.39).
It is important to note that the term deprivation is used in two ways by many authors - to designate (1) real restrictions on living conditions and functioning and (2) the mental state that arises as a result of such restrictions.
Canadian psychologist D. Hebb, emphasizing the specifics mental deprivation, gives the following definition: “biologically adequate, but psychologically limited environment.” By limitation, Hebb understands the lack of certain environmental elements that are necessary for the normal development and preservation of mental functions. Thus, he speaks of deprivation in the first of the meanings presented above.
A heuristic definition of deprivation in the second meaning is offered by well-known researchers of this problem, the authors of the fundamental work “Mental Deprivation in Childhood” J. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek: “Mental deprivation is a mental state that arises as a result of such life situations where the subject is not given the opportunity to satisfy some of his basic (life) mental needs in sufficient measure and for a sufficiently long time”(1984, p.19).
An important clarification in defining the meaning of the concept deprivation there is also a distinction made by some researchers between, on the one hand, a situation when a person from birth is deprived of certain stimuli (stimuli, impulses - “object of need”, according to A.N. Leontiev), as a result of which some significant needs do not arise at all, and on the other hand, a situation when a need has already arisen, and then the object of the need has become unavailable. The first situation is sometimes called " privation ", i.e. department, and the second - actually deprivation .
Distinguish partial deprivation (partial deprivation) - when any one need is not satisfied and full (total ), when many needs are not satisfied at the same time or one, but so important that its dissatisfaction causes total violations. An example of the latter is the deprivation of a child's mother's love - maternal deprivation .
In addition, there are open (manifested) deprivation and deprivation hidden (masked) .
Various types of deprivation are currently being studied, which will be discussed in more detail below. Here we note that in the context of interest to us, the most important is maternal deprivation, It was with the study of which that J. Bowlby essentially began. The term " maternal deprivation" used by him to describe cases when ties are severed attachments between child and mother (J. Bowlby, 2003).
Close in meaning to the concept of maternal deprivation in psychology is the concept “ hospitalism "(from the English hospital - hospital), or " sick leave syndrome”, introduced by the German-American psychologist R. Spitz in 1945 to describe the mental state of a child placed for a long time in a hospital without a mother.
The specificity of the term “ hospitalism"consists of emphasizing, on the one hand, the place of occurrence of this syndrome - a hospital, a shelter, and, on the other hand, the age of the child - as a rule, up to one and a half years.
Thus, M. Godfried defines hospitalism How " a combination of serious physical and psychological disorders due to long hospital stays and complete lack of contact with the mother in infants under 1.5 years old.”(2003, p.36).
In the Big Psychological Dictionary, edited by B.G. Meshcheryakov and V.P. Zinchenko hospitalism defined as " profound mental and physical retardation that occurs in the first years of a child’s life due to "communication deficit" and education." The following signs of hospitalism are indicated: “ delayed development of movements, especially walking, a sharp lag in mastering speech, emotional impoverishment, meaningless movements of an obsessive nature (swaying the body, etc.), as well as low anthropometric indicators accompanying this complex of mental deficiencies, rickets(2003, p. 111).
A. Reber’s dictionary emphasizes another aspect that is important in the context of the modern use of this term - the specifics of a child’s communication with others. Hospitalism seen as synonymous with disorder reactive attachment and is defined as follows:
« Disorders of childhood and infancy characterized by the child's inability to form normal social connections before the age of five. This disorder is characterized either by a persistent inability of the child to engage in social interactions and respond appropriately to them, or (in older children) by promiscuity in communication, especially with strangers and other socially inappropriate individuals. This disorder is thought to result from extremely abnormal early child care, characterized by a lack of normal physical and social stimulation, as it occurs even when the child is provided with good nutrition and good social conditions. Please note that this term is not used if there is evidence of mental retardation or any other pervasive developmental disorder."(Vol. 2, p. 178).
Thus, it can be stated that in modern usage the terms “hospitalism” and “deprivation” are not complete synonyms, since their content overlaps only partially. The term “hospitalism” is narrower, limited both by the age of the child (up to one and a half years old) and the place of his stay (hospital, shelter).
