Self-hatred Leads To Schizophrenia

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

"Schizophrenics" before the onset of the disease do not sleep for a week, sometimes 10 days. Outwardly, they look like emotionally stupid people, then doctors do not even suspect what hellish feelings are tearing them apart from the inside, especially since for the most part these feelings are "frozen", and the patient himself does not know about them or hides them.

The one who denies free will is insane, and the one who denies it is a fool.

Schizophrenia is still one of the most mysterious for medicine and tragic diseases for an individual. Such a diagnosis sounds like a verdict, since "everyone knows" that schizophrenia is incurable, although, as the famous American psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey writes, 25 percent of patients as a result of drug treatment have a significant improvement in their condition, and another 25 percent are improving, but they need constant care.

The same author, however, admits that at the moment there is no satisfactory theory of schizophrenia, and the principle of the effect of antipsychotic drugs is completely unknown, nevertheless he is completely convinced that schizophrenia is a brain disease, moreover, he is quite accurate indicates the main area of the brain that is affected in this disease. Namely - the limbic system, as you know, is primarily responsible for the emotional state of a person.

Such an important symptom of schizophrenia as "emotional dullness", characteristic of all its varieties, without exception, is noted by all psychiatrists, nevertheless, this does not push doctors to the assumption of a possible emotional cause of schizophrenic diseases.

Moreover, in general, the study is primarily focused on characteristic cognitive impairments (delusions, hallucinations, depersonalization, etc.). The hypothesis that emotional disturbances may be the cause of such impressive and frightening symptoms is not seriously considered, precisely because people with schizophrenia appear to be emotionally unfeeling people.

I apologize for using the not entirely scientific term "schizophrenic" for brevity in the future.

The theory put forward is based on the idea that the overwhelming majority of schizophrenia diseases are based on severe emotional problems of the personality, consisting primarily in the fact that the patient restrains (or suppresses) such strong feelings that his personality is not able to withstand if they are actualized in his body and mind.

They are so strong that you just need to forget about them, any touch to them causes unbearable pain. That is why psychological therapy for schizophrenia is still doing more harm than good, since it touches these affects "buried" in the depths of the personality of cosmic power, which causes a new round of schizophrenic refusal to recognize reality.

It was not by chance that I said about the actualization of feelings in the body, and not only in consciousness. Not only psychologists, but also doctors will not deny that emotions are those mental processes that most strongly affect the physical state of a person.

Emotions cause not only a change in the electrical activity of the brain, expansion or narrowing of blood vessels, the release of adrenaline or other hormones into the blood, but also tension or relaxation of the muscles of the body, increased breathing rate or its delay, increased or weakened heartbeat, etc., up to fainting. heart attack or complete graying.

Chronic emotional states can cause serious physiological changes in the body, that is, cause certain psychosomatic diseases, or, if these emotions are positive, contribute to the strengthening of human health.

The most profound researcher of human emotionality was the famous psychologist and psychiatrist W. Reich. He considered feelings and emotions a direct expression of the psychic energy of a person.

Describing the schizoid character, he first of all pointed out that all the feelings and energy of such a person are frozen in the center of the body, they are restrained by chronic muscle tension. It should be noted that Russian textbooks on psychiatry also point to a particular muscle hypertension (overexertion) observed in schizophrenics of all types.

However, domestic psychiatry does not associate this fact with the suppression of feelings and also cannot explain the phenomenon of emotional stupidity in schizophrenics. At the same time, this fact is understandable if we consider that emotions are completely suppressed, and so much so that the "patient" himself is not able to contact his own feelings, otherwise they are too dangerous for him.

This conclusion is confirmed in practice. Carefully talking with such patients in remission, one can find out that their feelings, which they are not aware of (usually they themselves feel insensible), actually have an absolutely incredible power for a "normal" person, they are literally characterized by cosmogonic parameters.

For example, one young woman admitted that the feeling she was holding back could be described as a scream of such force that, if released, it could "cut mountains like a laser." When I asked how she can restrain such a cry, she said: "This is my will." "What is your will like?" I asked. "If it is possible to imagine lava in the center of the Earth, then this is my will," was the answer.

Another young woman also noted that the main feeling she suppressed was similar to a cry, when I suggested that she try to free him, she asked with some "black" humor: "Will there be an earthquake?" Both of them recalled that their mothers in childhood constantly and severely beat them, demanding absolute submission.

Surprisingly, most schizophrenics seem to have conspired, they all point to the extremely cruel treatment of themselves by the mother (less often the father) and the parental demand for absolute submission.

Other psychologists and psychiatrists with whom I discussed this topic have pointed out the fact of abuse of schizophrenics in childhood. For example, the famous psychologist and psychotherapist Vera Loseva (oral communication) spoke out in the sense that schizophrenia occurs in cases when the parents have committed something cruel to the child, and the main task of the therapist is to help the patient psychologically separate himself from the parents, which leads to healing.

But indications of the strength of emotions and cruelty are clearly not enough, it is necessary to understand the nature of these emotions. Obviously, these are not positive emotions, this is, first of all, self-hatred, which he can also quite calmly inform the psychologist about.

The schizophrenic hates his own personality and destroys himself from the inside, the idea that you can love yourself seems to him amazing and unacceptable. At the same time, it can be hatred of the world around him, so he essentially stops all contact with reality, in particular with the help of delirium.

Where does this self-hatred come from?

