Questions:
1. Psychological and physiological essence of methods of mental self-regulation.
2. Brief description of the main methods of mental self-regulation.

Mental self-regulation (MSR), or autopsychotherapy, is a set of techniques and methods of influencing one’s own mental functions and conditions, carried out by a trained patient for therapeutic purposes or a healthy person for preventive purposes.
It is fair to ask the question - why is such an impact necessary? After all, the human psyche is designed to regulate and manage all functions, states and motor acts! But the fact is that even a healthy psyche does not always cope well with this purpose. If there are too strong or massive (simultaneous) adverse influences from the outside, proper mental regulation may be disrupted. To restore it, it is necessary to take appropriate measures. The AKP is one of them. Thus, the greater the stress, the higher the need to use PSR to normalize state and behavior.

In practice, PSR most often represents a set of techniques for active mental self-influence on the stream of consciousness (current thoughts and images), skeletal and respiratory muscles. Subsequent, secondary, changes occur in the blood vessels and internal organs of a person, including the brain. This achieves the so-called trophotropic state, which is the “energetic antipode of stress.” The term "trophotropic" means "promoting nutrition." We can say that in stress, energy is spent excessively and unproductively (let’s take for example a state of anxiety with restlessness and empty chores), and in a trophotropic state, energy expenditure is minimized, while the lack of energy is replenished. In this state, the stress-limiting (limiting) system of the body begins to prevail over the stress-realizing ("accelerating") system, which achieves constructive (harmless for the body) coping with stress and a return to a normal working state and reasonable activity. Simply put, overcoming an unbalanced state and regaining temporarily lost control over one’s own emotions and behavior are achieved. To achieve this, a person needs to reduce the activity of consciousness at least for a short time, disconnect from the surrounding reality through shallow autohypnosis. This form of PSR (let's call it classic PSR) is available to all healthy people. But there are also methods and techniques of ASR used during mental and physical activity (active ASR). Due to its complexity, we do not consider this form of RPS in this lesson.
Mastering the methods of mental self-regulation provides the opportunity to consciously and purposefully influence important mental and physiological functions of the body. A person acquires the ability for purposeful self-influence gradually in the process of performing special exercises under the guidance of a specialist - a doctor or psychologist. Subsequent exercises are performed independently or on the orders of the commander (chief).
The basis of PSR is self-persuasion and self-hypnosis - the main forms of communication between a person and himself. Initially, PSR methods were developed for purely medical purposes. Subsequently, numerous modifications were proposed, versions intended for psychoprophylactic purposes and addressed to healthy people. Of particular benefit is the use of PSR methods within units (in a collective format) under the guidance of psychologists, doctors or commanders. This is exactly how they were used during the first counter-terrorism operation (CTO) in Chechnya, developed at the Military Medical Academy named after S.M. Kirov special techniques. They were used both before and after combat operations. In this regard, we note that the German psychoneurologist Nonne, during the First World War, was the first to hypnotize military personnel in the theater of operations in order to normalize their mental and physical state.
The methods of mental self-regulation described below are easy to implement, but they require long-term systematic practice in order to achieve the desired result. Thus, the trainee must practice actively, persistently and consistently, without losing patience. The choice of the specific PSR method that is most suitable for oneself or their combination is made on the recommendation of a doctor or psychologist, taking into account the individual characteristics of the individual and somatic constitution (physique).
Methods of mental self-regulation are varied and are usually used in combinations. Not only the basic methods that we will focus on during the lesson deserve attention, but also others (for example, exercises based on yoga systems and other special physical exercises, acupressure self-massage, etc.).
Currently, hardware methods of mental self-regulation are being created for individual use. They can involve audiovisual, tactile, temperature and other types of sensory stimulation. For example, in Fig. Figure 1 shows a device for audiovisual (through hearing and vision) mental self-regulation.
There are computer games and other programs designed for RPS. Unfortunately, not all of them are well founded from a scientific point of view.
PSR methods are a healthy alternative to alcohol, drug use and smoking. They have also been successfully used to treat mental disorders associated with substance abuse.
Classes on mental self-regulation are conducted in a collective form. The optimal group size is 8-12 people. If necessary, the group can be increased to 20 or more people. The training is conducted by a trained military doctor or military psychologist.
Methods of mental self-regulation are based on the phenomena of self-persuasion and self-hypnosis, characteristic of the normal psyche of every person. Let us note that the abilities for self-persuasion and self-hypnosis appear only in late childhood or adolescence and require a minimum average level of mental development.
Self-conviction. Self-persuasion is based on awareness, comprehension of facts and the construction of consistent conclusions. In an effort to convince himself of something, a person debates with himself, using arguments and counterarguments, based on logical evidence and inferences. Let's give examples. A person who is inadequately, painfully experiencing his mistakes and mistakes is recommended to mentally look at himself from the outside, evaluate his behavior “through the eyes of a benevolent and reasonable person” and analyze the mistakes made, taking into account the popular wisdom that “every cloud has a silver lining”, “there is no sorrow in sight” - there is no joy." Having realized the true causes of mistakes, a mature person must draw appropriate conclusions for the future so that mistakes are not repeated. People who are overly sensitive and tend to worry unreasonably about minor things can be advised to recall and mentally recite passages from literary works imbued with a spirit of optimism. Uncontrollable cravings for foods prohibited due to health reasons can be extinguished by applying logically sound formulas. For example, with an irrepressible craving for sweets: “Sugar is a sweet poison! Man, unlike animals, can control himself! I realize that after a moment of pleasure, retribution will follow: my health will deteriorate. I can and must (must) overcome my weakness.” The use of self-persuasion by those people whose self-esteem is unstable and decreases for minor reasons is very important.
When the results of self-persuasion are insufficient (a person agrees with himself, but continues to act in the old way), self-hypnosis is activated.
Self-hypnosis (in Latin - autosuggestion) is the suggestion to oneself of any judgments, ideas, ideas, assessments, feelings without detailed argumentation, directively, almost by force. So, suggestion (from one person to another) and self-hypnosis are forms of psychological violence. But not all violence is bad. There are, for example, surgical violence, physical restraint of a violent mental patient, aimed at their own benefit. Likewise, self-hypnosis can be positive (helpful) or negative (destructive). Self-hypnosis leading to a positive result is nothing more than a manifestation of willpower. It is based on conscious self-regulation of activities aimed at overcoming difficulties in achieving a goal. Volitional activity is manifested in a person’s power over himself, controlling his own involuntary impulses. In this case, the mechanism of “pure” self-hypnosis is used, when a person listens and believes in what he claims.
The main practical techniques of self-hypnosis are:
- self-order (ordering oneself) is widely used to mobilize will, self-control in extreme conditions, and overcome fear in difficult life situations. Self-orders come in the form of encouragement (“act immediately!”) or self-prohibition (“Stop!”, “Be silent!”). Self-order formulas play the role of a trigger for the implementation of immediate actions to achieve a goal;
- “frontal attack” technique (anti-stress assault). With the help of specially selected verbal formulas, pronounced in a decisive tone with a tinge of anger, an active attitude towards the psychotraumatic factor - the source of distress - is formed. Thus, narcologists recommend that alcohol abusers indignantly repeat the formula many times: “I mercilessly suppress, destroy the past need for alcohol that I now hate. I have a strong will and a strong character, I have no doubt that I will completely overcome my craving for alcohol.” It is useful to use figurative comparisons, vivid metaphors, for example, “I am like an indestructible rock, and the urges to use drugs break against me into small splashes.”
Like self-persuasion, self-hypnosis is carried out in the form of a person’s mental dialogue with himself. However, this dialogue involves the volitional and emotional components of the psyche. By encouraging a person to engage in objective activity or inhibiting it, self-hypnosis plays the role of a connecting link between the subjective world of the psyche and motor activity (behavior). Arising arbitrarily and purposefully in the form of a self-address statement, it then develops spontaneously, having a long-term aftereffect on the functions of the psyche and body. In the words of the outstanding Russian psychiatrist V.M. Bekhterev, self-hypnosis, like suggestion, “enters consciousness from the back door, bypassing the intellect and logic.” Russian scientist I.P. Pavlov wrote that “self-hypnosis is not controlled by meaningful perception and is subject mainly to the emotional influences of the subcortex.” So, a person’s speech to himself controls and regulates his behavior at both a conscious and subconscious level. Self-hypnosis authorizes personal choice, supports socially normative behavior, and formulates positive and negative assessments of committed actions. As already mentioned, according to the impact on mental health, one should distinguish between negative and positive self-hypnosis. As a result of negative self-hypnosis, a person can lose self-confidence, fall into confusion and despair, feel helpless, and lose hope for the future (“Now everything is lost; now my personal life is destroyed”). This option is called catastrophizing. The mental demobilization it causes contributes to the deepening of stress and its transition to a mental disorder. Negative events for which a person prepares and leads himself are called self-fulfilling prophecies. On the contrary, positive self-hypnosis strengthens self-confidence, stabilizes the psyche, making it less vulnerable to stress and illness. All of the above applies to natural self-hypnosis, which is an everyday mental function of any person. Along with natural ones, there are also special psychological techniques and self-regulation techniques intended for the treatment and prevention of mental disorders. Let's look at the main ones.

Voluntary self-hypnosis. The method of voluntary self-hypnosis was first proposed by the French pharmacist Emile Coue in 1910. The method allows you to suppress painful thoughts and ideas that are harmful in their consequences and replace them with useful and beneficial ones. E. Coue compared painful experiences to pins stuck on the periphery of consciousness (sometimes they are compared to paper clips), which can be gradually removed. Thus, the indications for the use of voluntary self-hypnosis are very wide - from overcoming an acute stress disorder to overcoming a deep personal crisis or an ingrained bad habit.
According to E. Coue, the formula for self-hypnosis should be a simple statement of a positive process, devoid of any directiveness. For example, “Every day I am getting better and better in every way.” At the same time, it does not matter, E. Coue believed, whether the autosuggestion formula corresponds to reality or not, since it is addressed to the subconscious “I”, which is distinguished by gullibility. The subconscious “I” perceives the formula as an order that must be fulfilled. The simpler the formula, the better the therapeutic effect. “The formulas should be “childish,” said E. Coue. The author has repeatedly emphasized that voluntary self-suggestion should be carried out without any volitional effort. “If you consciously suggest something to yourself,” he wrote, “do it completely naturally, completely simply, with conviction and without any effort. If unconscious self-hypnosis, often of a bad nature, is so successful, it is because it is carried out effortlessly.”
Formulas are developed for each student individually. A person who has mastered the method of self-hypnosis becomes able to compose new formulas that he will need.
The self-hypnosis formula should consist of several words, a maximum of 3-4 phrases and always have a positive content (for example, “I am healthy” instead of “I am not sick”). The formula can be stated in poetic form. The famous German doctor and traveler H. Lindemann believed that rhythmic and rhyming self-suggestions were more effective than prosaic ones. Long formulas may be replaced by abbreviated equivalents. So, to strengthen faith in your strengths, you can use the formula: “I can, I can, I can.” In some cases, the formula may be more specific. We are talking about overcoming bad habits, unrealistic fears and other pre-morbid disorders. For example, “When I see a dog, I remain completely calm, my mood does not change.”
During the session, a person takes a comfortable position, sitting or lying down, closes his eyes, relaxes and in a low voice or whisper, without any tension, pronounces the same self-hypnosis formula 20-30 times. Pronunciation should be monotonous, without emotional expression. During the session, the person enters a trophotropic state, and at the end of the session, he voluntarily and without difficulty leaves it.
The training cycle lasts for 6-8 weeks. Classes last 30-40 minutes. are held 2-3 times a week. Starting from the second half of training, there is a gradual transition to independent practice. A self-hypnosis session with any one formula lasts 3-4 minutes. If it is necessary to use several formulas, it can be extended to half an hour. E. Coue recommended conducting sessions against the background of drowsy (drowsy) states in the morning after waking up and in the evening before falling asleep. In order not to distract attention from counting when repeating the formula twenty times, E. Coue advised using a cord with 20-30 knots that move like a rosary.
Breathing rhythm control. Voluntary regulation of respiratory movements is described in ancient treatises of India and China. In the works of American psychophysiologists 1970-1980. The scientific basis for some of the many hundreds of ritual breathing exercises is provided. In particular, the patterns of influence of the phases of the respiratory cycle on the level of human mental activity have been established. So, during inhalation, the mental state is activated, and when exhaling, calming occurs. By voluntarily establishing a breathing rhythm, in which a relatively short inhalation phase alternates with a longer exhalation and a subsequent pause, you can achieve pronounced general calm. A type of breathing that includes a longer inhalation phase with some breath holding during inhalation and a relatively short exhalation phase (quite vigorously) leads to an increase in the activity of the nervous system and all body functions. Disturbances in the rhythm and depth of breathing are signs of stressful conditions. Deep abdominal (diaphragmatic) breathing has the greatest health benefits. Properly performed abdominal breathing has a number of physiological benefits. It involves all lobes of the lungs in the respiratory act, increases the degree of oxygenation (oxygen saturation) of the blood, the vital capacity of the lungs, and massages the internal organs. During inhalation, the muscles of the anterior wall of the peritoneum protrude, the dome of the diaphragm flattens and pulls the lungs down, causing them to expand. During exhalation, the abdominal muscles retract somewhat, as if displacing air from the lungs. The increased curvature of the diaphragm lifts the lungs upward. Breathing exercises for mastering full deep breathing are carried out in standing or sitting poses and are accompanied by extension (as you inhale) and flexion (as you exhale) movements of the arms and torso. Students strive to gradually master the breathing cycle, consisting of four phases of 8 seconds each: 1) deep inhalation, 2) inhalation pause, 3) deep exhalation, 4) exhalation pause. This allows them to enter a trophotropic state. It is possible to perform breathing exercises while walking or running. The training cycle takes 4 weeks (2 half-hour lessons per week).
Active neuromuscular relaxation. The method includes a series of exercises for voluntary relaxation of the main groups of skeletal muscles. It was introduced by the American physician Edmund Jacobson, who published a book on this issue in 1922. A distinctive feature of the method is the alternation of voluntary tension and subsequent reflex (involuntary) relaxation of the corresponding muscle group. In a short-term (2-3 sec.) phase of tension, a person maintains the strongest static contraction of any muscle group (for example, clenching a hand into a fist). In the subsequent relaxation phase (up to 1 minute), he experiences sensations of softening, the spread of a wave of pleasant heaviness and warmth in the area of ​​the body being worked on (for example, in the hand). This is accompanied by a feeling of peace and relaxation. These sensations are a consequence of the elimination of residual, usually unnoticed tension in the muscles, increased blood flow to the vessels of this area and, accordingly, increased metabolic and recovery processes. To relieve emotional stress and fatigue, active relaxation is carried out in a certain sequence on all main areas of the body (legs, arms, torso, shoulders, neck, head, face). E. Jacobson rightly believed that all groups of skeletal muscles are associated with certain centers of the spinal cord and brain. Thanks to this, active muscle relaxation has a positive effect on large areas of the central nervous system, helping a person enter a trophotropic state, relieve tension and disharmony, and restore strength and energy. The progressive muscle relaxation method has a number of modifications. Neuromuscular relaxation is most indicated for prolonged stressful conditions with severe anxiety and insomnia.
For initial mastery of E. Jacobson's method, 8-10 lessons are required over 3-4 weeks. Relaxation of muscle groups throughout the body takes 20 minutes. The full course of training takes 3-6 months, subject to 2-3 lessons per week.
Meditation. The term “meditation” appeared on the pages of domestic popular and scientific publications only recently. Previously, it was not customary to talk about meditation, since it was believed that meditation was certainly a religious ritual. Indeed, meditation is associated with different areas of yoga, Hinduism and Buddhism. But today it has become known that meditation to strengthen one’s psyche, overcome internal contradictions and expand knowledge about oneself is possible without any connection with any religious or philosophical beliefs. For thousands of years, representatives of almost all human cultures have used some form of meditation to achieve mental peace and harmony. Its beneficial effect is not due to its focus on religion, but to the basic properties of the human nervous system. Experience testifies to meditation as an effective technique of mental self-regulation, in no way inferior to other methods.
The essence of meditation is the voluntary concentration of external or internal attention on any real, virtual or subjective mental object or process for a long time. As a result of this, a person distracts attention from all other objects and enters a special state of consciousness, which is a variation of the trophotropic state described above. Meditation has been successfully used for the prevention and treatment of arterial hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases. It helps get rid of obsessive states, anxiety, depression and increased aggressiveness, improves concentration. Meditation can also be used to find solutions to various psychological problems. Under its influence, a person’s ability to use creative potential and make his life more conscious and purposeful increases.
Techniques for switching attention to positive objects of the external and internal world. To do this, it is recommended, being in a comfortable position and a relaxed state, to closely examine for 5-7 minutes any paintings, objects or other objects that evoke positive emotions. In this case, you can hold the object in your hands without rushing to feel it. You can also, with your eyes closed, recreate the images that pop up in your mind, without focusing on them for a long time and moving from one to another. To distract attention from unpleasantly exciting, “stagnant” images and thoughts, people resort to reading books, viewing photographs, films, and television programs. They play computer games, listen to their favorite melodies and poems, look for exciting activities and hobbies, and communicate with interesting interlocutors. A variety of meditation objects can be found on the Internet.
So we see that meditation exercises are many and varied. Most of them require the practitioner to remain in a stationary position, but there are also those that involve movement. In one case, the student intently examines some object, in another, he closes his eyes and repeats certain sounds over and over again, in the third, he is completely absorbed in observing his own breathing, in the fourth, he listens to the sound of the wind in the branches of trees, in the fifth, he tries find an answer to a difficult question, etc.
Each meditation session includes three stages: 1) relaxation, 2) concentration, 3) the actual meditation state, the depth of which can be different and depends on the experience of the practitioner and the duration of the session. The training cycle takes 4 weeks (2 half-hour lessons per week).
Autogenic training (AT) is the most famous method of mental self-regulation. He has collected all the best that other methods have. Its essence consists of self-hypnosis and meditation against the background of passive neuromuscular relaxation. The method was developed by the German doctor I. Schultz in 1932.
Autogenic training helps reduce emotional stress, feelings of anxiety and discomfort, reduces the intensity of pain, and has a normalizing effect on physiological functions and metabolic processes in the body. Under the influence of AT, sleep improves and mood improves. The main indications for the psychohygienic use of AT: stressful conditions, psychovegetative dysfunctions, accentuations (psychological disharmonies) of the personality, especially in combination with hypochondriacal tendencies. We emphasize that autogenic training is the method of choice for psychovegetative dysfunctions.
The goal of autogenic training is not only to teach relaxation, as is sometimes believed, but also to develop skills to manage one’s state, to develop the ability to easily and quickly move from a state of activity to a state of passive wakefulness, and vice versa. We are talking about voluntary control of psychological and physiological processes, expanding the range of self-regulation of one’s own state and, as a result, increasing the ability to adapt to changing conditions of the physical and social environment.
There are a number of modifications of autogenic training, adapted, for example, to combat traumatic (extreme) stress or to treat various diseases. For initial mastery of the AT method, 8-10 lessons are required over 3-4 weeks. The duration of one lesson is 30-40 minutes. The full course of training takes 3-6 months, subject to 2-3 lessons per week.
PSR methods have a wide range of applications. They can be part of the psychoprophylactic system, and also be an integral part of therapeutic and rehabilitation measures. With their help, you can achieve normalization of the psycho-emotional state and improve the functioning of internal organs. The main results of using autopsychotherapy techniques are: protection from damaging stress, activation of recovery processes, increasing the adaptive (adaptive) capabilities of the body and strengthening mobilization abilities in extreme situations. All this ultimately contributes to the preservation and strengthening of mental health. The RPS methods presented above have been tested many times in practice and have proven their effectiveness. However, achieving a useful result in any such method requires long and continuous practice. It can be assumed that systematicity and uniform rhythm in performing exercises is more important than their content. To strengthen mental health, it is important to choose the most subjectively acceptable and convenient method, and then persistently and methodically practice it for a long time. In this case, sooner or later success will be achieved.

