Physical deprivation. Abstract: Mental deprivation and measures for its prevention

Deprivation is a mental state resulting from such life situations where the child is not given the opportunity to meet the basic (life) mental needs to a sufficient extent and for a sufficiently long time.

The basic vital mental needs of a child are the need for love, acceptance, self-respect, physical intimacy, communication, support, etc.

Developmental disorders in a child brought up in deprivation conditions occur at four levels:

The level of bodily sensations (sensory level);

The level of understanding of the world in which he lives (intellectual or cognitive level);

The level of establishing close emotional relationships with someone (emotional level);

The level that allows you to comply with the norms and rules of society (social level).

According to recent studies, violations at the level of bodily sensations begin in a child even in the womb, when she has a negative attitude towards her pregnancy, does not change her habits, especially those associated with the abuse of alcohol or other psychoactive substances. Abandonment of an infant and its placement in a children's home or psychological rejection of it after childbirth catastrophically reduce the number of bodily, auditory, visual contacts with the mother or her substitute person. This causes a constant state of psychological discomfort in the child, contributes to disruption of the rhythm of sleep and wakefulness, causes excessively restless, poorly controlled behavior. Subsequently, trying to calm himself, to tone up his condition, he begins to sway with his whole body, accompanying the swaying with a monotonous howl. Trying to reduce the level of his psychological discomfort, he often resorts to masturbation. He does not feel the boundaries of his body well, so he either clings to everyone, or tries to refuse contact. Not feeling its own boundaries, the child does not feel the boundaries of another person, someone else's space, someone else's property.

Such children suffer from various kinds of allergies, especially those associated with skin rashes. They have difficulties in the formation of hand-eye coordination (for example, they crawl a little or in a different direction, then “write like a chicken with a paw”), insufficient concentration of attention and restlessness. A primary feeling of one's own failure and a tendency to experience constant psychological discomfort, external danger, instability, fear and resentment are formed.

The problems of development at the bodily level also negatively affect his understanding of the world in which he lives, and hence on his intellectual development. The child begins to develop well when the world seems safe to him, when, crawling or running away from his mother, he can turn around and see her smiling face. Therefore, a child brought up in an orphanage or in a family where parents are not up to him crawls less, and therefore less actively, in comparison with children from prosperous families, masters the world around him, makes less trial and error, receives less developmental incentives from environment. As a result, his intellectual development is delayed.

He begins to speak late, often incorrectly constructs phrases and pronounces sounds.

social level. Most importantly, he is prone to building "catastrophic models of the world" where sheer troubles await him, and he is not able to do anything to avoid or cope with them. The world is incomprehensible, disordered, therefore it is impossible to anticipate and regulate what is happening from the outside. Someone else, but not he controls his fate. As a result, the child forms an image of himself as a helpless little loser whose initiative can have negative result for all. As basic, he has such beliefs as “I still won’t succeed” and “I can’t be loved.” Therefore, he does not try to cope where he could.

Social level (the level of compliance with the norms of society).

The social level is the top of the entire pyramid of child development. A child from a family, especially a prosperous one, recognizes his belonging to his family, clan. He clearly knows who he is, whose son (daughter). He knows who he looks like and whose behavior he repeats. A child from a prosperous family to the question: “Who are you?” answers: "Boy (girl), son (daughter) of such and such." A child from an orphanage to the question: “Who are you?” replies: "No one", "orphanage". He does not have a positive model of building relationships in a family, a team, although his whole life is spent in a group. Often a pupil of an orphanage performs roles that do not allow him to successfully socialize: “sticky”, “aggressor”, “negative leader”, etc. In the group of an orphanage, children live according to their own norms and rules. For example, the one who is stronger is right, it is impossible to ensure one's own security (norms and rules close to hazing). Find a strong one, do everything he orders, and then you can survive. Everyone who is not in the group is strangers (enemies), do not get attached to anyone, they will leave anyway, etc. After leaving an orphanage, it is extremely difficult for children to live independently, have a family, raise their own children, and keep a job.

Such an image of oneself constantly finds confirmation in the information from the outside, which the child selects from the entire stream. He is overly attentive to negative information about himself and often does not believe in positive information and ignores it.

The “catastrophic model of the world” leads to the following distorted ideas about oneself and the world:

Ideas about their own unattractiveness;

Ideas about their own "danger";

Violations of faith in others;

People who love me mock me;

Other people are dangerous;

Violations of confidence in the world;

Public places such as schools, hospitals, social services are dangerous, where I can be offended or rejected

Crime is normal.

