Life after an eye injury. Psychological characteristics of the personality of people with visual impairment
This article will focus on the psychosomatic causes of poor vision, and will also give some recommendations for changing the ways of thinking, which caused visual impairment.
Our eyes are not just one of the sense organs, they are completely responsible for our perception and vision of things both around us and in ourselves. Eyes - personify the ability to clearly see the past, present and future. If vision is impaired, the perception of reality and oneself as they are is impaired. Visual impairment is an unwillingness to see or notice certain things around oneself (nearsightedness) or in oneself (farsightedness), as well as in life in general.
Psychosomatic causes of poor vision
Aggressive emotions such as hatred, anger, anger accumulate in the soul, and they create problems with the eyes, because the eyes are the mirror of the soul. Such people are prevented from seeing the good by their pride and stubbornness. They do not understand that they see the bad in their world only because they look at the world through the prism of their aggressive emotions. There is only one way out - to clear your perception of negative thinking, patterns and prejudices, then the world will become a better place. Create for yourself a world that you would be pleased to look at.
The eyes are where sadness is released. Vision problems occur when sadness is not fully poured out. Therefore, the eyes get sick both in those who cry constantly and in those who never cry. When people reproach their eyes for seeing only one unpleasant thing, the foundation of an eye disease is laid.
Poor vision is a direct consequence of a suppressed desire not to see something and (or) someone. Visual impairment is a signal (metaphor, message) that the need and need for something and someone not to see has become unbearable, and there is no way to satisfy it (i.e. avoid a harmful stimulus).
Losing sight, a person receives a “secondary benefit” for this, that is, he gains the opportunity not to see intently what he does not want to see, and over time this develops into the benefit of not doing something (for example, doing small work with farsightedness). He cannot (or rather does not allow himself) to manage his life in such a way that the stimulus disappears from his field of vision, so that by weakening his vision, he facilitates psychological experience (compensation takes place).
Forced to see what he does not want to see, a person creates a contradiction between the parts of his experience.(good vision on the one hand and "bad" psychological vision on the other), - and his good vision equates to "poor psychological vision"(synchronization).
And finally, it is obvious that a person thereby generates in his mind rigid programs of "bad" visual experience(it manifests itself in the words: “I don’t want to see you”, “get out of my eyes”, “my eyes wouldn’t see you”, “and don’t show yourself in my eyes”, “it’s sickening to see you”, “it hurts to look at all this " And so on and so forth).
It is no coincidence that, according to statistics, young people's vision deteriorates, as a rule, with a minus sign ( myopia or myopia) and in the elderly - with a plus sign(farsightedness). Older people have a lot of past, and in the past there is a lot of pain, disappointments, mistakes and all that you don’t want to see in yourself. And for young people it is a fear of “prospects”, a fear of the future.
Another reason for the deterioration of vision is associated with the establishment of a forced physical boundary at a glance distance. Such boundaries are the walls of houses, fences, books, monitor and TV screens, etc. (there are even studies confirming that the more densely populated the city and the less space it has (the house literally stands on the house), the statistically worse the eyesight of its inhabitants).
There is always an obstacle in front of your eyes, on which you focus your eyes. The eyes, meeting constant obstacles, train to see only up to a certain distance ( a common person, waking up, does not see beyond the walls, going out into the street immediately directs his eyes under his feet, in public transport he looks at a book, at work - at a monitor and vice versa).
Many eyes are simply not trained to look beyond a few meters.(that is why, when working with the vision restoration system, I insist not only to completely abandon glasses, but also to relieve the eyes as much as possible). This distance is set unconsciously by the person himself in order to isolate himself from something external.(for example, do not see real world beyond your book, TV or computer game).
Visual impairment can also be associated with the type and style of thinking. In addition to our eyes, we have another kind of “eyes”, which are able to see at any distance and overcome any obstacles, which see equally well both at night and during the day. These "eyes" are our minds.
The mind is capable of modeling visual sensations without any connection to the fact that in this moment time see our own eyes. A person who reads a lot, dreams of an unrealizable, fantasy future, or often draws pictures of the past, all the time creates visual pictures in his head that are not in reality (not here and now). Over time, his eyes (physical vision) actually become a sensory vestige of psychological vision. The true visual function is oppressed all the time, roughly speaking, as unnecessary, and visual impairment occurs.
People who live all the time "here and now" have very little chance of ruining their eyesight. That is, because most of the time they use only physiological vision, and very little - vision, so to speak, psychological.
It was a generalization of several of the most adequate theories of visual impairment. And now, for convenience, I will analyze each of the cases of visual impairment separately.
Myopia
With myopia, a person does not see far, but sees well near - this means that a person is concentrated on himself and on his immediate environment. It is usually difficult (or scary) for people with myopia to look into the future, to make long-term plans (i.e. they do not see a picture of their life in a year, in five, ten years), it is difficult for them to predict the consequences of their actions.
IN this case a person needs to develop the skill of building his long-range plans, and in addition to expand the scope of his interests to a large area (for example, to begin to be interested in world events, etc.)
In the case of farsightedness, people experience fear of the future, the inability to perceive it objectively. b, distrust of what awaits them ahead, a sense of constant danger, alertness, hostility of the world towards them. Such people do not see the future.
In addition, myopia develops in people prone to generalization and schematization of reality.. Those of its realities that do not fit into their logical structure are ignored.
Myopia often suffers from people who are too focused on themselves and hardly perceive other people's ideas (they see and perceive only ideas “close” to them in spirit, and those that are “far away” do not see, do not perceive, do not allocate space for them in the world). They have limited vision.