Maternal cruelty, against which the child internally protests, nevertheless becomes a child's self-attitude, and this manifests itself precisely in the period of adolescence, that is, when the child no longer begins to obey his parents, but to control himself and his life.

This comes from the fact that he does not know other ways to control himself and another version of self-attitude. He also demands from himself absolute submission and applies absolute internal violence to himself.

I asked a young woman with similar symptoms if she realized that she was treating herself the way her mother did to her. "You are wrong," she replied with a wry smile, "I treat myself much more sophisticated."

These ideas are fully consistent with the theory of Mary and Robert Goulding, famous followers of Eric Berne. They believe that beating and humiliating a child is a form of the "don't live" command.

A child who has received such an order from his parents, as a rule, creates a suicidal life scenario. In some cases, this scenario leads to real suicide or depression as latent suicide.

But in schizophrenia, the very human self is subjected to a brutal attack from the very same individual. The destruction of one's own I can be called a suicide of the soul, perhaps it happens because it was this I that was the object of persecution by the parent.

If you try to talk with a schizophrenic patient about love for himself or his Self, you will come across misunderstanding and denial. Like: "You say strange things …" or "I don't like and cannot talk about myself."

In the West, the theory of a cold and hypersocializing mother is known as the cause of the subsequent illness of the child, however, further "scientific" studies have not confirmed this hypothesis.

Why? It's very simple: most parents hide the facts of their inadequate attitude towards the child, especially since this was in the past, most likely they themselves are deceiving themselves, forgetting what happened.

Schizophrenics themselves testify that in response to their accusations of cruelty, parents respond that nothing like this happened. In the eyes of doctors, the parents are right, of course, they are not crazy.

One friend of mine was kept in the hospital and "injected" with strong drugs until she realized that she would not be released if she did not give up her memories of her parents' sadistic behavior. As a result, she admitted that she was wrong, that her parents were innocent, and she was discharged.

Another weakness of this theory is that it does not explain how coldness and hyper-socialization lead to schizophrenia. From our point of view, I repeat, the true reason is the same - the incredible power of the schizophrenic's hatred of himself, the complete suppression of his feelings, and the desire for absolute obedience to abstract principles (that is, the rejection of free will and spontaneity). That stems from the requirements of absolute obedience on the part of the parent, which is the rejection of one's self.

It is the human self that is responsible for the adequate perception of reality. Z. Freud spoke about this. As you know, such a part of the personality as Id obeys the principle of pleasure and serves instincts, the Super-Ego obeys the principle of morality and helps to limit and restrain instincts, and the Ego (that is, I) obeys the principle of reality and helps a person to act adequately and safely.

When the human ego is destroyed, then he loses the ability to test reality and distinguish delusions and hallucinations from reality.

When I published this article in the magazine, it went unnoticed. When posted online, she was criticized by an elderly woman (retired radiologist) who believed that her daughter hated her because she had schizophrenia.

The daughter did not even want to let her into the house and let her communicate with her grandson. This lady criticized me very aggressively and even recommended that I take up the cultivation of vacant land instead of writing articles accusing mothers.

As it turned out, no one had diagnosed her daughter, her husband had no doubts about her adequacy, she was not registered with the PND and had never been in a psychiatric clinic. But her mother was sure that her daughter was sick.

She gave a lot of examples of how children hated their parents, good and famous parents, and then it turned out that the children were schizophrenics. Thus, she herself confirmed my hypothesis, testified that relationships with parents are clearly correlated with illness, and these relationships are saturated with hatred.

Since I realized that this lady herself is interested in creating her daughter's illness, or at least in such a diagnosis, and in her words and actions she resembles a tank, I refused to continue discussing with her.

Interestingly, the psychiatrists themselves told me that they noticed a strange pattern. While the mother is visiting her sick "adult child" in the hospital, taking care of him, he gets sick. As soon as the mother dies, the child quickly recovers and adapts to the surrounding reality.

Psychological causes of the disease can be generated not only by the cruel attitude of parents in childhood, but also by other factors, which allows us to explain a number of other cases. But the reason is always deeply emotional.

For example, I know of a case when schizophrenia developed in a woman who, as a child, was rather spoiled by her parents. Until the age of five, she was a real queen in the family, but then a brother was born. Hatred for her brother (then for men in general) overwhelmed her, but she could not express it, fearing completely losing the love of her parents, and this hatred fell on her from within.

K. Jung cites a case when a woman fell ill with schizophrenia after, in fact, killed her child. When Jung told her the truth about what had happened, after which she threw out her suppressed feelings in a completely overwhelmed tantrum, it was enough for her to fully recover.

The fact was that in her youth she lived in a certain English city and was in love with a handsome and rich young man. But her parents told her that she was aiming too high and, at their insistence, she accepted the offer of another quite worthy groom.

She left (apparently in the colony) there gave birth to a boy and a girl, lived happily. But one day a friend came to visit her, who used to live in her hometown. Over a cup of tea, he told her that by her marriage she had broken the heart of one of his friends. It turned out that this was the very rich and handsome with whom she was in love.

You can imagine her condition. In the evening, she bathed her daughter and son in a bathtub. She knew that the water in this area could be contaminated with dangerous bacteria. For some reason, she did not prevent one child from drinking water from his palm, and the other from sucking a sponge. Both children fell ill and one died. Then she was admitted to the clinic with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Jung told her after some hesitation: "You killed your child." The explosion of emotions was overwhelming, but two weeks later she was discharged as completely healthy. Jung watched her for another 9 years, and there was no more relapse of the disease.