A deprived child perceives the world around him as hostile, and other people as capable of hurting him.

mental deprivation leads to the development in the child of a sense of his own helplessness, hopelessness and loss of self-esteem and significance.

emotional level. On the emotional level the child experiences various attachment disorders. Having experienced an early separation from the mother, whether he remembers it or not, it is more difficult for a child to enter into a close emotional relationship with another. He is afraid to trust, afraid of the pain of loss, trying to protect himself from it, closing himself off from the world. Often, he simply does not understand the meaning of facial expressions of others and interprets them as hostile. It is especially necessary to pay attention to the fact that the strict look, which parents usually use to influence the behavior of the child, does not have the desired effect on the adopted child, provokes aggression.

Therefore, various aggressive manifestations are observed in his behavior. These include, and the desire to never admit to anything, even the obvious.

The child is inclined to blame himself for the vicissitudes of his fate, to believe that it was his “bad” qualities that led to the fact that his parents could not raise him, or to the fact that something happened to them. As a result, he may offend others or act defiantly, thereby provoking punishment or retaliatory aggression!!!

Especially often this begins to manifest itself when the child is trying to form an attachment to the host family. He begins to feel guilty for betraying “his own”, MAY provoke adoptive parents to punishment, thereby supporting the fantasy of his own ideal parents. Wanting to regain lost love, the child tries to take something valuable for another. According to our observations, if a child builds relationships that satisfy him in the host family, then he can go through a situation of theft in the family, if the relationship is cold, he actively begins to steal from other adults, for example, from a teacher. At the same time, the child is able to form a secondary attachment to members of the foster family.

To do this, he needs time and patience from his parents.

Conditions for building relationships with children with developmental deprivation disorders:

* Providing a sensory-rich environment;

* Completion of the need for security;

* Granting autonomy;

* Compliance with the boundaries of the child's personal space;

* Game Priority.

"The Impact of Separation and Loss on Child Development"

Losses generally fall into two categories:

1. Losses that are an integral part of human life

2. Losses that are unexpected for us, about which we think that they will bypass us in life.

Unexpected losses are often more painful because they are not perceived as the normal course of human life.

Losses can also be divided into three types:

The first type is the loss of health, both physical and mental.

The second type is the loss of a loved one, either through death, divorce, or infertility where the expected baby is never born.

The third type: loss of self-esteem, when we feel shame or pain.

REMEMBER:

Circumstances that lead a child to new family, refer to unexpected losses that have very serious consequences for children. They are often accompanied by loss of health (due to abuse or wrong attitudes), loss of loved ones (parents, siblings, other relatives), loss of self-respect (children begin to blame themselves - they were bad, and therefore their parents abandoned them or died).

The pain of loss can cause a child to get stuck at one developmental stage and not move forward, or even move down a step in their development.

Adopted children often experienced more than one loss. They had not yet had time to recover from one grief, as another fell upon them. Constant loss reduces the child's ability to cope with stress. Any hint of a loss situation evokes very strong emotions associated with previous losses. Children and adolescents who enter a new family (even a family of relatives) are separated from their families and lose the world they are used to. They will suffer. They experienced a loss of trust when their parents failed to give them what they needed for their development or used violence. Some children lived in institutions for orphans, other families. Pain from loss or separation from loved ones is a trauma that can cause a child to get stuck at one stage of development and not move forward, or even go down a step in their development.

REMEMBER

When accepting a child, you must anticipate that it past experience will affect his life in your family. The child may have formed certain behavioral stereotypes that helped him experience neglect or abuse in the past. But for ordinary life, these stereotypes are not suitable. Society may view such behavior as inappropriate or destructive. Some children who experience separation and loss may be angry, depressed, or even hostile.

tuned in because of the pain they have endured in life. If you see evil, look for pain.

Some kids look so obedient it's just unbelievable. They seem charming and carefree. It's just a different path they've chosen to deal with the pain. She will still come to the surface, but a little later, when the child feels safe.

When placed in a new family, the child begins to experience the trauma and pain of loss again. Once in the family, the child, as it were, experiences a “flood” with his difficult memories, which he finds difficult to cope with and about which he constantly, compulsively tries to tell his parents.

