THE INTERNAL CONTRADICTION OF THE PSYCHE AND LEARNED HELPLESSNESS AS REFUSAL REASONS TO SELF-ACTUALIZATION

Abstract

The degree of in-depth study of the issues of self-actualization, learned helplessness, internal contradiction, and intrapersonal conflict in the psychological science is analyzed and the topic declared is theoretically generalized. The psychological essence of these phenomena is found out. The relationship between them in conceptual variability is pointed out. The reasons of a person’s refusal to self-actualize are established. The specific features of learned helplessness and internal contradiction of the psyche are elaborated as factors preventing an individual from self-realization and self-actualization. Scientific views on the content, specific features of the learned helplessness manifestation and the process of its formation are considered. The relationship between the internal contradiction of the psyche as well as the relation to the externally traced proneness to conflict and the defense system, in particular to the basic forms of psychological defenses of a subject, are covered. Basic and situational psychological defenses are emphasized and their specific features are characterized. The peculiarities of formation of the internal contradiction of the psyche and its defense system during the Oedipal phase are presented. The emphasis is placed on the impossibility of a direct representation of the internal contradictions of the psyche in the consciousness of the subject and the corresponding contextual, mediated form of their cognition with the help of special depth psychological methods that is possible in the dialogic process of a holistic analysis of the subject’s behavioral materials through associative and semantic relations determined by the depth psychological values initiated in the Oedipal situation of childhood. It is stated that the depth psychological content of the determinants of the internal contradiction of the psyche is masked from the consciousness due to the action of the mechanisms of symbolizing the content of the unconscious, namely: condensation, displacement, implication, hyperbolization, minimization, etc. The particular emphasis is placed on the fact that anxiety, aggression, depressive manifestations are an emotional indicator of the internal contradiction of the subject’s psyche and the learned helplessness that determined the choice of a test method. It is proven that getting to know the causal prerequisites of internal contradictions of the psyche and the learned helplessness by way of enhancing the self-awareness contributes to self-realization and self-actualization of the individual.