It is quite obvious that this woman hated herself for giving up her beloved, and then for contributing to the death of her own child and finally breaking her own life. She could not bear these feelings, it was easier to go crazy. When unbearable emotions burst out, her mind returned to her.

I know of a case of a young man with a paranoid form of schizophrenia. When he was little, his father (a Dagestan) sometimes tore off the dagger hanging on him from the carpet, put it to the boy's throat and shouted: "I will cut him, or you will obey me."

When this patient was asked to draw a person who is afraid of someone, then in this drawing, by the figure and details, it was possible to unmistakably recognize him. When he painted the one whom this man is afraid of, his wife unmistakably recognized in this portrait the father of the patient.

However, he himself did not understand this, moreover, at the level of consciousness, he idolized his father and said that he dreamed of imitating him. Moreover, he said that if his own son steals, he would rather kill him himself. It is also interesting that when the topic of restraining suffering, patience was discussed with him, he said that, in his opinion, "a man should endure until he is completely mad."

These examples confirm the emotional nature of this disease, but of course they are not conclusive evidence. But theory is usually always ahead of the curve.

In psychology, another psychological theory of schizophrenia is known, belonging to the philosopher, ethnographer and ethologist Gregory Bateson, this is the concept of "double clamping". In short, its essence boils down to the fact that the child receives from the parent two logically incompatible prescriptions: for example, "if you do this, I will punish you" and "if you do not do this, I will punish you," the only thing that remains for him is - it's going crazy.

For all the importance of the idea of "double clamping", the evidence of this theory is small, it remains a purely speculative model, unable to explain the catastrophic disorders of thinking and perception of the world that occur in schizophrenia, unless it is accepted that "double clamping" causes the deepest emotional conflict.

In any case, psychiatrist Fuller Torrey simply mocks this concept, as well as other psychological theories. All these theories, unfortunately, cannot explain the origin of schizophrenic symptoms, if one does not take into account the strength of the latent emotions experienced by the patient, if one does not take into account the force of self-destruction directed at oneself, the degree of suppression of any spontaneity and immediate emotionality.

Our theory faces the same tasks. Psychiatrists therefore do not believe in psychological theories of schizophrenia because they cannot imagine that such mental disorders can occur not in a destroyed brain, they cannot imagine that a normal brain can generate hallucinations, and a person can believe in them.

In fact, this may well be happening. Distortions of the picture of the world and violations of logic occurred and are occurring among millions of people right before our eyes, as the practice of Nazism and Stalinism, the practice of financial pyramids, etc. shows.

The average person is able to believe anything and even "see" it with his own eyes, if he really wants to. Excitement, passion, wild fear, hatred and love make people believe in their fantasies as reality, or at least mix them with reality.

Fear makes you see threats everywhere, and love makes you suddenly see your beloved in the crowd. No one is surprised that all children go through a period of night fears, when simple objects in the room seem to them as some kind of ominous figures.

Alas, adults are also able to take their fantasies for reality, and the process of substitution occurs completely uncontrollably, but in order for this to happen, supernormal negative emotions, supernormal stress are needed.

It is no coincidence that it was noticed that before the onset of the disease, for a certain period of time, future patients practically cannot sleep. Try not to sleep for two nights in a row - how will you think after the second night?

"Schizophrenics" before the onset of the disease do not sleep for a week, sometimes 10 days. If you experimentally wake up a person at the time of the onset of REM sleep, when he sees dreams, then after five days he begins to see hallucinations in reality.

This phenomenon is perfectly explained by Freud's theory of dreams. He showed that in dreams people see their own unfulfilled desires. Freud believed that in this way the unconscious of a person informs the consciousness that a person does not want to know about himself.

On the one hand, Freud's theory is correct, but he did not pay attention to the fact that the realization of unfulfilled desires in a dream leads to the fulfillment of desires, at least in a symbolic form. And such a realization of desire leads to tranquility, the desire, as it were, is satisfied purely on the psychic level. That is, the main function of dreams is compensatory.

If this compensatory function of dreams is disabled, then compensation occurs in the form of hallucinations. As happened in the above experiment. Only a healthy person participating in the experiment realizes that these hallucinations are the product of his own psyche.

A sick person, tormented by suffering, takes the images of hallucinations, which are his dreams in reality, for reality. Since there is still no compensation in his case, he sees these dreams in reality over and over again.

The same phenomenon underlies the origin of recurring dreams. Compensation does not occur either in dreams or in reality, and a person sometimes dreams of the same dream every night.

Here's an example: "Severed head"

I took an exam at one of the paid universities. The student, already an adult woman, answered the first question, and, clearly in a hurry and anxiety, asked me to interpret her dream, which had tormented her for the past two months. I realized that this question was very important to her and agreed.

It was a recurring nightmare. She dreamed that she was in a room from which she wanted to escape, but some people were interfering with her. She cannot leave, but is forced to watch as a man is executed. She sees a bloody neck when his head is cut off. All this is terrible and is repeated every night.

I said that I cannot say for sure, there is no time for a more detailed analysis, but at least it is clear that in her life she is in a very unpleasant situation for her, from which she wants to escape, but she does not succeed. It is also clear that she is in some very serious conflict with some man.

She confirmed what I was thinking, but expressed it carefully:

- Yes, I now want to divorce my husband, but I cannot do this, because I have a small child, 1 year and 2 months. The main thing is that I do not understand the reason why I want a divorce so much. But after the birth of the child, I just began to hate him, more and more. Although before that we were doing well, we loved each other very much. The sex we had was just wonderful. He has shortcomings, he is a somewhat difficult person, but I have no serious complaints against him.