Happening. Christina at the age of 6 got into a new family after an orphanage. AT orphanage she was a very obedient and carefree girl. The new family liked it right away. While walking to a new house, she laughed merrily, rejoiced that she was taken into the family. But, when Christina crossed the threshold of the apartment, she sobbed. When they tried to calm her down by the usual means, she threw herself on the floor and began to beat in hysterics. She could not calm down for a long time. The girl "suddenly" remembered that a year ago she had witnessed the murder of her mother. I remembered how it happened, my horror (she was alone with the corpse for 3 days). No one answered her cries. Neighbors are used to the fact that in the apartment someone is always arguing and screaming. The trauma was so severe for the girl that she "forgot" her, as psychologists say, "displaced" her from her memory. In the orphanage, the girl never remembered what happened to her. In the family, she experienced an "echo of trauma." It took the help of a specialist to help the girl complete this injury.

When placed in a foster family, the child needs to adjust to the changes in his life. Adjustment goes through the revitalization of traumatic feelings associated with separation and loss. In a certain sense, the child goes through the stages of experiencing the trauma again, which affects his behavior.

STAGES OF TRAUMA EXPERIENCE

1. DENIAL / SHOCK

Temporary Escape from Reality – “That didn't really happen. The desire to "hide your head in the sand." "I'll wake up and find that everything is all right."

Grouchiness, irritability.

Sometimes a child can be overcome by a strong rage, which can be directed at anyone, but most often - at the closest person, the doctor or God.

3. SAD AND DEPRESSION

Syndrome "coma in the throat".

Common symptoms of depression: loss of strength, apathy, malaise.

Loneliness - "No one can understand me."

Guilt – “I must have done something wrong.”

4. FEAR "TRADING" WITH GOD

A lot of anxiety and doubts about my actions: “If I hadn’t been so bad, then my mother would have survived”, “If I had behaved well, then they wouldn’t have taken me away from the family”, “If only I had done something and something, it wouldn't have happened."

A lot of doubts and distrust: “Are the educators, doctors (and nurses) telling me the truth?”

Empty dreams are attempts to find a magical solution.

Thoughts like “If only…”, “If only I were (a) perfect (ideal) son (daughter)”, etc.

Deal Prayers: “Lord, if You make things right, I promise…”

5. PERSISTENCE

Reluctance to move away from sadness and feelings of loss.

The feeling that if you stop grieving, then the connection with the deceased relative (or with the relative with whom they separated) will break.

Feelings of guilt due to resignation to the loss. Humility is betrayal. Negative emotions are perceived as the only connection with the deceased (or with the one who was separated from).

COMING TOGETHER WITH LOSS

The child can already calmly build relationships with a new family - the bitterness of loss still remains, but does not prevent him from living on.

There is peace of mind again.

A lump in the throat does not come up every time the child remembers the experience.

REMEMBER

Grieving process:

This is a normal part of human life;

Affects feelings, which in turn influence behavior;

Requires new parents (adoptive parents, guardians, adoptive parents, foster caregivers) and professionals to work together to help children cope with their feelings and behaviors;

There is a certain path that must be taken when faced with loss. As the children walk along this path, certain signs appear that indicate at what stage in this process the child is. Children also have certain needs, which must be carefully considered and satisfied at every stage of their feelings.

REMEMBER

If in an orphanage a child, defending himself from mental pain, seems to “forget” many tragic events out of your life, then, being in a situation family relations While trying to bond with his family, he begins to experience a "flood" of his traumatic memories.

The child talks and talks, he can neither stop nor switch to something else, talking about such situations from his past life. For example, about the prostitution of his mother, the alcoholism of his parents, the murders and suicides that he observed in his life and with which an ordinary family never collides. These stories frighten family members, make them feel confused. How to react in such a situation? It is best to let the child talk. Unspoken memories will remain with him and "turn" into fears that will be very difficult for the child to cope with. It is advisable to listen to the child, nodding sympathetically from time to time, but without commenting on the content of his story. You can hug the child if he allows it. After the story, you need to tell him that you understand him, you see how upset he is, how much it hurts him, that you will do everything possible to help him cope with this pain, that he can count on you. It is a good idea to set aside a place in the house and agree on a time when you can calmly talk with the child.

REMEMBER

It is essential for a foster child that foster parents demonstrate 24 hours a day, seven days a week that:

* their feelings and emotions are very important;

* they will be taken care of;

* their needs can be expressed and accepted positively;

* foster parents and other adults can be consistent and trustworthy.

