home Diagnosis and diseases The mechanism of action of various types of deprivation on a person’s personality. What is deprivation in psychology? Types and characteristics of manifestations in adults and children

The mechanism of action of various types of deprivation on a person’s personality. What is deprivation in psychology? Types and characteristics of manifestations in adults and children

Mental deprivation is a mental state resulting from such life situations, where the subject is not given the opportunity to satisfy some of his basic mental needs sufficiently for a long time.

The child's mental needs are undoubtedly best satisfied by his daily communication with environment. If for any reason the child is prevented from such contact, if he is isolated from a stimulating environment, then he inevitably suffers from a lack of stimuli. This isolation can be of varying degrees. With complete isolation from the human environment for a long period, it can be assumed that basic mental needs, which were not satisfied from the very beginning, will not develop.

One factor in the occurrence mental deprivation is an insufficient supply of stimuli - social, sensitive, sensory. It is assumed that another factor in the occurrence of mental deprivation is the cessation of the connection already created between the child and his social environment.

There are three main types of mental deprivation: emotional(affective), sensory(stimulus), social(identity). Depending on the severity, deprivation can be complete or partial.

Czech scientists J. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek emphasize some conventionality and relativity of the concept of mental deprivation - after all, there are cultures in which something that would be an anomaly in another cultural environment is considered normal. In addition to this, of course, there are cases of deprivation that are absolute in nature (for example, children raised in Mowgli’s situation).

Emotional and sensory deprivation.

Manifests itself in insufficient opportunity to establish intimate emotional attitude to any person or breaking such a connection when one has already been created. A child often ends up in an impoverished environment, finding himself in orphanage, hospital, boarding school or other institution closed type. Such an environment, causing sensory hunger, is harmful to a person at any age. However, it is especially destructive for a child.

As shown by numerous psychological research, a necessary condition for normal brain maturation in infancy and early age is a sufficient number of external impressions, since it is in the process of entering the brain and processing a variety of information from outside world the sense organs and corresponding brain structures are exercised.

A great contribution to the development of this problem was made by a group of Soviet scientists who united under the leadership of N.M. Shchelovanova. They found that those parts of the child’s brain that are not exercised stop developing normally and begin to atrophy. N.M. Shchelovanov wrote that if a child is in conditions of sensory isolation, which he has repeatedly observed 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 arise, and mental development is inhibited.

Data obtained by N.N. Shchelovanov and his colleagues were so bright and convincing that they served as the basis for the development of some fragmentary provisions of the psychology of child development. The famous Soviet psychologist L.I. Bozhovich put forward the hypothesis that it is the need for impressions that plays a leading role in the mental development of a child, arising approximately in the third to fifth week of a child’s life and being the basis for the formation of other social needs, including social the nature of the need for communication between the child and the mother. This hypothesis contrasts with the ideas of most psychologists that the initial ones are either organic needs (for food, warmth, etc.) or the need for communication.

One of the confirmations of his hypothesis L.I. Bozovic considers the facts obtained from studying the emotional life of an infant. Thus, the Soviet psychologist 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. M. Yu. Kistyakovskaya writes that the data obtained show “the incorrectness of the point of view according to which positive emotions appear in a child when his organic needs are satisfied. All the materials we have received indicate that the satisfaction of organic needs only removes emotionally negative reactions, thereby creating favorable preconditions for the emergence of emotionally positive reactions, but does not in itself give rise to them. The fact we have established - the appearance of a child's first smile and other positive emotions when fixating an object - contradicts the point of view according to which a smile is an innate social reaction. At the same time, since the emergence of positive emotions is associated with the satisfaction of some need of the body, this fact gives reason to believe that, along with organic needs, the baby also has a need for the activity of the visual analyzer. This need is manifested in positive reactions that are continuously improved under the influence of external influences, aimed at receiving, maintaining and strengthening external irritations. And it is on their basis, and not on the basis of unconditioned food reflexes, that the child’s positive emotional reactions arise and are consolidated and his neuropsychic development occurs.” Another great Russian scientist V.M. Bekhterev noted that by the end of the second month the child seemed to be looking for new experiences.

Indifference and lack of a smile in children from orphanages and orphanages were noticed by many from the very beginning of the activities of such institutions, the first of which date back to the 4th century AD (335, Constantinople), and their rapid development in Europe dates back to approximately the 17th century. There is a well-known saying of a Spanish bishop dating back to 1760: “In an orphanage, a child becomes sad and many die of sadness.” However, how scientific fact The negative consequences of staying in a closed children's institution began to be considered only at the beginning of the 20th century. These phenomena, first systematically described and analyzed by the American researcher R. Spitz, were called by him the phenomena of hospitalism. The essence of the discovery made by R. Spitz was that in a closed children's institution a child suffers not only and not so much from poor nutrition or poor medical care, but from the specific conditions of such institutions, one of the essential aspects of which is a poor stimulus environment. Describing the conditions of detention of children in one of the shelters, R. Spitz notes that the children constantly lay in glass boxes for up to 15-18 months, and until they got to their feet, they saw nothing but the ceiling, since curtains hung on the sides. 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 level and nature 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). These results manifest themselves 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 (a well-known psychological technique based on the subject’s interpretation of a series of pictures depicting colored and black-and-white blots), found that the characteristics of emotional reactions, fantasy, and control in such children also similar to similar characteristics 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, hospitalism is a very complex phenomenon, where sensory hunger is only one of the moments, which in real practice is impossible to even isolate and trace its influence as such. However, the depriving effect of sensory hunger can now be considered generally accepted.

Infants raised without a mother, believe I. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek, begin to suffer from a lack of maternal care and emotional contact with the mother only from the seventh month of life, and before this time the most pathogenic factor is precisely the impoverished external environment.

According to M. Montessori, whose name occupies a special place in child psychology and pedagogy, the author of the famous system of sensory education, and which went down in history as the Montessori system, which participated in the organization of the first children's homes, nurseries for children of the poorest segments of the population, the most sensitive, the most The period from two and a half to six years is sensitive for the child’s sensory development, and, therefore, subject to the greatest danger from the lack of varied external impressions. There are other points of view, and, apparently, the final scientific solution to the issue requires additional research.

However, for practice, the thesis can be considered 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 for the child should be specifically raised and solved in a special way.

The need to create a sensory rich environment in children's institutions external environment, which is currently recognized by everyone, is in fact implemented in a primitive, one-sided and incomplete manner. Thus, often with the best intentions, fighting the dullness and monotony of the situation in orphanages and boarding schools, they try to maximally saturate the interior with various colorful panels, slogans, paint the walls in bright colors and so on. But this can eliminate sensory hunger only to the greatest extent possible. a 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. At one time, N.M. Shchelovanov warned that the maturing brain of a child is especially sensitive to overloads created by prolonged, monotonous exposure to intense stimuli.