Myopia can also mean fixation on the external, on the form, on the surface., the presence of rigid stereotypes of perception that interfere with the objective perception of reality.
“Nearsighted” people are constantly judging other people, and they literally can’t see beyond their own noses. They don't like what they see around them, they don't notice any of it. beautiful world, no beautiful people, but they see only the negative, therefore they unconsciously chose “not to see” (there is nothing to look at, there is nothing good there). In fact, what short-sighted people do not like about the world around them and people is just a reflection of their own behavior.
The psychological causes of visual impairment can also be determined based on the period in which it began to fall:
For example, some develop nearsightedness as early as early school or preschool age. The reasons are that they have a lot of negativity at home, in the family, in the relationship of their parents - quarrels, screams, even beatings. It is painful for a child to see this, because for him his parents are the closest people, and he himself cannot influence the situation. And as a psychological defense, his eyes weaken, myopia helps him dull the pain, "not seeing" what is happening. This is one of the reasons.
There is also a reverse option. For example, d oma, before school or kindergarten, a harmonious atmosphere reigns in the child's family, good and respectful relations between parents, the child receives love and support. Having got used to such an attitude, he finds himself in a team where conditions are completely different - no one loves him just like that, he has to fulfill certain conditions in order to achieve good relationship teachers and friendship of classmates.
The model of the world that he learned in the family turns out to be absolutely different from the “big” world, and he himself turns out to be not ready for reality. The child does not want to put up with what he now sees, is experiencing stress, pain. As a result, this leads to the fact that he develops myopia - and he can clearly see only what is next to him, fencing himself off from the injustice and cruelty around him.
For many, visual impairment occurs during puberty. Adolescents are faced with the topic of self-identification with their gender and, accordingly, many fears arise on these issues: how boys look like men, and girls like women, whether they will succeed as partners and choose them as partners, etc., if it is very difficult for a teenager to look into the above areas, as a result, vision falls.
Such teenagers are afraid of becoming adults, as they are alarmed and frightened by what they see in the adult world (example: they do not like the lifestyle of the adults who surround him, they want a different fate and live differently, but in fact they simply avoid growing up , not wanting to see their future).
If your eyesight began to deteriorate during graduation ( first year of college) this may mean that you are afraid of joining a new, more adult community.
During the period of graduation from the institute, young people, as well as before the institute, have a fear of adult life, a fear of not taking place in the professional field - “children's games are over, here it is.” adulthood”, in this case, fear also blocks vision.
In general terms, the mechanism is clear. And it also works in adults, since most of our states we take out of childhood without much revision.
Sometimes myopia is not associated with fears of the future and prospects. In this case, it is necessary to understand at what age vision began to fall, because. perhaps at this age some event happened that was hard to look at and the person “chosen” due to his vision “not to look” at this event.
If vision has not returned to normal with age, then the theme of the event or period for a person is still subconsciously relevant. In this case, it is necessary to deal with the event or period that was difficult for him to look at or was difficult to accept, survive.
For example, if your eyesight fell during puberty and never recovered after that, then you still do not accept yourself as an adult man / woman and do not take on the functions associated with these roles. Or if vision has fallen sharply after childbirth - the key to recovery in motherhood(in relation to oneself as a mother, in relation to a child, in accepting the role of a mother, etc.).
Recommendations: in order to correct your vision (nearsightedness), you need to get rid of the fear that caused visual impairment. This may not be one fear, but several at once, for example, vision began to fall during puberty, it worsened a little more at the institute and became completely ill after childbirth. Each of these periods is accompanied by certain fears that could not be accepted..
It is necessary to open up to new ideas coming from outside, to accept the points of view of other people.(not to fix rigidly on your view of the world, but to allow several opinions to exist in parallel). You need to learn how to solve problems as they arise and stop expecting the worst from the future..
Such fears are actually caused not by objective reality, but by the excessive activity of your imagination.. Learn to look to the future with optimism. Learn also to listen respectfully to other people's opinions, even if they don't match yours.
farsightedness
With farsightedness, a person sees well in the distance and does not see close, which means that a person is interested in what is happening in the world, in a distant environment, his distant plans are interesting, and not interested in looking at yourself and your immediate environment(I'm interested in something global, but everyday little things are so annoying that I don't want to see them). Therefore, farsightedness is considered an age-related ailment, since in old age a person, for one reason or another, does not accept himself, the age-related changes that occur to him or in his immediate environment. Your life seems to become boring, and the world and the distant environment become more interesting.
According to statistics, farsightedness occurs earlier in women than in men.. And this is understandable, women are harder to accept their age-related changes.
In modern medicine, it is considered a normal physiological phenomenon when the deterioration of accommodation starts from about the age of 45 years. “Normal” here means only that, according to statistical studies, people over 45 years of age are far more likely to suffer from farsightedness than people under 45 years of age. Interestingly, the word "accommodation" means "accommodation" or "process of adaptation."
Therefore, we can assume that those who find it difficult to adapt to what is happening suffer from age-related farsightedness. It is hard for them to look at themselves in the mirror, to see how their beloved body is aging, to feel less and less attractive, they believe that aging is only a deterioration. Perhaps it is even harder for them to see the situation that is developing in their own family or at work.
People with farsightedness worry too much about everything that happens around them and are too attached to the physical dimension. Because of this, their inner vision is weakened, and they do not see their significance, acquired along with experience over many years.