Guidelines.
1. It is advisable to conduct a lesson with personnel in the form of a lecture-discussion with the inclusion of elements of a practical demonstration (training of initial skills) of PSR on the methods of breathing exercises and active muscle relaxation.
2. When preparing for a lecture, it is advisable for the class leader to create a presentation using tables, photos and videos that reveal the content of the main provisions of the topic.
3. During its course, it is recommended to use 1-2 videos (5-7 min.) from feature films showing the role of mental self-regulation in solving service and combat tasks by military personnel or in other extreme situations (for example, “The Guy from Our Town”, 1942 ). It is also possible to read excerpts from fiction on the same topic (for example, Konstantin Vorobyov’s story “This is us, Lord!”, Jack London’s story “Love of Life”).
4. When conducting a lesson, it is advisable to address students with posed and problematic questions. After a brief and prompt exchange of views on the answers received, state the provisions of the lecture.
5. It is advisable to conduct an active form of classes on the topic under study in the form of a round table, debate, role-playing game, or business game. It is also useful to invite a military athlete (shooter, biathlete, all-around athlete) to the lesson who is able to clearly demonstrate the RPS skills on himself, as well as explain their positive role during the training process and competitions.

Recommended reading:
1. Aliev H. Key to yourself: Studies on self-regulation. - M.: Publishing house "Young Guard", 1990.
2. Methods of mental self-regulation. Approved Head of the State Military Medical University. St. Petersburg: VMedA, 2007.
3. Nepreenko A., Petrov K. Mental self-regulation. - Kyiv: Health, 1995.
4. Prokhorov A. Methods of mental self-regulation: textbook. - Kazan: Publishing house. KSU, 1990.
5. Spiridonov N. Self-hypnosis, movement, sleep, health. - M.: Physical culture and sport, 1987.
6. Cherepanova E. Self-regulation and self-help when working in extreme conditions. - M.: AST, 1995.
7. Shreiner K. How to relieve stress: 30 ways to improve your well-being in 3 minutes / Per. from English - M.: Progress, 1993.

Colonel of the Medical Service Vladislav YUSUPOV, Head of the Research Department of the Scientific Research Center of the Military Medical Academy named after S.M. Kirov
Retired colonel of the medical service Boris OVCHINIKOV, head of the research laboratory of the Scientific Research Institute (medical and psychological support) of the Scientific Research Center of the Military Medical Academy named after S.M. Kirov

If people had no feelings and were indifferent, they would not know either worries and anxieties, or joy and happiness. A person who wants to get an answer to the question of how to calm down wants to get rid of negative experiences, filling life with positivity and harmony.

Steps towards peace of mind

A person is most nervous in a situation of uncertainty. Any exciting situation needs to be sorted out. How to quickly calm down if you don’t understand what’s going on? Knowledge gives a person confidence in what is happening.

1. Clarifying the situation is the first step to peace of mind in a particular situation.
2. The second step is to use self-regulation techniques to calm yourself enough to think quickly and clearly in a difficult situation.
3. The third step is to analyze what is happening and decide on a course of action.

If there is a threat, real or potentially dangerous, you need to be able to easily and quickly put your thoughts and emotions in order in order to take measures to eliminate the danger or avoid it.

For example, if a person gets lost in the forest, one must not give in to panic and excitement, but while maintaining a sober mind, be able to quickly find the way home.

If anxieties, worries and fears are excessive and unreasonable, self-regulation methods are needed to balance mental processes.

Most people worry about little things. For overly anxious individuals, worry and negative experiences are a common activity and way of life.

For example, people are worried and cannot calm themselves down during a job interview. The reason for this excitement is the exaggerated value of the event. An interview is not a life-threatening situation, the person simply doubts himself and is afraid of making a negative impression. Excitement plays a cruel joke on him, does not allow him to think soberly, slows down his reactions, makes his speech intermittent and incoherent. As a result, the excitement and anxiety are justified.

A person needs to use self-regulation methods in such and other similar situations when the significance of the event is exaggerated.

Methods and techniques of self-regulation

How to calm down without resorting to taking medications? It is necessary to use methods of self-regulation of mental state.

Self-regulation is the control of the psycho-emotional state by influencing the consciousness with words, mental images, proper breathing, toning and relaxing muscles.

Self-regulation is designed to quickly calm, eliminate emotional stress and normalize the emotional background.

How to calm down without knowing special self-regulation techniques? The body and consciousness usually themselves tell you how to do this.

Natural self-regulation techniques:

• smile, laughter;
• switching attention to a pleasant object;
• support of a loved one;
• physical warm-up;
• observing nature;
• fresh air, sunlight;
• clean water (wash, shower, drink water);
• listening to music;
• singing, shouting;
• reading;
• drawing and others.

Techniques that develop the ability to manage psychological state:

1. Correct breathing. You need to take a slow and deep breath, hold your breath and slowly, completely exhale, imagining how the tension goes away.
2. Autotraining. Autogenic training is based on self-hypnosis. A person meaningfully repeats positive phrases many times until he believes what he is saying. For example: “I remain calm, I am calm.”
3. Relaxation. Special relaxation exercises, massage, yoga. By relaxing your muscles, you can balance your psyche. The effect is achieved through alternating muscle tension and relaxation.
4. Visualization. The technique involves recreating in your imagination a pleasant memory or picture that evokes positive emotions. This state is called resource. Having plunged into it, a person feels positive feelings.

Exercises for self-regulation

Special exercises aimed at regulating the mental state in a specific situation help to find calm. There are many such exercises developed; you can choose the one that is most convenient to use, quick and effective.

Some special exercises and ways to quickly calm down:

• Exercise "Swinging"

In a standing or sitting position, you need to relax and tilt your head back so that it is comfortable, as if lying on a pillow. Close your eyes and begin to sway slightly, with a small amplitude from side to side, back and forth or in a circle. You need to find the most pleasant rhythm and tempo.

• Exercise "Disclosure"

In a standing position, you need to make several swings of your arms in front of your chest to the sides, in a circle, up and down (classic exercises for warming up). Stretch your straight arms forward and relax, begin to slowly move them to the sides.

If the hands are relaxed enough, they will begin to move apart as if by themselves. The exercise must be repeated until a feeling of lightness arises. By spreading your arms, imagine how your perception of life expands, your arms open towards the positive.

• Exercise “Relaxation point”

In a standing or sitting position, you need to relax your shoulders and lower your arms freely. Start slowly rotating your head in a circle. When you find the most comfortable position and want to stop, you need to do so.

After resting in this position, continue rotational movements. Rotating your head, imagine moving towards harmony, and at the point of relaxation feel the achievement of this goal.

A positive effect can be achieved simply by shaking your hands well and quickly several times, as if shaking off water. Imagine that stress and nervousness are leaving your fingertips.

To relax your muscles, you need to jump in place, as if shaking off snow.

• Exercise “Sunny Bunny”

The exercise is suitable for both adults and children. It is pleasant, playful, fun.

Take a comfortable position, sitting or reclining, relax all your muscles. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a sunny meadow, beach, riverbank or other pleasant place where the sun is shining. Imagine how the gentle sun warms the body and, together with the sunlight, the body is saturated with peace and happiness.

A ray of sunshine ran across the lips and drew a smile, across the forehead, relaxing the eyebrows and forehead, sliding onto the chin and relaxing the jaw. The sun's ray runs over the body and relaxes all its parts in turn, gives peace of mind, and removes anxiety. You can add sounds of nature: splashing waves, birdsong, rustling leaves.

Duration of exercises: from one to fifteen minutes. They can be performed in combination, several times a day.

Simple exercises can restore a sense of joy in life, self-confidence, calm down and achieve peace of mind.

Experiences are an integral part of life

Is it possible to avoid anxiety and worry all the time or is it better to learn self-regulation?

• Not everyone can find calm in a difficult situation, but everyone can try to do it.
• People need both positive and negative emotions and feelings in order to survive. They are always natural. Some of them are congenital, others acquired.
• The problem and difficulties are represented by negative emotions, feelings, thoughts, worries and anxieties that are excessive, unreasonable, and pathological.
• Modern life is perceived by the body as a continuous stream of threats, dangers, worries and stressful situations. To maintain peace of mind and health, you need to know the answer to the question of how to quickly calm down.
• The depth of experience is determined by personality characteristics. A child learns to become nervous by looking at others. With anxious parents, children grow up to be anxious individuals.
• Excessive worries can be caused by self-doubt, fatigue, negative experiences of the past, exceeding the significance of events and other reasons.

Development of assertiveness (internal balance)

A person becomes nervous when he feels an existential threat. Physiological reactions during severe anxiety are designed to activate the body's hidden reserves to combat troubles. The heart begins to beat faster so that the muscles become toned and the blood circulates better, supplying the brain with oxygen.

When a person is very worried and does not know how to calm himself down, he either behaves passively, confused and scared, or aggressively and unrestrained.

These strategies are ineffective. The most beneficial strategy for survival in society is the ability to maintain internal balance, in which a person has his own opinion, an independent view of the situation, and a calm perception of reality.

A person’s ability to independently regulate his own behavior and be responsible for it is called assertiveness.

• A person in an assertive state looks at life calmly, analyzes and makes informed decisions, does not give in to manipulation, and uses self-regulation techniques. A person’s internal position is stable, he is self-confident, balanced, and he perceives a difficult situation as under his control.
• Assertiveness presupposes the ability to quickly move away from a problem, ease of perception and a low degree of indifference. You need to become an outside observer of the ongoing event, interested, but not involved.
• Such behavior may be perceived by others as callous and indifferent, but it allows a person to maintain inner peace and harmony. Advice to look at life more simply and not take everything to heart implies the development of assertiveness.
• Self-regulation methods are aimed at developing assertiveness as the ability to quickly stop worries, look at oneself from the outside, give an objective assessment of what is happening and make a reasonable decision.

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The human body is a self-regulating system that depends on the environment. Due to constantly changing environmental conditions, as a result of long evolution, humans have developed mechanisms that allow them to adapt to these changes. These mechanisms are called adaptation. Adaptation is a dynamic process due to which the mobile systems of living organisms, despite the variability of conditions, maintain the stability necessary for the existence, development and procreation.

Thanks to the adaptation process, homeostasis is maintained when the body interacts with the outside world. In this regard, adaptation processes include not only optimizing the functioning of the body, but also maintaining balance in the “organism-environment” system. The adaptation process is implemented whenever significant changes occur in the “organism-environment” system, which ensures the formation of a new homeostatic state, which allows achieving maximum efficiency of physiological functions and behavioral reactions. Since the organism environment is not in static, but in dynamic equilibrium, their relationships are constantly changing, and therefore, the process of adaptation must also be constantly carried out.

In humans, mental adaptation plays a decisive role in the process of maintaining adequate relationships in the “individual – environment” system, during which all parameters of the system can change. Mental adaptation can be defined as the process of establishing an optimal match between the individual and the environment during the implementation of human activities, which allows the individual to satisfy current needs and realize significant goals associated with them (while maintaining physical and mental health), while ensuring compliance with mental human activity, his behavior, environmental requirements. Adaptation is the result of the process of changes in social, socio-psychological, moral-psychological, mental, economic and demographic relations between people, adaptation to the social environment.

Mental adaptation is a continuous process that includes the following aspects:

• optimizing the individual's ongoing exposure to the environment;
• establishing an adequate correspondence between mental and physiological characteristics.

The socio-psychological aspect of adaptation ensures the adequate construction of microsocial interaction, including professional interaction, and the achievement of socially significant goals. It is a link between the adaptation of the individual and the population, and is capable of acting as a level of regulation of adaptive tension.

Psychophysiological adaptation is a set of various physiological (adaptation-related) reactions of the body. This type of adaptation cannot be considered separately from the mental and personal components.

All levels of adaptation simultaneously participate to varying degrees in the process of regulation, which is defined in two ways:

• as a state in which the needs of the individual, on the one hand, and the demands of the environment, on the other, collide;
• as the process by which a state of balance is achieved.

In the process of adaptation, both the individual and the environment actively change, as a result of which adaptation relations are established between them.

Social adaptation can be described as the lack of maintaining conflict with the environment. Socio-psychological adaptation is the process of overcoming problematic situations by an individual, during which she uses the socialization skills acquired at previous stages of her development, which allows her to interact with the group without internal or external conflicts, productively carry out leading activities, meet role expectations, and with all this , self-affirming, satisfy your basic needs.

With the activation and use of adaptive mechanisms, the mental state of the individual changes. Upon completion of the adaptation process, it has qualitative differences from the state of the psyche before adaptation.

The first component in the personality structure that ensures adaptability is instincts. An individual's instinctive behavior can be characterized as behavior based on the natural needs of the body. But there are needs that are adaptive in a given social environment, and needs that lead to maladaptation. The adaptability or maladaptation of a need depends on personal values ​​and the goal object where they are directed.

Maladaptive personality is expressed in its inability to adapt to its own needs and aspirations. A maladjusted person is unable to meet the requirements of society and fulfill his social role. A sign of emerging maladaptation is the individual’s experience of long-term internal and external conflicts. Moreover, the trigger for the adaptive process is not the presence of conflicts, but the fact that the situation becomes problematic.

To understand the features of the adaptive process, one should know the level of maladjustment from which a person begins his adaptive activity.

Adaptive activity is carried out in two types:

• adaptation by transforming and eliminating the problem situation;
• adaptation with preservation of the situation - adaptation.

Adaptive behavior is characterized by:

• successful decision making,
• showing initiative and a clear vision of your future.

The main signs of effective adaptation are:

• in the field of social activity – the individual’s acquisition of knowledge, skills, competence and mastery;
• in the sphere of personal relationships – establishing intimate, emotionally rich connections with the desired person.

For adaptation to be possible, a person needs self-regulation. Adaptation is adaptation to the external environment. Self-regulation is a person’s adjustment of himself, his inner world for the purpose of adaptation. Thus, we can say that adaptation causes self-regulation. Although, apparently, such a statement will not be absolutely correct. Adaptation and self-regulation do not have a cause-and-effect relationship. They are most likely different aspects of such remarkable abilities of living systems to regulate their behavior in response to various circumstances, both external and internal. The division into two concepts occurred, apparently, for the convenience of studying this phenomenon. By the way, defense mechanisms (projection, identification, introjection, isolation, etc.) relate to both adaptation and self-regulation.

Concept of self-regulation

The concept of “self-regulation” is interdisciplinary in nature. This concept is widely used in various fields of science to describe living and nonliving systems based on the feedback principle. The concept of self-regulation (from the Latin regulare - to put in order, to establish), which in the encyclopedic version is defined as the expedient functioning of living systems of different levels of organization and complexity, has been developed both in foreign and domestic psychology. Currently, self-regulation is defined as a systemic process that ensures variability and plasticity of a subject’s life activity at any of its levels that is adequate to the conditions.

Self-regulation is a systemic characteristic that reflects the subjective nature of a person, his ability to function sustainably in various conditions of life, and to voluntarily regulate the parameters of his functioning (state, behavior, activity, interaction with the environment), which are assessed by him as desirable.

Self-regulation is a pre-conscious and systematically organized influence of an individual on his psyche in order to change its characteristics in the desired direction.

Nature has provided man not only with the ability to adapt, adapt the body to changing external conditions, but also endowed him with the ability to regulate the forms and content of his activity. In this regard, there are three levels of self-regulation:

• involuntary adaptation to the environment (maintaining constant blood pressure, body temperature, release of adrenaline during stress, adaptation of vision to darkness, etc.);
• an attitude that determines an individual’s weakly conscious or unconscious readiness to act in a certain way through skills, habits and experience when he anticipates a particular situation (for example, a person out of habit may use a favorite technique when performing some work, although he is informed about other techniques);
• arbitrary regulation (self-regulation) of one’s individual personal characteristics (current mental state, goals, motives, attitudes, behavior, value system, etc.).

Self-regulation is based on a set of patterns of mental functioning and their numerous consequences, known in the form of psychological effects. This may include:

• the activating role of the motivational sphere, which generates the activity (in the broad sense of the word) of the individual aimed at changing his characteristics;
• the controlling effect of a mental image that voluntarily or involuntarily arises in the mind of an individual;
• structural and functional unity (systematicity) of all mental cognitive processes that ensure the effect of an individual’s influence on his own psyche;
• unity and interdependence of the spheres of consciousness and the unconscious as objects through which the individual implements regulatory influences on himself;
• the functional relationship between the emotional-volitional sphere of the individual and his bodily experience, speech and thought processes.

Self-regulation allows a person to change in accordance with changing circumstances of the external world and the conditions of his life, supports the mental activity necessary for human activity, and ensures the conscious organization and correction of his actions.

Self-regulation is the disclosure of a person’s reserve capabilities, and therefore the development of the individual’s creative potential. The use of self-regulation techniques presupposes active volitional participation and, as a result, is a condition for the formation of a strong, responsible personality.

The following levels of self-regulation are distinguished according to the mechanism of its implementation: 1) information-energy - regulation of the level of mental activity of the body due to information-energy influx (this level includes the “reaction” reaction, catharsis, change in the influx of nervous impulses, ritual actions); 2) emotional-volitional – self-confession, self-persuasion, self-command, self-hypnosis, self-reinforcement); 3) motivational – self-regulation of motivational components of a person’s life (unmediated and indirect); 4) personal – self-correction of the individual (self-organization, self-affirmation, self-determination, self-actualization, self-improvement of “mystical consciousness.”

Classifying methods of emotional self-regulation according to the mechanisms of their implementation, several groups are distinguished: 1) physical and physiological (anti-stress nutrition, phytoregulation, physical training); 2) psychophysiological (adaptive biofeedback with biofeedback, progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training, systematic desensitization, various breathing techniques, body-oriented techniques, meditation); 3) cognitive (neuro-linguistic programming, cognitive and rational-emotive techniques of A. Beck and A. Ellis, methods of sanogenic and positive thinking, paradoxical intention); 4) personal (method of psychosynthesis of subpersonalities by R. Asagioli, Gestalt techniques of awareness of needs, personal self-organization of life time; methods of sleep optimization and dream analysis (Gestalt techniques, ontopsychological techniques, techniques of conscious dreaming).

These two classifications are quite complete, cover a large number of different mechanisms and methods and, perhaps, in practical terms, are convenient for presenting technologies and psychotechniques of self-regulation. But they are not correct enough in theoretical terms, since they do not adhere to the principle of unity of criterion for the entire classification, as a result of which, when identifying subgroups, there is a confusion of concepts that belong to different psychological registers. In particular, concepts are equated that denote certain types of mental and somatic processes (informational-energetic, physical, physiological, psychophysiological), certain mental spheres (emotional, volitional, motivational, cognitive) and the integrative concept of personality, which in modern psychology does not have a single generally accepted definition and is represented by a large set of concepts of various kinds. Therefore, the above classifications do not have internal integrity and category-conceptual clarity. Let's consider another classification.