Social deprivation.

Along with emotional and sensory, social deprivation is also distinguished.

The development of a child largely depends on communication with adults, which affects not only the mental, but also, in the early stages, the physical development of the child. Communication can be viewed from the perspective of various humanities. From the point of view of psychology, communication is understood as the process of establishing and maintaining purposeful, direct or indirect contact by one means or another between people who are somehow connected to each other psychologically. Child development, within the framework of the theory of cultural-historical development, is understood by Vygotsky as the process of children’s appropriation of socio-historical experience accumulated by previous generations. Gaining this experience is possible by communicating with elders. At the same time, communication plays decisive role not only in enriching the content of children's consciousness, but also determines its structure.

Immediately after birth, the child has no communication with adults: he does not respond to their requests and does not address anyone himself. But after the 2nd month of life, he begins to interact, which can be considered communication: he begins to develop a special activity, the object of which is an adult. This activity manifests itself in the form of the child’s attention and interest in the adult, emotional manifestations in the child towards the adult, proactive actions, and the child’s sensitivity to the adult’s attitude. Communication with adults in infants plays a starting role in the development of responses to important stimuli.

Examples of social deprivation include such textbook cases as A. G. Hauser, wolf children and Mowgli children. All of them could not (or spoke poorly) speak and walk, often cried and were afraid of everything. During their subsequent upbringing, despite the development of intelligence, disturbances in personality and social relationships remained. The consequences of social deprivation are irremovable at the level of some deep personal structures, which manifests itself in distrust (except for group members who have suffered the same thing, for example in the case of children developing in concentration camps), the importance of the feeling “WE”, envy and excessive criticism.

Considering the importance of the level of personal maturity as a factor in tolerance to social isolation, we can assume from the very beginning that what younger child, the harder social isolation will be for him. The book of Czechoslovak researchers I. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek “Mental deprivation in childhood” provides many expressive examples of what social isolation of a child can lead to. These are the so-called “wolf children”, and the famous Kaspar Hauser from Nuremberg, and essentially tragic cases from the lives of modern children who early childhood did not see anyone and did not communicate with anyone. All these children could not speak, walked poorly or did not walk at all, cried incessantly, and were afraid of everything. The worst thing is that, with a few exceptions, even with the most selfless, patient and skillful care and upbringing, such children remained defective for the rest of their lives. Even in those cases where, thanks to the selfless work of teachers, the development of intelligence occurred, serious disturbances in personality and communication with other people persisted. At the first stages of “re-education”, children experienced an obvious fear of people; subsequently, the fear of people was replaced by unstable and poorly differentiated relationships with them. In the communication of such children with others, importunity and an insatiable need for love and attention are striking. Manifestations of feelings are characterized, on the one hand, by poverty, and on the other hand, by acute, affective overtones. These children are characterized by explosions of emotions - violent joy, anger and the absence of deep, lasting feelings. They have practically no higher feelings associated with a deep experience of art and moral conflicts. It should also be noted that they are emotionally very vulnerable; even a minor remark can cause an acute emotional reaction, not to mention situations that really require emotional stress and inner fortitude. Psychologists in such cases talk about low frustration tolerance.

The second one carried out a lot of cruel life experiments on social deprivation with children. World War. A thorough psychological description of one of the cases of social deprivation and its subsequent overcoming was given in their famous work by A. Freud, daughter of Z. Freud, and S. Dan. These researchers observed the rehabilitation process of six 3-year-old children, former prisoners concentration camp in Terezin, where they ended up in infancy. The fate of their mothers and the time of separation from their mother were unknown. After their release, the children were placed in one of the family-type orphanages in England. A. Freud and S. Dan note that from the very beginning it was striking that the children were a closed monolithic group, which did not allow them to be treated as separate individuals. There was no envy or jealousy between these children; they constantly helped and imitated each other. It is interesting that when another child appeared - a girl who arrived later, she was instantly included in this group. And this despite the fact that the children showed obvious distrust and fear of everything that went beyond the boundaries of their group - the adults who cared for them, animals, toys. Thus, the relationships within the small children's group replaced for its members the relationships with the outside world of people that were disrupted in the concentration camp. Subtle and observant researchers have shown that it was possible to restore relationships only through these intragroup connections.

A similar story was observed by I. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek “of 25 children who were forcibly taken from their mothers in work camps and raised in one secret place in Austria, where they lived in a cramped old house among the forests, without the opportunity to go out into the yard, play with toys or see anyone other than their three inattentive teachers. After their release, the children also screamed all day and night at first, they did not know how to play, did not smile, and only with difficulty learned to maintain cleanliness of the body, which they had previously been forced to do only by brute force. After 2-3 months, they acquired a more or less normal appearance, and the “group feeling” greatly helped them during readaptation.

The authors give another interesting example, from my point of view, illustrating the strength of the feeling of WE in children from institutions: “It is worth mentioning the experience of those times when children from institutions were examined in a clinic, and not directly in an institutional environment. When the children were in a large group in the reception room, there were no differences in their behavior compared to other preschool children who were in the same reception room with their mothers. However, when a child from an institution was excluded from the team and he was left alone in the office with a psychologist, then after the first joy of an unexpected meeting with new toys, his interest quickly fell, the child became restless and cried. While children from families were in most cases content with the presence of their mother in the waiting room and collaborated with the psychologist with an appropriate measure of confidence, the majority of preschool children from institutions could not be individually studied due to their inability to adapt to new conditions. This was possible, however, when several children entered the room together and the child being examined felt supported by the other children who were playing in the room. The matter here concerns, apparently, the same manifestation of “group dependence” that characterized in a particularly pronounced form certain groups of children brought up in concentration camps, and also became the basis for their future “reeducation” (retraining ). Czechoslovak researchers consider this manifestation to be one of the most important diagnostic indicators of “institutional-type deprivation.”

The analysis shows: the older the children, the milder forms of social deprivation manifest themselves and the faster and more successful compensation occurs in the case of special pedagogical or psychological work. However, it is almost never possible to eliminate the consequences of social deprivation at the level of some deep personal structures. People who experienced social isolation in childhood continue to experience distrust of all people, with the exception of members of their own microgroup who have experienced the same thing. They can be envious, overly critical of others, ungrateful, and always seem to be waiting for a trick from other people.

Many similar traits can be seen in boarding school students. But perhaps more indicative is the nature of their social contacts after finishing their studies at the boarding school, when they entered normal life. adult life. Former students experience obvious difficulties in establishing various social contacts. For example, despite very desire create a normal family, enter the parental family of their chosen one or chosen one, they often fail on this path. As a result, everything comes to the point that family or sexual connections are created with former classmates, with members of the very group with which they suffered social isolation. They experience distrust and a sense of insecurity towards everyone else.