2. Types of deprivation
Depending on what exactly a person is deprived of, different types of deprivation are distinguished. For psychology, the greatest interest is in such types of deprivation as motor, sensory, informational, social, sexual, emotional and maternal.
Let us consider those types of deprivation that are most important for studying the development of children deprived of normal parental care.
Sensory deprivation
A brilliant example of sensory deprivation is the description of the pre-diploma exam, which was taken by a cadet at the school of cosmonautics, famous in science fiction circles, the pilot Pirx from the story by S. Lem “Conditioned Reflex”. The cadets lovingly called this exam “the crazy bath.” Lem describes in detail how the cadet is led into a spacious room with a pool full of water.
“The subject - in student jargon, the “patient” - undressed and immersed himself in water, which was heated until he ceased to feel its temperature... When the young man, lying supine in the water, raised his hand, the water was stopped heated and one of the assistants put a paraffin mask on his face. Then some kind of salt was added to the water (but not potassium cyanide, as those who had already bathed in the “crazy bath” seriously claimed) - it seemed like simple table salt. It was added until the “patient” (aka “drowned man”) floated up so that his body was freely floating in the water, just below the surface. Only the metal tubes protruded outside, and therefore he could breathe freely.
That's all, actually. In the language of scientists, this experience was called “elimination of afferent impulses.” And in fact, deprived of sight, hearing, smell, touch (the presence of water very soon became imperceptible), like an Egyptian mummy, with his arms crossed on his chest, the “drowned man” rested in a state of weightlessness. How much time? How much could he stand?
It's like nothing special. However, in such cases, something strange began to happen to the person... About a third of the subjects could not stand not only six or five, but even three hours.”
The writer describes Peirx’s subjective experiences with great reliability; similar ones can be found in the self-reports of participants in genuine scientific experiments (apparently, the author was familiar with the works of American psychologists from Columbia University J. Lilly, J. Shorley, 1961):
“He didn’t feel anything at all. But this emptiness became alarming. First of all, he stopped feeling the position of his own body, arms, and legs. He still remembered what position he was lying in, but he just remembered, and did not feel. Pirx began to wonder how long he had been under water, with this white paraffin on his face. And he realized with surprise that he, who usually knew how to determine time without a watch with an accuracy of one or two minutes, did not have the slightest idea of how many minutes - or maybe tens of minutes? - passed after immersion in the “crazy bath”.
While Pirx was surprised at this, he discovered that he no longer had a torso, no head, nothing at all. ...
“Pirx seemed to gradually dissolve in this water, which he also completely ceased to feel. You can no longer hear your heart. He strained his ears with all his might - to no avail. But the silence that completely filled it was replaced by a dull hum, continuous white noise, so unpleasant that you just wanted to cover your ears...
There was nothing to move: the hands disappeared. He wasn't even scared, but rather stunned. True, he had read something about “loss of body awareness,” but who would have thought that things would go to such an extreme?..
Then it got even worse.
The darkness in which he was, or, more precisely, the darkness - he himself, was filled with faintly flickering circles floating somewhere on the edge of his field of vision - these circles did not even glow, but dimly turned white. He moved his eyes, felt this movement and was happy, but strangely: after several movements, his eyes refused to obey...”
Further - worse. “He was falling apart. It was no longer even a body - there was no talk of a body - it had ceased to exist since time immemorial, had become something long past, something lost forever. Or maybe it never happened?..
He was falling apart - not into any individual personalities, but into fears. What was Pirx afraid of? He had no idea. He lived neither in reality (what kind of reality can there be without a body?), nor in a dream. After all, this was not a dream: he knew where he was, what they were doing to him. It was something third. And it doesn’t look like intoxication at all.
He read about this too. It was called: “Disturbance of the activity of the cerebral cortex caused by deprivation of external impulses”...... It didn’t sound so bad. But from experience... No, it was he who possessed someone. And this someone was inflated. Swelled. Became limitless. Pirx wandered through some incomprehensible depths, became huge, like a ball, became an incredible elephant-like finger, he was all a finger, but not his own, not a real one, but some kind of imaginary one that came from nowhere. This finger became detached. He became something depressing, motionless, bent reproachfully and at the same time absurdly, and Pirx, Pirx’s consciousness appeared first on one side, then on the other side of this block, unnatural, warm, disgusting, no...
