Betrayal Of The Body. When The Body "goes Crazy "

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

Part 1: Etiology and Phenomenology

Anxiety is the director

our inner theater.

Joyce McDougall

The widespread prevalence of panic attacks in recent years makes it possible to think of them not as a separate syndrome, but as a systemic phenomenon, and requires a more thorough study of the cultural context in which they "flourished". I offer my vision of this phenomenon, using a systematic approach and referring to its description to the metaphor of I as a territory.

Dynamic world

The modern world for a person is becoming less and less predictable, stable, predictable. Social institutions, which previously performed the function of stabilizing the self (family, church, profession), have now lost this function. As for the institution of family and marriage, here too we observe the emergence of a significant number of alternative forms of marriage and family relations, characteristic of the postmodern era:

• separate marriages;
• swingers;
• modern forms of polygamy;
• deliberately childless, or childfree marriages,
• communes, etc.

The profession also ceases to perform the function of personality stabilization. If earlier the profession was "enough" for the whole life, it was enough just to take advanced training courses, but now the century of many professions is less than human.

In general, the modern world is becoming more dynamic, boundless, versatile, multi-format and offers a person many different choices. This in itself is not bad, but there is another side to this coin. Modern man often turns out to be unprepared for this kind of abundance of proposals from the world, falling into a situation of confusion, anxiety, and sometimes panic.

World Challenges and Identity

The absence of an external stable world is reflected in the internal world. Today, in order to answer the question "who am I?", a person constantly has to choose. The situation of choice inevitably breeds anxiety. And since you have to choose all the time, then the anxiety becomes constant.

Modern man is faced with a large number of choices in the face of increasing time pressure - the world is constantly accelerating. And his I just can't keep up with him. All this creates problems with the identity of a modern person. In order to keep up with the rapidly changing world, the I must have paradoxical qualities - be simultaneously dynamic and stable, maintain this complex balance, balancing between variability on the one hand and stability on the other.

It is not surprising that a modern person is forced to be in constant tension: if you fix yourself on the pole of stability, you will lag behind the constantly accelerating world, you will swing into the pole of variability, if you chase the world, you will lose yourself, your I. In order to adapt to the prevailing conditions, I must constantly to adapt creatively, balancing along the entire length of the segment between the indicated poles, without losing the sense of integrity: "This is me".

And I am not always creative and holistic enough to cope with the challenges of the modern world. A person in such a situation can perceive the world as dangerous, unpredictable, and himself, his I as weak, unstable in the face of this dynamically changing world.

Alienation trap

Another feature of a modern person is the loss of connection with other people. In the modern world, there are fewer and fewer social forms in which a person would feel his belonging, involvement. He is more and more forced to rely on himself. Individualism is becoming one of the leading values of the modern world. Self-sufficiency, autonomy, the ability to independently solve problems, competitiveness - these are the priorities of a modern person.

Attachment, emotional involvement, sensitivity, and the ability for human support in this scenario are often assessed as weakness and even dependence. “Never ask anyone for anything” - the advice that Woland gives to Margarita often becomes the motto of a person in this world. Strong, independent, emotionally insensitive are the main features that make up the image of a modern person. Modern man becomes more and more narcissistic and this inevitably leads him to loneliness, inability to intimacy and inability to rely on others.

In this situation of a dynamic world and strict requirements for personality, it is difficult for a person to relax and trust the world.

Control as protection against alarm

This is where Anxiety comes in on the psychic scene. Anxiety is the result of a situation of mistrust in the external environment and the internal environment - your Self.

Thus, the lack of stability in the external world and the instability of the internal world give rise to strong anxiety. And anxiety, in turn, gives rise to the need for control.

Control is the flip side of anxiety which is not realized by man. Control here is a way to deal with anxiety. Behind the anxiety are fears - "the world is unstable, and therefore dangerous, and I am too weak to be stable in this world."

It is unbearable for a person to be in a situation of anxiety for a long time. The only possible option for him to cope with such a situation is to try to control it. Control here acts as a defense, as an attempt to make a living, dynamic, fluid and therefore dangerous world dead, stable, predictable and, most importantly, safe.

In this case, both other people and split-off parts of their I can become objects of control.

Anxiety and body

The body is also becoming one of such objects of self control in the modern world. The body has ceased to be a support for a modern person, for his I. initially, as you know, the I appears exactly as the corporeal I. However, as it develops, the self becomes more and more identified with the mind and finally “settles” in the head. And the body is not the last refuge that leaves the self. Following the body, the self is increasingly alienated from the emotional sphere.