Self-regulation is divided into mental And personal levels.

There are two main levels of self-regulation:

1. unconscious
2. conscious.

Mental self-regulation is a set of techniques and methods for correcting the psychophysiological state, thanks to which optimization of mental and somatic functions is achieved. At the same time, the level of emotional tension decreases, performance and the degree of psychological comfort increase. Mental self-regulation helps maintain optimal mental activity necessary for human activity.

To optimize the mental state of self-regulation, there are a wide variety of methods - gymnastics, self-massage, neuromuscular relaxation, auto-training, breathing exercises, meditation, aromatherapy, art therapy, color therapy and others.

Emotional self-regulation is a special case of mental self-regulation. It provides emotional regulation of activity and its correction taking into account the current emotional state.

There are three successive stages in the development of self-regulation of behavior in the system of personality integration:

1. basal emotional self-regulation
2. volitional self-regulation
3. semantic, value self-regulation.

Basal emotional self-regulation is provided by unconscious mechanisms that work regardless of a person’s desire, and the meaning of their work is to ensure a psychologically comfortable and stable state of the inner world.

Volitional and semantic self-regulation belong to the conscious level. Volitional self-regulation is based on volitional effort, which directs behavioral activity in the desired direction, but does not remove the internal opposition of motives and does not provide a state of psychological comfort. Semantic self-regulation is based on the mechanism of semantic connection, which consists in comprehending and rethinking existing values ​​and generating new life meanings. Thanks to such a conscious restructuring of the individual’s own value sphere, the internal motivational conflict is resolved, mental tension is relieved, and the inner world of the individual is harmonized. This mechanism can only exist in an integrated, mature personality.

Conscious volitional self-regulation is based on a rational-effective basis and has a directive nature, while semantic self-regulation is based on an empathic-understanding basis and is non-directive in nature.

In structure personal self-regulation highlight motives, feelings, will, considering them as determinants of the regulation of human behavior and activity. Personal regulation, overcoming external and internal obstacles, acts as a volitional line of activity. At this level, regulation is carried out not as the action of a single motive, but as a complex personal decision, which takes into account the desirable and undesirable and their specifically changing relationship in the course of activity.

There are two forms of personal regulation: incentive and executive. The incentive reaction is associated with the formation of aspiration, choice of direction, activity; performing – ensuring compliance of activity with objective conditions.

They talk about three levels of development of personal self-regulation, which represent the ratio of external (requirements for performing activities) and internal (personality properties). If at the first stage a person coordinates his characteristics with the norms of activity, at the second he improves the quality of his activity by optimizing his capabilities, then at the third level the personality as a subject of activity develops an optimal strategy and tactics, showing the creative nature of his activity. At this level, a person can go beyond the boundaries of activity, increasing the degree of difficulty, implementing such forms of personal regulation as initiative, responsibility, etc. This is the psychological mechanism of the “author’s position of the individual” in professional and any other activity.

Personal self-regulation can be conditionally divided into regulation of activity, personal volitional regulation, and personal-semantic self-regulation.

Regulation of activities. The system of conscious self-regulation of activity has a structure that is the same for all types of activity. It includes:

• the goal of activity accepted by the subject
• subjective model of significant conditions
• performance program
• a system of subjective criteria for achieving a goal (success criteria)
• control and evaluation of real results
• decisions on correction of the self-regulatory system

Personal volitional regulation characterized by the management of the following volitional qualities: purposefulness, patience, perseverance, perseverance, endurance, courage, determination, independence and initiative, discipline and organization, diligence (zeal) and energy, heroism and courage, dedication, integrity, etc.

Personal-semantic self-regulation ensures awareness of the motives of one’s own activities, management of the motivational-need sphere based on the processes of meaning formation.

Thanks to the functioning of the semantic level of self-regulation, a person’s internal reserves are revealed, giving him freedom from circumstances, ensuring the possibility of self-actualization even in the most difficult conditions. There are attempts to differentiate this type of self-regulation and volitional behavior. Volitional behavior arises in conditions of motivational conflict, and is not aimed at harmonizing the motivational sphere, but is aimed only at eliminating this conflict. Effective self-regulation ensures the achievement of harmony in the sphere of motivations. Volitional regulation is distinguished as a purposeful, conscious and personally controlled form of regulation. Semantic connection and reflection are considered as mechanisms of the personal-semantic level of self-regulation.

Semantic linking is the process of forming a new meaning in the course of special internal conscious work of content, by linking some initially neutral content with the motivational-semantic sphere of the individual.

Reflection is a universal mechanism of the process of personal self-regulation. It records, stops the process of activity, alienates and objectifies it and makes it possible to consciously influence this process.

Reflection gives a person the opportunity to look at himself “from the outside”; it is aimed at realizing the meaning of his own life and activities. It allows a person to embrace his own life in a broad time perspective, thereby creating “integrity, continuity of life,” allowing the subject to necessaryly rebuild his inner world and not be completely at the mercy of the situation. Reflection, as a mechanism of the personal-semantic level of self-regulation, is a powerful source of stability, freedom and self-development of the individual. The reflexive level of regulation is specially highlighted.

Processes of personal-semantic self-regulation can occur both at conscious and unconscious levels. Conscious self-regulation is a mechanism for mastering one’s own behavior and one’s own mental processes. Based on awareness, a person gets the opportunity to arbitrarily change the semantic direction of his activity, change the relationship between motives, introduce additional incentives for behavior, i.e. make the most of your ability to self-regulate. At an unconscious level, personal-semantic regulation is carried out due to the functioning of various psychological defense mechanisms.

Psychological defense is understood as a consistent distortion of the cognitive (cognitive) and affective (emotional) components of the image of a real situation in order to weaken the emotional stress that threatens a person if the situation were reflected in the most complete accordance with reality. The main object of psychological protection is the positive components of the self-image. Defenses are formed to cope with intense emotions, the spontaneous, open expression of which seems dangerous to a person. Defensive strategies are indirect ways of experiencing and overcoming emotional conflict.

The following types of psychological defenses are distinguished: substitution, projection, compensation, identification, fantasy, regression, motor activity, suppression, introjection, repression, isolation, denial, reactive formation, intellectualization, rationalization, sublimation, annulment.

The psychodynamically oriented model complements the list of psychological defenses, including also: hypochondria, acting out, passive aggression, omnipotence, splitting, destruction, projective identification, devaluation, idealization, neurotic denial, autistic fantasy, dissociation, active formation, displacement, destruction, accession , altruism, anticipation, self-affirmation, humor and even introspection.

The action of defense mechanisms is manifested in the discrepancy between directly experienced meanings that determine real behavior and conscious meanings. Psychological defense mechanisms inhibit the process of reflection and lead to a distorted, inadequate awareness of actually operating semantic formations, resulting in a violation of self-control and behavior correction. Defensive processes are aimed at eliminating intrapsychic conflicts from consciousness, but the conflicts are by no means resolved: meanings eliminated from consciousness continue to have a pathogenic influence, while as soon as their awareness opens the way to constructive self-regulation and restructuring of meanings.

Within the framework of personal self-regulation, it is also possible to determine social self-regulation. Both in the individual and in society, a huge layer of social regulation and regulation arises and constantly develops; each of its members is prescribed norms of behavior and certain social roles. A kind of social framework is taking shape, often acting more rigidly than the actual natural constraints. Self-regulation arises as a process of mutual adaptation, the interaction of freedom and necessity. Man is already bound not only by natural restrictions, which as a result of his activities become less stringent, but also by the necessity increasingly created by himself - by the whole complex of living conditions in society. Simultaneously with this process and in parallel to it, the processes of self-regulation in society, aimed at its reproduction as integrity, are constantly becoming more complex.

Emotional self-regulation

Three levels of emotional self-regulation of the individual can be distinguished:

1. unconscious emotional self-regulation
2. conscious volitional emotional self-regulation
3. conscious semantic emotional self-regulation.

These levels are ontogenetic stages in the formation of a system of mechanisms of emotional self-regulation of the individual. The dominance of one or another level can be considered as an indicator of the development of emotional and integrative functions of human consciousness.

The first level of emotional self-regulation is provided by psychological defense mechanisms that operate at the subconscious level and are aimed at protecting consciousness from unpleasant, traumatic experiences associated with internal and external conflicts, states of anxiety and discomfort. This is a special form of processing traumatic information, a system of personality stabilization, manifested in eliminating or minimizing negative emotions (anxiety, remorse). Here the following mechanisms are distinguished: denial, repression, suppression, isolation, projection, regression, devaluation, intellectualization, rationalization, sublimation, etc.

The second level is conscious volitional emotional self-regulation. It is aimed at achieving a comfortable emotional state through volitional effort. This also includes volitional control of external manifestations of emotional experiences (psychomotor and vegetative).

Most of the methods and techniques of emotional self-regulation described in the literature belong precisely to this level, for example: suggestive methods (auto-training and other types of self-hypnosis and self-hypnosis), Jacobson's progressive muscle relaxation, relaxation based on biofeedback, breathing exercises, switching attention and distraction from unpleasant experiences, activation of pleasant memories, psychotechnics based on visualization, emotional release through physical activity, work, volitional influence directly on feelings - suppressing them or activating them, reacting emotions through screaming, laughter, crying (catharsis), etc.

At this level of emotional self-regulation, conscious will is aimed not at resolving the need-motivational conflict underlying emotional discomfort, but at transforming its subjective and objective manifestations. Therefore, at their core, the mechanisms at this level are symptomatic and not etiological, since as a result of their action the causes of emotional discomfort are not eliminated. This feature is common to conscious volitional and unconscious emotional self-regulation. The only significant difference between them is that one is carried out on a conscious level, and the other on a subconscious level. But there is no hard boundary between these two levels, since volitional regulatory actions, which are initially carried out with the participation of consciousness, become automated and can move to the subconscious level of implementation.

The third level – conscious semantic (value) emotional self-regulation – is a qualitatively new way to solve the problem of emotional discomfort. It is aimed at eliminating its underlying causes - at solving the internal need-motivational conflict, which is achieved by understanding and rethinking one’s own needs and values ​​and generating new life meanings. The highest aspect of semantic self-regulation is self-regulation at the level of existential needs and meanings. This is the deepest and, at the same time, the highest level of self-regulation available to a person at the present stage of his development.

To implement emotional self-regulation at the semantic level, you need the ability to think clearly, recognize and describe in words the most subtle shades of your emotional experiences, be aware of your own needs behind feelings and emotions, and find meaning even in unpleasant experiences and difficult life circumstances. These listed skills fall within the competence of special integrative mental activity, which has been intensively studied in science over the past decades and has been called “emotional intelligence (emotional intelligence).” The main functions of emotional intelligence include: emotional awareness, voluntary management of one's own emotions, the ability to self-motivate, empathy and understanding of the emotional experiences of other people and managing the emotional state of other people.

Basal emotional regulation system

As is known, in humans the morphological substrate of emotional regulation is the ancient (subcortical) and most recently emerged (frontal) brain formations. In evolutionary terms, the system of emotional regulation can be compared to geological strata, each of which has its own structure and function. These formations are in close interaction with each other, forming a hierarchically increasingly complex system of levels.

In their basal (basic) foundations, emotions are associated with instincts and drives, and in their most primitive forms they even function through the mechanism of unconditioned reflexes.

This primitive nature of the emotional response in normal development does not always appear quite clearly. Pathological cases provide many examples of the influence of elementary emotions on behavior. During normal ontogenesis, early forms of affective response are included in more complex ones.

A special role in this process belongs to memory and speech. Memory creates the conditions for preserving traces of emotional experiences. As a result, not only current events, but also the past (and based on them, the future) begin to cause emotional resonance. Speech, in turn, designates, differentiates and generalizes emotional experiences. Thanks to the inclusion of emotions in speech processes, the former lose in their brightness and spontaneity, but gain in awareness, in the possibility of their intellectualization.

The emotional system is one of the main regulatory systems that provide active forms of vital activity of the body.

Like any regulatory system, emotional regulation consists of afferent and efferent links (afferent and efferent nerves, i.e. nerves that bring and refer irritation). Its afferent link is one side facing the processes occurring in the internal environment of the body, and the other is facing the external environment.

From the internal environment, it receives information about the general state of the body (which is globally regarded as comfortable or uncomfortable), and about physiological needs. Along with this constant information, in extreme, often pathological cases, reactions to signals arise that usually do not reach the level of emotional evaluation. These signals, often associated with vital distress of individual organs, cause states of restlessness, anxiety, fear, etc.

As for information coming from the external environment, the afferent part of the emotional system is sensitive to those parameters that directly signal the possibility in the present or future of meeting current needs, and also responds to any changes in the external environment that pose a threat or its possibility in the future. In the range of phenomena fraught with danger, information synthesized by cognitive systems is also taken into account: the possibility of a shift in the environment towards instability, uncertainty, and information deficiency.

Thus, the cognitive and emotional systems jointly provide orientation in the environment.

Moreover, each of them makes its own special contribution to solving this problem.

Compared to cognitive information, emotional information is less structured. Emotions are a kind of stimulator of associations from different, sometimes unrelated areas of experience, which contributes to the rapid enrichment of initial information. This is a system of “quick response” to any changes in the external environment that are important from the point of view of the needs.

The parameters on which the cognitive and emotional systems rely when constructing an image of the environment often do not coincide. So, for example, intonation, an unfriendly expression in the eyes, from the point of view of the affective code, are more important than statements that contradict this unfriendliness. Intonation, facial expression, gestures and other paralinguistic factors can act as more significant information for decision making.

Discrepancies between cognitive and emotional assessments of the environment and the greater subjectivity of the latter create conditions for various transformations, attribution of new meanings to the environment, and shifts into the realm of the unreal. Thanks to this, in the event of excessive environmental pressure, the emotional system also performs protective functions.

The efferent link of emotional regulation has a small set of external forms of activity: these are various types of expressive movements (facial expressions, expressive movements of the limbs and body), timbre and volume of the voice.

The main contribution of the efferent link is participation in the regulation of the tonic side of mental activity. Positive emotions increase mental activity and provide an “attitude” to solve a particular problem. Negative emotions, most often reducing mental tone, determine mainly passive methods of defense. But a number of negative emotions, such as anger, rage, actively enhance the body’s defenses, including at the physiological level (increased muscle tone, blood pressure, increased blood viscosity, etc.).

It is very important that simultaneously with the regulation of the tone of other mental processes, the toning of individual parts of the emotional system itself occurs. This ensures stable activity of those emotions that currently dominate the affective state.

Activation of some emotions can facilitate the flow of others that are not currently amenable to direct influence. Conversely, some emotions can have an inhibitory effect on others. This phenomenon is widely used in the practice of psychotherapy. When emotions of different signs collide (“emotional contrast”), the brightness of positive emotional experiences increases. Thus, the combination of a little fear with a feeling of security is used in many children's games (an adult throwing a child up, riding downhill, jumping from a height, etc.). Such “swings,” apparently, not only activate the emotional sphere, but are also a kind of “hardening” technique for it.

The body's need to maintain active (sthenic) states is ensured by constant emotional toning. Therefore, in the process of mental development, various psychotechnical means are created and improved, aimed at the prevalence of sthenic emotions over asthenic ones.

Normally, there is a balance of toning by the external environment and autostimulation. In conditions when the external environment is poor and monotonous, the role of autostimulation increases and, conversely, its share decreases in conditions of diversity of external emotional stimuli. One of the most difficult issues in psychotherapy is the choice of the optimal level of toning, at which emotional reactions would proceed in a given direction. Weak stimulation may be ineffective, while over-strong stimulation may negatively change the entire course of the emotional process.

This point is especially important in pathology, where primary neurodynamic disorders are observed. The phenomena of hypo- and hyperdynamia disorganize emotional regulation, depriving it of stability and selectivity. Neurodynamic disturbances primarily affect mood, which is the background for the flow of individual emotions. Low mood is characterized by asthenic emotions, while pathologically elevated mood is characterized by sthenic emotions.

The level of disturbance is also important, determining the quality of the pathological process.

Thus, with the phenomena of hyperdynamia, pathological emotions are sthenic in nature (manifestations of violent joy, or anger, rage, aggression, etc.).

In extreme variants of hyperdynamia, it can be assumed that energy is “taken away” from other mental systems. This phenomenon occurs during short-term, super-strong emotions, accompanied by a narrowing of consciousness and a violation of orientation in the environment. In pathology, such disorders can be of a longer duration.

Weakness (hypodynamia) of the neurodynamic process will primarily manifest itself at the cortical (most energy-intensive) level in the form of emotional lability and rapid satiety. In more severe cases, the center of gravity of the disorders moves from higher to basal centers, which are no longer able to maintain their own energy at the required level. In these cases, the emotional system responds to a threat to the vital constants of the body with anxiety and fear.

The occurrence of such crisis phenomena is observed in various pathologies, especially often with prolonged psychogenic trauma.

The reaction to a protracted psychogenic situation unfolds according to the well-known mechanism of stress: initially, an increase in tension is observed, stimulating the usual schemes for solving the problem; if they are ineffective, a mobilization of all internal and external sources is observed; If you fail, anxiety and depression arise. The phenomena of severe emotional exhaustion can have catastrophic consequences for the functioning of the body.

In this regard, in the process of evolution, a special mechanism could not help but be created that protects the body from energy expenditure that exceeds its capabilities.

One might think that this genetically early form of defense observed in animals is a behavior called “activity bias.” In conflict conditions, when a certain required behavior cannot be implemented, another type of response is activated, situationally unrelated to the first. For example, according to the observations of ethologists, a seagull that has just demonstrated aggressive behavior when faced with the threat of failure suddenly stops aggression and turns to preening its own feathers, pecking, etc. The resulting tension finds a workaround and results in other forms of activity.

Among researchers there are different points of view on the nature of this mechanism. Some consider “displaced activity” as the result of the action of a special central mechanism in conditions of conflict, switching excitation to other motor pathways. Others believe that in this case mutual inhibition of opposite states (for example, fear and aggression) occurs. This leads to the disinhibition of other behavioral stereotypes.

However, no matter how the specific mechanism of “displaced behavior” is constructed, its task is to prevent a degree of tension that is dangerous for the life of the organism.

It seems that in the phenomenon of “satiety” described by K. Lewin there is a similar mechanism of protection against emotional overstrain. Signs of “saturation” are: first, the appearance of variations that change the meaning of the action, and then its collapse. In a situation where it is impossible to stop the action that caused satiety, negative emotions and aggression easily arise.

As experiments have shown, satiety increases the faster the more affectively charged the situation was initially (regardless of the sign of the emotion: + or -). The rate at which satiation increases is determined not only by the nature of the emotion, but also by the strength of affective arousal. Moreover, if under conditions of satiation the replacement of one action by another is still possible (which has been repeatedly confirmed experimentally), then under conditions of exhaustion an attempt to change the action no longer has an effect.

Thus, the most significant is the boundary separating the physiological stress inherent in the normal process from the pathological one, leading to irreparable energy waste. Severe pathological stress poses a danger to the entire organism, whose energy capabilities are limited. One might think that the emotional regulation system “keeps its finger on the pulse” of the body’s energy balance and, in case of danger, it sends alarm signals, the intensity of which increases as the threat to the body increases.

Levels of the basal emotional regulation system

Interaction with the outside world and the realization of human needs can occur at different levels of activity and depth of affective (emotionally colored) contact with the environment. These levels, in accordance with the complexity of the behavioral task facing the subject, require varying degrees of differentiation of affective orientation and the development of mechanisms for regulating behavior.