Pirx went through many more conditions. He was absent for some time, then he appeared again, multiplied many times over; then something ate away his whole brain; then there were some confused, inexpressible torments - they were united by fear that outlived the body, and time, and space"(S. Lem, 1970 p. 46-53).
Sensory deprivation can occur not only in experimental conditions similar to those described by S. Lem, but also in life, when for one reason or another a person experiences the so-called sensory hunger, does not receive enough stimuli - visual, auditory, tactile and others. To describe such living conditions, psychologists also use the concept depleted environment, and recently - impoverished information environment.
A child often finds himself in an impoverished environment when he finds himself in an orphanage, hospital, boarding school or other closed institution. Such an environment, causing sensory hunger, is harmful to a person at any age. However, it is especially destructive for a child.
As numerous psychological studies show, a necessary condition for normal brain maturation in infancy and early childhood is a sufficient number of external impressions, since it is in the process of entering the brain and processing a variety of information from the outside world that the senses and corresponding brain structures are exercised.
Domestic scientists made a great contribution to the development of this problem. Thus, N.M. Shchelovanov found that those parts of the child’s brain that are not exercised cease to develop normally and begin to atrophy.
N.M. Shchelovanov wrote that if a child is in conditions of sensory isolation (he repeatedly observed it in nurseries and orphanages), then there is a sharp lag and slowdown in all aspects of development, movements do not develop in a timely manner, speech does not appear, and mental development is inhibited .
M.Yu. Kistyakovskaya, analyzing the stimuli that evoke positive emotions in a child in the first months of life, discovered that they arise and develop only under the influence of external influences on his senses, especially the eye and ear.
Based on these facts, as well as on her own observations and experiments, the outstanding child psychologist L.I. Bozhovich (1968) put forward the hypothesis that the leading factor in the mental development of an infant is the need for new impressions.
According to this hypothesis, the need for impressions arises approximately in the third to fifth week of a child’s life and is the basis for the formation of other social needs, including the social nature of the need for communication between the child and his mother. This position is opposed to the ideas of most psychologists that the initial ones are either organic needs (for food, warmth, etc.) or the need for communication.
This position is indirectly confirmed by the experience of organizing and functioning of children's hospitals, orphanages and boarding schools. It was also shown by R. Spitz that in such institutions the child suffers not only and not so much from poor nutrition or poor medical care, but from specific conditions, one of the significant aspects of which is a poor stimulus environment.
Describing the conditions of keeping children in one of the shelters, R. Spitz notes that the children constantly lay in glass boxes until they were 15-18 months old; they saw nothing but the ceiling, since the boxes were draped with curtains. The children's movements were limited not only by the bed, but also by the depressed depression in the mattress. There were very few toys.
The consequences of such sensory hunger, if assessed by the level and nature of the child’s mental development, are comparable to the consequences of deep sensory defects. For example, B. Lofenfeld found that, according to developmental results, children with congenital or early acquired blindness are similar to deprived sighted children (children from closed institutions). This manifests itself in the form of a general or partial delay in development, the emergence of certain motor characteristics and personality traits and behavior.
Another researcher, T. Levin, who studied the personality of deaf children using the Rorschach test, found that the characteristics of emotional reactions, fantasy, and control in such children are also similar to those of orphans from institutions.
Thus, an impoverished environment negatively affects the development of not only the child’s sensory abilities, but also his entire personality, all aspects of the psyche. Of course, the development of a child in a child care facility is a very complex phenomenon; sensory hunger here is only one of the moments, which in real practice cannot even be isolated and its influence traced. However, the depriving effect of sensory hunger can now be considered generally accepted. At the same time, modern research shows that full-fledged care for a child can largely compensate for the consequences of living in a poor information environment. A 1992 study by English psychologists Rami and Rami compared two groups of children. In both groups, children grew up in approximately equally poor sensory and information environments. But in one of the groups, the babies were fully cared for by the adults around them, while in the other they were not. Researchers showed that after several years, children of the first group had significantly higher rates of intellectual development than children of the second group (according to D. Myers, 2001).
At what age is the impact of sensory deprivation on a child’s mental development greatest?