The fence of an orphanage or boarding school became a fence for these people, separating them from society. He did not disappear even if the child ran away, and he remained when he was married, entering adulthood. Because this fence created a feeling of being an outcast, dividing the world into “Us” and “Them”.

Deprivation situations.

In addition to deprivation itself, there are a number of terms associated with this phenomenon. Deprivation situation These are the circumstances in a child’s life when there is no opportunity to satisfy important mental needs. Different children exposed to the same deprivation situation will behave differently and learn from it differently. different consequences, for they have different constitutions and different previous developments.

For example, insulation– one of the options for a deprivation situation. J. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek also distinguish the term consequences deprivation (“deprivation lesion”), which they call the external manifestations of the results of deprivation, i.e. behavior of a child in a deprivation situation. If the child has already been in a deprivation situation once, but fortunately it was short-lived and did not lead to harsh mental disorders, then they talk about the child’s deprivation experience, after which he will be more hardened or, unfortunately, more sensitive.

Frustration, i.e., the experience of annoyance due to the blockade of a need is not deprivation, but a more specific concept that can be included in general concept deprivation. If, for example, a toy is taken away from a child, the child may be in a state of frustration (and usually temporary). If the child is not allowed to play at all long time, then this will be deprivation, although there is no longer frustration. If a child at the age of two was separated from his parents and placed in a hospital, then he may react to this with frustration. If he remained in the hospital for a year, and even in the same room, without visits from his parents, without walks, without receiving the necessary sensory, emotional and social information, then he may develop conditions classified as deprivation.

Cases of extreme social isolation can lead to distortion and retardation of mental development only in children of more or less older age, who are already capable of providing themselves with some kind of existence and surviving in difficult conditions. It's another matter when we're talking about about small children or infants - they usually do not survive, having lost human society, his concerns.

Social isolation is demarcated separation. By the latter, Czechoslovak researchers understand not only the painful separation of the child from the mother, but also any cessation of the specific connection between the child and his social environment. Separation can be sudden or gradual, complete or partial, short or long. Separation is the result of a violation of mutual contact; it affects not only the child, but also the parents. Parents develop anxiety, etc. If separation lasts for a long time, then it turns into social isolation, which was mentioned earlier. Separation has great importance for the development of certain social attitudes. Back in 1946, the English scientist Bowlby published comparative data on the development of 44 juvenile thieves and the same group of minors, but without antisocial tendencies. It turned out that delinquents experienced separation in childhood many times more often than peers without delinquency. Bowlby believes that separation primarily affects the aesthetic development of the individual and the formation of a normal sense of anxiety in the child.

The same deprivation conditions have different effects on children of different ages. With age, the child's needs change, as does his sensitivity to their insufficient satisfaction.

We are all social creatures. Each person belongs to a specific social group. Developing normally, a child communicates with parents, peers and other children and adults, and his basic needs are met. If physical or difficult, then such a child’s communication will suffer, therefore, he will not be able to communicate his needs and will not receive their satisfaction. But there are situations when, seemingly normal, there is a limitation of personal contacts and other needs. This phenomenon is called “deprivation”. In psychology, this concept is considered very carefully. A deprived personality cannot live and develop harmoniously. What does this concept mean and what types of deprivation are there? Let's figure it out.

What is deprivation in psychology?

In psychology, deprivation means a certain mental state in which a person cannot satisfy his basic needs. This also occurs in the case of depriving a person of any benefits to which he is already very accustomed. It should be noted that this state does not arise for all rejected needs. Eat a large number of desires and aspirations of a person, but if he does not achieve them, there is no significant damage to his personal structure. What is important here is the satisfaction of vital needs and requirements. In psychology, deprivation is not any deviation from a person’s usual life activities. This state is a deep experience.

The difference between frustration and deprivation

These two concepts are close in meaning, but are not identical. Frustration is considered in science as a reaction to a personal stimulus. A person can feel sad, withdraw into himself for several hours or even days after some stressful situation, then return to normal life. Deprivation in psychology is a much more severe and painful condition. It can affect the individual with destructive force. It differs from frustration in intensity, duration and severity. Deprivation can combine several unmet needs at once; in this case, various types of this condition are observed.

What causes deprivation?

There are certain internal causes of deprivation. This condition affects people who, for some reason, have an internal vacuum of values. What does deprivation have to do with this? In psychology, this condition and many others are interconnected. After all, personality is holistic in its versatility. If a man for a long time was alone, in prison, in a sick state, he loses the ability to follow all the norms, rules and values of society. As a result, his concepts do not coincide with the hierarchy of values of the people around him, and an intrapersonal vacuum arises. He cannot be in this state all the time, since life goes on and a person needs to adapt to its course and the demands that society places on him. As a result, the individual stands on the path to the formation of new ideals on the basis of an already destroyed hierarchy of needs and values.

Deprivation in human psychology has long been considered by scientists in search of methods to neutralize it. After all, such feelings as deprivation, hopelessness, a sense of lost personal dignity and others do not bring positive aspects for personal development.

What are the types of this concept?

Deprivation in Russian psychology is of three types:

emotional;
sensory;
social.

These are the main types of deprivation, but in reality there are many more. Probably, as many suppressed and unsatisfied needs exist, there are as many types of this condition. But many of them are identical in their manifestation. In mental terms, deprivation is, in psychology, sensations such as fear, constant anxiety, loss of vital activity, one’s own life and those around you, prolonged depression, outbursts of aggression.

But despite the similarity of sensations and experiences, the degree of immersion of the individual in this state is different for everyone. This depends on a person’s resistance to stress, the degree of hardening of his psyche, as well as on the power of the deprivation effect on the individual. But just as there are compensatory capabilities of the human brain at the physiological level, the same property of the psyche manifests itself. When other human needs are fully satisfied, the deprivation state regarding one unsatisfied one will be less intense.

Emotional deprivation in psychology

It happens that this condition arises due to unexpressed emotions when a person is completely or partially deprived of various emotional reactions. Most often it is a lack of attention from other people. This condition rarely occurs in adults, but the psychology of childhood deprivation pays quite a lot of attention to this phenomenon. In the absence of love and affection, the child begins to experience the sensations described above. Emotional deprivation is very closely related to maternal deprivation, which we will talk about below.

For adults, much greater destruction is caused by so-called motor deprivation. This is a condition in which a person is limited in his movement due to injury or illness. Sometimes a disease or physical abnormality is not as terrible as a person’s reaction to it. It is very difficult for specialists to return people in this condition to active life.

Sensory deprivation

Sensory deprivation in psychology involves depriving a person of various sensations. Most often, it is provoked artificially to study a person’s ability to withstand difficulties. Such experiments are carried out to train aviation professionals, government power plant workers, intelligence officers, military specialists, and so on.

In most cases, such experiments are carried out by immersing a person to depth in a box or other limited device. When a person spends a long time in this state, a state of mental instability is observed: lethargy, low mood, apathy, which after a short time are replaced by irritability and excessive excitability.