Attempts to trace the patterns of deepening and intensifying contact with the environment led to the identification of four main levels of its organization, constituting a single, complexly coordinated structure of the basal affective organization:

• Field reactivity level
• Level of stereotypes
• Expansion level

These levels resolve qualitatively different adaptation problems. They cannot replace each other, and weakening or damage to one of the levels leads to general affective maladjustment. At the same time, excessive strengthening of the mechanisms of one of them, or its loss from the overall system, can also cause affective deficiency.

Next, we will consider these levels, defining the semantic tasks they resolve, the mechanisms of behavior regulation, the nature of orientation, the type of behavioral reactions, and the contribution of the level to the implementation of tonic regulation. We will also try to trace how inter-level interactions are built and a unified system of basal affective organization is formed.

Field reactivity level
The first level of affective organization, apparently, is initially associated with the most primitive, passive forms of mental adaptation. It can act independently only in conditions of severe mental pathology, but its significance as a background level is great even in normal conditions.

In line with the implementation of affective and semantic adaptation to the environment, this level is involved in solving the most basic tasks of protecting the body from the destructive influences of the external environment. Its adaptive meaning is the organization of affective pre-setting for active contact with others: a preliminary primitive assessment of the very possibility, the admissibility of contact with an object of the external world even before direct contact with it. This level ensures a constant process of choosing the position of greatest comfort and safety.

Affective orientation at this lower level is aimed at assessing the quantitative characteristics of the impact of the external environment. The most important affective result here is a change in the intensity of the impact, and therefore the movement of objects relative to it acquires a special affective meaning for the subject. Also important here is the affective assessment of the spatial proportions of objects, their location relative to each other and the subject. One might think that it is these data that contain affective information about the potential for their movement. Spatial proportions signal the degree of stability, balance of objects, the possibility of free movement between them and, at the same time, guarantees that the subject is protected by nearby objects from the unexpected influence of distant ones.

Affective orientation at this level is characterized, firstly, by the fact that it occurs outside of active selective contact with the environment, in the passive recording of distant influences, and secondly, by the fact that the information in it is perceived not as a series of individual affective signals, but rather , as a holistic simultaneous reflection of the intensity of the impact of the entire mental field as a whole. Here, a certain map of the “force lines” of the psychic field is assessed affectively.

Affective experience at this level does not yet contain an obvious positive or negative assessment of the impression received. It is associated only with a general feeling of comfort or discomfort in the mental field. The feeling of discomfort is very fleeting, unstable, because it instantly causes a motor reaction that moves the individual in space, and is vaguely experienced only as the very moment of its initiation.

It is interesting that when trying to understand vague affective impressions at this level, it turns out that they are almost impossible to express verbally. The maximum that can be done in this case is to say “Something made me turn around,” or “For some reason I immediately didn’t like this place,” or “You feel surprisingly at ease here.” It is also necessary to emphasize that this form of primitive affective assessment is limited to the immediate situation, its given moment, and has almost no active influence on the subsequent behavior of the subject. (Apparently, this is that very vague “first impression”, for not following which we so often reproach ourselves later.)

The type of adaptive affective behavior characteristic of this level is the least energy-intensive, extremely simple, but adequate for solving the range of its problems. The choice of a spatial position that is optimal for mental comfort is carried out unconsciously, automatically, in passive movement along the “lines of force” of the field - by approaching objects that act in the comfort mode and moving away from uncomfortable influences. Assessment of the impact as uncomfortable may not occur immediately, but as it accumulates over time.

Passive, externally determined movement can be compared with primitive mental tropisms. The only affective mechanism at this level that protects a person from the effects of destructive force, bringing him to a position of security and comfort, is affective satiety. As you know, it is precisely this that prevents the occurrence of physiological exhaustion, which poses a real danger to the body.

This is still a very primitive mechanism for regulating interaction with the environment. It is the least selective - reacting only to intensity, does not evaluate the quality of the impact and organizes the most passive forms of behavior. The subject's reactions here are determined only by external influences. Passively avoiding extreme irritation, he takes the most comfortable position.

At the same time, this affective mechanism, despite all its primitiveness, is necessarily involved in broken forms of emotional regulation. This is understandable, since experiencing any degree of complexity includes an intensity parameter. This level largely determines human behavior in the residential environment, habitation of the yard, streets, and choice of recreation area. It is possible to trace the background contribution of the first level to the regulation of the communication process, where, by determining the affective distance of contact, it provides the individual with security and emotional comfort.

This level of affective regulation is also likely to make an important contribution to the organization of creative problem solving. The perception of new integral structural relationships in the environment is largely, apparently, connected with the connection to the search for a solution of this basal level of orientation. Such a close connection of creative processes with the basal levels of affective organization may explain the presence in them of elements of unpredictability, unconsciousness, weakness of active voluntary organizations, and the feeling of a decision as an inspiration. The feeling of beauty and harmony is the first signal of the correctness of the emerging decision.

Like more complex levels of affective organizations, the first level makes its own specific contribution to the maintenance of mental activity and regulation of the tone of affective processes. As the lowest level, it provides organizations with the least energy-intensive passive reactions and carries out the least selective regulation of affective tone. Since it is the most sensitive to satiety, it is responsible for relieving extreme tension, both positive and negative, maintaining a state of affective comfort. Maintaining such a state of peace is ensured by stimulating a person with specific, vitally (vitally) significant impressions for this level. As noted above, they are associated with the experience of affective comfort in space, giving the subject a feeling of balance in the environment.

In addition, impressions of the dynamics of the intensity of external influences, movement, changes in lighting, and spatial relationships in the environment are affectively significant at this level. This dynamics of the “breathing” of the external world, within certain limits of intensity, is not perceived by the subject as an incentive to an immediate motor reaction, but, on the contrary, immerses him in a state of “bewitchment,” delivering the same feeling of deep affective peace and tranquility.

He can probably remember his fascination as a child with the movement of dust particles in a ray of sunlight, the flickering of shadows from a fence, the contemplation of patterns on wallpaper, the movement of the pattern of tiles on the sidewalk. Everyone knows the calming role of contemplating the reflections of water and fire, the movement of leaves and clouds, the street outside the window, a harmonious landscape. A person receives these vitally necessary impressions both in connection with the dynamics of the external world, independent of him, and with his own movement in it. However, in both cases they are associated with detached contemplation of what is happening around, as if immersion and dissolution in it.

In the process of mental development and the complication of emotional life, the subject begins to feel an increasing need to maintain mental balance and relieve tension. In this regard, on the basis of elementary impressions of the first level, active psychotechnical techniques for stabilizing affective life begin to form.

An example of the development of methods of direct active influence by such impressions is some traditional Eastern methods of gaining mental balance. Stimulation of a person with elementary “pure” impressions of this level, concentration, for example, on the vibrations of a candle flame, conscious active alternation of the perception of “figure and background in the visual field” give him the opportunity to voluntarily achieve a state of deep peace, dissolution in the environment. Similar techniques are currently part of generally accepted systems of psychotherapy and auto-training.

They are also used in cases of the need for emergency intervention in the regulation of emotional processes, in medical practice, and in the adaptation of an individual to extreme conditions.

In ordinary life, we also experience the constant, actively protective influence of this level, but it is carried out more indirectly, through the spatial organization of the entire environment. The harmonious organization of the interior of a home, the proportions of clothing, household items, the person’s home itself, and the surrounding landscape bring peace and harmony to his inner emotional life. Techniques for such aesthetic organization of the environment accumulate in family, national, and cultural traditions. The traditional cultural way of life focuses the subject on these impressions that are necessary for him, and helps him to appropriate psychotechnical techniques for the aesthetic organization of the environment.

Aesthetic organization is necessary for any way of human life. We know what importance was attached to it in traditional peasant life, what efforts, despite the harshness of living conditions, were spent, for example, on the ornamental decoration of homes, clothing, tools, and household items. We also know what a refined development these techniques achieve with the development of civilization, how the aesthetics of architectural proportions, the layout of garden and park ensembles with their cultures of regular or landscape style, rock gardens, and fountains become more refined. Not a single tonic and affectively stabilizing impression of art or architecture is complete, of course, without the contribution of a sense of proportionality and harmony provided by the first level.

We can say that, performing background functions in the implementation of emotional and semantic adaptation to the environment, providing tonic regulation of affective processes, this level also carries out its cultural development.

Level of stereotypes
The second level of affective organization is the next step in deepening affective contact with the environment and masters a new layer of affective reactions. It plays a crucial role in regulating the child’s behavior in the first months of life, in developing his adaptive reactions - food, defensive, establishing physical contact with the mother, then develops as a necessary background component of complex forms of adaptation, determining the completeness and originality of a person’s sensory life.

The main adaptive task of this level is to regulate the process of satisfying somatic needs. The second level establishes affective control over the functions of the body itself, organizes psychosomatic sensations and affectively connects them with external signals about the possibility of fulfilling a need, and fixes methods of satisfaction. We can say that the main task of this level is the adaptation of the subject to the environment, the development of affective stereotypes of sensory contact with it.

This step in the transition to active selectivity in adaptation to the environment is due to the complication of the affective mechanism of behavior regulation. We observe that at the first level, the subject’s behavior is entirely determined by the mechanism of affective satiation. Under its dominance, the subject evaluates the impression only according to the parameter of intensity and passively submits to external influences. His own activity is minimal. The second level limits the uniform action of the satiety mechanism and thereby overcomes the dictates of the external field, providing the possibility of actively highlighting and reproducing certain impressions. This occurs due to the introduction of a second parameter of affective assessment. The affective structure of the mental field becomes more complex: the assessment of the impact by intensity begins to be adjusted by the assessment of its quality - compliance or non-compliance with the vital needs of the body. Positive experiences become more resistant to satiation, which provides the subject with the opportunity for active sensory contact with the environment while satisfying the need. At the same time, the subject acquires increased sensitivity to any disturbances in the process of satisfying needs. Such impressions are assessed as uncomfortable, regardless of the intensity of the impact. This is how primitive affective selectivity arises in contact with the environment.

At this level, signals from the environment and internal environment of the body are qualitatively assessed. Here the sensations of all modalities are affectively mastered: gustatory, olfactory, auditory, visual, tactile and difficult to differentiate complex sensations of somatic well-being and ill-being. In this case, the most affectively significant are the elementary signals of the internal environment of the body. It is they, connecting with initially neutral external impressions, that affectively organize them. Thus, in the affective spread “from oneself”, neutral sensations are transformed into significant ones, the external field is saturated with internal individual meaning.

Due to the focus of this level on the affective regulation of rhythmically organized somatic processes and on the development of stereotypes of need satisfaction based on the repetition of external conditions, this level is particularly sensitive to various rhythmic influences. If the first level of affective orientation was characterized by a focus on passive simultaneous reflection of the influence of the mental field as a whole, then here the simplest temporary, successful organization of impressions is already highlighted.

As an example of the first successes of this level of affective orientation, one can highlight the child’s assimilation of the feeding regime, the establishment of an affective connection between the appearance of the bottle and the pleasure of food, the appearance of an anticipatory pose before being picked up, etc.

Emotional experience at the second level is brightly colored by pleasure and displeasure. At this level, impressions associated with the satisfaction of a need, the preservation of the constancy of the conditions of existence, and the usual temporal rhythm of influences are experienced as pleasant. Unpleasant and painful here are the impressions associated with interference in the satisfaction of desire, indicating a change in living conditions and the inadequacy of the existing affective stereotype of behavior. It is characteristic that here the very tension of need, unsatisfied desire, is also negatively experienced. The situation of disruption of the usual affective connection and the delay of the already “declared” pleasant sensation is almost unbearable here. This level “does not like” and cannot wait. Intolerance to sensory discomfort and violations of routine are typical for young children, when the second level plays a crucial role in adaptation. In severe cases of early disturbance of affective development, when the second level remains the leader in adaptation to the environment for a long time, a child and an older one perceives with fear changes in the environment, a violation of the usual routine, and evaluates the delay in the fulfillment of desires as a catastrophe.

Experience at this level is closely related to sensory sensation. As discussed above, affective orientation is carried out by projecting internal states outward, linking complex distant impressions with more elementary taste, contact, and olfactory ones. Affective experience is therefore also a complex combination of simple and complex. We owe the experience of synesthesia to this level. Each of us knows that the color can be poisonous green, setting the teeth on edge, the sound can be scraping or velvety, light-cutting or soft, and the gaze can be sticky or sharp, the voice can be rich, the face can be crumpled, thoughts can be dirty, etc. P. Let us recall the experiences of the hero of Chekhov's story: “While she was singing, it seemed to me that I was eating a ripe, sweet, fragrant melon” (“My Life”).

The second level has a vivid and persistent affective memory. A random sensory sensation can even restore impressions from the distant past to a person. This is of great importance for a person’s affective adaptation. The second level fixes a stable affective connection between impressions and creates the affective experience of a person’s sensory interaction with the environment, determining his individual tastes. It can be said that this level of affective organization largely lays the foundations for the formation of a person's individuality, and the young child does a great job of identifying his own biases in sensory contacts with the environment. The affective image of the world at this level of its organization acquires certainty, stability, and individual coloring, but at the same time it is also a complex of associatively related, sensually brightly colored impressions.

The type of behavior characteristic of this level of affective adaptation is stereotypical reactions. Of course, this is still a very primitive level of behavioral adaptation. Initially, it probably relies on a small set of innate standard reactions that ensure the newborn’s adaptation to the mother and the satisfaction of its organic needs. However, in the process of mental ontogenesis, an arsenal of individual stereotypes of sensory contact with the environment, habits that a person strives to follow, is developed and accumulated. These habits determine our special manner of contact with the world: “I’m used to drinking hot, strong tea”, “I don’t eat meat”, “I like to swim in cold water”, “I can’t stand the heat”, “I don’t tolerate noisy places”, “I prefer shoes without heels “,” “I like to get up early,” “I can’t live without sweets,” “I’m drawn to hang out in the festive crowd.”

Affective stereotypes are a necessary background support for the most complex forms of human behavior. The lack of a familiar type of paper or the loss of a favorite pen can interfere with the creative process of a scientist or writer. According to the memoirs of O. L. Knipper-Chekhova, the lack of her usual perfume interfered with her performance of the role of Ranevskaya so much that sometimes the theater management had to cancel the play “The Cherry Orchard.”

The subject’s affective fixation of ways of contact with the environment gives him the opportunity to develop an optimal manner of interaction with the environment. On the other hand, however, this special affective selectivity can make the subject painfully vulnerable to violation of the usual stereotype. While perfectly adapting us to familiar conditions, this level turns out to be untenable in unstable conditions. An example of such inconsistency is the above example.

In the process of affective and semantic adaptation, the first and second levels enter into complexly organized interaction. Both of them are aimed at solving a single problem of a person’s affective adaptation to the environment, but the specific tasks of one are polar to the tasks of the other. If the first level provides passive affective adaptation to the dynamics of the external world, then the second level adapts the environment to itself, establishing stable relationships with it. The methods for solving these problems are also polar: the first focuses on the affective perception of changes in the environment; the second - for stable signs; the first focuses on assessing the holistic relationship of influencing forces, the second on selectively identifying affectively significant signals from the background; the first organizes passive movement along the field lines of force, the second organizes its own stereotypical reactions.

The second level, being more active and complexly organized, sets the affective meaning of behavior to a greater extent and is leading in relation to the first. He can, for example, within certain limits correct and even suppress the assessment of the former, and the affective signal “too much” begins to be ignored with a positive qualitative assessment of the impression. Thus, a person can happily swallow spicy, scalding food, drink ice-cold water that hurts his teeth, etc. Here, in joint action, affective mechanisms of the second level control the decisions of the first.

Let us now consider the contribution of the second level of affective organization to the implementation of the tonic function of the affective sphere - maintaining the activity and stability of affective processes.

The focus on active interaction with the environment is supported at this level by a feeling of pleasure from the favorable course of internal somatic processes and qualitatively pleasant sensory contact with the environment. By strengthening, fixing, and diversifying this pleasure, we maintain our activity, stability in contacts with the world, and drown out unpleasant sensations.

Thus, the peculiarity of this level is that it no longer provides general balance, but selectively enhances sthenic states and counteracts the development of asthenic ones. Based on toning the somatic sphere, numerous methods of autostimulation are developed that support the joy of feeling the entire sensory texture of the surrounding world and the well-being of one’s own manifestations in it: health, strength, colors, smells, sounds, taste, touch. Pleasure at this level, as already emphasized above, is enhanced by the rhythmic organization of influence.

This necessary autostimulation occurs not only in the process of natural, everyday and utilitarian contacts with the environment; very early a person develops a special attraction to pleasant sensory impressions as such. Already the baby can begin to suck a pacifier or finger, while also receiving pleasant oral impressions. He demands his favorite bright rattle, jumps with pleasure in his crib, babbles, and enjoys playing with sounds. Later, this need finds expression in a child’s desire to move for the sake of feeling the joy of movement itself, in games with sensory vivid sensations - fiddling with water, sand, paints, glowing and sounding toys, in a love of rhythm and rhyming words. As adults, we fight satiety by rhythmically tapping our feet, and in order to gain energy, we “prescribe” ourselves walking and running, swimming, feeling the grass and sand with our bare feet, smelling a poplar bud, etc.

Affective mechanisms of toning the somatic sphere in the process of human cultural development turn into complex psychotechnical techniques for maintaining positive emotional states. Cultural traditions impose prohibitions on primitive methods of self-irritation (thumb sucking, masturbation) and offer acceptable models and give direction to their development. The subject appropriates them (as well as psychotechnical techniques of the first level) under the influence of the cultural way of life. The family, national way of life can attract the subject’s special attention to the simplest positive sensory impressions: cultivate, for example, the ability to receive pleasure from a sip of cold spring water, the rhythm of movement of ordinary peasant work, but it can also develop an increasing differentiation of sensory contact with the environment. Refinement of tastes can determine and develop gourmandism and sybaritism. These divergent trends are reflected, for example, in different national culinary traditions.

Techniques for actively stimulating a person with rhythmically organized sensory impressions underlie development. Folk songs, dances, singing with their tendency to rhythmic. Repeat, spinning, swinging, jumping. They affectively saturate ritual actions, religious ceremonies, etc. Moreover, psychotechnical techniques of this level largely feed the development of such high cultural forms as the art of music, painting and even literature (especially poetry), since their affective impact on a person is organized rhythmically and inseparable from direct sensory experience, appeal to affective memory person.

Considering above the interaction of the first and second levels in the affective and semantic organization of human behavior, we talked about the emergence of hierarchical relationships between them, that the second level, as a more active one, begins to determine the affective meaning of behavior.

The interaction of the first and second levels in the implementation of tonic regulation of affective processes is structured differently. It is difficult to find a cultural psychotechnical method of affective regulation that would use techniques of only the first or second levels. As a rule, they act together. The question “which one is the boss” often sounds meaningless here. What affectively dominates the painting – its impeccable composition, expression, shape or color? Perhaps both. What has the most impact in a skillfully selected bouquet is its spatial, color organization or smell. It can be different. The relationships between the levels here are characterized by a greater degree of freedom; they can both dominate and create an affective background for each other. Psychotechnical techniques develop in parallel and support each other in solving the common task of stabilizing a person’s affective life.

Under unfavorable conditions, dysfunction at this level may appear. In a long-term psychotraumatic situation, when it is impossible to get out of it, hypercompensatory actions can develop, subjectively drowning out unpleasant threatening impressions. This upsets the balance between the semantic and dynamic functions of affective regulation, and the level loses its adaptive meaning.