Far-sighted people go overboard with their good intentions. They want to see far, they want to get a lot at once, but they don’t want to see a little (everyday little things). If a person demands from others, including the state, to ensure his future, then his eyesight deteriorates, since he does not see that everyone must, first of all, arrange his own life.
Recommendations: Farsighted people need to learn to accept themselves, look at themselves with love and live in the here and now. Don't forget that your future depends on how you feel about your life today. Learn to adapt to the people and situations that appear in your life, and this will greatly improve its quality, and at the same time your eyesight.
Far-sighted people in life must first of all learn to enjoy the little things, then life will be able to entrust them with more. In order to move forward, they should first look at their feet and only then direct their gaze into the distance (after all, you can not see the obstacle under your nose, blurt out, and eventually get nowhere).
Astigmatism
With astigmatism, a person has his own stable view of life, and it is correct for him, and all other opinions are not true for him (hence the splitting of the visual picture arises: one image is an objective reality, the second is subjective, and their imposition on each other friend does not occur). People with astigmatism need to accept that other points of view are also correct and start accepting them. Astigmatism can also be a signal of fear of actually seeing yourself.
color blindness
When a person does not see colors / colors, it means that a person subconsciously excludes this / these colors from his life for some reason. It is necessary to figure out what certain colors symbolize for a person that he has excluded from his life (it is not their generally accepted symbolism that is important, but personal meaning for a person).
When a person confuses close shades, it means that a person sees his life in polar colors., and shades as nuances of life does not see or does not want to see.
When a person confuses contrasting colors, it means that a person’s life does not have rainbow colors and as if everything in life is one for him.
The situation with diseases is different in children under three years of age. A child under three years of age is psychologically in a strong connection with his mother and does not yet identify himself as a separate person, therefore, all diseases in a child under three years old are maternal diseases.
Those. a child under three expresses through his body(in this case eye disorders) mother's problems and if the mother deals with these symptoms as her own and deals with them, the child will no longer need to show the symptoms of the mother.
Conjunctivitis (styes or eye inflammation)
From the point of view of psychosomatics, the symptoms of this disease mean that something happens in a person’s life that causes irritation, anger, hatred and resentment in him, and the person does not agree with what is happening (this can be a situation, a person, etc.) and he does not want to see this annoying factor.
The reasons are not important, the main thing is that a person experiences a feeling of irritation and anger. The stronger the negative emotions, the stronger the inflammation. Your aggression comes back to you and hits you in the eyes. In this case, if a person identifies what factors cause him feelings of irritation or anger and deal with these factors (either, finally, he accepts annoying factors, or removes them from his field of vision), the body will not need a symptom of conjunctivitis.
Sometimes the manifestation of gloating, malicious thinking can lead to inflammation. After all, what is the evil eye? This is a wish for evil on another person. And it will show up in your eyes.
Strabismus
When a person sees normally with both eyes, both pictures are synchronously superimposed on one another. With strabismus, a person sees two different pictures, from different angles of view. And his subconscious is forced to choose one. This is how a one-sided view of things is formed..
Versatile strabismus in a child means that he sees conflicting messages from his parents. For example, when a mother wants one thing from a child, and a father wants another, and when parents are equivalent for a child, i.e. he cannot set a priority between mom and dad, a situation occurs when the child does not know who to listen to, and his eyes diverge in the literal sense.
Convergent strabismus. Unlike versatile strabismus, the cause of convergent strabismus is is the receipt by the child of conflicting messages from educators of the same sex(for example, mothers and grandmothers) and the child also cannot set priorities, and therefore, at the physical level, the above psychological “disturbance” can be expressed in the convergence of the eyes to one point.
Strabismus in adults means that a person looks with one eye into real reality, and others either into an "illusory reality" or into some "other world". In this case, in the concept of "another world" I put esoteric meaning. Strabismus in adults means the fear of looking at the present right here and now.
Glaucoma
With glaucoma, intraocular pressure rises, severe pain in the eyeball appears. IN literally it hurts to see. A person is pressed by old resentments against people, against fate, some heartache, he does not forgive the wounds inflicted on him in the past. By stubbornly not wanting to forgive, you only hurt yourself.
Glaucoma signals to a person that he is exposing himself to intense internal pressure. Blocks out your feelings. In this case, it is very important to learn how to express your emotions, to give vent to your feelings. This disease is always associated with sadness. If glaucoma is accompanied by a headache, this means that the process of increasing this very sadness is underway.
Congenital glaucoma - the mother had to endure a lot of sadness during pregnancy. She was greatly offended, but she clenched her teeth and endured everything, but she cannot forgive. Sorrow lived in her even before pregnancy, and during it she attracted injustice, from which she suffered and became vengeful. She drew to her a child with an identical mentality, whose debt of karma was given the opportunity to be redeemed. Congenital glaucoma means being overwhelmed and overwhelmed by these feelings.
Cataract
Inability to look ahead with joy. The future is shrouded in darkness. Why do cataracts usually occur in older people? Because they do not see anything joyful in their future. It is "foggy". What awaits us there, in our future? Old age, sickness and death (so they say). Yes, there seems to be nothing to be happy about. This is how we program ourselves in advance to suffer at this age. But our old age and our departure from this world, like everything else, depend only on ourselves, on the thoughts and moods with which we meet them.
dry eyes
Refusal to see, to experience the feeling of love. I would rather die than forgive. The person is malevolent, caustic, unfriendly.
vision loss
The emergence in memory and the scrolling of some bad events.