- Maybe he cheated on you, or beat you, or did something else.

- No no. He treats me very well, but I can't help myself. Why is this happening?

- It's so hard to judge. But often after the birth of a child, the mother can surface the conflicts that were in her parental family, because she involuntarily sees herself in the child. Do you have a girl?

- Yes, my father left the family when I was a year and a half.

- Maybe you have a program that when a child is 1, 5 years old, you need to divorce your husband. But I'm not sure.

- Indeed, I divorced my first husband when my child was one and four months old.

- If so, now we can confidently say that you are following such a program.

- Why do I hate him more and more?

- You just need to provide an emotional basis for a ready-made solution.

- My God (grabs his head). What a terrible woman I am. What to do? Can this be fixed?

- Come to me for a session, now we do not have time for this.

A comment … She did not come to the session, and I do not know the long-term results of this brief analysis. I hope she had enough reason not to spoil her and others' lives, based on the scripts learned in childhood. I also regret that I did not ask her about what her mother told her about her father, and did not interpret the execution of the man as the realization of her hatred of her father for leaving her. It would then be clear that her hatred of her husband is a typical transference phenomenon, which would help her cope with these feelings. But I didn't have much time.

It is clear that no matter how much this woman watched this dream, there would be no solution to the problem either in a dream or in reality, so it was repeated.

My client with manic-depressive psychosis (I did not treat him, but only consulted) was shocked when I told him this concept. It turns out that before the onset of the disease, he did not sleep for 11 days without a break. No one told him anything like that, although he was in a psychiatric clinic four times. And this is understandable, because this theory is completely new, and psychiatrists do not know it. And psychiatrists will not believe in it, although it gives a key to the analysis of hallucinations and delusions of sick people.

I note that no matter what symptoms we discussed with him, moving from symptom to its cause, we always came to discuss his relationship with his mother. As this rich and intelligent, forty-year-old man said, my mother had such a character that it was impossible to talk to her for more than half an hour.

"Why? - I was surprised." Because in half an hour she manages to take out your brain completely. "- was the answer. He took counseling with me for a year and a half, then left, in English, without saying goodbye, and four months later he was in the clinic. fourth time.

Six months later, he came back to me in a completely "crushed" state. We worked for another year, he was psychologically resurrected, again left in English, but at the moment he is healthy. I have a suspicion that he is healthy because his mother, who was the causative agent of the disease, died during this time.

Let us recall, by the way, the famous film "A Beautiful Mind", created on the basis of real facts. In it, a brilliant mathematician with a paranoid form of schizophrenia suddenly (20 years later) realizes that one character from his hallucinations is really a product of his own psyche (a girl who never matured). When he realized this, he was able to overcome his illness from within himself.

But, returning to the theory of dreams, "schizophrenics" do not sleep for a reason, because they have nothing to do, they are extremely excited and tense, they are overwhelmed by feelings with which they struggle, but are unable to defeat them.

For example, one woman "went crazy" in adulthood after a divorce from her husband, which she experienced to such an extent that she completely turned gray. In addition, the "soil" had already been prepared in the same standard way - as a child, her mother constantly beat her and demanded absolute submission, and her beloved father was a depressed drunkard. Mother said: "You are all in this Sidorov." So, before she started an acute psychotic attack, she did not sleep in a row for about a week.

Summarizing the above, the causes of schizophrenia can be reduced to three main factors:

1. Self-control with the help of absolute violence, rejection of spontaneity and immediacy;

2. Self-hatred, self-hatred;

3. Suppression of all feelings and sensory contact with reality.

Previously, I believed that priority in the education of schizophrenia should certainly be given to the first principle. Now I think the second. Since the patient in this case comes to the denial of his I.

The rejection of spontaneity, following internal direct impulses and desires comes from the fact that in childhood the child learned only to obey the parent and suppress himself, not to trust himself. And only our I (EGO) allows us to test reality and distinguish dreams and hallucinations from objective reality.

The famous Arnhild Lauweng writes about the loss of my self in her book "Tomorrow I have always been a lion." This Norwegian girl has suffered from schizophrenia for 10 years, went through the hell of traditional medical treatment and recovered through her own efforts.

Here is one quote from her confession describing the origin of the disease: "If" she "is me, then who writes about" her "?, then who then talks about these "I" and "she"?

Chaos grew, and I got more and more entangled in it. One fine evening my hands finally dropped, and I replaced all "I" with an unknown value X. I had the feeling that I no longer exist, that there was nothing left but chaos, and I no longer knew anything - no one I am such, I am nothing, and do I exist at all.

I was no longer there, I ceased to exist as a person with my own identity, which has certain boundaries, a beginning and an end. I dissolved into chaos, turning into a clot of fog, dense as cotton wool, into something indefinite and formless."

Also: … the most distinct alarming signal I had was the disintegration of the sense of identity, the confidence that I am me. I was losing more and more the feeling of my real existence, I could no longer say whether I really exist or I am a fictional someone character from the book.

I could no longer say with certainty who controls my thoughts and actions, whether I do it myself or someone else. What if it's some kind of "author"? I lost confidence in whether I really was, because all that was left was a terrible gray void.