Some authors believe that the very first months of life are critical. Thus, I. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek note that infants raised without a mother begin to suffer from the lack of maternal care and emotional contact with the mother only from the seventh month of life, and until that time the most pathogenic factor is the impoverished external environment (1984) .
According to the famous Italian psychologist and teacher M. Montessori, the most sensitive and critical period for a child’s sensory development is the period from two and a half to six years (2000).
There are other points of view, and, apparently, the final scientific solution to the issue requires additional research. However, for practice, it should be recognized as fair that sensory deprivation can have a negative impact on the mental development of a child at any age, at each age in its own way. Therefore, for each age, the question of creating a diverse, rich and developing environment should be specifically raised and solved in a special way.
The need to create a sensory-rich external environment in children's institutions, which is currently recognized by everyone, is in fact often implemented in a straightforward, primitive, one-sided and incomplete manner. Sometimes, with the best intentions, struggling with the dullness and monotony of the situation in orphanages and boarding schools, they try to saturate the interior as much as possible with various colorful panels and pictures, paint the walls in bright colors, create a sound background when loud music sounds during all breaks and in their free time. , upbeat music. But this can eliminate sensory hunger only for a very short time. Remaining unchanged, such a situation will still lead to it in the future. Only in this case this will happen against the background of significant sensory overload, when the corresponding visual stimulation will literally “hit you over the head.” Even N.M. Shchelovanov warned that the maturing brain of a child is especially sensitive to overloads created by prolonged, monotonous influence of intense stimuli.
Thus, as we see, even painting the walls and decorating the interior turns out to be an extremely complex and delicate matter when considered in the context of the problem of sensory deprivation. It would be good if this point is recognized by the employees of the relevant child care institutions. In this regard, we will describe our impressions of visiting children’s diagnostic homes in two cities of Czechoslovakia in the 80s of the twentieth century - Prague and Bratislava.
At that time, in this country, a children's diagnostic home was an institution where difficult children, mostly left without parental care, were taken to clarify the medical, psychological, and pedagogical diagnosis and then decide the question of where it would be better for the child to live and be raised in the future: in a specialized a family or ordinary orphanage, in an institution for children with behavioral difficulties, in a family and a public school. The children spent from one and a half to two months in the diagnostic house.
Both diagnostic houses we visited were similar in many ways. However, we were struck by the sharp difference in the design of their interiors. In Prague, all the walls were literally hung with flowers, paintings, and children’s handicrafts; in each room the furniture stood differently, there were curtains and bedspreads of different colors. In Bratislava, on the contrary, all the rooms were the same, the furniture was arranged as each of us knew well from our experience in pioneer camps - a crib, a bedside table, a crib, a nightstand, etc.; On the discreetly painted walls in each room one print hung formally. From a conversation with the directors and teachers of both of these institutions, we realized that these differences revealed a different understanding of the importance of the interior for education.
In Prague, the concept sounded like this: “We want our house to look like an ordinary family home, so that it is cozy, so that each room is different from the others, so that the children learn to take care of beauty and comfort themselves. All this will be useful to them later in life, and even here they will not get tired of the monotony of the situation.”
In Bratislava the approach was different: “Children live with us for no more than two months. Then most of them will have to be brought up in ordinary orphanages and boarding schools, where the situation is terribly dull. If here they get used to a bright and beautiful interior, it will be very difficult for them in the future. And we want them to feel good later and so that they don’t suffer, constantly remembering their stay in our diagnostic house.”
We give this example in order to show how important it is to thoroughly and seriously treat the design of a child’s living environment in a children’s institution, to take into account its significance for mental development, for the whole life. We will not discuss here which of the two concepts seems to us more correct. Let us only note that in both cases the fundamental importance of the wealth of the environment is recognized, but when, where and to what extent, in what specific forms to deploy this wealth - all this in each individual case requires special study.
Speaking, for example, about our multinational country, one should, among other things, take into account national traditions and differences in ideas about beauty. And what is ideal in an orphanage in Moscow or St. Petersburg may turn out to be overly pale, dry and laconic for an orphanage in Tataria or Dagestan. The age of the children, the length of their stay are also important - whether they stay in such an institution for a relatively short time or live there permanently, and the characteristics of their psychoneurological status.