An example of such dysfunction is provided by B. Betelheim’s personal observations in a concentration camp, where some prisoners (others called them “Muslims”) developed a tendency to sway and other stereotypical movements. By focusing on these sensations, they stopped reacting to their surroundings. Similar disturbances are observed during hospitalization in young children who have been deprived of contact with loved ones for a long time. Here, it is not so much acute injuries as a truly irreparable lack of positive impressions that determines the development in children of hypercompensatory autostimulating actions that create subjective comfort, but prevent the development of active interaction with the environment. Basically, these affective autostimulating actions are associated with rocking, other motor stereotypies, and self-irritation.

Expansion level
The third level of affective organization of behavior represents the next stage in the development of emotional contact with the environment. The child begins to gradually master its mechanisms in the second half of life, and this allows him to move on to active exploration and exploration of the world around him. Later, this level retains its significance and provides us with active adaptation to an unstable situation, when the affective stereotype of behavior becomes untenable.

Active adaptation to new conditions presupposes the possibility of resolving a special class of affective-semantic tasks: ensuring the achievement of an affectively significant goal in overcoming unexpected obstacles on the way to it. Overcoming an obstacle, mastering an unknown, dangerous situation - affective expansion to the surrounding world is the adaptive meaning of this level of affective regulation.

Let us consider how the affective mechanism at this level developed. At the first level, the field influenced the individual with its physical characteristics of the “I”, and his task was to “fit” into these influences, finding the optimal position. The second level has already introduced the assessment of the field not only in intensity, but also in quality, in the coordinates of one’s somatic “I”.

At the third level, a further complication of the field structure occurs. It highlights not only objects of desire, but also barriers.

This becomes possible due to the fact that positive and negative impacts are assessed here not on their own, but in the overall structure. At the same time, however, the structure itself is organized according to the law of force: its positive charge must significantly exceed negative impressions.

A holistic positive assessment of the entire field makes it possible to focus on the initially unpleasant impressions of unexpected influences. Thus, the third level “wins back” some of the negative impressions from satiety. The very appearance of a new influence or obstacle becomes a reason for triggering exploratory behavior and searching for ways to overcome difficulties.

Moreover, the obstacle can be assessed here not only as a negative value, but also become a necessary positive impression for the subject, that is, the barrier can change the sign “-” to “+”.

Active interaction with the environment makes it vitally necessary for the individual to assess his own strengths and gives rise to the need for him to encounter a barrier8. This is the only way he can obtain information about the limits of his capabilities. Thus, the orientation towards the possibility of mastering the situation here turns into the subject’s orientation towards his own abilities. We can say that if the first level assessed the intensity of the impact of the environment on the subject, then the third level assesses the strength of the subject’s impact on the environment.

However, the affective orientation of this level is still very limited. The subject here evaluates only the conditions for achieving an affective goal without taking into account the consequences of satisfying the drive. This limitation becomes more pronounced as the drive intensifies; it can also manifest itself in an inadequate assessment of the possibility of overcoming an obstacle. The rigidity of the emerging power structure can lead to the emergence of the illusion of accessibility of what is desired, despite the most obvious evidence of the impossibility of satisfying it.

Affective experiences of the third level are associated not with the satisfaction of the need itself, as was the case at the second level, but with the achievement of what is desired. They are distinguished by great strength and polarity. Here we have to talk not so much about positive and negative, but about sthenic and asthenic experiences. If at the second level the instability of the situation, the unknown, danger, and unsatisfied desire always cause anxiety and fear, then at the third level these same impressions mobilize the subject to overcome difficulties. At the same time, he may experience curiosity about an unexpected impression, excitement in overcoming danger, anger in the desire to destroy an obstacle. Threatening and uncomfortable impressions, however, mobilize and invigorate the subject only if he anticipates victory and is confident in the possibility of mastering the situation. The experience of helplessness, the impossibility of fighting, and despair determine the regression of affective relationships with others, the development of asthenic affective states of anxiety and fear, characteristic of the second level. The chances of success are assessed with a high degree of individual differences due to different levels of physical capabilities, mental activity of the subject, and his varying vulnerability in contacts with the environment.

Affective experience at the third level loses its specific sensory coloring, loses in diversity, but gains in strength and intensity. It is more complexly organized than the sensory-rich experience of the second level. If at the second level both external influence and one’s own reaction to it are experienced together in a single affective impression, then here the experience of the tension of desire (I want - I don’t want) and the possibility of its implementation (I can - I can’t) can be differentiated to a greater extent. In the awareness of the conflict of desire and possibility, the prerequisites for separating oneself from the situation as a subject of affective behavior arise for the first time.

Let us compare, for example, the experience of a person on a walk, absorbing a stream of sensory sensations: the freshness of the air and dew, the colors, the smells of the environment, the pleasant vivacity of his movement, etc. and his own experiences during competitions at a sports distance, when he is captured by one experience of excitement, the desire to win.

Affective memory at this level becomes an accumulator of new knowledge about oneself. If the second level developed knowledge about the somatic “I”, its selectivity in sensory contacts with the world, then the third creates the affective experience of successes and defeats and develops the basis for the development of the level of aspirations of the subject, his affective sense of self “I can” and “I can’t.”

The separation at this level of affective experience from the immediate sensory basis gives it the opportunity to live in the imagination, independent dynamics outside the sensory impression. Achieving an affective goal can be carried out in a symbolic way (fantasy, drawing, game). This becomes one of the prerequisites for the development of internal affective life - the creation of dynamic constellations of affective images, their mutual development, and conflict.

The type of behavior characteristic of the third level is qualitatively different from the stereotypical behavioral reactions of the second. He is actively expanding into the environment. The unexpected impression here does not frighten, but arouses curiosity; an obstacle on the way to an affective goal, a threat to existence, causes not fear, but anger and aggression. The subject actively goes where it is dangerous and unclear. This type of behavior is especially characteristic of children and adolescents, when the tasks of affective exploration of the world are most relevant and are solved visually, such as conquering darkness, depth, heights, cliffs, open space, etc.

Let us now consider how the interaction of the first three levels in affective and semantic adaptation to the environment is built. The task of the third level is to master a changing, dynamic environment. In this, he agrees with the first - protecting from unexpected super-strong influences and is opposite to the second, whose tasks include the development of affective behavioral stereotypes that adapt to specific stable conditions. Building directly above the second level, the third builds off of it, overcoming its limitations in adapting to the environment. Indeed, in order to organize active, flexible adaptation to the external environment, the third level must block the tendency to respond stereotypically to its influence, and in this it can rely on the responsiveness of the first level to changes in the environment. Thus, methods for solving adaptation problems of the third level are friendly to the first and reciprocal in relation to the second level.

In the interaction of these levels of affective organization, the third level, being the most energetically strong, plays a leading role. His affective assessment has a dominant meaning, so even negative affective assessments of the situation of the first and second levels can be suppressed or to a certain extent not taken into account if the third level itself does not imply the implementation of what is desired in these conditions. A fairly common situation, for example, seems to be when a person, in order to achieve an affectively important goal for him, willingly endures pain, cold, hunger, etc.

Let us turn to the consideration of the contribution of the third level to the implementation of the tonic function of the affective sphere.

The opportunity to overcome fear and enter into a fight arises at this level only if the subject has sufficient confidence in his success. These impressions acquire an independent tonic value for him. This method of affective toning reflects a new step in the complication of the mechanisms of regulation of affective processes. If the second level simply stimulates positive sensations to enhance sthenic states, then the third level makes it possible to actively transform some unpleasant impressions into pleasant ones. After all, the experience of success and victory, of course, is associated with the experience of getting rid of danger, overcoming an obstacle, and the dynamics of transforming a negative impression into a positive one.

This affective stimulation, necessary for the subject, is carried out both during the direct resolution of semantic tasks and in special autostimulation actions. An affective need for impressions of risk is formed. The desire to overcome danger, especially pronounced in children and adolescents, is reflected in the love of games with pursuit, battle, and a real desire for adventure - testing oneself in dangerous situations. But even in adulthood, this attraction often pushes a person to actions that are inexplicable from the point of view of common sense.

In the process of mental development, a person appropriates cultural psychotechnical techniques for affective stimulation at this level. They underlie many traditional cultures of games, both for children and adults, giving their participants a direct, real sense of excitement, and determine the passion for circus and sports shows, and action-packed films. The human need for the development of verbal techniques of affective stimulation of this level is reflected in the natural development in all cultures of the heroic epic, in the desire of children for “scary” fairy tales, in the popularity of detective and adventure literature among adults. Affective visual and verbal images of this level are one of the main breeding grounds art.

At the heart of both simple and complex cultural psychotechnical techniques of autostimulation is a mechanism called the “swing.” With a general positive assessment of one’s adaptation capabilities, the subject begins to look for a feeling of danger. The overlapping of the dominant danger with this general positive assessment and its discharge provide an additional powerful affective charge of the experience of success and victory. In its smoothest form, this mechanism operates, for example, when we, sitting in a comfortable chair, listen with pleasure to the sound of rain and wind outside the window; and the worse the weather, the stronger our affective satisfaction. But we can push this “swing” even further by taking up mountaineering, alpine skiing or caving.

In ensuring a person’s affective stability, his active position in interaction with others, the third level acts together with lower levels, and the mechanisms of the three levels do not come into such obvious contradiction here as in solving problems of affective-semantic adaptation. They can coordinately influence the affective sphere, for example, in a work of art: its harmonious form, sensual content and intensely developing plot.

Level of emotional control
The fourth level of basal regulation provides a new step in deepening and intensifying interaction with the outside world. He is responsible for resolving complex ethological problems of organizing the life of an individual in a community. This is especially clearly and directly observed in the organization of behavior associated with nursing, raising and educating children.

The specific adaptive meaning of this level is the establishment of emotional interaction with other people - the development of ways to navigate their experiences, the formation of rules, norms of interaction with them. In a broad sense, this level, building on the lower ones, ensures community control over individual affective life, bringing it into line with the demands and needs of others. With the advent of emotional control over affective experience, we can talk about the emergence of a person’s actual emotional life.

At this level, a new complication of the affective field occurs. As discussed above, at the third level a structure of “+” and “–” is formed, but it is organized according to the law of force with the obligatory predominance of “+” and is characterized by rigidity and difficulty of transformation. The fourth level builds a more flexible field structure. This is achieved through the introduction of a new quality assessment. Now it is set not by the parameters of the physical “I”, but by the emotional assessment of another person.

Being the ethologically most significant factor, the “other” begins to dominate in the subject’s affective field, and under the influence of this dominant all other impressions are rearranged and ordered. Evaluation of the other qualitatively restructures the field, arbitrarily changing its valence, remaking “+” to “–”, or, conversely ; makes neutral impressions meaningful.

The ability to arbitrarily change the perception of the intensity of the sensory quality of the impact allows you to maximally activate and deepen the subject’s contact with the world, and push satiety as far as desired. It is known how, after satiety, human activity is restored by introducing into it new meanings, incentives, praise, marks, etc. The fourth level is capable of creating practically unsatiated systems that allow a person to waste himself indefinitely. The subject begins to evaluate positively and negatively the phenomena of the environment, causing corresponding reactions from people , even if this differs, to a certain extent, from his subjective assessment. It is known, for example, how sincerely we find charm in many sensations that are unusual and even unpleasant to us, if they clearly cause pleasure in others.

The orientation of this level is aimed at highlighting the affective manifestations of another person as signals that are most significant for adaptation to the environment. It is carried out by direct empathy for the experiences of another person appearing at this level. Vital significant signals are a person’s face, his facial expressions, gaze, voice, touch, gesture. The emotionally mediated nature of orientation allows her to overcome limitations at this level and go beyond the situation of achieving an affective goal, to evaluate the possible emotional consequences of the action.

People's approval is assessed positively here, and their negative reactions are assessed negatively. This is not at all as trivial as it might seem at first glance. For example, at the third level of affective adaptation, when the subject relies only on his own strengths and experience in analyzing what is happening, he does not highlight the affective reactions of other people as signals necessary for orientation. They have meaning for him only as a possible source of affective tonic. The irritation of others, like other unpleasant experiences, can serve as a reason to trigger the affective “swing” mechanism and become a source of pleasure for the child. In this case, he will tease the adult and try to spite him. Only the fourth level, which actually relies in adaptation on the affective experience of other people, consistently provides an adequate response to their assessment, and this is the basis for the emergence of a person’s emotional control over his behavior - joy from praise and grief from rejection.

Thus, along with the complication of orientation in the environment, at the fourth level there is already an improvement in affective orientation in oneself. If the second level establishes affective control over internal somatic processes, the third lays the affective foundation of the level of aspirations, assesses the possibility of active influence on the environment, then the fourth forms a sense of self, colored by the emotional assessments of other people, and thereby creates the preconditions for the development of self-esteem.

Affective experience at this level is associated with empathy for another person, is mediated by the experience of this other person and is also an emotional experience itself. At this level, the empathy of approval or disapproval of other people begins to dominate over the experiences of “pleasant - unpleasant”, “I want - I don’t want”, “I can - I can’t”. Thus, a person’s affective life, along with emotional control, includes the emotional experience of “good” or “bad”, “I dare - I don’t dare”, “I should - I shouldn’t”, a feeling of shame, guilt, pleasure from praise. Here, as at the second level, the richness and qualitative originality of experiences increases again, but if at the second level it is associated with a variety of sensory impressions, then here it is due to the variety of forms of contact between person and person.

Emotional memory here, just as at the second level, organizes and stereotypes the perception of the environment. But if the second level records the subject’s affective habits, accumulating a fund of his individual sensory preferences, here individual emotional experience records prohibitions and preferred forms of contact with the outside world, reflecting the experience of other people.

The fourth level creates an image of a reliable, stable environment, protected from surprises and vicissitudes.

Such protection is provided by emotional confidence in the strength of others, in their knowledge, in the existence of emotional rules of behavior that guarantee adaptation without sudden breakdowns. At this level, the subject receives a feeling of security and comfort of the surrounding world.

Adaptive affective behavior at this level also rises to the next level of complexity. The behavioral act of the subject already becomes an action - an action built taking into account the attitude of another person towards him.

At this level, the affective basis for the voluntary organization of human behavior is laid. This allows the subject to be included in the interaction process. The requirements of interaction at a new level stabilize and stereotype the subject’s behavior. Here behavior is organized according to a complex code of ethological rules of contact, which make it possible for a stable life of the community. The assimilation of forms of communication and interaction is ensured by the desire to imitate the actions of a loved one that appears at an early age. The appropriation of his power, the ability to control the situation occurs through assimilation to him. If adaptation fails, the subject at this level no longer reacts with either withdrawal, a motor storm, or directed aggression - he turns to other people for help.

Let us trace how the fourth level enters into the general process of regulation of affective and semantic adaptation. If the first and third levels are aimed at organizing behavior that adapts to an unexpectedly changing external world and do not rigidly reinforce the individual’s ways of reacting, then the second and fourth levels adapt to stable living conditions, fixing an adequate set of stereotypical reactions for them (second level); ethological rules of communication, interaction (fourth level), i.e. adaptation tasks of the second–fourth levels are opposite to the tasks of the first–third. Building on the affective organization of the third level, emotions of the fourth level limit the freedom of choice of means to achieve an affective goal, and suppress the drives themselves, which are affectively unacceptable to other people. At the same time, emotions of the fourth level are reinforced by sensory affective stimulation of the second (rewards and punishments) and are based on its stereotypical reactions. At the same time, the fourth level can “re-educate” the second, expanding the set of individual habits with collective affective experience. “Natural” preferences become socialized.

At the same time, lower affective levels, of course, are not suppressed, they are not turned off “from the game” completely. They continue to live and signal vitally significant impressions of their series, desires, threats, which gives multidimensionality and conflict to a person’s affective experiences. In the case of superpower of lower-level signals with their particularly important vital meaning, it can temporarily come to the fore and get out of control. However, in general, in the overwhelming majority of cases, a person’s affective behavior is under the emotional control of the fourth level, which is proven by the very opportunity to build one’s life in a community of other people. Normally, the emotional assessment of the fourth level dominates the affect of all three lower levels. And for the sake of approval, praise, and affection from other people, we are ready, often even joyfully, to endure sensory discomfort, fear, suffering, and to refuse to fulfill our own desires.

Let us now consider what the fourth level contributes to the tonic regulation of a person’s affective life, to the stabilization of the dynamics of his affective processes. This contribution is apparently extremely significant. The subject's behavior is organized at the fourth level by the immediate emotional reactions of other people and the emotional rules of behavior set by them. Following them provides the subject with a feeling of self-confidence, security, and reliability of the world around him. The experience of an emotional connection with people, with their emotional laws, is a powerful means of maintaining his own active sthenic position.

The influence on the dynamics of affective processes is carried out here not by transforming unpleasant, frightening impressions into positive ones, as was the case at the third level, but by emotional ordering of impressions, their organization of emotional assessment of other people.

Stimulation at the fourth level occurs in the process of natural contact and interaction between people. It is associated with infection with sthenic affective states. People infect each other with joy from contact, interest in a common cause, confidence in success, a sense of security, the correctness of the behavior carried out, and the reliability of the means used. Here, a person’s special need for emotional contact arises, acute pleasure from the joy of others and compassion for their deprivations. Thus, the pleasure from feeding another can be sharper than from one’s own satiation. Here there is a need for encouragement, praise, and emotional contact. It is these impressions that provide the subject with the necessary increase in activity, stabilize and organize his internal affective processes.

In the process of mental development, the appropriation of cultural psychotechnical techniques for stabilizing affective life, using means of the fourth level, occurs. They are found already in the most ancient ways of influencing the affective life of a person. Thus, it is known that according to ancient customs, in order to strengthen faith in the success of the upcoming enterprise (agricultural work, hunting, war, etc.), it was preceded by playing a ritual of actions that ensure this success. At the heart of the most ancient forms of folklore, the inevitability of the triumph of good over evil, the good over the bad, the possibility of empathy, joy and compassion, pity, which guarantee the victory of the small and good over the big and evil, are affirmed affectively. From here, these trends spread to classical and modern art, initially determining its humanistic orientation. On the other hand, psychotechnical techniques of this level of stabilizing affective life and maintaining the active position of the subject are also visible in the basis of the construction of religious forms of contact with the world. In its most ancient forms, belief in the existence of a higher, animate ruler stimulates confidence in the stability of relations with the outside world, which can be preserved by observing the affective rules of contact with it. In essence, the same psychotechnical functions are performed by faith in the omnipotence of man, civilization, technical progress, etc.

Considering the joint work of all basal effective levels to solve the problems of regulating the dynamics of affective life, we can again note that there is no such strict hierarchization of the relationships of levels, the reciprocity of their mechanisms, as in the implementation of the affective-semantic function. The fourth level, striving to establish its own censorship, suppressing the manifestations of the third in real semantic interactions with the environment and people, here does not enter into such obvious antagonistic relations with it. In particular, the main psychotechnical technique of energization of the third level. The experience of risk and danger is easily consistent with the energizing mechanism of emotional experience of the fourth level. Together they provide, for example, an affectively rich image of a heroic deed, a feat that brings happiness and salvation to a person, people, and humanity, characteristic of all human cultures.

