One of the indicative symptoms of development, occurring in a disharmonic way, is psychopathology. It is an anomaly in the development of the psyche. It is based on dysontogenesis of the emotional-volitional sphere.
What is disharmony in mental development?
Disharmonious development is a deviation in the formation of personality, which is characterized by the emergence of various kinds of psychopathies. The long-term negative impact of traumatic factors on the immature psyche of the child leads to the fact that his emotional-volitional sphere is rebuilt in an irreversible way. Along with this, the personality of the child also changes. Biologically laid down prerequisites in the form of temperament (which, as you know, predetermine the strength, balance and mobility of processes in the human psyche) form the basis of psychopathology.
Reasons
What triggers the process of disharmoniousdevelopment? In childhood, the main social factor is education and upbringing. Due to the level of development of the emotional sphere and personality of the child, as well as increased suggestibility, adverse environmental conditions lead to persistent changes in the personality structure. However, here it is necessary to remember the interaction of factors of the internal and external environment. As a biological factor that predisposes to the pathological formation of personality under external influence, cerebral insufficiency in its residual phase, character accentuation, as well as disorders during puberty are considered.
The causes of disharmonic development can also be hereditary diseases, chromosomal disorders, lack of nutrition of the mother during pregnancy, infection and poisoning in infancy.
Shaping mechanisms
Pathological development starts as follows:
- By fixing pathological reactions of refusal, imitation, hypercompensation in response to psychotrauma. Subsequently, such reactions acquire stable forms and become personality traits.
- Direct reinforcement by negative influences of certain pathological traits that the child already has (excessive nervous excitability, hysteria, and others). When exposed to adverse social conditions, they turn into psychopathic development, influencing the formation of the character of the child and adolescent.
Protest reactions
At the heart of protest reactions is actually a complex of those experiences that are especially significant for a child. It can be an insult or a humiliation suffered. Reactions can be active or passive. The protest is manifested by disobedience, rudeness, motor excitement. There may be states of narrowing of consciousness. With passive protest, leaving the house, vomiting, enuresis, and suicide attempts are observed. The child becomes capricious, he constantly shows dissatisfaction with others who provoked a protest reaction.
Features of passive protest
Passive protest can be demonstrative when a child or teenager tries to attract the attention of adults. He imagines his parents looking for him, blaming themselves for treating him so badly. If the purpose of the escape is not an attempt to attract attention to oneself, but the desire to escape from a traumatic situation or from punishing an elder, in psychopathology such an escape is called impunity. This kind of escape can become a behavioral stereotype.
Emancipation reactions
Another manifestation of disharmonic development. Emancipation is also a manifestation of escape. In such cases, the main motivation of the child is the desire to separate from the parents. With a less pronounced desire to assert oneself, emancipation reactions can also be expressed in active disagreement with the advice of elders.
Bundling reaction
Uadolescent males, this symptom is often expressed in the formations of groups. Adolescents form spontaneous "packs" in which certain rules of communication are established. The grouping response may be closely related to imitation: the adolescent imitates the behavior of group leaders. He develops bad habits (alcohol, drugs). There is delinquent behavior (violation of social and moral and behavioral norms, which does not reach the crime of the current legislation). Most often it has a behavioral basis, but in some cases it can also be pathological.
A child or teenager experiencing an acute sense of inferiority tries to compensate for this feeling. In the process of hypercompensation, the protective form begins to acquire an increasingly hypertrophied character. The child has compensatory games, he gets bogged down in fantasies, which also contributes to the rapid formation of pathological personality traits.
Pathology options: impact on personality
In the process of analysis, four main variants of distorted and disharmonic development are distinguished:
- Development of an affectively excitable type. This type is caused by an unfavorable social environment, where the child constantly observes the alcoholism of the parents, the aggressiveness of the household in relation to each other. Under such conditions, the child gradually develops features of affective explosiveness, an obsessive tendency to discharge emotional excitement, anger. Formedincreased readiness for conflict. These features are initially formed as an imitation of such behavior in older family members, or as a reinforcement of the protest reaction. Personality change is characterized by a shift of affect towards gloominess, spitefulness.
- Hysterical option. Most often seen in girls. It arises in those families where the child is brought up in conditions of hyper-protection, grows up in a pampered environment, his appearance and talents are valued exorbitantly. But this option as a protest reaction can also occur in those families that suffer from a long conflict. The child, whose disharmonic personality development occurs according to the hysteroid type, does not develop a sense of responsibility, the ability to overcome difficulties and obstacles. The immaturity of the emotional-volitional sphere manifests itself in the form of increased impulsivity, as well as suggestibility. This type of personality development is inherently one of the variants of mental infantilism - one of the components of mental retardation (mental retardation).
- Braking option. Most often, it occurs in special conditions of hyper-custody, where authoritarianism is aimed at suppressing independence. The child becomes timid, touchy. Grows into a passive and insecure adult. This option is close to the formation of a neurotic personality, which occurs in cases where a long-term traumatic situation in the family leads to the development of neurosis in the child and such traits as timidity, hypochondria, high anxiety. Neurotic development quickly occurs inphysically weak children, as well as under adverse environmental conditions.
- Pathological course of puberty. Both delay and acceleration have a negative impact on the personality. These anomalies are caused by both external factors and features of the central nervous system. In the presence of an unfavorable environment, character accentuations and pathological traits become prerequisites for the pathological formation of personality. It will contain features of increased emotional excitability, disinhibition, as well as antisocial behavior.
Characteristics of disharmonious development is complex, due to the variety of options, the fuzziness of their boundaries. This is one of the main difficulties in differential diagnosis. However, pure variants of pathologies are much less common than mixed ones.