Vision loss due to aging is the reluctance to see the annoying little things in life. An aged person wants to see the great things that have been done or achieved in life. If he does not understand that life begins with small things that are just as important as big ones, since one cannot exist without the other, and begins to hate these small things, then they will annoy him more and more. Although vision is deteriorating so that a person cannot see the little things, as he wants, but the person does not like it. He does not want to see the little things, but for some reason he puts on glasses so that he can see them. Anger contributes to more and more weakening of vision. Whoever stops wasting himself on trifles, appreciating time in old age, can wear glasses of the same optical power for decades. And if an aged person stops paying attention to the little things in life, because he feels that they have lost their meaning for him, then his vision begins to improve. What is a trifle? Yes, everything that is of little importance to you has been published.
Ksenia Golitsyna
If you have any questions, ask them
P.S. And remember, just by changing your consumption, we are changing the world together! © econet
To solve the problem of studying the psychology of the psychological characteristics of blind and visually impaired people, it is necessary to dwell in more detail on some psychophysiological aspects. The psyche of the blind and visually impaired is, as in the norm, the unity of the subjective and the objective, i.e. it reflects objective reality, which is specifically refracted in the consciousness of each individual. The study of the psyche of the blind and visually impaired is complicated by the following features compared to the study of the psyche of those who see normally: mental processes, state and personality traits. The process of identifying general patterns and specific features mentality of the blind and visually impaired in the complication of visual defects by pathological changes in other parts of the body. The complexity of studying the psyche of the blind and visually impaired also lies in the fact that the contingent of persons falling under this definition, is very diverse both in the nature of the diseases and in the degree of impairment of the main visual functions. Great importance for the development of the psyche has a time of onset of blindness:
1. born blind - this group includes people who have lost their sight before the formation of speech, i.e. up to about three years, and without visual representations.
2. blind - those who lost their sight in subsequent periods of life and retained to some extent visual images of memory. It is quite obvious that the later the visual functions are disturbed, the less is the influence of the anomalous factor on the development and manifestation of various aspects of the psyche. But at the same time, they change, are limited due to the age-related decrease in the plasticity and dynamism of the central nervous system compensatory possibilities. Next, consider the essence of the concept of "defect" and the content of the compensation process.
A defect is a physical or psychological deficiency that entails deviations from normal development. According to their origin, defects are divided into congenital, which may be due to adverse genetic factors, chromosome pathology, various negative effects on the fetus during fetal development and at the time of birth, and acquired, which may be the result of postnatal intoxication, trauma, and mainly infectious diseases (meningitis, encephalitis, influenza, tuberculosis, etc.). Congenital and acquired visual defects are primary somatic defects. These anomalies, in turn, cause secondary deviation functions (reduced visual acuity, narrowing or loss of parts of the visual field, etc.), which have a negative impact on the development of a number of psychological processes. Thus, we can conclude that there are complex and functional relationships between a somatic defect and anomalies in the development of the psyche. For the first time, the essence of the defect and the anomalous development caused by it were analyzed by L.S. Vygotsky. We also know about the structure of the defect, the ratio of primary and secondary defects, the ambiguity of the influence of various somatic defects on the development of the structural components of the psyche of abnormal people thanks to scientific work L.S. Vygotsky. The most significant for the psychology of the blind and visually impaired was the position of this outstanding scientist about the divergence of cultural and biological in the process of development of an abnormal person and the possibility of overcoming it by creating and using "detours in the cultural development of an abnormal person." Here is how L.S. Vygotsky writes about this: "The main hallmark mental development abnormal person is a divergence, mismatch, divergence, both plans of development, the merging of which is characteristic of the development of a normal personality. Both series do not coincide, diverge, do not form a continuous, single process. Gaps and gaps in one row cause other gaps in another row and in other places. Detours of cultural development create special forms of behavior, as if deliberately built for experimental purposes. " Speaking of detours of the cultural development of a blind person, L.S. Vygotsky cites Braille dotted font as an example of such a accessible to the blind for reading and writing. The importance of the considered principle of detours of cultural development, in our opinion, can be justified by the fact that ": a defect, creating a deviation from a stable biological type of a person, causing loss of individual functions, deficiency or damage to organs, more or less significant the restructuring of all development on new grounds, according to a new type, naturally, thereby disrupts the normal course of the process of growing a person into culture", while "this difficulty ... reaches its highest expression in the area that we have designated above as our own sphere of cultural and psychological human development: in the field of higher mental functions and mastery of cultural practices and ways of behavior".
