Psychic Disharmony

Psychic Disharmony, the lack of proportionality between various aspects of personality: talent, drives, affects, etc. Psychic disharmony deprives the personality of unity and wholeness, causes the presence of internal contradictions in its structure, creates obstacles for its normal, free development, and does not allow it to properly adapt to the external conditions of its existence. The simplest forms of psychic disharmony are certain states of uneven psychological development. Such are cases of partial talent, for example in persons combining musical and artistic abilities (usually however not creative, but predominantly reproductive), an exceptionally developed mechanical memory, phenomenal ability in calculation, etc., with insufficient intellect (even with feeble-mindedness). Practically more important and significantly broader groups are cases of partial delays in the development of such psychological properties as, for example, moral feelings (moral insanity - moral insanity), volitional qualities (instability, weakness of will), etc. Such partial "infantilisms" Kraepelin considers the cause of the abnormal formation of most psychopathic personalities. The doctrine of psychopathies, the foundation of which Kan (E. Kapp) for example sees in the "quantitative disharmony" of personality properties both among themselves and in relation to the personality as a whole, generally represents the main area of application of the concept of psychic disharmony. The disharmonious structure of psychopathic personalities is extremely fertile ground for the occurrence of conflict experiences and, manifesting mainly in the dynamics of psychopathies, determines the special richness of forms and shades of the so-called pathological "reactions" and "developments" (including all sorts of "neurotic" conditions). Deserving of special attention are psychological conflicts arising on the one hand from the presence in the same personality of elements of strength and weakness, and on the other from the coexistence in it of contradictory or even directly hostile to each other tendencies—two groups of phenomena which cannot be fully distinguished from each other. This primarily includes combinations of acutely felt in one respect insufficiency or weakness with heightened self-love, combinations leading to Adlerian (see Adler's doctrine) "hypercompensations". In these cases, besides the actual excessive development of some function to compensate for the deficient, numerous disguises are also created—attempts to replace reality with appearance. Thus, insecurity in order not to be noticed puts on the mask of provocative rudeness and harshness, physical unattractiveness seeks to be covered by ostentation, and inner emptiness seeks opportunities to appear substantial and significant outward. Processes of this kind lie at the basis of the development of many forms of "nervous" character: thus in particular are created "recognition-seeking", "hysterical" personalities—people not satisfied with the possibilities given them by nature and therefore feeling the need to appear before others and themselves to be more than they are, to experience more than they are capable of. Somewhat more complex structure is represented by the contrasting characters described by Kretschmer, the development of which is determined by the fact that in some the sthenic basis is excited and brought into action by an asthenic "sting", in others, conversely, a small admixture of sthenic components agitates essentially an asthenic personality. Kretschmer calls the first group of characters expansive and the second sensitive. Expansive natures are arrogant, aggressive, and fanatical "fighters" with an excessive overestimation of their own personality. However, in the depths of their psyche lie elements of excessive vulnerability and tender sensitivity, causing the existence in them of sick and constantly keeping them in a state of unpleasant tension foci. The conflict created by such a contradiction leads to the formation of carrying a bright affective coloring "overvalued" and delusional ideas—litigiousness, persecution and jealousy (a literary example—"Michael Kohlhaas" by Kleist). Sensitive personalities, on the contrary, in their essence are weak, tender, sensitive, and conscientious—qualities which in them are combined with a coating of touchy self-love and injured pride. They are characterized by experiences of shame, ethical insufficiency and self-flagellation, on the basis of which can develop on the one hand obsessive states, and on the other—delusional ideas of reference. Although in the concepts presented by Kretschmer there is still much that is debatable, apparently his basic assertion about the importance of the struggle of antagonistic properties and tendencies for the development of personality in general is quite correct. As for the explanation of the causes of such "antinomies" of character, Hoffmann on the basis of the development of a number of genealogies tries to prove that in all such cases there is undoubtedly a mixture of contrasting with each other hereditary psychological predispositions received from father and mother. This assumption suffers from undoubtedly excessive exaggeration: although the ratio of properties inherited from ancestors has very important significance for the structure of personality, however to assign it an exclusive role in no case can be done. For the harmonious structure of personality no less than hereditary predisposition, important are also external factors under the influence of which its development takes place, as well as the conditions in which it has to act. In particular unfavorable social environment in itself is a factor determining psychic disharmony: thus, energetic, gifted natures, finding themselves in an environment hindering the fulfillment of their aspirations and entering into conflict with it, in case of inability to overcome obstacles easily slide onto the path of least resistance, completely not corresponding to the basis of their personality. The result is usually an irresolvable internal contradiction, often leading to various pathological reactions. The phenomena of psychic disharmony arising under the influence of such factors in many cases however already go beyond the limits of pathology in the narrow sense of this word, thanks to which they are still insufficiently studied by psychopathologists.--An important source of psychic disharmony is the sexual sphere. The lack of appropriate upbringing often leads to the fact that the period of sexual maturity finds the young man and especially the girl unprepared to process the new, extraordinarily strong, at the same time attracting and repelling sensations and experiences arising in them. The affective ambivalence inherent in normal sexuality (see) in cases of sexual psychic traumas or bad sexual upbringing, as well as with insufficiency or on the contrary excessive strength of the sexual drive, as well as in the presence of qualitative anomalies of it, easily leads to deep psychological conflicts lying at the basis of many neurotic phenomena. On the relationship of phenomena of psychic disharmony and creative talent—see Genius.