In the energization and stabilization of a person’s affective life, all basal levels are normally in solidarity and their mechanisms act in concert in one direction. In particular, for example, both religious rites and secular holidays, which, as is known, are aimed at achieving a person’s affective upsurge, are usually carried out in a harmoniously organized space (the affective impact of the first level with the influence of vivid sensory sensations, smell, lighting, music, rhythmic movements with special attention to the rhythmic organization of all influences (second level); with acute experience of moments of danger, aggressiveness, religious epic or historical event (third level); with concentration on emotional empathy (fourth level).

Impressions at any level can dominate affectively. The contribution of psychotechnical mechanisms at each level may be different at any given moment. Psychotechnical methods of affective energization of each level develop in parallel, interchangeably, mutually reinforcing each other. The cultural development of psychotechnical mechanisms at all levels, thanks to this type of interaction, can be unlimited.

Thus, already at lower, basal levels, the affective sphere develops as a complex self-regulating system that provides flexible adaptation to the environment. Depending on the level of affectivity, regulation solves various adaptation tasks, equally vitally significant for the subject, but varying in degree of complexity. In solving their problems, the levels are grouped according to their focus on the subject’s adaptation to stable and unstable ones.

The environment has positive and negative influences on the individual. The emotional system, like the cognitive one, strives to establish stable and regular connections with “plus” and “minus”.

Stable connections cannot, however, exhaust all the collisions of the subject with the environment. This is especially true for interaction with “minus” influences. In relation to the latter, at the lower levels of affective regulation of behavior, the tactic of “avoidance” is used. However, such tactics limit the depth and activity of an individual’s interaction with others. Therefore, a progressive direction of development is the development of such interaction between the subject and the “minus”, which allows him to overcome negative influences. This occurs due to the development of the mechanism for converting “minus” into “plus”. Only as a result of this does the possibility arise of deepening the subject’s contact with the environment, its expansion into new spheres.

The emergence of two systems of affective adaptation of the subject to stable and unstable environmental conditions is determined by evolution, and their development occurs differently in time and space.

Naturally developing into a unified system of regulation, the basal levels in each individual case place different accents of their contribution to emotional adaptation, creating a typical, specifically for each person, manner of emotional relationships with the outside world. This characteristically evolving constellation of basal levels seems to determine to a large extent what we call the Emotional personality of a person. For example, a tendency to strengthen the first level of affective regulation can manifest itself in pronounced abilities to perceive an integral structure and harmonious proportions. People with an accentuated second level are deeply sensually connected with the world around them, have a strong affective memory, and are stable in their habits. The powerful third level makes people easy-going, courageous, relaxed, and easily take responsibility in resolving a tense situation. People with a particularly strong level four are hyper-focused on human relationships. Compassionate, sociable, they are at the same time especially focused on observing established rules and may experience discomfort in those unstable, tense situations that often bring pleasure to people with a highly developed third level.

The individuality of a person’s basal affective structure is particularly manifested in the preferential development of various mechanisms of self-regulation of affective processes. Here, outside the rigid hierarchical organization of levels, individual preferences for psychotechnical techniques at certain levels most freely develop: love of contemplation, solitary walks, a developing sense of perfect landscape, proportions of a work of art; or a love of rhythmic movement, vivid sensory contact with the environment, or an indomitable passion for play, excitement, risk; or the need for emotional communication, empathy.

Of course, the nature of the relationships between basal levels is also influenced by a person’s age-related characteristics. These relationships also require special study. But in general terms we can say that here, within the framework of the already established general hierarchy of levels and their individually developed manner of interaction, the emphasis can shift from “stabilizing” levels - in childhood to “dynamic” - in adolescence and youth, and again to “stabilizing” - in mature. Probably, the affective peace of a baby and a wise old man can also be associated with the predominant importance of the first level of affective organization; children's sensory joy of life - with an increase in the second level, teenage and youthful activity, instability - with an increase in the third, everyday "maturity" - in the fourth.

It seems that the study of the laws of basal emotional organization can be of great importance for the development of a person’s individuality and the development of a method for correcting his affective maladjustment.

The influence of the levels of the basal system of emotional regulation on various subsystems of the personality structure

When considering personal characteristics of emotional response, it is advisable to adhere to a level approach to the structure of personality, including the personal-semantic subsystem of the personality structure, individual psychological and psychophysiological.

Let us consider the dependence of the occurrence of an emotional state on the functioning of a certain subsystem in the personality structure.

Psychophysiological subsystem determines the characteristics of the internal, neurophysiological organization. Experimental studies have established differences in the emotional thresholds of people, which affects the frequency of a certain experience and expression of a particular emotion, and, in turn, affects the socialization of a person, leading to the formation of special personality traits. Psychophysiological processes ensure the functioning of the mental apparatus, determining inertia or mobility, balance or imbalance, strength or weakness of the nervous system, and create assumptions for predicting the child’s experience and behavior under conditions of stress and tension. Thus, more sensitive people suffer from overstimulation, energetic people from immobility, slow adapters from surprises.

Thus, a person’s physiological characteristics can play the role of factors influencing the severity and frequency of negative emotions.

Individual – psychological subsystem reflects a person’s activity, behavioral stereotypes, thinking style, motivational orientation, character traits. The duration and intensity of certain mental states of a person are largely determined by his individual characteristics. Drawing attention to individual personality characteristics is due to the fact that, according to V.N. Myasishchev, “vulnerable sides are sources of psychogeny, and strong ones are sources of health preservation and compensation.”

A special role in the occurrence of a particular emotional state plays personal-semantic subsystem, which defines the hierarchy of values, the system of relationships to oneself and to others. The pathogenic effect is not exerted by the external influence itself, be it acute or chronic, but by its significance for a person. It is the personal-semantic subsystem that most often determines the relativity of negative emotions.

Thus, based on the analysis of the personality structure, we can say that the factors causing emotional discomfort can be biological, individual and semantic structures of the personality, with the undoubted priority of the latter.

The realization of human needs when interacting with the outside world can occur at different levels of activity and depth of emotional contact with the environment. There are four main levels that make up a single, complexly coordinated structure of the basal affective organization. At these levels, qualitatively different tasks of organizing behavior are resolved, and they cannot replace each other. Weakening or damage to one of the levels leads to general affective symptoms.

Let us trace the influence of the levels of the basal system of emotional regulation on various subsystems of the personality structure in the process of the emergence of emotional discomfort and its overcoming. The following is a diagram reflecting the participation of the basal system of emotional regulation in overcoming emotional discomfort on various substructures of the personality - psychophysiological, individual and semantic.

Table. Participation of the basal system of emotional regulation in the functioning of various subsystems of the personality structure - psychophysiological, individual psychological and personal semantic.

The first level of the basal system of emotional regulation is the level of field reactivity– passive adaptation to the environment - ensures a constant process of choosing the position of greatest comfort and safety. Affective experience at this level is associated with a general feeling of comfort or discomfort in the psychic field (“Something I don’t like here,” “You feel surprisingly at ease here”). The level of field reactivity may regulate emotional state on the psychophysiological, individual-psychological and personal-semantic substructures of personality.

An example of the participation of this level in the regulation of emotional state on the psychophysiological dimension can be behavior called “displaced activity” and associated with the phenomenon of “satiation” and the phenomenon of “unmotivated” actions. For example, before a test, a child looks for something in his briefcase for a long time, then lays things out on his desk, drops them, and lays them out again, without realizing his actions.

In this regard, it is important to emphasize that all vegetative reactions during the manifestation of emotions are “calculated” for biological, and not for social, expediency.

Under the influence of the level of field reactivity of the basal system of emotional regulation in individual psychological subsystem personality structure, certain individual reactions are developed in response to the intensity of the influence of the external environment (a certain distance of communication, duration of direct gaze, etc.).

IN personal-semantic dimension personality structure, there is an enjoyment of significant impressions from interactions with the environment associated with the experience of comfort, and methods of aesthetic organization of the environment arise. A person already consciously takes certain actions to calm down and receive a positive emotional charge.

The second level of emotional regulation is the level of stereotypes– solves the problem of regulating the process of satisfying somatic needs.

Emotional experiences at the level of stereotypes in are brightly colored by pleasure and displeasure, and emotional regulation is associated with the choice of the most pleasant sensations of various modalities.

Under the influence of this level in the individual psychological subsystem pleasant impressions are experienced in connection with the satisfaction of a need, the preservation of the constancy of the conditions of existence, the usual temporal rhythm of influences. Situations associated with interference in satisfying desires, disruption of the usual way of action, changes in living conditions cause discomfort. An example is the stereotype of an excellent student, and the difficulty of “home” children getting used to school. Both the student and the teacher need a certain stability in the surrounding world in order to feel comfortable. Researchers pay attention to the significance for the student of his place in the class, which forms a component of his personal space. If a student sits on a subjectively bad desk, which he perceives as “alien,” then his attention is often impaired, he becomes passive, lacking initiative.

Thus, in individual psychological subsystem in the personality structure, the development of habitual actions and individual tastes occurs, which help to develop an optimal manner of interaction with the outside world and relieve emotional stress.

In the personal-semantic subsystem personality structure at the level of stereotypes, the emotional state can be regulated by intensifying and fixing pleasure, transforming neutral stimuli into personally significant ones, and this supports activity and muffles unpleasant sensations.

The third level of affective organization of behavior is the level of expansion– ensures active adaptation to an unstable situation when the affective stereotype of behavior becomes untenable. At this level, uncertainty and instability mobilize the subject to overcome difficulties. Manifestation by a person of outwardly unjustified actions towards danger and enjoyment of the feeling of overcoming danger - these facts have been noticed and repeatedly described in fiction and psychological literature. Analyzing a person’s desire to face danger, V.A. Petrovsky identifies three types of motivations: an innate orientation reaction, a thirst for thrills and a value-based desire for danger, which can be correlated with the manifestation of emotional self-regulation in the psychophysiological, individual psychological and personal-semantic subsystems of the personality structure.

So in psychophysiological subsystem personality structure, regulation of the emotional state at the level of expansion can occur precisely due to the action of an innate orienting reaction, when a person strives for a potentially dangerous object or situation in order to relieve anxiety.

In the individual psychological subsystem personality structure, each person develops his own level of need for acute impressions - “thirst for thrills”, which he can use to regulate his emotional state. In the absence of emotionally charged events in a child, the “thirst for thrills” can contribute to dangerous or antisocial forms of behavior. At the same time, too much passivity and “obedience” of a child can often act as a signal of a violation of normal affective development.

The value-based desire for danger can be attributed to the manifestation of self-regulation at the level of expansion in the personal-semantic subsystem. A person consciously strives for situations that are dangerous for him, because such behavior is connected with his goals, life guidelines, and only by realizing it does a person achieve emotional well-being. According to F. Dolto, “you need to learn to live with anxiety, but in such a way that it is bearable; it can even inspire creativity.”

At the expansion level, human behavior is influenced by emotional memory. Mobilization occurs only under the condition of anticipation of victory and confidence in one’s success.

The fourth level of the basal emotional regulation system is the level of emotional control ensures the establishment of emotional interaction with other people: the development of ways to navigate their experiences, the formation of rules, norms of interaction with them.

A sense of security and stability is achieved through emotional confidence in the strength of others, in their knowledge, and in the existence of emotional rules of behavior. The activity of this level is manifested in the fact that in case of failure, the child no longer reacts with either withdrawal, a motor storm, or directed aggression - he turns to other people for help. Of great importance for self-regulation at this level is the infection with the sthenic emotional states of other people: joy from communication, interest in a common cause, confidence in success, a sense of security.

Regulation of emotional state in psychophysiological subsystem personality structure with the participation of this level of the basal system of emotional regulation may be associated with a change in the perception of the intensity of the influence of others. This protective mechanism in this case acts as a psychohygienic factor that prevents the occurrence of emotional disorders.

Regulation in individual psychological subsystem in personality structure in this case is associated with the formation of the originality of emotional experiences caused by contacts with people.

IN personal-semantic subsystem regulation is due to the restoration of emotional balance with the help of new meanings, incentives, praise, marks, etc. As an example of emotional regulation of this type, one can cite the statement of L.S. Vygotsky about the possibility of influencing “affect from above, changing the meaning of the situation.” “Even if the situation loses its attractiveness for the child, he can continue the activity (drawing, writing, etc.) if the adult brings new meaning to the situation, for example, showing another student how to do it. For the child, the situation has changed, as his role in this situation has changed.”

Using the results of the analysis, showing the relationship between the functioning of the levels of the basal system of emotional regulation and various subsystems of the personality structure, it is possible to develop diagnostic and correctional programs related to the processes of emergence, course and overcoming of negative emotional states of a person.

Various ways of overcoming negative emotions are observed depending on the activity of the levels of the basal system of human emotional regulation - from contemplation and dissolution in the environment to seeking support. Psychotechnical methods of affective energization of each level develop in parallel, interchangeably, mutually reinforcing each other. At the same time, the basal levels create a typical, specifically for each person, manner of emotional relationships with the outside world. For example, with a tendency to strengthen the first level of affective regulation, the ability to perceive the holistic structure and harmony of the environment may manifest itself. People with an accentuated second level are deeply sensually connected with the outside world and stable in their habits. The powerful third level makes people relaxed, courageous, and take responsibility in difficult situations. People with a particularly strong level four are hyper-focused on human relationships.

The need for optimal social adaptation in society leads a person to develop individual ways of self-regulation of his emotional state, which depend not only on the person’s personal characteristics, but also on his age.

The study identified the following most common and effective strategies for coping with negative emotions of students aged 7–11 years: “sleeping”, “drawing, writing, reading”, “I’m sorry, I’m telling the truth”, “hugging, stroking”, “walking, running, I ride a bike,” “I try to relax, stay calm,” “I watch TV, listen to music,” “I stay on my own,” “I dream, I imagine,” “I pray.” The following ways for schoolchildren to overcome unpleasant situations are noted: ask for forgiveness, forget, quarrel, fight, leave, not talk, ask an adult for help, explain your actions, cry.

When studying self-regulation by schoolchildren of negative mental states, four main methods were identified:

1. communication as an empirically found method of group self-regulation;
2. strong-willed regulation – self-orders;
3. regulation attention functions– shutdown, switching;
4. motor(muscular) discharge.

These empirically identified methods of emotional self-regulation can be correlated with the work of basal levels of emotional regulation in the process of normalizing a person’s emotional state (Table).

Table. Comparison of children's methods of self-regulation of negative emotional states with the activity of various levels of the basal system of emotional regulation.

Conscious volitional emotional self-regulation

In Russian psychology, the concepts of “will” and “volitional regulation” (self-regulation) are often used as synonyms, since the vast majority of scientists recognize the regulatory function as the main function of the will. The concepts of will and volitional regulation basically coincide; volitional regulation (self-regulation) is a type of mental regulation of activity and behavior, when a person needs to consciously overcome the difficulties of goal setting, planning and execution of actions.

Volitional self-regulation can be considered as a certain type of voluntary control of a person’s behavior and activities. The concept of “will” corresponds to voluntary control, therefore, volitional self-regulation and will are related as part and whole.

Emotions and will are essential components of a person’s management (and regulation as a special case of management) of his behavior, communication and activities. Traditionally, emotional-volitional regulation is the object of consideration in general psychology. When they talk about the “emotional-volitional sphere”, “emotional-volitional qualities”, this only emphasizes the connection between will and emotions, but not their kinship, much less their identity. These two spheres of the psyche often manifest themselves in everyday life as antagonists, in particular when the will suppresses a surge of emotions, and sometimes, on the contrary, it becomes obvious that a strong emotion (for example, affect) has suppressed the will.

It is impossible to explain volitional processes only with feelings. Feelings are one of the stimuli of the will, but it is completely wrong to reduce a person’s volitional activity only to experienced feelings. However, intellect alone, without the involvement of feelings, does not always influence the will.

In the process of regulating behavior and activity, emotions and will can appear in different proportions. In some cases, emerging emotions have a disorganizing and demobilizing effect on behavior and activity, and then will (or rather willpower) acts as a regulator, compensating for the negative consequences of the emerging emotion. This is clearly manifested when a person develops so-called unfavorable psychophysiological conditions. The feeling of fatigue that arises during fatigue and the desire to reduce the intensity of work or stop it altogether is compensated by the strong-willed quality of patience. This same strong-willed quality also manifests itself in other conditions, for example, in monotony, if the situation requires continued work. States of anxiety and doubt, what is called “confusion of the soul,” are overcome with the help of the volitional quality of determination, the state of fear - with the help of the volitional quality of courage, the state of frustration - with the help of perseverance and perseverance, the state of emotional arousal (anger, joy) - with the help excerpts.

In other cases, emotions, on the contrary, stimulate activity (inspiration, joy, in some cases, anger), and then the manifestation of volitional effort is not required. In this case, high performance is achieved through hypercompensatory mobilization of energy resources. However, such regulation is uneconomical, wasteful, and always carries the danger of overwork. But volitional regulation also has its “Achilles’ heel” - excessive volitional tension can lead to a breakdown of higher nervous activity. Therefore, a person must optimally combine a strong will with a certain level of emotionality.

Often the absence of emotional manifestations is attributed to a person’s strong will. For example, equanimity is mistaken for endurance, self-control, and courage. In reality, it is clear that equanimity may reflect low emotional reactivity or may be the result of a person's adaptation to a given situation.

Emotional-volitional self-regulation (EVS) is a system of techniques for consistent self-influence in order to increase emotional-volitional stability in tense and dangerous situations. EMU develops and improves a number of important psychological qualities: self-control, self-confidence, attention, imaginative thinking, memorization skills. At the same time, EMU prevents mental and physical fatigue, helps strengthen the nervous system and increase mental resistance to negative influences, and increases performance.

The essence of EMU is the development in a person of the ability to independently influence his own regulatory psychological and nervous mechanisms through certain exercises and techniques.

Great importance is currently attached to the development of techniques for voluntary regulation of emotional states, since they are not suppressed by simple desire, but require a special regulation technique to remove them. Moreover, these techniques can be used both to eliminate conditions that interfere with the success of activities, and to stimulate conditions that contribute to success.

A technique that uses these two areas is called psychoregulatory training (PRT). O. A. Chernikova (1962) showed that the voluntary control of emotions differs from the control of cognitive processes (thinking, memorization, etc.). It should be noted, however, that these techniques are not associated with the use of volitional efforts and overcoming the consequences of unfavorable conditions, but are based on the evocation of certain ideas and images. Therefore, they cannot be considered methods of volitional regulation. At the same time, the development of the mentioned direction contributes to a clearer understanding of will (arbitrariness) as control and self-mastery.

Psychoregulatory training is a variant of autogenic training, adapted to the conditions of sports. It is addressed to people who are good at muscle relaxation, practically healthy, and who pay great attention to the development of coordination of movements. In this regard, formulas that cause a feeling of heaviness in the limbs are not used in PRT. Sometimes, on the contrary, formulas for overcoming this feeling are included (if it does arise). The main task of PRT is to manage the level of mental stress.

Conscious semantic emotional self-regulation

Conscious semantic emotional self-regulation is commonly called emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence (EI, EI, EQ) is a group of mental abilities that are involved in awareness and understanding of one’s own emotions and the emotions of others. Emotional intelligence is the skill of understanding your feelings and emotions. People with a high level of emotional intelligence understand their emotions and the feelings of other people well, can manage their emotional sphere, and therefore in society their behavior is more adaptive and they more easily achieve their goals in interaction with others.

Unlike IQ, the level of which is largely determined by genes, the level of emotional intelligence (EQ) develops throughout a person’s life. Developing emotional intelligence is a difficult job that people have encountered, but it is this work that gives great results, it is what increases personal effectiveness.