Any defect, i.e. a physical or mental deficiency, the consequence of which is a violation of normal development, leads to the automatic inclusion of the biological compensatory functions of the body. In this sense, compensation can be defined as the universal ability of an organism to some extent compensate for violations or loss of certain functions. However, in the presence of such severe defects as blindness and low vision, a compensatory adaptation cannot be regarded as complete, restoring normal human life, if it proceeds only in the biological plan. Thus, compensation for blindness and low vision should be considered as a biosocial phenomenon, a synthesis of the action of biological and social factors. Such world-famous names as I.I. Pavlov and P.K. Anokhin are associated with the study of physiological mechanisms of compensation. It should be noted that the three main principles of the reflex theory - causality, the unity of analysis and synthesis, structurality, formulated by I.P. Pavlov, were fundamental to the theory of compensation. However, P.K. Anokhin's studies showed the following: 1. The reflex nature of the occurrence and course of compensatory rearrangements is based on principles common to the compensation of any defect; 2. Regardless of the nature and location of the defect, compensatory devices are carried out according to the same scheme and are subject to uniform principles. As noted above, the psyche of the blind and visually impaired does not differ significantly from the psyche of normally seeing people, however, it has some features due to the huge role that vision plays in the processes of reflection and control over activity. Loss or deep impairment of the function of vision, first of all, affects the fundamental property of a person's reflective activity - activity. Particularly significant visual impairments impede orienting-search activity. A.G. Litvak explains this phenomenon by the fact that the development of activity depends not only on the ability to satisfy the need to know what surrounds the individual, but also on external influences that contribute to the emergence of the motive for orienting activity. The number of such impacts on visually impaired and especially blind children is sharply reduced due to impaired visual functions and the resulting limited ability to move in space. The decrease in activity is most clearly observed in pre-school and preschool age. L.I. Solntseva, noting the features of the development of a blind child, writes: "Somewhat slowed down general development a blind child is caused by a smaller and poorer supply of ideas, insufficient exercise of the motor sphere, limited mastered space, and most importantly, less activity in the cognition of the surrounding world. "At students elementary school a decrease in activity is also observed quite clearly. However, taking into account the position of L.S. Vygotsky that the basis for compensation of a defect should be the convergence (reduction) of maturation and development based on the use of detours, it is possible to speak with confidence about the real possibility of neutralizing the effects of these unfavorable factors on human development. By stimulating activity, perceptual needs in the process of specially organized upbringing and education, including intact analytical systems in the activity, it is possible to give the development of the psyche of blind and visually impaired children a direction that is as close as possible to the development of normally seeing people. But still, in the typhlopedagogical literature, there are certain differences in the mental development of a blind person from a sighted person. In general terms, they come down to the fact that a number of mental processes (sensation, perception, representation) are directly dependent on the depth of the defect, and some mental functions (color perception, perception speed, etc.) also depend on the nature of the pathology. It is also noted that such structural components, as a worldview, beliefs, moral character traits, etc., turns out to be independent of the depth of the defect and the nature of the pathology of vision. At the same time, the dependence of the development of the psyche on the state of visual functions is manifested not so much in the final results of this process as in its dynamics. Thus, a defect is a physical or psychological defect that entails deviations from normal development. Congenital and acquired defects are primary somatic defects that cause secondary functional disorders, which in turn have a negative impact on the development of a number of psychological processes. Therefore, we can conclude that there are complex structural and functional relationships between a somatic defect and anomalies in the development of the psyche. Any defect, the consequence of which was a violation of normal development, leads to the automatic activation of the compensatory functions of the body. In the context of blindness and low vision, compensation should be considered as a biosocial phenomenon, i.e. synthesis of action of biological and social factors. The defect in visual functions especially significantly affects the fundamental property of the reflective function of a person - activity, which is partly due to a decrease in the number of external influences that contribute to the development of the motive for orienting activity on a visually impaired or blind person. However, analyzing Scientific research L.S. Vygotsky, as well as the typhlopedagogical experience of other specialists, we come to the conclusion that by implementing workarounds for the cultural development of a blind person, including safe analyzer systems in the activity, it is possible to minimize the effect of adverse factors on the development of the psyche of such a person.
For many centuries in ordinary consciousness people developed an idea of a blind person as a deeply flawed and inferior person. Blind people were attributed a variety of negative personality traits, such as hypertrophied biological needs, bad habits, lack of spiritual interests, the presence of negative character traits, and others. All these features were considered as a direct consequence of visual impairment.
Along with such views, there were also directly opposite concepts that asserted the absolute independence of the individual and his stable properties from the somatic state and living conditions. It was argued that the personality is formed spontaneously, and blindness, which limits a person's contacts with the outside world, contributes to his self-knowledge and self-improvement. A.A. Krogius, considering the effect of blindness on psychological development, wrote: ": it leaves a deep imprint on the whole personality. But just as one impression can cause the most diverse reactions, so blindness can lead to the most diverse manifestations and to the formation of the most diverse features. Very much in this respect depends on social conditions , from the influence of heredity, from one's own efforts, from work on oneself.
Tiflopsychologists note the fact that visual defects can lead to the development negative traits nature, such as negativism, aggressiveness, suggestibility, laziness, conformity and others. However, with the correct organization of education and training of a blind person, the formation of positive personality traits, motivation for communication and learning turns out to be practically independent of the state of the visual analyzer. Thus, it is obvious that in the formation of the basic personality traits, social factors come to the fore, the effect of which is relatively or completely independent of the time of occurrence and the depth of vision pathology. Visual impairments affect the range of the selective attitude of the abnormal child to the surrounding reality, narrowing it down depending on the depth of the pathology. However, interests in certain activities that are successfully carried out without visual control turn out to be as deep, stable and effective as those of normally seeing people. Thus, the content side of the psyche during developmental education turns out to be independent of visual defects.
Consequently, between sighted and blind people, and even more so between sighted and visually impaired people, differences can only be observed in the dynamics of the formation of various personality traits.