We cannot resist mentioning the discussion about the environment in which a hyperactive child should grow up and be brought up. Supporters of one position believe that since such children are distinguished by field behavior and they react violently to any object that comes into their field of attention, their habitat should be extremely simplified - the fewer objects, in particular toys, that surround them, the less rich and varied color scheme, the less sounds, smells, etc. - all the better. Proponents of the opposite point of view, on the contrary, believe that it is under no circumstances possible to impoverish the environment, because for a child accustomed to being in such a poor environment, any encounter with a full-fledged irritant can turn out to be pathogenic (and this is almost impossible to avoid in life). Imagine that a child growing up in such sensory-poor conditions goes outside on a clear sunny day and sees a girl in a bright red jacket riding a bright blue bicycle and shouting something loudly.
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When a person is deprived of the most basic needs of life, he falls into a state of deprivation. Let's try to figure out how the human body reacts to such deprivations.
Deprivation is a negative mental state caused by deprivation of the opportunity to satisfy the most basic needs of life. Some people also include ordinary life needs in this concept, but perhaps this is not entirely correct. If a person spent a lot of time in front of a computer on the Internet and was deprived of it for several days, his condition not only will not worsen, but will also improve. Since this is an acquired need, it is not deep and cannot be considered vital.
There are many types of deprivation, let's look at the most common ones.
Types of deprivation
- Sensory deprivation. This is the complete or partial deprivation of one (or more) sense organs of external stimulation. This could be, for example, a post-operative blindfold or earplugs. Short-term sensory deprivation is used in alternative medicine, while long-term sensory deprivation leads to catastrophic consequences.
- Social deprivation. The individual's inability or desire to communicate with other people. Such deprivation can be voluntary (going to the mountains or a cave, placing oneself in a barrel) or forced (for example, placing a person in a solitary prison cell). A person develops many diseases and psychotic disorders.
- Sleep deprivation. Full or partial satisfaction of the need for - as a result of his frustration, conscious choice or forced (during interrogation and torture). The first sign of sleep deprivation is hallucinations. And if at first a person understands that he is hallucinating, then after some time he believes what is happening. Perhaps this is the most terrible type of deprivation, its manifestations affect the entire body: weakening of the immune system, psychosis, tremors of the limbs, memory loss and dozens of others.
- Emotional deprivation. Occurs when a person is deprived of emotional reactions coming from other people. As a result, he loses his own, focusing only on a limited number, which leads to depression.
- Maternal deprivation. Complete or partial and at the same time cool attitude of the mother towards her own child. If the mother leaves the child for a short time, the child may find reasons for this, but when the mother disappears from the child's life for long periods, the situation becomes worse. The child may begin to lag behind in development, lose appetite, become prone to apathy, and then to...
- Motor deprivation. This type of deprivation is also associated with the child. Limiting the space for movement leads to the fact that the child becomes very restless and has difficulty falling asleep.
It should also be said that deprivation can be both obvious and hidden. The obvious one is immediately obvious and even relatives can make a diagnosis, while the hidden one is extremely dangerous. Outwardly, a person looks and behaves normally, but processes occur inside him that are not very clear to him. Such a person is very dangerous, he can cause fatal harm to himself or others.
Consequences of long-term deprivation
Positive consequences have been found only in unconventional methods of treatment, so let’s focus on the negative ones. The first clear sign of deprivation is aggression. It can be external, which is expressed in the manifestation of aggression towards the outside world - surrounding people, animals, objects. Internal aggression is expressed in suicidal thoughts, self-harm (without thoughts of suicide), and somatic illnesses. Trying to drown out the pain, a person tends to take drugs and alcohol, and smoke cigarettes. The worst result of long-term deprivation is somatic diseases and in the initial form this is expressed in the form of irritability, increased conflict, subdepression, insomnia, and after which all this results in life-threatening diseases - stroke, asthma, hypertension, heart attacks.
To some extent, drugs and alcohol actually help a person, which allows them to drown out emotional pain. Aggression is directed inwards when a person is deprived of these dubious “medicines”.
Interestingly, deprivation can temporarily disappear when a serious external threat is involved, for example, a threat to life, war, or serious illness. These external threats trigger survival mechanisms, shift thoughts to a different plane and allow deprivation to be forced out of the body.