The first publications on the problem of EI belong to J. Meyer and P. Salovey. D. Goleman's book, very popular in the West, was published only in 1995. The main stages of the formation of EI:

• 1937 – Robert Thorndike wrote about social intelligence
• 1940 – David Wechsler wrote about intellectual and non-intellectual components (affective, personality and social factors)
• 1983 – Howard Gardner wrote about multiple intelligences (intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences)
• 1990 – John Mayer and Peter Salovey coined the term EI and began a research program to measure EI.
• 1995 – Daniel Goleman published the book “Emotional Intelligence”

The very idea of ​​emotional intelligence, as the term exists today, grew out of the concept of social intelligence. In the development of cognitive science at a certain period of time, too much attention was paid to informational, “computer-like” models of intelligence, and the affective component of thinking, at least in Western psychology, faded into the background.

The concept of social intelligence was precisely the link that links together the affective and cognitive aspects of the cognition process. In the field of social intelligence, an approach has been developed that understands human cognition not as a “computing machine”, but as a cognitive-emotional process.

Another prerequisite for increased attention to emotional intelligence is humanistic psychology. After Abraham Maslow introduced the concept of self-actualization in the 50s, there was a “humanistic boom” in Western psychology, which gave rise to serious integral studies of personality, combining the cognitive and affective aspects of human nature.

One of the researchers of the humanistic wave, Peter Salovey, published an article entitled “Emotional Intelligence” in 1990, which, according to the majority in the professional community, became the first publication on this topic. He wrote that over the past few decades, ideas about both intelligence and emotions have changed radically. The mind ceased to be perceived as some kind of ideal substance, emotions as the main enemy of the intellect, and both phenomena acquired real significance in everyday human life.

Salovey and his co-author John Mayer define emotional intelligence as “the ability to perceive and understand personality expressions expressed in emotions, and to manage emotions based on intellectual processes.” In other words, emotional intelligence, in their opinion, includes 4 parts: 1) the ability to perceive or feel emotions (both your own and another person); 2) the ability to direct your emotions to help your mind; 3) the ability to understand what a particular emotion expresses; 4) the ability to manage emotions.

As Salovey's colleague David Caruso later wrote, "It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intellect, not the triumph of reason over feelings, but a unique intersection of both processes."

Reven Bar-On offers a similar model. Emotional intelligence in Bar-On’s interpretation is all non-cognitive abilities, knowledge and competence that give a person the opportunity to successfully cope with various life situations.

The development of models of emotional intelligence can be thought of as a continuum between affect and intelligence. Historically, the work of Saloway and Mayer was the first, and it included only the cognitive abilities associated with the processing of information about emotions. Then there was a shift in interpretation towards strengthening the role of personal characteristics. An extreme expression of this trend was the Bar-On model, which generally refused to classify cognitive abilities as emotional intelligence. True, in this case, “emotional intelligence” turns into a beautiful artistic metaphor, since, after all, the word “intelligence” directs the interpretation of the phenomenon into the mainstream of cognitive processes. If “emotional intelligence” is interpreted as an exclusively personal characteristic, then the very use of the term “intelligence” becomes unfounded.

In the early nineties, Daniel Goleman became familiar with the work of Salovey and Mayer, which ultimately led to the creation of the book Emotional Intelligence. Goleman wrote scientific articles for the New York Times, his section was devoted to research on behavior and the brain. He trained as a psychologist at Harvard, where he worked with, among others, David McClelland. McClelland in 1973 was part of a group of researchers who were looking at the following problem: why classic IQ tests of cognitive intelligence tell us little about how to be successful in life. IQ is not a very good predictor of job performance. Hunter and Hunter in 1984 suggested that the discrepancy between different IQ tests is on the order of 25%.

Initially, Daniel Goleman identified five components of emotional intelligence, which were later reduced to four: self-awareness, self-control, social sensitivity and relationship management, in addition, in his concept he moved from 25 skills associated with emotional intelligence to 18.

self-awareness

• emotional self-awareness
• accurate self-esteem
• self confidence

self-control

• curbing emotions
• openness
• adaptability
• The will to win
• initiative
• optimism

social sensitivity

• empathy
• business awareness
• courtesy

relationship management

• inspiration
• influence
• help in self-improvement
• promoting change
• conflict resolution
• teamwork and cooperation

Goleman does not consider emotional intelligence skills to be innate, which in practice means they can be developed.

The Hay/McBer study identified six leadership styles based on a certain level of emotional intelligence skill development. The best results are achieved by those leaders who master several management styles simultaneously.

Emotional intelligence in the concept of Manfred Ka de Vries. It makes sense to talk in a few words about who Manfred Ka de Vries is. He combines in his approach the knowledge accumulated by at least three disciplines - economics, management and psychoanalysis, being a specialist in each of these areas. This is significant, since emotional thinking, and emotion in general, play a significant role, both in management practice and in psychoanalytic practice.

One of the most difficult problems, which has not yet found its truly adequate solution, is that where we are talking about the junction of various scientific fields, a space arises that is not covered by any of these areas, or is covered, but partially, without taking into account the role of another.

Usually, one of the ways to solve this problem is to have an expert commission consisting of specialists from all related specialties for a given field, but this does not always help, since it is quite difficult for specialists from different fields to find a common language. In this case, one person has several specialties, which allows him to formulate ideas in the most adequate and accessible way for people who belong to different scientific communities.

“A unique mixture of motivations determines the character of each of us and shapes the change in our mental life - the close interconnection of cognition, affect and behavior. None of the components of this triangle can be considered in isolation from the others. It’s the holistic form that’s important.”

Cognition and affect determine behavior and action.

Emotional potential – understanding the motivations of one’s own and other people. According to Ka de Vries, it is the most important factor in the study of leadership. Acquiring emotional sensitivity is a process based on experience.

Manfred Ka de Vry uses a clinical paradigm in his work, describing it as follows:

1. What you see is not necessarily reality.
2. Any human behavior, no matter how irrational it may seem, has a logical basis.
3. We are all the result of our past.

“Character is a form of memory. This is the crystallization of a person’s inner theater, the outlines of the main aspects of personality.”

• verbal-linguistic intelligence: good verbal memory, loves to read, rich vocabulary,
• logical and mathematical intelligence: loves working with numbers, solving logical problems and puzzles, chess, abstract thinking is more developed, understands cause-and-effect relationships well,
• visual-spatial intelligence: imaginative thinking, loves art, gets more information when reading from illustrations rather than from words,
• motor-motor intelligence: high sports results, copies gestures and facial expressions well, likes to disassemble and assemble objects,
• musical-rhythmic intelligence: good voice, easily remembers melodies,
• - interpersonal intelligence: loves to communicate, leader, loves to play with other children, others prefer his company, is able to cooperate in a team,
• intrapersonal intelligence: independence, willpower, realistic self-esteem, verbalizes one’s own feelings well, developed self-awareness,
• naturalistic intelligence: interest in nature, flora and fauna.

Ka de Vries mentions that emotional intelligence according to Gardner's classification corresponds to the combined interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence.

Unlike Daniel Goleman, Manfred Ka de Vries identifies not four, but three components of emotional intelligence: “The three most important sub-skills that shape emotional potential are the ability to actively listen, understand non-verbal communication and adapt to a wide range of emotions.”

With reference to his experience, Manfred Ka de Vries gives the following main characteristics of people with high emotional potential. Such people build more stable interpersonal relationships, are better able to motivate themselves and others, are more proactive, innovative and creative, are more effective in leadership, work better under stress, cope better with change, and are more at peace with themselves.

So, if we summarize all of the above, it turns out that people with a high level of emotional intelligence understand their emotions and the feelings of other people well, can manage their emotional sphere, and therefore in society their behavior is more adaptive and they more easily achieve their goals in interaction with others.

The following hierarchically organized abilities that make up emotional intelligence are distinguished:

• perception and expression of emotions
• increasing the efficiency of thinking using emotions
• understanding your own and others' emotions
• emotion management

This hierarchy is based on the following principles: The ability to recognize and express emotions is the basis for generating emotions for solving specific problems of a procedural nature. These two classes of abilities (recognizing and expressing emotions and using them in solving problems) are the basis for the externally manifested ability to understand the events that precede and follow emotions. All of the abilities described above are necessary for the internal regulation of one’s own emotional states and for successful influence on the external environment, leading to the regulation of not only one’s own, but also those of others.

Five main components of EI:

• self-awareness
• self-control
• empathy
• relationship skills
• motivation

The structure of emotional intelligence can be represented as follows:

• Conscious regulation of emotions
• Understanding (comprehension) of emotions
• Discrimination (recognition) and expression of emotions
• Using emotions in mental activity

There are two different opinions regarding the possibility of developing emotional intelligence in psychology. A number of scientists take the position that it is impossible to increase the level of emotional intelligence, since it is a relatively stable ability. However, it is quite possible to increase emotional competence through training. Their opponents believe that emotional intelligence can be developed. An argument in favor of this position is the fact that the brain's neural pathways continue to develop until the middle of human life.

EQ and negative emotions. One of the remarkable consequences of developing emotional intelligence is the reduction of negative emotions. Any negative emotion is a mistake in a person’s picture of the world. Worldview (an NLP term) refers to a person’s set of beliefs about what our world is like. As soon as any two beliefs begin to contradict each other, this causes a negative emotion. Let's give an example. A person has a deep conviction “to deceive is bad”, and at the same time another conviction “now I must deceive.” In themselves, these beliefs do not carry any negativity, but if they start spinning in your head at the same time... then a sea of ​​negative emotions appears: fear of making a decision and making a mistake, guilt for either of two decisions, depression, anger at yourself, anger at people, who are involved in the situation, etc.

Developed emotional intelligence allows you to see beyond the sea of ​​negative emotions their cause (a conflict of several beliefs), the reason for this cause, etc., after which you can soberly assess the situation and respond to it wisely, and not under the influence of “inner springs.” In other words, emotional intelligence allows you to quickly understand the causes of negative emotions, instead of experiencing them for a long, long time.

EQ and leadership. Most books on emotional intelligence are related to leadership in one way or another. The idea is that leaders are people with strong emotional intelligence. And that's why. Firstly, the development of emotional intelligence allows you to get rid of many fears and doubts, begin to act and communicate with people to achieve your goals. Secondly, emotional intelligence allows you to understand the motives of other people, “read them like a book.” And this means finding the right people and interacting effectively with them.

The power of leadership is used in different ways: either to manipulate people, or to do one big thing together. Regardless of his intentions, a leader can achieve results through the efforts of many people, which increases the likelihood of success for a leader compared to an individual. This is why a leader does not need to have a high IQ. His EQ allows him to surround himself with smart people and harness their genius.

EQ and business. Developing emotional intelligence helps a lot when creating your own business. Moving towards any goal forces a person to face many fears and doubts. A person with low emotional intelligence is likely to turn aside under their pressure. A person with developed emotional intelligence will come face to face with his fears and, perhaps, will understand that not everything is so scary, which means he will continue to slowly move forward. A person with high emotional intelligence simply will not have internal inhibitions; he will deal with his fears on the fly and will happily move towards his goals. Thus, the skill of understanding your emotions is directly related to the effectiveness of achieving your goals.

EQ and materialization of thoughts. The average person has thoughts running around in his head like cockroaches, and behind every thought hides an army of “unprocessed” emotions. In such a state, it is difficult to concentrate on one idea for a long time: it immediately begins to be attacked by opposing thoughts (what if, what if, maybe, what will they think). With the development of emotional intelligence, negative emotions weaken their influence, it becomes possible to think clearly and clearly, which means paying the main attention to the main things. Thus, with the development of emotional intelligence, a person's dreams become reality faster and faster.

EQ and personal effectiveness. Personal effectiveness is a direct consequence of the development of emotional intelligence. Personal effectiveness can be looked at from different perspectives: time management, discipline, motivation, plans and goals. The development of emotional intelligence means a transition from a zombie to a conscious life, a movement from reactive to proactive behavior, from aimless wandering in the dark to the effective implementation of one’s intentions. And it all comes down to one simple idea, but incredibly complex in practice: understanding your feelings and emotions.

Development of emotional intelligence
From the point of view of working with the subconscious, there are two groups of techniques for developing emotional intelligence. Conventionally, they can be called:

• reprogramming
• deprogramming.

“Reprogramming” includes, for example, neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and hypnosis. NLP as a science studies many different techniques that allow you to “program” the subconscious to work more harmoniously.

The second group of techniques can be conditionally called “deprogramming” - ridding the subconscious of unnecessary beliefs. Deprogramming allows one to realize hidden emotions and thus weaken the effect of beliefs (“cockroaches”) on a person’s will.

Methods of “deprogramming” the subconscious:

Intuitive writing (a special case is journaling). The essence of this technique is simple: sit and write everything that comes to mind. After about 15 minutes, complete delirium begins to give way to a pure stream of consciousness. And solutions to many problems that caused stress and negative emotions become simple and obvious. However, it was previously mentioned that “cockroaches” from the subconscious have powerful protection, so not all people are able to sit and write out all their thoughts for half an hour - it becomes boring, painful and uncomfortable. On the other hand, it is worth trying once to understand the disadvantages and advantages of this method.

Meditation is passive observation of your thoughts. There are many types of meditations. One of them is awareness of your internal monologue (and this is very difficult). Such meditation allows you to “catch by the tail” any negative emotions, understand their causes and understand their ridiculousness. Programmers will understand: meditation can be compared to debugging a program. True, unlike computer programs, the object of debugging is negative emotions, and its result is getting rid of unnecessary instructions that cause stress.

Be Set Free Fast (BSFF) is a popular technique developed by psychologist Larry Nims. The idea of ​​the method is simple: if the subconscious mind readily carries out the commands embedded in it, then it can also carry out the command to get rid of unnecessary commands. The essence of the method is to write down and see the beliefs associated with the problem, and with the help of a special command for the subconscious, remove the emotional charge from them. BSFF can be used purposefully to increase emotional intelligence or simply to relieve any psychological discomfort.

The Sedona Method, letting go of emotions, was developed by Lester Levenson. While bedridden, he realized that all problems have their key at the emotional level. Of course, the author of this method soon recovered. The essence of the Sedona method is to identify the underlying emotion associated with a problem, feel it and let it go using a simple procedure.

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a technique for emotional release. The main postulate of EFT: “The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption of the normal functioning of the body’s energy system.” EFT uses pressure on acupuncture points on the human body to relieve emotional stress and release negative emotions.

PEAT – Zivorad Slavinsky method. The technique uses the principles of EFT and BSFF, and its essence lies in the transition from a dual perception of the world (I am not me), which gives rise to problems and stress, to a unified perception (there is only the world, and I am only its manifestation). This allows you to achieve harmony with the world and with yourself.

There are three possible stages of development of emotional intelligence.

The first is knowing yourself. The next step in developing emotional intelligence is the ability to manage your feelings and emotions. The third stage in the development of emotional intelligence can be a step towards mastering the following skills:

Actively listen. Listening is much more than just silently waiting for your turn to speak, nodding your head from time to time. Active listeners do only one thing—they fully participate in what is being said.

Listen with your eyes. The second skill - the perception of gestures - in general also relates to the ability to listen. But he also helps convey his own thoughts.

Adapt to emotions. Every emotional state has a positive and negative side. Take anger, for example. Although it alienates others, interferes with critical self-esteem and paralyzes the body, it also serves as a defense against self-esteem: it creates a sense of justice and encourages action.

Emotional intelligence allows you to quickly understand the causes of negative emotions, instead of experiencing them for a long time.

The development of emotional intelligence allows you to get rid of many fears and doubts, begin to act and communicate with people to achieve your goals.

Our time is special. Nowadays, the psyche and brain cells are constantly affected by streams of the most diverse, sometimes unnecessary, and sometimes harmful information - this is on the one hand, and on the other hand, there are not enough hours in the day to truly understand everything that bursts into us into the brain through the channels of the sensory organs. In everything that we see, hear, touch, smell, feel, experience, and cannot help but think about. Our time and our whole life are characterized by instability and uncertainty about the future. That is why many are in a state of almost continuous and very peculiar psychophysical tension. For which, in the end, you have to pay. First of all, health. Extensive statistics inexorably state a rather sad situation - about half of all deaths in economically developed countries are caused by diseases of the heart and blood vessels. These diseases develop not at all in connection with physical overload, but mainly from chronic neuropsychic overstrain. It primarily affects the cardiovascular system, which reacts very sharply to everything that happens in the world of our thoughts and feelings. And when we are dissatisfied with something for a long time, are afraid of something, suffer or are influenced by other negative, harmful emotions, all this, like insidious arrows, digs into our heart and wounds it. Every person must learn to manage themselves, their mental and physical state. Only under this condition can you withstand stressful situations. In other words, it is necessary for everyone to possess the capabilities that are inherent in mental self-regulation.

Nature, when creating people, endowed their bodies with a great ability for self-regulation. Thanks to this, the heart itself, without any intervention on our part, begins to beat more powerfully when, for example, we switch from walking to running. At the same time, blood pressure rises, breathing becomes deeper, metabolism is activated - and all this without our help, as if by itself, based on the laws of self-regulation.

Nervous shocks can disrupt not only sleep, but also the functioning of the heart, blood vessels, gastrointestinal tract, and respiratory organs. Of course, you can resort to the help of medications and use them to establish natural self-regulation processes, but medications are not omnipotent and not safe.

When a person masters mental self-regulation, he gains the opportunity to provide reasonable assistance to natural self-regulation. And then the equipment in the face of all kinds of difficulties only increases, so that sometimes one can only be surprised at the abilities that those who have learned to manage the mechanisms of self-regulation begin to demonstrate.

In modern society, particularly clear self-control, high self-control, the ability to make operational decisions, manage work operations, behavior and emotions are often necessary. A person’s inability to regulate his mental state and actions leads to negative and often severe consequences both for himself and for those around him (in the work of operators, pilots, drivers, while on guard duty, etc.).

Mood is the emotional tone in which the events of a person’s external and internal life are colored. Mood is a relatively long-lasting, stable mental state of moderate or weak intensity. Depending on the degree of awareness of the reasons that caused a particular mood, it is experienced either as an undifferentiated general emotional background ("elevated", "depressed" mood, etc.), or as a clearly identifiable state (boredom, sadness, melancholy, fear or, on the contrary, enthusiasm, joy, jubilation, delight, etc.).

A relatively stable mood arises as a result of the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of a person’s significant needs and aspirations. The change of positive and negative moods is a natural and necessary process that contributes to better and more adequate emotional differentiation of events.

Emotional stress. Stress is a state of mental tension that occurs in a person during activities both in everyday life and under special circumstances. In a broad sense, stress. - this is any emotional reaction of a person to an activity. Stress in the narrow sense is an emotional reaction under extreme conditions. Stress can have both a positive, mobilizing and negative effect on both activity (up to its complete disorganization) and on the human body.

Stress is our daily companion, so whether we like it or not, we must take it into account. Even if we do not feel its impact at all, this does not give us the right to forget about it and the danger it poses. Unforeseen situations often arise during the working day. As a result, hidden tension increases and at a certain moment, when there are too many negative emotions, everything turns into stress. The internal state is reflected in the appearance: the face becomes gloomy, the lips compress, the head sinks into the shoulders, the muscles tense. It is clear that the person is excited, nervous, i.e. is in a state of stress. Prolonged stress can lead to accidents and even suicide.