Emphasizing the great role of socio-psychological support for people with mental disorders, L.S. Vygotsky wrote that the time will come when abnormal people, while remaining blind, "will cease to be defective, because defectiveness is a social concept, and a defect is an outgrowth on blindness... Social education will defeat defectiveness." The emotional sphere of blind people is the least studied in tiflopsychology, therefore it is of great research interest. According to A.G. Litvak, this gap in the knowledge of typhlopsychology is mainly associated with the difficulties of an objective study of emotions and feelings. However, in my opinion, another reason for the insufficient study of the emotional sphere of blind people is the underestimation of the importance of emotional experiences in the development of the personality of blind people. According to the observations of tiflopsychologists, visual impairment and its extreme form - blindness, significantly narrowing the scope of sensory cognition, cannot affect the general qualities of emotions and feelings, their nomenclature and significance for life. Blindness can only affect the degree of manifestation of individual emotions, their external expression and the level of development certain types feelings. Tiflopsychologists emphasize that the main reason for the anomaly in the development of emotions and feelings (lack of a sense of duty, selfishness, lack of a sense of the new, a sense of hostility, aggressiveness, negativism) lies in inadequate upbringing (hyperprotection) and attitudes towards a blind person. Many researchers have noted that blindness entails changes in the nature of emotional states in the direction of the predominance of asthenic, suppressing the activity of the individual, moods of sadness, melancholy or increased irritability, affectivity. Similar conclusions were usually made in the course of studies of late-blind people who are suffering from loss of vision, but they also extended to blind-born and early-blind people. Modern tiflopsychologists, studying the features of the development of blind and visually impaired people, come to the conclusion that compensatory processes, as well as adequate, specially organized education and training of children with visual impairments and blindness, can minimize the negative impact of developmental disorders on the emotional sphere.
Olga is 29 years old: she is a good restaurant marketer and recently moved from cold Yekaterinburg to Krasnodar, where she lives with her husband, little daughter and a bearded miniature schnauzer. A white cloud swirls in the pupil of her right eye, a sign that the eye is blind. 11 years ago, the ophthalmologist gave her an unsuccessful injection, and, as if nothing had happened, continues to work in his profession. The girl says "I am not my dead eye" but is still unable to drive and faces avoidable daily difficulties. In the heading " Personal experience» The Village tells the story of medical error, a victim of which anyone can become, about acceptance, overcoming and impunity.
Error
In the spring of 2007, Olya and her mother went to private clinic in Yekaterinburg to pick up glasses. The girl read a lot, but she had no problems, except for progressive myopia. “It was only necessary to measure visual acuity and write out a prescription, but at the appointment the doctor threw up his hands: horror, a nightmare, the retina begins to exfoliate, everything is very bad, urgently prescribe a therapeutic course,” she says. - The course at that time cost a lot of money - about 10 thousand rubles, but we immediately agreed. With difficulty, they found the necessary and rare drug, which was sold in only one pharmacy. For the next ten days, I went to the doctor for magnetic laser therapy and very painful injections that are placed in the outer corner of the eye, in the orbital cavity.
The injections that the doctor chose and put are called parabulbar. During this procedure, the needle is inserted into the retina around the eyeball for almost a centimeter - it is painful and very risky. Later it turns out that only specialists of a high category have the right to carry out such a procedure, and only in case of emergency. The doctor had no such right - and the need, as it turned out, too.
“For ten days, nothing but pain and bruising under the eyes did not change or happen. And suddenly, on the tenth day, a sharp pain all over my head, and my eye goes blind. The doctor obviously panicked, but still gave an injection in the second eye and said that I was nervous, and this was a spasm: you need to calm down and go home, - Olya recalls. I still remember that sunny Saturday. I go home and warn my mother not to be afraid - my eye is temporarily blind. But by the evening it did not get better, and by Monday, too. I went to see a doctor, and then a two-week marathon of my confusion and human meanness began.
The doctor sent the girl from the Preobrazhenskaya Clinic to the Department of Eye Diseases of the Ural Medical Academy, to the state clinical center - his colleagues examined the patient, took money and shrugged. Olga called the doctor every day, but for two weeks no one could diagnose her. Until, finally, her sister took her to a familiar doctor in an ordinary city hospital, where, in a shabby office, using antediluvian equipment, an ophthalmologist routinely diagnosed her with atrophy of the optic nerve. The fact that the blind eye will never see again, and the attending physician and his colleagues, as it turned out, knew right away.
The optic nerve is the channel through which the image that enters the retina of the eye is transmitted to the brain. There, these signals turn into a picture. If its nutrition is disrupted for some reason, the nerve gradually dies off and can no longer transmit signals normally from the retina to the brain. “Basically, the doctor pierced my eye. The drug, which was supposed to get into the muscular area, got into the vitreous body of the eye. It heals the muscle, but it caused toxic shock on the vitreous body, which has already led to blindness. It turns out that if the doctor evaporated it right away, the consequences would not be so terrible, ”says Olya.
Disability here must be confirmed every year - and I think this is humiliating. Indeed, what if in 365 days I will grow a new eye or, say, a leg?
Blindness
“In the first year after the incident, I could still count the number of fingers on an outstretched hand - I still had object vision. Now, with my right eye, I can only distinguish between light and dark, and I can understand what color the beam is, if it is saturated: yellow, red, orange or green. I do not distinguish dark shades of the spectrum. Minus nine in my left eye.
A few days after my diagnosis, I started crying uncontrollably for days on end because I suddenly realized what was going on. What the eye does not see. That the usual field of vision is no more, and you suddenly bang your head against the walls and pillars when you go the usual route. To feel it - close one eye. Over time, you adapt to this, but I did not learn to live with such vision right away.
One day I was walking home at dusk and there were two intersections left when I rubbed my eye and lost the lens. It's dark, there are cars, and the traffic lights don't work - but I can't see how far these cars are, and there's no one around. I don't know how much time passed while I sobbed from helplessness, but in the end I clung to a group of people crossing the road. After this story, I clearly understood that there is no need to moan - even completely blind people do not complain, but learn to walk with a stick.