Fighting methods
Of course, it is best to provide a person with the benefits that he was deprived of, but not everything is so simple. In many cases, the help of a psychotherapist is required, because prolonged deprivation could cause incredible mental harm to the organism. In extreme cases, drug treatment will be needed. High is also required because it triggers internal survival mechanisms. Creative activities, which in themselves have a therapeutic effect, are also suitable.
Stimuli of different modalities are extremely effective (if it is sensory deprivation). Exercises, games, reading, variety in food,... Social contacts with relatives, friends, and acquaintances are suitable for treating social deprivation. Children who are not yet prepared to spend time without their father and mother suffer the most from this type of deprivation. The child must understand and accept his social role, realize his goals and values (or at least join them).
Computer games play a significant role in the development of various types of deprivation. Harmless and even useful in reasonable quantities, with an unlimited amount of time spent on them, the most terrible things can happen to a person. There is a known case where a teenager died of hunger because he spent about five days at the computer, without even realizing that he needed to eat and that he wanted it.
Remember that in reasonable doses you can afford almost anything, even deprivation of any kind.
What types of deprivation do you know? Leave your comments.
It's not just children who need emotional stimulation. It is a necessary condition for the full mental functioning of every person throughout life.
E. Bern writes that a person always needs “strokes.” But if in relation to a child, stroking, as a rule, is physical touching, patting, etc., then in an adult they are often replaced by symbolic, socially acceptable forms: a handshake, a polite bow, a smile, various rituals.
The need for emotional acceptance manifests itself as the need for recognition. Thus, an artist needs constant admiration and praise from fans, a scientist needs recognition of his merits, a woman needs a compliment, military men need victories, etc.
People, of course, vary greatly in their desire to be noticed. Thus, an actor may require hundreds of “strokes” every week from anonymous and indifferent fans, while a scientist may only need one “strokes” a year from a respected and authoritative colleague.
E. Berne believes that in a broad sense, “stroking” can mean any act of recognizing the presence of another person. And the exchange of “strokes” constitutes the basic unit of social interaction - transaction.
He also concludes that any social interaction is preferable to none. Experiments on rats have shown that even “negative stroking” (electric shock) has more positive consequences for the physical, mental, and emotional state than no effects at all.
Sometimes a person tries to compensate for the lack of emotional communication with people by communicating with pets.
The presence and quality of emotional stimuli is a condition for full mental development in childhood, as well as a factor in mental well-being both in childhood and in adulthood. In an adult, the consequences of emotional deprivation can manifest themselves in the form of depression, apathy, various phobias, etc., while the true cause of such disorders may remain hidden.
Chapter 5. Social deprivation
1. Forms of social deprivation
Social deprivation, understood as the restriction or complete absence of contacts of a person (or any group) with society, appears in a variety of forms, which can vary significantly both in the degree of severity and in who initiates the isolation - the person (group) himself. or society.
Depending on this, the following types of social deprivation are distinguished:
1) forced isolation, when a person or a group as a whole finds themselves cut off from society due to circumstances beyond their will, as well as the will of society (for example, the crew of a ship stranded on a desert island after a crash);
2) forced isolation, when society isolates people regardless of their desire, and often in spite of it. Examples of such isolation include, in particular:
convicts in various correctional labor institutions;
closed groups, stay in which does not imply infringement of rights and does not imply a person’s low social status - conscript soldiers under conditions of universal compulsory military service, pupils of orphanages, orphanages, boarding schools;
3) voluntary isolation, when people distance themselves from society of their own free will (an example is monks, hermits, sectarians living in remote, hard-to-reach places);
4) voluntary-forced (or voluntary-forced) isolation, when the achievement of any goal that is significant for a person (group) presupposes the need to significantly limit one’s contacts with the usual environment (various professional closed groups, as well as professionally specialized groups, can serve as an example boarding educational institutions - sports boarding schools, boarding schools for especially gifted children and adolescents, Nakhimov and Suvorov schools, etc.).
This classification generally covers a fairly wide range of types of social deprivation. At the same time, when studying it, it is necessary to take into account that an important factor determining the consequences of deprivation is age a person who finds himself in isolation. In this regard, the study of the nature and consequences of early social deprivation, as well as deprivation in closed educational institutions.