Psychological deprivation - grief, coming on the heels. .

Psychological deprivation is a topic that we regularly come across in consultations with a psychologist. In this article we tell: what is psychological deprivation, where does it come from, what consequences does it lead to, and what to do about it. We remind you that all our articles on psychology are written with significant simplifications and are designed for the layman, and not for a professional psychologist. Our articles on psychology are intended to broaden people's horizons, improve mutual understanding between the client and the psychologist, and are not a practical guide to helping someone or yourself psychologically. If you really need psychological help, contact a good psychologist.

What is psychological deprivation?

The term psychological deprivation comes from Latin word deprivatio, which means loss or deprivation. In fact, psychological deprivation- it is long psychological experience, which arises as a result of the fact that a person was deprived of something very important in life, and deprived of it in addition to his desire, he cannot live normally without it, and he cannot change the situation. Those. Simply put, psychological deprivation is the experience of forcible deprivation of something very important, and a person is fixed on this experience for a long time, sometimes for a lifetime.

Examples psychological deprivation

Typical examples of psychological deprivation are tactile and emotional deprivation.

In the case of tactile deprivation, the child during the sensitive period does not receive the necessary amount of tactile sensations from the parents: touches, strokes, etc. This is very similar, for example, to the hunger suffered in childhood. The chances are high that in adult life there will be consequences of tactile deprivation suffered in childhood. For example, when the child grows up, there may be an insatiable neurotic need in tactile sensations, expressed in sexually promiscuous behavior with a frequent change of partners - if only someone stroked and caressed. And the roots of this adult behavior are that in the past, parents, due to employment, negligence or their own nature, were not attentive enough to the tactile needs of the child.

In the case of emotional deprivation, the same thing happens with emotions. Emotionally cold, alienated, or busy parents have not provided their child with the amount of emotions and the kinds of emotions that are necessary for psychological comfort. However, why only parents?! Emotional deprivation can also appear in an adult during life with an emotionally dry or alienated partner. As a result, there is a natural hunger for emotions (sometimes in the form of an affective disorder): for example, a person is constantly looking for emotions on the side (like hungry people look for food). He is looking for a lot of emotions, strong emotions, this neurotic need is insatiable, relief does not come, but a person cannot stop his race for emotions.

Close and related concepts

Psychological deprivation is close to the concepts of grief, frustration and neuroticism.

A feeling of acute grief and a state of mourning occurs in a person with a one-time irreparable loss, for example, in the event of death loved one. And psychological deprivation occurs with chronic (rather than one-time) deprivation of something important, and the victim often has a feeling that the situation can be corrected if, for example, he explains his desires and needs to another person. Mourning and psychological deprivation are very similar. Metaphorically speaking, psychological deprivation is grief that follows a person on the heels. In fact, psychological deprivation is a mourning for years about psychological deprivation with the illusion that everything can be fixed. And because of the duration of negative experiences and the presence of such illusions, chronic psychological deprivation often causes more damage to the human psyche than a one-time acute grief without illusions.

Psychological deprivation is close to the state of frustration - the experience of failure. After all, a person with psychological deprivation often feels that he is a failure in satisfying those desires and needs that are the basis of his psychological comfort.

And of course, psychological deprivation is close to the concept of neuroticism, because psychological deprivation very often causes a neurotic insatiable need for what a person was deprived of before or now.

The concepts: psychological deprivation, grief, frustration, neuroticism, etc., are not just terminologically close to each other, but are naturally connected with each other by the mechanisms of psychological response. After all, in fact, all these are various forms of a person’s reaction to a subjectively uncomfortable or unbearable life imposed on him by close people or society. That is why, psychological deprivation often occurs in cases that in the English-language literature are referred to as abuse - mistreatment of children and loved ones, as well as in cases where this mistreatment is caused by unceremonious interference of society in privacy person. Psychological deprivation and related phenomena are often negative consequences psychological abuse over the desires and needs of a person who could not get out of the position of the victim.

Social causes of psychological deprivation

The social causes of psychological deprivation are typical.

- Insufficient competence or psychological originality of parents in matters of upbringing and mental health of their child. For example, in some families, parents are not attentive enough to the feedback from the child, and, as a result, the child does not receive something very important in his life, which the parents themselves may mistakenly consider secondary. For example, a child does not receive those same tactile sensations or positive emotions.