In my diary, I began to replace the word “I” with “she,” and soon, in my mind, I began to think of myself in the third person: “She crossed the road, heading to school. will soon die. And somewhere in the depths, I had a question, who is this "she" - I am it or not me, and the answer was that this could not be, because "she" is so sad, and I … I am nothing at all. Gray and nothing more."

She describes a certain inner hallucinatory character named Captain who punished her. From that day on, he often began to punish me and beat me every time I did something wrong, and he often did not like how I did something. I did not have time for anything and was generally a lazy fool. at the kiosk of the cinema, I could not quickly count the change, he took me to the toilet and beat me in the face several times.

He beat me when I forgot my textbook or somehow did my homework. He made me take a stick or a twig on the road and beat myself on the thighs if I walked too slowly or rode a bicycle …

I knew perfectly well that I had beaten myself, but I did not have the feeling that it depended on me. The Captain beat me with my hands, I understood and felt how this was happening, but I could not explain, because I had no words for this reality. So I tried to speak as little as possible."

It is obvious that self-denial and even self-destruction of one's Self manifested itself in Arnhild in very clear forms. The reasons that prompted her to give up her ego are not sufficiently discussed in the book. But it is known that her father died early, and at school she felt like an outcast, completely isolated and unworthy of communication as a child. Nothing is known about her mother's actions.

But it is known that her recovery was associated with gaining self-esteem, when she was able, with the help of a social worker, to acquire a psychological education, and thereby restore her self.

This case confirms our theory, and I think that there is no need to drink a barrel of wine to feel its taste, I think that other cases will, upon careful study (not just statistical), confirm the same patterns.

Returning to the principles highlighted earlier. Managing oneself forcibly leads to a mechanical existence, subordination to abstract principles, constant tension and obsessive self-control.

That is why all feelings are "driven" deep into the personality and contact with reality ceases. All possibility of obtaining satisfaction from life is lost, since direct experience is not allowed.

The proposal to manage myself somehow differently, more gently, causes misunderstanding or active resistance, such as: "How can I force myself to do what I do not want?"

During a psychotic attack, nature, as it were, takes its toll, creating a feeling of absolute freedom and irresponsibility. The unrelenting inner will, which usually suppresses any spontaneity, breaks down, and the flow of insane behavior brings a certain relief, it is a hidden revenge on the abusive parent and allows forbidden impulses and desires to be realized.

In fact, this is the only way to relax, although in another version, psychosis can also manifest itself as super tension - the seizure of the whole being by a cruel will, which serves as a manifestation of the child's boundless stubbornness (or fear) and in this sense also revenge, but of a different kind.

Here is an example taken from the book by D. Hell and M. Fischer-Felten "Schizophrenia": to want, but to obey, i.e. I was at one with my psychosis, not rowing upstream. Therefore, psychosis as a feeling of loss of self-control did not cause fear in me."

It is clearly seen from this passage that the "schizophrenic" seeks to submit to psychosis, that his will is directed toward submission, as it was, apparently, in childhood. At the same time, psychosis allows one to get rid of self-control, which is also very desirable for the "patient".

That is, an attack is both painful submission and protest at the same time. In a conversation with a psychotic youth who showed an amazing ability to think logically. His father, who was watching our conversation, was shocked because he spoke to him like a "complete idiot".

And he could ask me smart questions, lead a discussion. But I asked him some uncomfortable question for him. He did not answer for a long time, I asked again. Then his face suddenly assumed an idiotic expression, his eyes rolled upward under his eyelids, and he clearly began to create an attack.

"You won't fool me," I said, "I'm not your doctor. I know perfectly well that you hear and understand everything." Then his eyes went down, focused, he became completely normal and somehow surprised he said: "But I really understand everything …".

He never answered the question. That is, a psychotic attack can be controlled and specially created to solve some problems, maybe to avoid an answer. Characteristically, this guy declared that he could not talk about himself, he denied his I.

The principle of absolute obedience is realized in fantasies (which acquire the status of reality due to a violation of the reality testing process): about voices that order something to be done and which are very difficult not to obey, about dangerous persecutors, about secret signs given by someone in the strangest forms, about the telepathically perceived will of aliens, God, etc., forcing to do something ridiculous.

In all cases, the "schizophrenic" considers himself a powerless victim of powerful forces (as it was in his childhood) and relieves himself of any responsibility for his condition, as befits a child for whom everything is decided.

The same principle, manifested in the rejection of spontaneity, sometimes leads to the fact that any movement (even taking a glass of water) turns into a very difficult problem. It is known that the intervention of conscious control in automated skills destroys them, while the "schizophrenic" controls literally every action, sometimes leading to complete paralysis of movements.

Therefore, his body often moves like a wooden doll, and the movements of individual body parts are poorly coordinated with each other. Facial expressions are absent not only because feelings are suppressed, but also because he "does not know" how to express emotions directly or is afraid to express "wrong feelings".

Therefore, "schizophrenics" themselves note that their face is often pulled into a motionless mask, especially when in contact with other people. Since spontaneity and positive feelings are absent, the schizophrenic becomes insensitive to humor and does not smile, at least sincerely (the laughter of a patient with hebephrenia evokes horror and sympathy in others rather than a sense of ridicule).

The second principle (rejection of feelings) is connected, on the one hand, with the fact that in the depths of the soul lurk the most nightmarish feelings, contact with which is simply terrifying. The need to restrain feelings leads to constant muscle hypertension and alienation from other people.