Having identified in the end with the mind, the I of a modern person begins to functionally treat both the body and emotions as a kind of instruments serving the I. And now I can only control these alienated, abandoned territories, manage them. The body and emotions in response to this begin to take revenge on I, ceasing to obey him. Moreover, the higher the degree of this alienation, the more difficult it becomes for the I to control them. Thus, the I more and more loses its connection with the emotions and with the body, which, in addition, perform the function of contact with the world. I find myself in a situation of isolation from important means of contact with reality.

I, curled up to reason, deprived of information and faced with a situation of insubordination of the controlled territories, falls into a panic. And there is something! In the situation described, I look like a kind of tadpole - a man with a disproportionately large head, frail body and thin legs. The function of support and stability becomes very problematic here. And the function of contact with the other and the world too. You can contact another through the senses; you can contact the world through the body. In both the first and second cases, the head is not the best "tool" for contact.

"Betrayal" of the body

The words in the title of the article about "betrayal of the body that is going crazy" do not seem entirely correct. In fact, it is not the body that goes crazy, but I, faced with a situation of inability to control the body. And the betrayal, as we have already found out, was originally committed not by the body, but by I. The body rather avenges the self for the betrayal committed earlier.

The “betrayal” of the body is manifested in the fact that bodily physiological functions are not subject to control by a rational, rational I. The body becomes alien, uncontrollable and dangerous for the I. Lost in the world, I get another blow - my body betrays it, not obeying him. For me it is a riot, a revolution.

At this point, a lot of anxiety arises and the I panics.

Anxiety automatically "brings" a person to another level of functioning - borderline and even psychotic. This disorganizes a person's personality and behavior, greatly narrows the boundaries of his adaptive capabilities. The usual, familiar level of response becomes impossible for him. "Everything is gone!", "End of the world!" - the most typical emotional state of a person in a situation of high intensity anxiety.

Why panic? Panic is essentially a psychotic reaction.

In panic, the level of anxiety is so high that the control zone (as a means of protection against it) expands and begins to include bodily physiological reactions - breathing, cardiac activity - that which is not controlled by consciousness. Faced with the inability to control what cannot be controlled by the I (anxiety increases even more), the I panics - right up to the loss of contact with reality. Symptoms of a neurotic and even borderline level are not enough here to cope with this level of anxiety. Since here, as I wrote above, the basic human need - the need for security - is threatened.

And what is very important - this condition arises suddenly! A person suddenly finds himself in the state of a small child thrown into huge peace, a world that turned out to be dangerous, and you do not have the strength to survive in it, and there is no one around. And this is tantamount to a state of non-life: physical - " I'm dying" and mental - "I'm going crazy".

Describing their state at such moments, people say that “the earth is leaving from under their feet”, “support is lost”, “as if you are falling swiftly into a deep abyss”, “As if you are descending a staircase in the dark and there is no step there” …

More often people with an initially impaired need for security, with impaired attachment, get into this state. However, it can also be people in situations of life crises. These are moments when a person needs to make an important decision in his life, when something needs to be radically changed in his life (work, study, place of residence) and the usual ways of life that previously stabilized a person become inaccessible to him, and support from outside the outside world is not enough. For example, when you need to move to another city, finish school and go to university, get married when a child is born. In general, when you need to change something in your identity.

It stands out trigger mechanism the development of a panic reaction. But this is not enough. Still to be formed personal readiness - the presence of certain personality traits, which I wrote about above. And such traits in a person of the modern world are present as already a typical attribute of a person of this time. If they "meet" in one person - an instant reaction occurs!

And here a person would ask for support, ask for help. However, it turns out to be impossible for him to ask - this contradicts his identity as a strong, independent person. In his picture of the world, turning to another, asking for help - these are the qualities of a weak person. So he falls into the trap - the trap of individualism and alienation from the other.

The symptoms of anxiety with anxiety, for all their severity and intolerance, are quite stable, since they allow a person not to face their fears directly, not to make a choice, not to change their identity. They distract a person from his real problem, transferring his thoughts to another plane. In the case of anxiety disorders with panic attacks, he resolves the question "What should I do with the rebellious body?" instead of the question "What should I do with myself and my life?"

As a result, it becomes almost impossible to get out of this situation on your own. Panic attacks further increase anxiety and vulnerability in the face of an uncontrollable world. The circle closes and draws him more and more into the funnel of hopelessness.

It turns out to be difficult to withstand such a level of intensity for those people who are in close relations with such a person and want to help him in some way. The partner does not always manage to contain the overwhelming emotions that arise literally "out of the blue."

The work of a therapist is also quite difficult here. More about this in the next article.