Social deprivation

Deprivation manifests itself in different ways in psychology. Various groups of society are also susceptible to this condition. There are such societies or social groups who deliberately deprive themselves of communication with the outside world. But this is not as scary as complete social deprivation for one person. All members of youth organizations, sects and national minorities who have separated themselves from society at least communicate with each other. Such people do not have irreversible effects on their psyche caused by social deprivation. The same cannot be said about long-term prisoners in solitary confinement or people who have experienced psychotic disorders.

Being alone with oneself for a long time, a person gradually loses social communication skills and interest in other people. There are also cases where a person stopped speaking because he forgot the sound of his voice and the meaning of words. Social deprivation can also affect people who are sick and can become infected. Therefore, there is a law on non-disclosure of such diagnoses.

Maternal deprivation - what is it?

Phenomena such as deprivation are studied quite carefully, since the consequences of such a condition for an immature personality can be detrimental. When an adult feels uncomfortable, bad and lonely. In a child it evokes emotions that are much more intense than those listed. Children are like receptive sponges that absorb negativity much faster and stronger than adults.

A clear example of maternal deprivation is hospitalism. This is the state of loneliness of a child due to his separation from his mother. This syndrome began to be noticed especially strongly after the war in the 50s, when there were many orphans. Even with good care and proper feeding, the children experienced a revitalization complex much later; they began to walk and talk late, they had much more problems with physical and mental development than those who were raised in families. After this phenomenon, experts noted that deprivation in the psychology of children entails great changes in the psyche. Therefore, methods to overcome it began to be developed.

Consequences of deprivation in children

We have already decided that the main types of deprivation in the psychology of children are emotional and maternal. This condition has a detrimental effect on the child's brain development. He grows up unsmart, deprived of a sense of confidence in love, support and recognition. Such a child smiles and shows emotions much less often than his peers. Its development slows down, and dissatisfaction with life and oneself forms. To prevent this condition, psychologists have determined that a child needs to be hugged, kissed, stroked and supported (patted on the shoulder or arm) at least 8 times a day.

How does deprivation affect the behavior of adults?

Deprivation in the psychology of adults can arise on the basis of a long-standing childhood or due to unmet needs of adulthood. In the first case, the harmful effects on the psyche will be much stronger and more destructive. Sometimes when working with such adults, specialists feel powerless. In the second case, behavior correction is possible by searching for ways to satisfy a deprived need. A person can get out of a state of self-dislike, apathy and depression with the help of a specialist.

Mental deprivation is a mental state that arises as a result of life situations where the subject is not given the opportunity to satisfy some of his basic mental needs sufficiently for a long time.

The child's mental needs are undoubtedly best satisfied by his daily communication with the environment. If for any reason the child is prevented from such contact, if he is isolated from a stimulating environment, then he inevitably suffers from a lack of stimuli. This isolation can be of varying degrees. When completely isolated from the human environment for a long period, it can be assumed that basic mental needs, which were not satisfied from the very beginning, will not develop.

One factor in the occurrence of mental deprivation is the insufficient supply of stimuli - social, sensitive, sensory. It is assumed that another factor in the occurrence of mental deprivation is the cessation of the connection already created between the child and his social environment.

There are three main types of mental deprivation: emotional (affective), sensory (stimulus), social (identity). Depending on the severity, deprivation can be complete or partial.

J. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek emphasize some conventionality and relativity of the concept of mental deprivation - after all, there are cultures in which something that would be an anomaly in another cultural environment is considered normal. In addition to this, of course, there are cases of deprivation that are absolute in nature (for example, children raised in Mowgli’s situation).

Emotional and sensory deprivation.

It manifests itself in the insufficient opportunity to establish an intimate emotional relationship with any person or the severance of such a connection when one has already been created. A child often ends up in an impoverished environment, ending up 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.

A great contribution to the development of this problem was made by a group of Soviet scientists who united under the leadership of N. M. Shchelovanov. They found that those parts of the child’s brain that are not exercised stop developing normally and begin to atrophy. N.M. Shchelovanov wrote that if a child is in conditions of sensory isolation, which he has repeatedly observed 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 arise, and mental development is inhibited.

The data obtained by N. N. Shchelovanov and his colleagues were so vivid and convincing that they served as the basis for the development of some fragmentary principles of the psychology of child development. The famous Soviet psychologist L.I. Bozhovich put forward the hypothesis that it is the need for impressions that plays a leading role in the mental development of a child, arising approximately in the third to fifth week of a child’s life and being the basis for the formation of other social needs, including social the nature of the need for communication between the child and the mother. This hypothesis contrasts with the ideas of most psychologists that the initial ones are either organic needs (for food, warmth, etc.) or the need for communication.

L. I. Bozhovich considers the facts obtained during the study of the emotional life of an infant to be one of the confirmations of his hypothesis. Thus, the Soviet psychologist 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. M. Yu. Kistyakovskaya writes that the data obtained show “the incorrectness of the point of view according to which positive emotions appear in a child when his organic needs are satisfied. All the materials we have received indicate that the satisfaction of organic needs only removes emotionally negative reactions, thereby creating favorable preconditions for the emergence of emotionally positive reactions, but does not in itself give rise to them... The fact we have established is the appearance of the child’s first smile and other positive emotions when fixating an object - contradicts the point of view according to which smiling is an innate social reaction. At the same time, since the emergence of positive emotions is associated with the satisfaction of some need of the body... this fact gives reason to believe that, along with organic needs, the baby also has a need for the activity of the visual analyzer. This need is manifested in positive reactions that are continuously improved under the influence of external influences, aimed at receiving, maintaining and strengthening external irritations. And it is on their basis, and not on the basis of unconditioned food reflexes, that the child’s positive emotional reactions arise and are consolidated and his neuropsychic development occurs.” Even the great Russian scientist V.M. Bekhterev noted that by the end of the second month the child seems to be looking for new impressions.

Indifference and lack of a smile in children from orphanages and orphanages were noticed by many from the very beginning of the activities of such institutions, the first of which date back to the 4th century AD (335, Constantinople), and their rapid development in Europe dates back to approximately the 17th century. There is a well-known saying of a Spanish bishop dating back to 1760: “In an orphanage, a child becomes sad and many die of sadness.” However, the negative consequences of staying in a closed children's institution began to be considered as a scientific fact only at the beginning of the 20th century. These phenomena, first systematically described and analyzed by the American researcher R. Spitz, were called by him the phenomena of hospitalism. The essence of the discovery made by R. Spitz was that in a closed children's institution a child suffers not only and not so much from poor nutrition or poor medical care, but from the specific conditions of such institutions, one of the essential aspects of which is a poor stimulus environment. Describing the conditions of detention of children in one of the shelters, R. Spitz notes that the children constantly lay in glass boxes for up to 15-18 months, and until they got to their feet, they saw nothing but the ceiling, since curtains hung on the sides. 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 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). These results manifest themselves in the form of a general or partial delay in development, the emergence of certain motor characteristics and personality traits and behavior.

I. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek believe 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 before this time the most pathogenic factor is the impoverished external environment.

According to M. Montessori, whose name occupies a special place in child psychology and pedagogy, the author of the famous system of sensory education, and which went down in history as the Montessori system, which participated in the organization of the first children's homes, nurseries for children of the poorest segments of the population, the most sensitive, the most The period from two and a half to six years is sensitive for the child’s sensory development, and therefore subject to the greatest danger from the lack of varied external impressions. There are other points of view, and, apparently, the final scientific solution to the issue requires additional research.

The need to create a sensory-rich external environment in children's institutions, which is currently recognized by everyone, is in fact implemented in a primitive, one-sided and incomplete manner. Thus, often 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, slogans, paint the walls in bright colors, etc. But this can eliminate sensory hunger only by in the shortest possible 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. At one time, N.M. Shchelovanov warned that the maturing brain of a child is especially sensitive to overloads created by prolonged, monotonous influence of intense stimuli.

Social deprivation.

Along with emotional and sensory deprivation, social deprivation is also distinguished.

The development of a child largely depends on communication with adults, which affects not only the mental, but also, in the early stages, the physical development of the child. Communication can be viewed from the perspective of various humanities. From the point of view of psychology, communication is understood as the process of establishing and maintaining purposeful, direct or indirect contact by one means or another between people who are somehow connected to each other psychologically. Child development, within the framework of the theory of cultural-historical development, is understood by Vygotsky as the process of children’s appropriation of socio-historical experience accumulated by previous generations. Gaining this experience is possible by communicating with elders. At the same time, communication plays a decisive role not only in enriching the content of a child’s consciousness, but also determines its structure.

Considering the importance of the level of personal maturity as a factor in tolerance to social isolation, we can assume from the very beginning that the younger the child, the more difficult social isolation will be for him. The book of Czechoslovak researchers I. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek “Mental deprivation in childhood” provides many expressive examples of what social isolation of a child can lead to. These are the so-called “wolf children”, and the famous Kaspar Hauser from Nuremberg, and essentially tragic cases from the lives of modern children who have not seen or communicated with anyone since early childhood. All these children could not speak, walked poorly or did not walk at all, cried incessantly, and were afraid of everything. The worst thing is that, with a few exceptions, even with the most selfless, patient and skillful care and upbringing, such children remained defective for the rest of their lives. Even in those cases where, thanks to the selfless work of teachers, the development of intelligence occurred, serious disturbances in personality and communication with other people persisted. At the first stages of “re-education”, children experienced an obvious fear of people; subsequently, the fear of people was replaced by unstable and poorly differentiated relationships with them. In the communication of such children with others, importunity and an insatiable need for love and attention are striking. Manifestations of feelings are characterized, on the one hand, by poverty, and on the other hand, by acute, affective overtones. These children are characterized by explosions of emotions - violent joy, anger and the absence of deep, lasting feelings. They have practically no higher feelings associated with a deep experience of art and moral conflicts. It should also be noted that they are emotionally very vulnerable; even a minor remark can cause an acute emotional reaction, not to mention situations that really require emotional stress and inner fortitude. Psychologists in such cases talk about low frustration tolerance.

The Second World War brought a lot of cruel life experiments on social deprivation to children. A thorough psychological description of one of the cases of social deprivation and its subsequent overcoming was given in their famous work by A. Freud, daughter of Z. Freud, and S. Dan. These researchers observed the rehabilitation process of six 3-year-old children, former prisoners of the Terezin concentration camp, where they were sent as infants. The fate of their mothers and the time of separation from their mother were unknown. After their release, the children were placed in one of the family-type orphanages in England. A. Freud and S. Dan note that from the very beginning it was striking that the children were a closed monolithic group, which did not allow them to be treated as separate individuals. There was no envy or jealousy between these children; they constantly helped and imitated each other. It is interesting that when another child appeared - a girl who arrived later, she was instantly included in this group. And this despite the fact that the children showed obvious distrust and fear of everything that went beyond the boundaries of their group - the adults who cared for them, animals, toys. Thus, the relationships within the small children's group replaced for its members the relationships with the outside world of people that were disrupted in the concentration camp. Subtle and observant researchers have shown that it was possible to restore relationships only through these intragroup connections.

The authors give another interesting example, from my point of view, illustrating the strength of the feeling of WE in children from institutions: “It is worth mentioning the experience of those times when children from institutions were examined in a clinic, and not directly in an institutional environment. When the children were in a large group in the reception room, there were no differences in their behavior compared to other preschool children who were in the same reception room with their mothers. However, when a child from an institution was excluded from the team and he was left alone in the office with a psychologist, then after the first joy of an unexpected meeting with new toys, his interest quickly fell, the child became restless and cried, “that his children would run away.” While children from families were in most cases content with the presence of their mother in the waiting room and collaborated with the psychologist with an appropriate measure of confidence, the majority of preschool children from institutions could not be individually studied due to their inability to adapt to new conditions. This was possible, however, when several children entered the room together and the child being examined felt supported by the other children who were playing in the room. The matter here concerns, apparently, the same manifestation of “group dependence”, which - as we have already mentioned - characterized in a particularly pronounced form some groups of children raised in concentration camps, and also became the basis for their future reeducation” (re-education.- Auth.). Czechoslovak researchers consider this manifestation to be one of the most important diagnostic indicators of “institutional-type deprivation.”

Many similar traits can be seen in boarding school students. But perhaps more indicative is the nature of their social contacts after finishing their studies at the boarding school, when they entered normal adult life. Former pupils experience obvious difficulties in establishing various social contacts. For example, despite a very strong desire to create a normal family, to enter the parental family of their chosen one or chosen one, they often fail on this path. As a result, everything comes to the point that family or sexual connections are created with former classmates, with members of the very group with which they suffered social isolation. They experience distrust and a sense of insecurity towards everyone else.

Deprivation situations.

In addition to deprivation itself, there are a number of terms associated with this phenomenon. A deprivation situation refers to such circumstances in a child’s life when there is no opportunity to satisfy important mental needs. Different children exposed to the same deprivation situation will behave differently and derive different consequences from this, because they have different constitutions and different previous development.

For example, isolation is one of the options for a deprivation situation. J. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek also identify the term consequences of deprivation (“deprivation lesion”), which they use to refer to the external manifestations of the results of deprivation, i.e., the behavior of a child who was in a deprivation situation. If a child has already been in a deprivation situation once, but fortunately it was short-lived and did not lead to severe mental disorders, then they talk about the child’s deprivation experience, after which he will be more hardened or, unfortunately, more sensitive.