It can be annoying and uncomfortable not to see things that everyone sees - this happens in bright light, then my eyesight is especially bad. I didn’t pass my driving license, because people with visual impairments don’t get licenses: an ophthalmologist won’t write out a conclusion and won’t let you pass a medical examination. I know how to drive a car, but I would never poke my head into heavy traffic - if in ordinary life I can turn my head to see something better, then on the road I risk simply not having time. When I was expecting a daughter, the doctors insisted on a caesarean section - the risk of losing my eyesight was too great, if I gave birth naturally.
I also have a problem that many girls will understand - to do the same makeup. To make up the eyelid, you need to close your eye. And when I close the only sighted eye to make up it, I do it really blindly. It turns out that I do my makeup from memory. Eyebrows are not easier - to make up them, you need to take off your glasses, and very often I leave the house with different eyebrows.
Despite all the difficulties, ten years ago my mother and I consulted and decided that the status of a disabled person at the age of 19 was superfluous. Firstly, in our country, unfortunately, this concept is terribly stigmatized. Secondly, disability here must be confirmed every year - and I think this is humiliating. Indeed, what if in 365 days I will grow a new eye or, say, a leg?
Doctor
“During the ten days that I came to the doctor for procedures, and each time I spent about 30 minutes in his office, we developed some kind of friendly relationship. An adult man, very similar to my dad, and suddenly, when he cripples me, he doesn’t call and ask for forgiveness, but sends to his colleagues, persuading me not to give me a conclusion, and goes into a dead defense. In response to a lawsuit, he wrote that the patient did not follow the recommendations, did not appear for examinations, disappeared, and her eye was probably pierced somewhere in the gateway.
Ten years ago in Russia it was very difficult to prove the guilt of doctors, there was simply no wide practice. My mother got me a referral to Moscow, to the Helmoholtz Institute of Eye Diseases, where they confirmed the diagnosis and told me that the doctor could correct his mistake: my eyesight would not be completely preserved, but part of it would remain. They also said that my retina was in perfect condition - no treatment was required. I went to get used to this idea, and six months later I sued the clinic. The case was assisted by an experienced medical lawyer, but in the first instance, in the Kirovsky District Court of Yekaterinburg, we were refused. Mom wanted to fight, but I refused - it would not have returned my vision, but we would have spent a lot of money.
Two years later, a cataract began to develop in my blind eye. When the eye does not get enough nourishment, the musculature weakens and the eye begins to move out of orbit. In a defocused pupil, protein degradation begins: it turns white and turns into a thorn. It all started with a small cloudy dot, which quickly occupied the entire pupil, and the eye began to squint. I again visited the Helmholtz Institute, where I underwent laser coagulation of cataracts - they stopped the inflammatory process. After that, I wanted to look with my floating eye into the eyes of the doctor - the same one.
I found a commercial clinic - another, where he still works. No, I didn't want to gouge out his eye, just because of the surging experiences, I decided to see how he would react to me. But they quickly called me back from the reception and said that the doctor would see me only in the presence of the head of the department and at a completely inconvenient time for me. I freaked out, and the meeting did not take place.
I understand that my eyesight will fall from year to year. When I thought about who the blind work for, I went and completed several massage courses.
Adoption
I formulate my attitude to what happened with a joke: “Oh my God, you lost an eye in the war, how do you live? “Nonsense, a scratch, the generous gods gave me a second one!” The main thing that I endured is that while you are alive, you can adapt to everything, another thing is how you will pass this exam. I am an ordinary young woman who has everything ahead, I just don’t have a spare eye now. We are so confused on the physical, on appearance, we are so afraid of being different: oblique, with an imperfect body and an incorrect bite, that we do not notice - everything is like that with us, everything is in order.
Perhaps my eye will shrink and shrink in the orbit - such degenerative processes are possible. The eye is removed and an implant is placed in its place. I will be like God One. I also understand that my vision will fall from year to year. When I thought about who the blind work for, I went and completed several massage courses. While I lived in Yekaterinburg, I had a large client base, and people said that my hands really heal. Perhaps this is a consequence of the deterioration of vision - the brain has a great compensatory power, and I noticed how over time my sense of smell improved and my tactile sensations became more acute.
My peculiarity is noticeable, but I surround myself with tactful people who pretend that everything is in order. When on the third date I told my future husband about blindness, he simply asked: “So what?”, The conversation ended there. To my eight-year-old nephew, when asked what happened to the eye, I answer in a menacing voice that I see everything that he did in the past. The only time I was deliberately offended happened on Instagram: I criticized the post of a female photographer friend, and she reminded me that I was oblique.
I tell my friends my story so that they never go to the doctor who harmed me. Although some are still being treated by him, and as if apologizing: "Well, it happened to him by accident."
Suddenly emerging blindness or even a significant decrease in vision, disrupting habitual life, are one of the most severe mental shocks for a person. As we have already indicated, the organ of vision is one of the main, general analyzers that provides all visual information about the outside world and the possibility of appropriate adaptation to environment. For a certain period of time, until compensation occurs, a suddenly blind person becomes helpless, which often leads to acute psychotic reactions, in some cases dragging on for a long time.
R. Sussmann, a psychiatrist, pointed out that ophthalmology is a close "nursing" discipline in relation to psychiatry. We fully share this point of view and are convinced that the structure of a large ophthalmological department should provide for the position of a psychiatrist, and the staff of an ophthalmological institute should include a group of psychiatrists who would not only study the features of neuropsychiatric disorders in various ophthalmological diseases, but and were engaged in the development of therapeutic and preventive measures for this contingent of patients.