- Unsuccessful choice of partner in adulthood, which often continues the scenario started by the parents. And then these two negative scenarios of psychological deprivation - parental and partner - add up, and the person lives psychologically very uncomfortable.

- Cultural and subcultural traditions, when it is not customary to satisfy the basic psychological needs of a person, but from this they do not cease to exist. For example, the need to express emotions outwardly, which is very important but can be suppressed in some families or even communities - for example, when educating "masculinity" in boys.

– State and social interests superiors, when the desires and psychological needs of a person do not matter to these superiors.

Individual causes of psychological deprivation

Individual causes of psychological deprivation are also typical.

– Inadequacy or clinical idiosyncrasy of parents and any superiors on whom they depend mental health and psychological well-being.

- Individual low resistance to psychological deprivation, similar to how it happens with low stress resistance.

Psychological reactions of the victim of psychological deprivation.

The psychological reactions of the victim of psychological deprivation are so individual that they can be listed endlessly. For example, isolation, social maladjustment, aggression or auto-aggression, neurotic disorders, psychosomatic illnesses, depression and various affective disorders, dissatisfaction in sexual and personal life. As is often the case in psychology, psychological reactions of the same form can be generated absolutely different reasons. That is why, the temptation to quickly make a psychological diagnosis of yourself or another person on the basis of superficial observations and a few read articles on psychology should be avoided. There is a very high chance that your self-diagnosis will be incorrect.

Psychological assistance for psychological deprivation

In case of suspicion of psychological deprivation, the actions of the psychologist are consistent and logical.

- Check your assumptions with a series of psychological consultations, or better (much better!) With the help of a psychodiagnostic procedure.

- If the causes of psychological deprivation continue to exist in the client's life, bring the client to a real change in conditions, lifestyle and lifestyle so that the causes that give rise to psychological deprivation disappear.

– If necessary, conduct a course of psychological assistance (psychotherapy) in order to correct Negative consequences psychological deprivation that has existed for a long time in a person's life. Those. having removed the cause, now it is necessary to remove the effect.

– Conduct a social and personal adaptation of a person to a new life.

The process of psychological assistance to a person in case of psychological deprivation is lengthy, because psychological deprivation is often much more destructive in terms of consequences than, for example, cases that are traditionally considered difficult in the practice of a psychologist: the death of a loved one, a one-time psychotrauma, etc. And this is the danger of psychological deprivation for the client and the real difficulties in the work of a psychologist.

© Authors Igor and Larisa Shiryaeva. The authors provide advice on personal matters and social adaptation(success in society). You can read about the features of the analytical consultation of Igor and Larisa Shiryaev "Successful Brains" on the page.

2016-08-30

Analytical consultation of Igor and Larisa Shiryaev. You can ask questions and sign up for a consultation by phone: +7 495 998 63 16 or +7 985 998 63 16. E-mail: We will be happy to help you!

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Deprivation- this is a state of the psyche of individuals, provoked by the loss of the opportunity to satisfy the fundamental needs of life and needs, for example, sex drive, eating, sleeping, housing, communication between a child and a parent, or the loss of benefits, living conditions familiar to a particular individual. The presented term originated from the English-language concept, which means deprivation or loss. Wherein this term has negative meaning, a bright negative orientation and in itself carries not just a loss, but a deprivation of something very significant and vital.

Deprivation in psychology means a lack of sensory stimuli and social motives, the deprivation of an individual of social contacts, live sensations and impressions. The concept of "deprivation" is related (although not identical) to the term "" from the content-psychological meaning. A deprived state in comparison with a frustration reaction is a much more severe, painful, often even personally destructive state. It is distinguished by the highest degree of rigidity and constancy. in a variety of situations and life circumstances completely different needs may be deprived.

Types of deprivation

Deprecated states are usually subdivided according to the unmet need.

The most common are 4 varieties given state psyche, in particular: stimulus or sensory, cognitive, emotional and social. Most authors adhere to the following classification.

Sensory or stimulus mental deprivation is a decrease in the number of sensory motives or their limited variability and modality. Often, sensory deprivation can be described by the term "depleted environment", in other words, an environment in which the subject does not receive the necessary amount of visual stimuli, auditory impulses, tactile and other stimuli. This environment may be accompanied child development, and can be included in the everyday situations of an adult.