Frustration, i.e. the experience of annoyance, etc. due to the blockade of needs, is not deprivation, but a more specific concept that can be included in the general concept of deprivation. If, for example, a toy is taken away from a child, the child may be in a state of frustration (and usually temporary). If a child is not allowed to play at all for a long time, then this will be deprivation, although there is no longer any frustration. If a child at the age of two was separated from his parents and placed in a hospital, then he may react to this with frustration. If he remains in the hospital for a year, and even in the same room, without visits from his parents, without walks, without receiving the necessary sensory, emotional and social information, then he may develop conditions classified as deprivation.

Cases of extreme social isolation can lead to distortion and retardation of mental development only in children of more or less older age, who are already capable of providing themselves with some kind of existence and surviving in difficult conditions. Another thing is when it comes to small children or infants - they usually do not survive, deprived of human society and its care.

Separation is distinguished from social isolation. By the latter, Czechoslovak researchers understand not only the painful separation of the child from the mother, but also any cessation of the specific connection between the child and his social environment. Separation can be sudden or gradual, complete or partial, short or long. Separation is the result of a violation of mutual contact; it affects not only the child, but also the parents. The latter develop anxiety, etc. If separation lasts for a long time, then it turns into social isolation, which was mentioned earlier. Separation is of great importance for the development of certain social attitudes in a child. Back in 1946, the English scientist Bowlby published comparative data on the development of 44 juvenile thieves and the same group of minors, but without antisocial tendencies. It turned out that delinquents experienced separation in childhood many times more often than peers without delinquency. Bowlby believes that separation primarily affects the aesthetic development of the individual and the formation of a normal sense of anxiety in the child.

The same deprivation conditions have different effects on children of different ages. With age, the child's needs change, as does his sensitivity to their insufficient satisfaction.

Conclusion

In my work I tried to talk about different types of mental deprivation. Of course, each of these types of deprivation can be isolated in its pure form only in special experiments. In life they exist in a rather complex interweaving. It is especially difficult to understand how individual deprivation factors act in childhood when they are superimposed on the developmental process, which includes both physical growth and maturation nervous system, formation of the psyche. This is all the more difficult in conditions of upbringing in a children's institution, when various types of deprivation are associated with or even are a consequence of maternal deprivation, which arises as a result of depriving a child from an early age of his mother's care and warmth.

We can talk about such deprivation not only in relation to abandoned children, orphans, sick children placed in clinics for a long time, but also when the mother is emotionally cold or too busy at work. Maternal deprivation is an important social problem throughout the world today, and our country is no exception.

Now we are doing a lot for children who experience maternal deprivation in its extreme forms - for children in orphanages, orphanages, and boarding schools. But the problem is beginning to be recognized more broadly. Many people today are calling for giving the mother the maximum opportunity to be at home with her child by increasing postnatal leave, switching to a five-day school week, a shorter working day for the mother, and additional payment to the father so that the mother has the opportunity not to work.

Deprivation refers to the psycho-emotional state of a person in which he is in under stress due to the inability to satisfy usual needs.

Each of us in Everyday life cannot do without standard things: good sleep, nutrition, communication with family, implementation at work. If for some reason barriers to their implementation appear, this brings psychological or physical discomfort. As a result, consciousness changes. The lack of social and sensory stimuli leads to personality degradation.

How does deprivation manifest itself?

Depending on the type of disorder, different signs may be observed. But there are a number common symptoms, which indicate a disease:

constant feeling of dissatisfaction;
aggression;
increased anxiety;
depressive states;
decreased activity;
loss of interest in familiar things.

In itself, depriving a person of his usual benefits does not provoke a disorder. Deprivation is caused by the attitude of a particular person to certain circumstances. For example, if you limit the food intake of a person who practices fasting or a special diet, then this will not become stressful for him. But if the same thing is done to an individual who is not used to such things, it will cause him physical or emotional suffering. Deprivation is the psychological inability of an individual to adapt to circumstances that have changed.

Types of deprivation

There are two forms of deprivation:

absolute - when an individual really does not have the opportunity to satisfy his usual needs for food, communication, recreation, education;
relative - a type of disorder in which a person does not have factors for the development of deviations, since all the necessary benefits are present. But he is not able to enjoy the realization of these benefits. The relative form is a borderline state between the norm and deviation.

If we carry out another classification, then it is customary to distinguish the following types of deprivation:

sensory - in this case there is no opportunity to receive satisfaction from impressions (no stimulus). The stimulus variety includes sexual (lack of intimate relationships), visual (for example, when a person is placed in a dark room for a long period), tactile (exclusion of tactile contacts);
paternal - typical for children who are forced to grow up in a dysfunctional family;
cognitive - exclusion of the opportunity to develop in the cultural sphere, in knowledge of the world;
social - the inability to realize one’s development in ordinary society due to a certain isolation. It is typical for people who are in prison, on compulsory treatment, for children who are brought up in orphanages and boarding schools.

Emotional deprivation

Emotions play an important role in shaping personality. They shape the character of behavior and help to adapt to society. Throughout its development, an individual changes in the emotional sphere, adapting to various circumstances. Emotions help a person understand his role in life and influence consciousness, thinking and perception.

Emotional deprivation leads to the fact that a person does not perceive the fullness of social sphere, the field of knowledge becomes limited. Such factors cannot but influence normal psychological development.

There is an opinion among psychologists that the fundamental moment for the formation of a positive attitude towards life is the conscious desire of parents to have a baby. In this case, a beloved baby is born, in whose subconscious the correct perception of himself and those around him is already embedded.

The next important stage in personality formation is the period of early childhood. If at this time he is surrounded by people who cannot sufficiently show the correct emotions, prerequisites arise for the development of deprivation disorders. A healthy psychological atmosphere in the family, an emotional connection between parents and child is the key to the formation of a positive attitude towards surrounding things and circumstances. Emotional deprivation is typical for those people who were brought up in an environment that was too emotionally volatile. This leads to social hyperactivity and difficulty establishing stable interpersonal relationships.

If in childhood the person was deprived emotionally, another type of deviation is formed. Various complexes develop, a feeling of melancholy and loneliness appears. Emotional hunger also drains the body physically. Such a baby begins to lag behind in development. If a person appears in his life with whom a close emotional connection is established, a feeling of attachment appears, the situation can change dramatically. A striking example would be children from an orphanage who end up in a family where a healthy psychological climate reigns. If at the stage of forced isolation from society and lack of attention they experience sensory deprivation, then in the case of acquiring full-fledged parents, healing occurs over time. Physical and mental indicators improve, their perception and attitude towards the world changes.