Should Mark that, just as with one or another pathology, severe neuropsychiatric disorders develop in the ophthalmological sphere, so various disorders of the function of this sphere, such as amblyopia, amaurosis, ptosis, blepharospasm, etc., occur with many diseases of a psychogenic nature (neurosis, reactive states, decompensation , psychopathy).
Kalxthoff, having examined about 7,000 patients with psychogenic amblyopia, noted that in children under 15 years of age, this pathology occurs 5 times more often than in adults.
Undoubtedly, the persons, suddenly blinded in adulthood, organic symptoms due to the underlying disease that led to blindness are complicated by functional psychogenic disorders and the very fact of a decrease or loss of vision. Here, the structure of the patient's personality plays a significant role in the development of pathological disorders. Thus, L. Holden believes that the mental reaction to blindness is closely related to the characteristics of the personality structure before the onset of blindness. The more a person's dependence on others was revealed before the loss of vision, the more pronounced and sharper his reaction to blindness.
L.Cholden, G. Adams, I. Pearlmen indicate that, in addition to neurotic reactions to loss of vision, blind people often develop anxiety depression, sometimes with persistent suicidal thoughts and actions. Loss of vision, according to F. Deutsch, leads to emotional conflict and the development of anxiety.
As we have indicated in previous articles on our website, blind-born there is a certain originality of mental functions: perceptions, ideas, memory, emotional-volitional reactions. In these individuals, the development and formation of the psyche occur in conditions of visual deprivation - turning off vision, leading to a violation of the adaptive function of the body. Adaptation in the blind born comes slowly, gradually, as the child grows and the volume of his vital social functions expands.
The persons blind in adulthood, the process of the formation of the psyche is almost completed, a certain personal structure has developed; in addition, before losing their sight, they were already adapted to one degree or another in environment. Therefore, loss of vision for them is not an initial state, as is the case with those born blind or blind in early childhood, but the complete collapse of all life plans and hopes.
As is known, " plastic» adaptive-compensatory functions in adulthood are significantly lower than in childhood, and adaptation with a lost function is slower. Sudden blindness in adulthood is not very common, but still not so rare. At the same time, about the clinical manifestations and dynamics of neurotic reactions in these patients and the features of their adaptation from literary sources little is known, and the available information is scattered and contradictory.
Since 1970, we (together with A. I. Semenov) have studied psychopathological disorders in individuals suddenly blinded in adulthood (up to 45 years). In the conditions of an ophthalmological hospital and outpatient, 133 people were examined, mostly men (75%). The main research method was clinical-dynamic using experimental psychological techniques (associative-verbal experiment, antonymic series, memorization of 10 words, etc.). Simultaneously, a neurological and electroencephalographic examination was performed.
Excluded from the study were persons with mental illness , organic brain damage with mental disorders, as well as with pronounced psychopathic features.
The main cause of blindness was traumatic eye injury, chemical burn and detachment, the duration of blindness ranged from 2 to 5 years. More than 60% of patients lost their sight before the age of 35 years. Persons not older than 45 years old were selected for examination in order to exclude the possibility of influencing the clinical picture of manifestations of cerebral atherosclerosis.
In 30% of the examined patients, residual vision in the form of light perception was observed.
In professional and social terms before loss of vision, the patients were distributed as follows: workers and peasants - 64%, employees and students - 36%, and 56% of the surveyed were married.
A. I. Semenov identifies three stages of the neurotic reaction that arose in response to blindness: the first stage is acute reactive; the second is transitional, lasting up to 3 years, during which either practical adaptation to blindness occurs, or pathocharacterological, mainly neurotic, changes in the personality structure gradually increase; the third stage is characterized by the formation of persistent pathocharacterological traits (personality psychopathization).
Representations are the material with which figurative memory operates. This type of memory develops simultaneously with the development of speech. Already by the age of 2-3, the child has a certain stock of ideas. Therefore, people who lost their sight during the formation of speech, and even more so in subsequent periods of life, retain visual representations. It is precisely by the presence of visual images that a group of the blind is distinguished from the contingent of the totally blind, which includes persons who have lost their sight after three years, or rather, after they have in general terms developed a second signaling system, and who have visual representations.
The presence of visual representations, their brightness, completeness, and differentiation depend on many factors. Studies have shown the dependence of the preservation of ideas on the age at which vision was lost, the length of time blindness and the skill of using visual images in activities.
In persons who have lost sight in early childhood, visual images of memory are few and reflect only individual objects and phenomena that caused strong emotional experiences at one time (the flames of a fire in which vision was lost, or a red capsule of a projectile, the explosion of which made the child disabled and etc.). These representations can be very bright, emotionally colored and cause sensations and emotions associated with the perception of an object. For example, the blind man described by Kroeger imagined snow illuminated by the sun so clearly that he had a feeling of blindness and tears came to his eyes.
With loss of vision at an older age, the stock of visual representations is large; moreover, a particularly noticeable increase in the number of memory images is observed in people who have lost their sight after seven years, which is explained by their inclusion in this period in learning activities significantly expanding the scope of sensory knowledge. The presence of visual images of memory is well confirmed by their involuntary reproduction in dreams. So, according to a number of authors, blind people see visual dreams for quite a long time, which then gradually begin to include auditory, tactile, and motor images.