Cognitive deprivation or deprivation of meanings arises as a result of an overly volatile, chaotic structure of the external world, which does not have a clear ordering and specific meaning, which makes it impossible to comprehend, predict and control what is happening from the outside.

Cognitive deprivation is also called informational. It prevents the formation of adequate forms of the surrounding world. If an individual does not receive the necessary data, ideas about the relationships that exist between objects or events, then he creates “false connections”, as a result of which he has erroneous beliefs.

Emotional deprivation consists in the insufficiency of the possibility of establishing an intimate-emotional relationship to any person or the breakdown of the connection, if it was previously created. This type of mental state can be encountered by individuals at different ages. Often, the term “maternal deprivation” is used for children, thereby emphasizing the importance for babies of an emotional connection with a parent, the deficiency or rupture of which leads to a chain of mental health disorders in babies. So, for example, the deprivation of orphans consists in separation from their parents and can be both maternal and paternal, that is, paternal.

Social deprivation or deprivation of identity consists in limiting the opportunities for mastering an independent social role.

Children living in orphanages or studying are subject to social deprivation. educational institutions closed type, adults isolated from society or having limited contact with other individuals, pensioners.

In ordinary life listed species deprivations can intertwine, unite, be a consequence of another.

In addition to the above types of deprivation, there are also others. For example, motor deprivation occurs when an individual is faced with the problem of movement limitation due to injury or illness. This type state is not related to mental, but has strong impact on the psyche of the individual.

In addition to the species classification, there are forms of manifestation of deprivation - explicit or hidden. An obvious mental deprivation has an obvious character (for example, a person's stay in social isolation, prolonged loneliness, a baby being in an orphanage), that is, in cultural understanding, this is a visible deviation from the norm established in society. Hidden or partial is not so obvious. It arises under externally favorable circumstances, which nevertheless do not provide an opportunity to satisfy the fundamental needs of individuals.

Thus, this deprivation in psychology is a multifaceted phenomenon that affects various areas of human life.

sleep deprivation

Deficiency or complete deprivation of the ability to satisfy the fundamental need for sleep. Occur due to a sleep disorder due to the presence of an illness, as a result of a conscious choice or under duress, for example, as a form of torture. Often, with the help of conscious sleep deprivation, depressive states are successfully treated.

Human individuals cannot stay awake all the time. However, he is able to reduce this process to a minimum (for example, up to a couple of hours a day) - partial sleep deprivation.

Total sleep deprivation is the process of sleep deprivation for at least several days.

There are also certain methods of using deprivation as a treatment. To this day, however, there is much controversy about the usefulness of deprivation as a therapeutic agent. So, for example, it leads to a decrease in the secretion of growth hormone, which is responsible for the processing of calories into muscle mass. With its deficiency, calories are not transformed into muscle tissue, but into fatty tissue.

Sleep deprivation is characterized by the presence of several main stages. The initial stage, the duration of which is from one to six days, is characterized by the constant struggle of the individual with sleep. People try to fall asleep for a fairly short period of time (no more than two hours). And the main thing here is not to break loose, while maintaining psychological calmness. To this end, individuals try to diversify their activities, to do something previously unknown and interesting. When choosing a new business, preference is given not to a monotonous, but to a more active occupation. It must be understood that during initial stage individuals can be haunted by nervous tension, emotional disorders, and poor health. At the end of the initial stage, poor health goes away. The next stage, lasting up to ten days, is shock therapy. The second stage is characterized by disorders of consciousness: human beings will seem like robots, there may be disturbances in the perception of the surrounding reality, and failures may also appear in the cognitive sphere. For example, an individual may forget what happened a moment ago, or confuse the past with the present. Lightweight is possible. This stage characterized by constant insomnia, to which the body has already adapted. The work of all systems is aggravated, and processes are accelerating. There is a more distinct perception of the world, feelings are aggravated. If you continue to deprive yourself of sleep, then the third stage will come, which is considered quite dangerous for the health of individuals. And it is marked by the appearance of visual.

Today, doctors successfully use the technique of sleep deprivation to bring people out of the deepest. The essence of the method is to gradually change the cyclicity of sleep: reducing the amount of time spent in sleep and increasing the period of wakefulness.