Maternal mental deprivation

There are situations in life when, for some reason, a child finds himself without a mother. For example, the mother died or she abandoned the baby after his birth. These are classic types of maternal loss that have a deprivative effect on human development. But other options for separation from mother can become a catalyst for the development of deviations. Among them, the most common are:

due to difficult childbirth, the child is temporarily separated from the parent;
the mother is forced to leave for a certain period of time without the baby (on a business trip, to study, etc.);
mother goes to work too early, entrusting raising the child to grandmothers and nannies;
the baby is given to kindergarten at an age when he is not yet psychologically ready for it;
Due to illness, the child is admitted to the hospital without his mother.

The above cases are open maternal mental deprivation. There is also a hidden form. It is characterized by psychological tension in the mother's relationship with the child in her physical presence. This is a wrong relationship. In what cases can they be observed?

when children are born into a family with a small age difference, and the mother is simply physically unable to pay attention to the elders as needed;
if a woman suffers from a physical or mental illness that prevents her from fully caring for her baby and communicating;
when there is an atmosphere of tension or hostility between parents in the family;
if the mother is overly keen on the scientific approach in raising a child and absolutely does not listen to either her intuition or individual characteristics your baby.

Maternal deprivation is always experienced by children who were born as a result of unwanted pregnancy, which influenced the formation of attitudes towards them.

Psychologists note that the foundations for the development of pathological conditions are often laid in children under the age of 3 years. This is the period that is especially important for establishing emotional contact with the mother. If this does not happen, the risk of auto-aggression, depression and lack of perception of the outside world increases. In adolescence and mature age such a person does not perceive himself and is not able to build normal social relations with other people. There is a version that maternal mental deprivation may underlie a number of autism spectrum diseases.

Paternal deprivation

Ideally, both parents should be involved in raising a child. After all, the influence of each of them is special and irreplaceable. Paterial deprivation can be as harmful to a person’s emotional development as maternal deprivation. What situations influence the formation of negative life dispositions?

father leaves the family;
there is a man’s physical presence in the house, but he does not build any emotional connections with the baby (indifference);
the father realizes his ambitions in relation to the child;
In the family, role functions are violated: the woman takes on the inherent masculine functions and becomes a leader who actively suppresses the masculine principle. And the opposite situation, in which the father performs the functions of the mother.

Paterial mental deprivation leads to the fact that the child does not correctly perceive sexual differentiation, becomes emotionally vulnerable and incompetent. When a psychologist begins to work with a patient, he always tries to analyze the childhood period and the period of his growing up. As practice shows, many individuals experience an accumulation of ancestral deprivations. And the next generation becomes even more incapable of building relationships correctly, which leads to problems for their children.

Sleep deprivation

There are different types of deprivation. There is a special group that includes sleep deprivation.

To live a full life in full health, a person must get enough sleep. If, for forced or voluntary reasons, he is regularly deprived of sleep, this will immediately affect his psychological and physical state.

We all know cases when, due to urgent work, exams or business trips, we have to sacrifice several hours of rest. If this is a one-time event, it does not pose a danger to the body. But if this happens constantly, the lack of sleep affects your well-being. During rest, the hormone of joy is actively produced. Lack of sleep provokes sleep deprivation. The functioning of the endocrine system is disrupted, metabolism slows down. The person begins to suffer from excess weight, headaches and depression.

At all times, one of the most cruel punishments was considered to be depriving an individual of the opportunity to sleep. This was achieved by creating conditions under which rest was unrealistic (loud music, bright light in the face, inability to take any position for sleeping). If a person is deprived of sleep (or he voluntarily refuses it) for several days in a row, this is called total sleep deprivation. How does this affect the body?

one day without rest - loss of physical strength, decreased reaction;
two days - violated physical activity and mental abilities;
three days - severe tension headaches begin;
four days - hallucinations appear, suppressed volitional sphere. This is a critical phase of deprivation, after which irreversible processes can occur that pose a threat to life.

No matter how paradoxical it may sound, but with the help of sleep deprivation you can... treat. There are practical studies that have established that artificially depriving a person of the sleep phase can help him get rid of deep depression. This effect is explained as follows: lack of sleep - stress. Active production of catecholamines begins, which are responsible for emotional tone. This method of shock therapy restores interest in life. Sleep deprivation also successfully relieves insomnia. Of course, such treatment methods must be carried out strictly under the supervision of a specialist.

There are three main types of mental deprivation: emotional (affective), sensory (stimulus), social (identity).

By severity: deprivation can be complete or partial.

Emotional and sensory deprivation.

It manifests itself in the insufficient opportunity to establish an intimate emotional relationship with any person or the severance of such a connection when one has already been created. A child often ends up in an impoverished environment, finding himself in an orphanage, hospital, boarding school or other

closed institution. Such an environment, causing sensory hunger, is harmful for a person at any age. However, it is especially destructive for a child.

A great contribution to the development of this problem was made by a group of Soviet scientists who united under the leadership of N. M. Shchelovanov. They 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, which he observed more than once in nurseries and children's homes, 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, inhibition of mental development is noted.

The data obtained by N. N. Shchelovanov and his colleagues were so vivid and convincing that they served as the basis for the development of some fragmentary principles of the psychology of child development. The famous Soviet psychologist L.I. Bozhovich put forward the hypothesis that it is the need for impressions that plays a leading role in the mental development of a child, arising approximately in the third to fifth week of a child’s life and being the basis for the formation of other social needs, including including the social nature of the need for communication between the child and the mother. This hypothesis 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.

L. I. Bozhovich considers the facts obtained during the study of the emotional life of an infant to be one of the confirmations of his hypothesis. Thus, the Soviet psychologist 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. M. Yu. Kistyakovskaya writes that the data obtained show “the incorrectness of the point of view according to which positive emotions appear in a child when his organic needs are satisfied. All the materials we have received indicate that the satisfaction of organic needs only removes emotionally negative reactions, thereby creating favorable preconditions for the emergence of emotionally positive reactions, but in itself does not generate them... The fact we have established is - the appearance of a child’s first smile and other positive emotions when fixating an object contradicts the point of view according to which a smile is an innate social reaction. At the same time, since the emergence of positive emotions is associated with the satisfaction of some need of the body... this fact gives reason to believe that, along with organic needs, the baby also has a need for the activity of the visual analyzer. This need is manifested in positive reactions, continuously improving under the influence of external influences, aimed at receiving, maintaining and strengthening external stimuli. And it is on their basis, and not on the basis of unconditioned food reflexes, that the child’s positive emotional reactions arise and are consolidated and his neuropsychic development occurs.” Even the great Russian scientist V.M. Bekhterev noted that by the end of the second month the child seems to be looking for new impressions.