Trance states. In traditional psychology, trance is defined as a disorder of consciousness, manifested in automatic acts of behavior without awareness of the surrounding situation and the goals of one’s actions. A person’s behavior during trance may seem orderly, he is able to answer simple questions and perform familiar actions.

Affect is a strong, violent, sudden, short-term emotional state that disorganizes human activity, characterized by a narrowing of consciousness (perception), simplification of thinking, thoughtlessness of actions, reduced self-control and little awareness of what is happening. Affect is an emotional reaction to an impossible, unacceptable, vital situation incompatible with the position of the subject. Behavioral forms of affect can be numbness, flight, aggression. Sometimes affect arises as a result of repetitions of situations that cause one or another negative state. In such cases, an accumulation of affect occurs, as a result of which it can be discharged in violent, uncontrollable behavior (affective explosion) and in the absence of exceptional circumstances.

Psychoregulation is an independent scientific direction, the main goal of which is the formation of special mental states that contribute to the most optimal use of a person’s physical and psychological capabilities. Mental regulation is understood as a purposeful change in both individual psychophysiological functions and the overall neuropsychic state, achieved through specially organized mental activity. This occurs due to special central brain restructuring, as a result of which an integrative activity of the body is created that concentrates and most rationally directs all its capabilities to solve specific problems.

Techniques of direct influence on the functional state can be conditionally classified into two main groups: external and internal.

The group of external methods of optimizing the functional state includes: the reflexological method (impact on reflexogenic zones and biologically active points), organization of a diet, pharmacology, functional music and light-musical influences, bibliotherapy, a powerful class of methods for actively influencing one person on another (persuasion, order, suggestion, hypnosis). Let's briefly look at the characteristics of some of them.

The reflexology method, widely used in medicine to treat various diseases, is currently gaining popularity outside of therapeutic practice. In recent years, it has become intensively used to prevent borderline conditions, increase efficiency, and urgently mobilize internal reserves.

Normalization of diet, as a method of reflexology, is not directly related to psychotherapeutic procedures. However, it is useful to have information about the use of appropriate medical and physiological techniques and their role in optimizing functional status.

It is well known that the body’s lack of necessary nutrients leads to a decrease in resistance and, as a result, contributes to the rapid development of fatigue, the occurrence of stress reactions, etc. Therefore, a balanced daily diet, proper organization of the diet, and the inclusion of special products in the menu are rightfully considered as one of the effective ways to prevent unfavorable conditions.

Pharmacotherapy is one of the most ancient and widespread methods of influencing the human condition. In recent years, there have been more and more publications about the positive effect of using various types of medications and special food additives that increase performance. To prevent conditions that do not go beyond normal, the main focus should be on using techniques that are as natural as possible for the body.

Functional music, as well as its combination with light and color influences, has become widely used throughout the world. Specially selected music programs are an effective means of combating monotony, the initial stages of fatigue, and preventing neuro-emotional breakdowns. The experience of using bibliotherapy, the method of “therapeutic reading” proposed by V.M. Bekhterev, is also interesting. Usually this method is implemented in the form of listening to excerpts from works of art (prose, poetry). Although the mechanisms of influence on the human state of functional music and listening to passages of text are different, their effects reveal significant similarities.

An independent group of methods for optimizing the functional state includes various methods of actively influencing one person on another. To prevent unfavorable functional states, the most developed and most often used are hypnotic techniques based on a specific form of suggestion. The possibilities of using hypnotic techniques are quite high, but its use is not always advisable. First, hypnotic immersion represents a change in state of consciousness of a special nature. Secondly, the contingent of hypnotizable people, especially qualified specialists, is very limited. And besides, the unattractive passive role assigned to the subject during influence, the external imposition of the state, dependence on the personality and attitudes of the hypnotist.

A person’s active attitude towards managing their condition is especially important. In this regard, it seems important to become more familiar with another group of methods of influencing the functional state, a group of internal methods or methods of self-regulation of states.

2. BASIC TECHNIQUES AND METHODS OF SELF-REGULATION

self-regulation guard service reflex

Self-regulation is conventionally divided into biological (reflex, as the highest form of biological) and consciously controlled.

Biological self-regulation is genetically encoded complex internal processes that underlie the growth, development, vital activity and protective functions of the body of both humans and animals and plants. Biological self-regulation occurs without the participation of consciousness. For example, during anesthesia the heart continues to beat. Even in the dead, biological self-regulation maintains the growth of hair and nails.

Reflex self-regulation ensures that the sensory organs perceive signals from the external environment. For example, the work of the heart can change from a sharp knock, from a perceived image and even a smell. This property of the body to change biological self-regulation through feelings is the basis of the phenomena of suggestion, hypnosis and other methods of influence. Suggestion is a targeted psychological influence on a person in order to cause, through the senses, a change in biological self-regulation in the desired direction. Consciously controlled self-regulation is classic auto-training or mental self-regulation.

Mental self-regulation is the influence of a person on himself with the help of words and corresponding mental images. By mental self-regulation we mean mental self-influence for the purposeful regulation of the comprehensive activities of the body, its processes, reactions and states. What these definitions have in common is the identification of the human condition as an object of influence and internal means of regulation, primarily the means of mental activity.

The main feature of the methods of self-regulation of states is their focus on the formation of adequate internal means that allow a person to carry out special activities to change his state. In our everyday lives, we often intuitively use sets of such techniques developed through individual experience that allow us to cope with anxiety, quickly get into a working rhythm, and relax and unwind as much as possible. This experience is reflected in almost any centuries-old culture of different peoples, within which entire systems of techniques and means of self-regulation of states that have a clearly expressed teaching and educational character were created. “Learn to manage yourself” - this is the main motto of this kind of measures, embedded in various philosophical and religious teachings, pedagogical systems, rituals and forms of organizing everyday life.

The developed methods of self-regulation are most often based on the generalization of this useful and multifaceted experience. At the same time, one of the most important tasks is to study the specific mechanisms of influences of this kind, cleared of distorted mystical, religious and simply incorrect everyday ideas.

Mastering the basics of psychocorrection and psychotraining requires, first of all, the desire to develop your skills, as well as the ability to find time for systematic training of yourself and your colleagues.

Relying on these materials will improve your capabilities.

Breathing exercises.

Abdominal breathing helps relieve neuropsychic tension and restore mental balance. During training, it is necessary to ensure that inhalation and exhalation are carried out by filling the lower third of the lungs with the movement of the abdominal wall, while the chest and shoulders remain motionless.

The breathing cycle should be carried out according to the formula “4-2-4”, i.e. inhale for 4 counts, pause for 2 counts and exhale for 4 counts. It is recommended to breathe slowly through the nose, focusing on the breathing process. At the initial stage, you can connect images, imagining how air fills your lungs and comes out back.

After correct assimilation of this type of breathing, military personnel are recommended to use it when the first signs of mental tension, attacks of irritability or fear appear. 2-3 minutes of such breathing, as a rule, help restore mental balance or significantly weaken negative emotions.

Clavicular (upper) breathing is carried out by the upper third of the lungs with the shoulders raised. Inhale and exhale through the nose with deep and fast movements. It is used when signs of fatigue, apathy or drowsiness occur in order to activate mental processes and restore a sense of vigor.

Muscle tone control.

Each negative emotion has its own representation in the muscles of the body. Constantly experiencing negative emotions leads to muscle strain and muscle tension. Since there is a close relationship between the psyche and the body, both mental tension causes an increase in muscle tone, and muscle relaxation leads to a decrease in neuropsychic agitation. You can reduce muscle tone through self-massage, self-hypnosis, and special stretches. The simplest and most effective way is self-massage. It can be taught in pairs, when one student performs the techniques, and the second monitors the correctness of their implementation and provides assistance. First, military personnel are asked to switch to already mastered abdominal breathing and achieve a calm state, while trying to relax their muscles as much as possible. The partner controls which muscle groups of the face, neck, shoulders, and arms remain tense and points to them. In the future, the student must pay constant attention to these places, because these are his individual muscle clamps. Then he begins self-massage of the facial muscles - using his fingertips he makes spiral-shaped, patting movements from the center to the periphery, successively passing the muscles of the forehead, cheeks, cheekbones, back of the head, neck, shoulders, forearms, hands, etc.

After self-massage, he remains in a relaxed state for several minutes, trying to remember his sensations, and then switches to clavicular breathing and silently pronouncing the self-hypnosis formulas “I am alert, well rested, ready for further work,” and returns to the waking state. When massaging the neck-shoulder area, you can resort to the help of a friend. The ability to relax muscles is a preparatory exercise for learning to enter altered states of consciousness and use self-hypnosis.

Ideomotor training.

Since any mental movement is accompanied by micromovements of the muscles, it is possible to improve action skills without actually performing them. At its core, ideomotor training is a mental replay of the upcoming activity. For all its benefits (saving effort, material costs, time), this method requires the student to take a serious attitude, the ability to concentrate, mobilize the imagination, and the ability not to be distracted throughout the entire training.

At the beginning of the training, trainees can relax their muscles, use lower breathing and immerse themselves in a calm, slightly drowsy state. After this, the manager begins to describe the task. When conducting ideomotor training, it is recommended to observe the following principles: trainees must create an extremely accurate image of the movements being practiced; the mental image of movement must necessarily be associated with its muscular-articular feeling, only then will it be an ideomotor idea; imagining the movements mentally, you need to accompany it with a verbal description following the lesson leader, spoken in a whisper or mentally; when starting to train a new movement, you need to mentally see it in slow motion, which can be accelerated in the process of further training; if during training the body itself begins to make some movements, this should not be prevented; immediately before performing a real action, there is no need to think about its result, since the result displaces from consciousness the idea of ​​​​how to perform the action.

Ideomotor training will help reduce the impact of the factor of novelty, which leads to faster mastery of new skills, formation of an image of upcoming actions and increases the level of psychological readiness for them.

3. METHODS OF SELF-REGULATION WHEN PERFORMING GUARD SERVICE

1. Before loading the weapon and accepting the post, set yourself up:

"I am attentive... My vision and hearing are extremely acute..."

2. While on duty:

To overcome fatigue and drowsiness, repeat mentally or in a whisper:

"I am in control."

“My body is filled with strength and vigor.”

"I'm ready to take action." Activate your breathing (inhale long, inhale short and sharp). Raise your shoulders and squeeze and release your abdominal muscles.

To increase your activity, periodically tune yourself:

"I'm paying attention."

“All will is aimed at fulfilling the combat mission.”

Focus on the most important and alarming thought (a possible attack on the post, a sudden change in weather conditions, waiting for the inspector) and mentally play out the options for your actions in various situations.

3. In the guardroom, while on a waking shift:

Sit comfortably, relax, direct your gaze to one point on the wall or floor (as if thinking).

Vividly imagining the learned actions when loading a weapon, when repelling an attack on a post or when putting out a fire, inspire yourself:

"I'm always cool and collected."

Repeat several times, returning to these thoughts every 15-20 minutes. Don't hold back your yawning or the need to stretch your body, and even practically fake it from time to time.

4. In the guardhouse, while on a rest shift:

To quickly fall asleep and deep sleep, breathe rhythmically, imitating the sleeper (inhalation and exhalation are long, equal in length), inspiring yourself:

"My body is relaxed and resting... I am plunging into a sweet slumber... peace... complete peace..."

If rest time is limited, take a comfortable position on a chair (place the stool against the wall and lean your back), unfasten the top button, loosen or remove the waist belt, naturally slouch, put your hands on your knees, your hands should hang slightly without touching each other, Place your legs comfortably, tilt your head slightly forward, open your teeth and relax your lips, your facial expression should be calm, it’s better to close your eyes.

For thorough relaxation, first clench your hands into a fist, tuck your toes, and after 4-5 seconds, using the mental command “One,” quickly open and relax your hands and straighten your toes, feeling the warmth in them. At the same time, mentally inspire yourself: “My hands and feet are warm (as in warm water).

You sit comfortably, relax and rest calmly, even doze, but clearly perceive any command. Tell yourself:

"I'm resting... enjoying my vacation... Every cell of my body is resting... restoring its strength... I'm resting... I'm well rested..."

After this, activate your body as you inhale, clench your fists, open your eyes, and as you exhale, unclench your fists. Set yourself up:

“I control myself...” clench your fists again, tense the muscles of your arms, shoulders and abdominals and mentally tell yourself (against the backdrop of a deep breath and holding your breath): “My body is filled with strength and vigor!”

Against the background of a sharp exhalation and a quick rise: “Ready to take active action!”

Regular use (at least 10-12 times) of learned techniques of emotional-volitional self-regulation will provide you with real help when performing guard duty.

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Our time is special. Nowadays, the psyche and brain cells are constantly affected by streams of the most diverse, sometimes unnecessary, and sometimes harmful information - this is on the one hand, and on the other hand, there are not enough hours in the day to truly understand everything that bursts into us into the brain through the channels of the sensory organs. In everything that we see, hear, touch, smell, feel, experience, and cannot help but think about. Our time and our whole life are characterized by instability and uncertainty about the future. That is why many are in a state of almost continuous and very peculiar psychophysical tension. For which, in the end, you have to pay. First of all, health. Extensive statistics inexorably state a rather sad situation - about half of all deaths in economically developed countries are caused by diseases of the heart and blood vessels. These diseases develop not at all in connection with physical overload, but mainly from chronic neuropsychic overstrain. It primarily affects the cardiovascular system, which reacts very sharply to everything that happens in the world of our thoughts and feelings. And when we are dissatisfied with something for a long time, are afraid of something, suffer or are influenced by other negative, harmful emotions, all this, like insidious arrows, digs into our heart and wounds it. Every person must learn to manage themselves, their mental and physical state. Only under this condition can you withstand stressful situations. In other words, it is necessary for everyone to possess the capabilities that are inherent in mental self-regulation.

Nature, when creating people, endowed their bodies with a great ability for self-regulation. Thanks to this, the heart itself, without any intervention on our part, begins to beat more powerfully when, for example, we switch from walking to running. At the same time, blood pressure rises, breathing becomes deeper, metabolism is activated - and all this without our help, as if by itself, based on the laws of self-regulation.

Nervous shocks can disrupt not only sleep, but also the functioning of the heart, blood vessels, gastrointestinal tract, and respiratory organs. Of course, you can resort to the help of medications and use them to establish natural self-regulation processes, but medications are not omnipotent and not safe.

When a person masters mental self-regulation, he gains the opportunity to provide reasonable assistance to natural self-regulation. And then the equipment in the face of all kinds of difficulties only increases, so that sometimes one can only be surprised at the abilities that those who have learned to manage the mechanisms of self-regulation begin to demonstrate.

In modern society, particularly clear self-control, high self-control, the ability to make operational decisions, manage work operations, behavior and emotions are often necessary. A person’s inability to regulate his mental state and actions leads to negative and often severe consequences both for himself and for those around him (in the work of operators, pilots, drivers, while on guard duty, etc.).

Mood is the emotional tone in which the events of a person’s external and internal life are colored. Mood is a relatively long-lasting, stable mental state of moderate or weak intensity. Depending on the degree of awareness of the reasons that caused a particular mood, it is experienced either as an undifferentiated general emotional background ("elevated", "depressed" mood, etc.), or as a clearly identifiable state (boredom, sadness, melancholy, fear or, on the contrary, enthusiasm, joy, jubilation, delight, etc.).

A relatively stable mood arises as a result of the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of a person’s significant needs and aspirations. The change of positive and negative moods is a natural and necessary process that contributes to better and more adequate emotional differentiation of events.

Emotional stress. Stress is a state of mental tension that occurs in a person during activities both in everyday life and under special circumstances. In a broad sense, stress. - this is any emotional reaction of a person to an activity. Stress in the narrow sense is an emotional reaction under extreme conditions. Stress can have both a positive, mobilizing and negative effect on both activity (up to its complete disorganization) and on the human body.

Stress is our daily companion, so whether we like it or not, we must take it into account. Even if we do not feel its impact at all, this does not give us the right to forget about it and the danger it poses. Unforeseen situations often arise during the working day. As a result, hidden tension increases and at a certain moment, when there are too many negative emotions, everything turns into stress. The internal state is reflected in the appearance: the face becomes gloomy, the lips compress, the head sinks into the shoulders, the muscles tense. It is clear that the person is excited, nervous, i.e. is in a state of stress. Prolonged stress can lead to accidents and even suicide.

Trance states. In traditional psychology, trance is defined as a disorder of consciousness, manifested in automatic acts of behavior without awareness of the surrounding situation and the goals of one’s actions. A person’s behavior during trance may seem orderly, he is able to answer simple questions and perform familiar actions.

Affect is a strong, violent, sudden, short-term emotional state that disorganizes human activity, characterized by a narrowing of consciousness (perception), simplification of thinking, thoughtlessness of actions, reduced self-control and little awareness of what is happening. Affect is an emotional reaction to an impossible, unacceptable, vital situation incompatible with the position of the subject. Behavioral forms of affect can be numbness, flight, aggression. Sometimes affect arises as a result of repetitions of situations that cause one or another negative state. In such cases, an accumulation of affect occurs, as a result of which it can be discharged in violent, uncontrollable behavior (affective explosion) and in the absence of exceptional circumstances.

Psychoregulation is an independent scientific direction, the main goal of which is the formation of special mental states that contribute to the most optimal use of a person’s physical and psychological capabilities. Mental regulation is understood as a purposeful change in both individual psychophysiological functions and the overall neuropsychic state, achieved through specially organized mental activity. This occurs due to special central brain restructuring, as a result of which an integrative activity of the body is created that concentrates and most rationally directs all its capabilities to solve specific problems.

Techniques of direct influence on the functional state can be conditionally classified into two main groups: external and internal.

The group of external methods of optimizing the functional state includes: the reflexological method (impact on reflexogenic zones and biologically active points), organization of a diet, pharmacology, functional music and light-musical influences, bibliotherapy, a powerful class of methods for actively influencing one person on another (persuasion, order, suggestion, hypnosis). Let's briefly look at the characteristics of some of them.

The reflexology method, widely used in medicine to treat various diseases, is currently gaining popularity outside of therapeutic practice. In recent years, it has become intensively used to prevent borderline conditions, increase efficiency, and urgently mobilize internal reserves.

Normalization of diet, as a method of reflexology, is not directly related to psychotherapeutic procedures. However, it is useful to have information about the use of appropriate medical and physiological techniques and their role in optimizing functional status.

It is well known that the body’s lack of necessary nutrients leads to a decrease in resistance and, as a result, contributes to the rapid development of fatigue, the occurrence of stress reactions, etc. Therefore, a balanced daily diet, proper organization of the diet, and the inclusion of special products in the menu are rightfully considered as one of the effective ways to prevent unfavorable conditions.

Pharmacotherapy is one of the most ancient and widespread methods of influencing the human condition. In recent years, there have been more and more publications about the positive effect of using various types of medications and special food additives that increase performance. To prevent conditions that do not go beyond normal, the main focus should be on using techniques that are as natural as possible for the body.

Functional music, as well as its combination with light and color influences, has become widely used throughout the world. Specially selected music programs are an effective means of combating monotony, the initial stages of fatigue, and preventing neuro-emotional breakdowns. The experience of using bibliotherapy, the method of “therapeutic reading” proposed by V.M. Bekhterev, is also interesting. Usually this method is implemented in the form of listening to excerpts from works of art (prose, poetry). Although the mechanisms of influence on the human state of functional music and listening to passages of text are different, their effects reveal significant similarities.