How can he feel other people's experiences when he does not feel his incredible power of suffering: despair, loneliness, hatred, fear, etc.? The belief that no matter what he does, all this will still lead to suffering or punishment (the theory of "double clamping" may be relevant here), can lead to complete catatonia, which is a manifestation of absolute restraint and absolute despair.

Here is another example from the same book by D. Hell and M. Fischer-Felten: "One patient reported his experience:" It was as if life were somewhere outside, like dried out. "Another schizophrenic patient said: "It was as if my senses were paralyzed. And then they were artificially created; I feel like a robot."

A psychologist would ask, "Why did you paralyze your senses and then turn yourself into a robot?" But the patient considers himself to be just a victim of the disease, he denies that he is doing this to himself, and the doctor shares his opinion.

Note that many "schizophrenics", performing the task of drawing a human figure, introduce various mechanical parts into it, gears, for example. The young man, who was clearly in a borderline state, drew a robot with antennas on its head.

"Who is this?" I asked. “Elik, electronic boy,” he replied. "And why antennas?" "To catch signals from space." After a while, I happened to observe his mother, how she talked with the head of our department. I will not give details, but she behaved like a tank, achieving a deliberately inadequate goal.

Self-hatred, which has arisen for one reason or another, makes the "schizophrenic" destroy himself from the inside, in this sense schizophrenia can be defined as the suicide of the soul. But the number of real suicides among them is about 13 times higher than the similar number among healthy people.

Since outwardly they look like emotionally stupid people, doctors do not even suspect what hellish feelings are tearing them apart from the inside, especially since for the most part these feelings are "frozen", and the patient himself does not know about them or hides them.

Patients deny that they hate themselves. Moving problems to the area of delusion helps him to escape from these experiences, although the structure of delusion itself is never accidental, it reflects the patient's deep feelings and attitudes in a transformed and camouflaged form.

It is surprising that there are very interesting studies of the inner world of "schizophrenics", but the authors never get to the point of linking the content of delusions or hallucinations with certain features of the patient's real experiences and relationships. Although similar work was carried out by K. Jung in the clinic of the famous psychiatrist Bleuler.

For example, if a person with schizophrenia is convinced that his thoughts are being eavesdropped, then this may be due to the fact that he was always afraid that his parents would recognize his "bad" thoughts. Or he felt so defenseless that he wanted to withdraw into his thoughts, but even there he did not feel safe.

Maybe the fact is that he really had spiteful and other bad thoughts directed at his parents, and he was very afraid that they would find out about this, etc. But most importantly, he was convinced that his thoughts obey external forces or are available to external forces, which in fact corresponds to the abandonment of his own will, even in the field of thinking.

The young man who drew a robot with antennas on its head as a drawing of a person assured me that there are two centers of power in the world, one is himself, the second is three girls whom he once visited in a hostel … There is a struggle between these centers of power, because of which everyone (!) Now has insomnia. Even earlier he told me a story about how these girls laughed at him, which really hurt him, it was clear that he liked these girls. Do I need to clarify the true background of his crazy ideas?

The hatred of the "schizophrenic" towards himself has as its reverse side the "frozen" needs for love, understanding and intimacy. On the one hand, he gave up the hope of achieving love, understanding and intimacy, on the other hand, this is what he most dreams of.

The schizophrenic still hopes to receive the love of a parent and does not believe that this is impossible. In particular, he tries to earn this love by literally following the parental instructions given to him in childhood.

However, the mistrust generated by distorted relationships in childhood does not allow for rapprochement, openness is frightening. Constant inner disappointment, dissatisfaction and the ban on intimacy give rise to a feeling of emptiness and hopelessness.

If some kind of closeness has arisen, it acquires the meaning of a supervalue, and with its loss, the final collapse of the psychic world occurs. The "schizophrenic" constantly asks himself: "Why?.." - and does not find an answer. He never felt good and does not know what it is.

You will hardly find such people among the "schizophrenics" who at least have ever been truly happy, and they project their unhappy past into the future, and therefore their despair has no limit.

Self-hatred results in low self-esteem, and low self-esteem leads to further development of self-denial. Conviction in one's own insignificance can generate, as a protective form, confidence in one's own greatness, excessive pride, and a sense of godlikeness.

The third principle, which is constant inhibition of feelings, is related to the first and second, because the restraint occurs due to the habit of obeying, constantly controlling oneself, and also due to the fact that the feelings are too strong to be expressed.

In fact, the schizophrenic is deeply convinced that he is not able to release these feelings, since it will simply devastate him. In addition, while maintaining these feelings, he can continue to be offended, hate, accuse someone, expressing them, he takes a step towards forgiveness, but he just does not want this.

The young woman mentioned at the beginning of the article, who was holding back "a cry that could cut mountains like a laser," was by no means going to release this cry. "How can I let him out," she said, "if this scream is my whole life?"

Restraint of feelings leads, as already mentioned, to chronic overstrain of the muscles of the body, as well as to holding the breath. The muscular carapace prevents the free flow of energy through the body and increases the feeling of stiffness. The shell can be so strong that no massage therapist is able to relax it, and even in the morning, when the body is relaxed in ordinary people, in these patients the body can be tense "like a board."

The flow of energy corresponds to the image of a river or stream (this image also reflects the relationship with the mother and oral problems). If an individual in his fantasies sees a cloudy, very cold and narrow stream, then this indicates serious psychological problems (Leiner's catatim-imaginative therapy).