Indifference and lack of a smile in children from orphanages and orphanages were noticed by many from the very beginning of the activities of such institutions, the first of which date back to the 4th century AD (335, Constantinople), and their rapid development in Europe dates back to approximately the 17th century. There is a well-known saying of a Spanish bishop dating back to 1760: “In an orphanage, a child becomes sad and many die of sadness.” However, the negative consequences of staying in a closed children's institution began to be considered as a scientific fact only at the beginning of the 20th century. These phenomena, first systematically described and analyzed by the American researcher R. Spitz, were called by him the phenomena of hospitalism. The essence of the discovery made by R. Spitz was that in a closed children's institution a child suffers not only and not so much from poor nutrition or poor medical care, but from the specific conditions of such institutions, one of the essential aspects of which is a poor stimulus environment. Describing the conditions of detention of children in one of the shelters, R. Spitz notes that the children constantly lay in glass boxes for up to 15-18 months, and until they got to their feet, they saw nothing but the ceiling, because there were curtains hanging on our sides. 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 mental development, are comparable to the consequences of deep sensory defects. For example, B. Lofenfeld found that, based on developmental results, children with congenital or early acquired blindness are similar to deprived sighted children (children from closed institutions). These results manifest themselves in the form of a general or partial delay in development, the emergence of certain motor characteristics and characteristics of personality and behavior.

Another researcher, T. Levin, who studied the personality of deaf children using the Rorschach test (a well-known psychological technique based on the subject’s interpretation of a series of pictures depicting colored and black-and-white blots), found that the characteristics of emotional reactions, fantasy, and control in such children are also similar to those of institutionalized orphans.

According to M. Montessori, whose name occupies a special place in child psychology and pedagogy, the author of the famous system of sensory education, which went down in history as the Montessori system, which participated in the organization of the first children's homes, nurseries for children of the poorest segments of the population, the most sensitive The period from two and a half to six years is the most sensitive for the child’s sensory development, and therefore subject to the greatest danger from the lack of various external impressions. There are other points of view, and, apparently, the final scientific solution to the issue requires additional research.

However, for practice, the thesis can be considered 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 for a child 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 implemented in a primitive, one-sided and incomplete manner. So, often with the best intentions, struggling with the dullness and monotony of the situation in orphanages and boarding schools, they try to maximally saturate the interior with various colorful panels, slogans, paint the walls in bright colors, etc. 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. At one time, N.M. Shchelovanov warned that the maturing brain of a child is especially sensitive to overloads created by prolonged, monotonous influence of intense stimuli.

Social deprivation.

Along with emotional and sensory deprivation, social deprivation is also distinguished.

The development of a child largely depends on communication with adults, which affects not only the mental, but also, in the early stages, the physical development of the child. Communication can be viewed from the perspective of various humanities. From the point of view of psychology, communication is understood as the process of establishing and maintaining purposeful, direct or indirect contact by one means or another between people who are somehow connected to each other psychologically. Child development, within the framework of the theory of cultural-historical development, is understood by Vygotsky as the process of children’s appropriation of socio-historical experience accumulated by previous generations. Gaining this experience is possible by communicating with elders. At the same time, communication plays a decisive role not only in enriching the content of a child’s consciousness, but also determines its structure.

Considering the importance of the level of personal maturity as a factor in tolerance to social isolation, we can assume from the very beginning that the younger the child, the more difficult social isolation will be for him. The book of Czechoslovak researchers I. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek “Mental deprivation in childhood” provides many expressive examples of what social isolation of a child can lead to. These are the so-called “wolf children”, and the famous Kaspar Hauser from Nuremberg, and essentially tragic cases from the lives of modern children who have not seen or communicated with anyone since early childhood. All these children could not speak, walked poorly or did not walk at all, cried incessantly, and were afraid of everything. The worst thing is that, with a few exceptions, even with the most selfless, patient and skillful care and upbringing, such children remained defective for the rest of their lives. Even in cases where, thanks to the ascetic work of teachers, the development of intelligence occurred, serious disturbances in personality and communication with other people persisted. At the first stages of “re-education”, children experienced an obvious fear of people; subsequently, the fear of people was replaced by unstable and poorly differentiated relationships with them. In the communication of such children with others, importunity and an insatiable need for love and attention are striking. Manifestations of feelings are characterized, on the one hand, by poverty, and on the other hand, by acute, affective overtones. These children are characterized by explosions of emotions - violent joy, anger and the absence of deep, lasting feelings. They practically lack higher feelings associated with the deep experience of art and moral conflicts. It should also be noted that they are very vulnerable emotionally, even a minor remark can cause an acute emotional reaction, not to mention situations that really require emotional stress and internal resilience. Psychologists in such cases speak of low frustration tolerance.

The authors give another interesting example, from my point of view, illustrating the strength of the feeling of WE in children from institutions: “It is worth mentioning the experience of those times when children from institutions were examined in a clinic, and not directly in an institutional environment. When the children were in a large group in the reception room, there were no differences in their behavior compared to other preschool children who were in the same reception room with their mothers. However, when a child from an institution was excluded from the team and he was left alone in the office with a psychologist, then after the first joy of an unexpected meeting with new toys, his interest quickly fell, the child became restless and cried, “that his children would run away.” While children from families were in most cases content with the presence of their mother in the waiting room and collaborated with the psychologist with an appropriate measure of confidence, the majority of preschool children from institutions could not be individually studied due to their inability to adapt to new conditions. This was possible, however, when several children entered the room at once and the child being examined felt supported by the other children who were playing in the room. The matter here concerns, apparently, the same manifestation of “group dependence”, which - as we have already mentioned - characterized in a particularly pronounced form certain groups of children brought up in concentration camps, and also turned into the basis of their future reeducation" (reeducation. - Author). Czechoslovak researchers consider this manifestation to be one of the most important diagnostic indicators of “institutional-type deprivation.”

Many similar traits can be seen in boarding school students. But perhaps more indicative is the nature of their social contacts after finishing their studies at the boarding school, when they entered normal adult life. Former pupils experience obvious difficulties in establishing various social contacts. For example, despite a very strong desire to create a normal family, to enter the parental family of their chosen one or chosen one, they often fail on this path. As a result, everything comes to the point that family or sexual connections are created with former classmates, with members of the very group with which they suffered social isolation. They experience distrust and a sense of insecurity towards everyone else.

The fence of an orphanage or boarding school became a fence for these people, separating them from society. He did not disappear, even if the child ran away, and he remained when they married him, entering adulthood. Because this fence created a feeling of being an outcast, dividing the world into “Us” and “Them”.

Diagnostics and diseases. Medicines from A to Z

The mechanism of action of various types of deprivation on a person’s personality. What is deprivation in psychology? Types and characteristics of manifestations in adults and children

What is deprivation in psychology?

The difference between frustration and deprivation

What causes deprivation?

What are the types of this concept?

Emotional deprivation in psychology

Sensory deprivation

Social deprivation

Maternal deprivation - what is it?

Consequences of deprivation in children

How does deprivation affect the behavior of adults?

How does deprivation manifest itself?

Types of deprivation

Emotional deprivation

Maternal mental deprivation

Paternal deprivation

Sleep deprivation