What do you say if he sees a narrow stream, all covered with a crust of ice? At the same time, a whip hits this ice, from which bloody streaks remain on the ice. This is how a sick woman described the image of the energy that "flows" along her spine.

However, "schizophrenics" can both suppress (restrain) and repress their feelings. Therefore, schizophrenics who suppress their feelings develop so-called "positive" symptoms: voiced thoughts, dialogue of voices, withdrawal or insertion of thoughts, imperative voices, etc.

At the same time, for those who displace, “negative” symptoms come to the fore: loss of drives, affective and social isolation, depletion of vocabulary, internal emptiness, etc. The former have to constantly fight their feelings, the latter drive them out of their personality, but weaken themselves and devastate.

By the way, this explains why antipsychotic drugs, as the same Fuller Torrey writes, are effective in combating "positive" symptoms and have almost no effect on "negative" symptoms (lack of will, autism, etc.) and reveals what exactly their action consists.

Antipsychotic drugs have essentially only one purpose - to suppress the emotional centers in the patient's brain. By suppressing emotions, antipsychotics help the schizophrenic achieve what he already strives to do, but he does not have the strength to do it.

As a result, his struggle with feelings is facilitated and "positive" symptoms as a means and expression of this struggle are no longer necessary. That is, plus the symptoms are insufficiently suppressed feelings that burst to the surface against the will of the patient.

If the schizophrenic has pushed his feelings out of the intrapersonal psychological space, then the suppression of emotions with the help of drugs does not add anything to this. Emptiness does not disappear, because nothing is already there.

It is necessary first to return these feelings, after which their suppression with drugs could have an effect. Autism and lack of will cannot disappear when emotions are suppressed; rather, they can even intensify, since they reflect the detachment from the emotional world, which is the basis of the individual's mental energy, which has already taken place within the individual's mental world.

Minus symptoms are the result of repression of feelings, lack of energy. Therefore, antipsychotics are unable to relieve the patient of negative symptoms.

Also, from this point of view, one can explain another "riddle", which is that schizophrenia practically does not occur in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Rheumatoid arthritis also refers to "unsolved" diseases, but in fact it is a psychosomatic disease caused by the hatred of the individual for his own body or feelings (in my practice there was such a case).

Schizophrenia, on the other hand, is hatred of one's personality, of oneself as such, and it rarely happens that both variants of hatred occur together. Hatred is, after all, akin to accusation, and if an individual blames his body for all his troubles, for example, for the fact that it does not correspond to the ideals of his beloved parent, then he is unlikely to blame himself as a person.

The outward expression of any emotion in a schizophrenic, both in the case of suppression and in the case of repression, is sharply limited and this gives the impression of emotional coldness and alienation.

At the same time, in the inner world of the individual there is an invisible "fight of the giants of the senses", none of whom are able to win, and most of the time they are in a state of "clinching" (a term denoting close contact between boxers in which they clamp their hands each other and cannot strike the enemy).

Therefore, the experiences of other people are perceived by the "schizophrenic" as completely insignificant in comparison with his internal problems, he cannot give an emotional reaction to them and gives the impression of being emotionally dull.

The "schizophrenic" does not perceive humor, since humor is the embodiment of spontaneity, an unexpected change in the perception of a situation, joy, and he also does not allow spontaneity and joy.

Some schizoid individuals have confessed to me that they do not find it funny when someone tells jokes, they just imitate laughter when it should be. They also usually have great difficulty in having an orgasm and satisfaction from sex.

Therefore, there is almost no joy in their life. They do not live in the present moment, surrendering to feelings, but aloofly look at themselves from the outside and assess: "Did I really enjoy it or not?"

However, despite the strongest feelings, they are not aware of them and project them into the outside world, believing that someone is persecuting them, manipulating them against their will, reading their thoughts, etc. This projection helps to not be aware of these feelings and to be alienated from them.

They create fantasies that acquire the status of reality in their minds. But these fantasies always touch on one "fad", in other areas they can reason quite sensibly and give themselves an account of what is happening.

This "fad" actually corresponds to the deep emotional problems of the individual, it helps them adapt to this life, endure unbearable pain and prove to themselves the unprovable, become free, remaining a "slave", become great, feeling insignificant, rebel against "injustice" life and take revenge on "everyone" by punishing oneself.

Purely statistical research cannot confirm or refute this point of view. There is a need for statistics of depth-psychological studies of the inner world of these patients. Superficial data will be deliberately false due to the secrecy of both the patients themselves and their relatives, as well as due to the formality of the questions themselves.

However, the psychotherapeutic study of schizophrenia is extremely difficult. Not only because these patients do not want to reveal their inner world to a doctor or psychologist, but also because conducting this research, we unwittingly hurt the strongest experiences of these people, which may have undesirable consequences for their health. Yet such research can be done carefully, for example, using directed imagination, projective techniques, dream analysis, etc.

The proposed concept can be considered too simplified, but we desperately need a fairly simple concept that would explain the onset of schizophrenia, and which could explain the origin of certain symptoms of this disease, and would also be potentially testable. There are very complex psychoanalytic theories of schizophrenia, but they are very difficult to state and just as difficult to test.

The ingenious domestic psychotherapist Nazloyan, who uses mask therapy to treat such cases, believes that such a diagnosis is not needed at all. He says that the main disorder in the so-called "schizophrenics" is a violation of self-identity, which generally coincides with our opinion.

With the help of a mask, which he sculpts, looking at the patient, he returns to the latter the personality he had lost. Therefore, the completion of treatment according to Nazloyan is catharsis, which the "schizophrenic" is experiencing.

He sits down in front of his portrait (a portrait can be created for several months), talks to him, cries or hits the portrait. This lasts for two or three hours, and then recovery comes. These stories support the emotional theory of schizophrenia and that negative self-attitudes are at the root of the disease.

In this sense, Christian Scharfetter's book "Schizophrenic Personalities" is extremely interesting, which describes in detail the disorders of the I-consciousness in patients with schizophrenia.

The book contains a whole range of psychological theories of the origin of this disease, but to date there is no convincing evidence of the correctness of this or that point of view. But maybe it is the psychological destruction of the personality control center, which we call I (or Ego), under the influence of an extremely negative self-attitude and leads to diverse manifestations of the schizophrenic symptom complex?

Another circumstantial evidence of the role of negative self-attitudes comes from the infamous "experiments" with lobotomy. Recall that a lobotomy is an operation that cuts off the nerve pathways that connect the frontal lobes of the brain to the rest of the brain.

It is done surprisingly simple. Through the eye sockets, "spokes" are inserted into the human brain, with which the surgeon makes movements, roughly like scissors, and thereby cuts the connections of the frontal lobes.

The frontal lobes themselves are not removed, the operation takes literally less than an hour, does not require hospitalization, and a mentally ill person recovers almost instantly. The author of the method was so amazed by the successes that he traveled around the small villages of America, and made a lobotomy for everyone right at home. Literally EVERYTHING took place. Including schizophrenia.

No explanation was offered for this phenomenon, and lobotomy was prohibited. Because, although the patients recovered, that is, their seizures and seizures disappeared, they became adequate, but they became healthy "vegetables".

That is, they rejoiced in simple joys, they could do simple work, but something higher disappeared from them. They lost creativity, subtle intellectual functions, ambitions, morality suffered. They lost their most valuable human qualities.

Why? No serious theory has been put forward. Although, from our point of view, the truth lies on the surface. Because the frontal lobes provide the most important human function of self-awareness.

It is not for nothing that the frontal lobes seem to be directed inside the brain, they reflect the processes that occur within the personality itself. That is, the frontal lobes are busy with the processes of self-awareness. Namely, self-awareness ensures both the great achievements of humanity and the suffering of each individual.

It is by comparing oneself to others that a person feels a sense of shame, guilt, or inferiority. It is a sharply negative self-attitude that prompts a person to destroy his Ego. This self-attitude (or I-concept in Rogers' terms) is formed under the influence of "significant Others", primarily under the influence of parents. Their attitude towards the child later becomes his own self-attitude, and he treats himself as his parents (especially the mother) treated him.

With a lobotomy, self-attitude disappears, a person ceases to reflect, condemn himself, hate himself, because self-consciousness, which ensures social self-control within the personality, cannot be exercised.

A person begins to live in the present moment, not evaluating himself in any way, rejoicing in immediate experiences. Social rejection does not turn into his own selflessness. He does not give up his Self and "does not go crazy" anymore.

However, he also loses the desire to gain some social approval and prestige, to create something for society. Therefore, he loses both ambition and a passionate desire to achieve something in this life. Painful moral searches for the meaning of life, immortality, God disappear from him. Together with the newly acquired normality, he loses something purely human.

It is appropriate here to give an example of an in-depth study of the feeling of fear in a sick young woman in remission (it should be noted that she was fully aware of the seriousness of her illness, but did not want to be treated with medical means). She told how, as a child, her mother constantly beat her, and she hid, but her mother found and beat her for no reason.

I asked her to imagine what her fear looks like. She replied that fear was like a white, quivering jelly (this image, of course, reflected her own state). Then I asked, who or what is this jelly afraid of?

After thinking, she replied that what caused the fear was a huge gorilla, but this gorilla clearly did nothing against the jelly. This surprised me, and I asked her to play the role of a gorilla. She got up from the chair, entered the role of this image, but said that the gorilla does not attack anyone, instead for some reason she wanted to go up to the table and knock on it, while she imperatively said several times: "Come out."

"Who's coming out?" I asked. "A little child comes out." she replied. "What does a gorilla do?" "Doesn't do anything, but she wants to take this child by the legs and smash his head against the wall," was her answer.

I would like to leave this episode without comment, it speaks for itself, although of course there are people who can write off this case simply at the expense of the schizophrenic fantasy of this young woman, especially since she herself then began to deny that it was a gorilla - her image mother, that in fact, she was the desired child for the mother, etc.

This was in complete contradiction with what she said before, with many details and details, so it is easy to understand that such a turn in her mind was a way to protect herself from unwanted understanding.

Is it because our science has not yet discovered the essence of schizophrenia, because it also defends itself against unwanted understanding.

I will summarize the main theoretical positions that were expressed in this article:

1. The causes of schizophrenia lie in unbearable emotions directed by a person to destroy his own I, which leads to a violation of the natural processes of testing reality;

2. As a consequence, self-deprecation, suppression of the emotional sphere, refusal of spontaneity, overstrain of the muscles of the body, lead to isolation and communication disorders;

3. Hallucinations and delusions are compensatory in nature and are essentially waking dreams;

4. Antipsychotics and other antipsychotic drugs suppress the emotional centers of the brain, so they contribute to the disappearance of plus symptoms, and are powerless to help with minus symptoms;

5. Lobotomy helped in the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses because it destroyed the neural substrate of self-awareness, but thereby also destroyed the patient's personality.

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