Sleep deprivation, as most doctors believe, selectively affects certain parts of the brain that are responsible for people falling into depression.

sensory deprivation

Partial or absolute deprivation of one analyzer or several sense organs of external influence is called sensory or stimulus deprivation. The simplest artificial means to induce a state of loss of perception are earplugs or eye patches that remove or reduce the impact on the visual or auditory analyzer. There are also more complex mechanisms that simultaneously turn off several analyzer systems, for example, olfactory, tactile, taste and temperature receptors.

Stimulus deprivation has been successfully used in various psychological experiments, alternative medicine, BDSM games, meditations and as torture. Short periods of deprivation have a relaxing effect, as they trigger internal processes of subconscious analysis, ordering and sorting of information, self-adjustment and stabilization of mental activity. Meanwhile, prolonged deprivation of external stimuli can provoke excessive anxiety, hallucinations, depression and antisocial behavior.

Scientists from McGill University in the fifties of the twentieth century offered volunteers to stay for the longest possible period of time in a special chamber that protects them from external impulses. The subjects were placed in a small enclosed space in a supine position, in which all sounds were blocked by the monotonous noise of the air conditioner motor. Their hands were inserted into special cardboard sleeves, and their eyes were covered with tinted glasses that let in only a faint diffused light. Most of the subjects were unable to endure this experiment for more than 3 days. This is related to handling human consciousness devoid of the usual external stimuli, into the depths of the subconscious, from which rather bizarre and most incredible images and false sensations began to emerge, reminiscent of hallucinations to the tested individuals. Such imaginary perceptions frightened the subjects, and they demanded to complete the experiment. This study allowed scientists to conclude that sensory stimulation for normal development and the functioning of consciousness is vital, and deprivation of sensory sensations leads to degradation mental activity and the personality itself. The inevitable consequences of prolonged stimulus deprivation will be cognitive impairments, namely memory, attention and thought processes, anxiety, sleep and wake cycle disorders, mood changes from depression to euphoria and vice versa, inability to distinguish reality from hallucinations.

Further studies have shown that the occurrence of the listed symptoms is caused not by the fact of deprivation, but by the attitude of the individual to the loss. sensory perceptions. The very deprivation of external influence on the analyzers is not terrible for an adult individual - this is just a change in environmental conditions, to which human body easily adaptable by restructuring the functioning.

So, for example, food deprivation will not necessarily be accompanied by suffering. Unpleasant sensations appear only in those individuals to whom fasting is unusual or they are forcibly deprived of food. People who consciously practice therapeutic fasting feel lighter in the body on the third day and can easily endure a ten-day fast.

Sensory and emotional deprivation of young children is manifested in a lack of opportunities to establish an emotionally intimate relationship with a certain person or in breaking an established relationship. Children who find themselves in an orphanage, boarding school or hospital often find themselves in an impoverished environment that causes sensory hunger. Such an environment is harmful to individuals of any age, but it is especially detrimental to babies.

Numerous psychological research proved that a necessary condition for the normal formation of the brain in the early age period is the presence of a sufficient amount of external impressions, since it is in the course of entering the brain that various information From the external environment and its further processing, the training of the analyzer systems and the corresponding structures of the brain takes place.

social deprivation

The complete absence or reduction of the ability to communicate with other people, to live, interacting with society, is a social deprivation. Violation of personal contacts with society can provoke a certain state of the psyche, which serves as a pathogenic factor that causes the development of a number of painful symptoms. The occurrence of violations is due to social isolation, the level of rigidity of which varies, which in turn establishes a measure of the severity of the situation of deprivation.

There are several forms of social deprivation, which differ not only in the level of its rigidity, but in the person who is the initiator. That is, there is certain personality, which establishes the deprivation nature of the relationship of an individual or a group of persons with a wide society. In accordance with this, the following variants of social deprivation are distinguished: forced, forced, voluntary and voluntary-forced isolation.

Forced isolation occurs when an individual or a group of individuals find themselves, due to insurmountable circumstances, cut off from society. Such circumstances do not depend on their will or on the will of society. For example, the crew of a ship that has been wrecked on an uninhabited island.

Forced isolation is observed when society isolates individuals regardless of their aspirations and desires, and often in spite of them. An example of such isolation is prisoners in correctional institutions or closed social groups, where being in which does not imply restrictions on their rights and does not imply a reduction social status personalities (conscripts, children from orphanages).

Voluntary isolation occurs when individuals own will distance themselves from society (for example, monks or sectarians).

Voluntarily-forced isolation occurs when the achievement of a certain goal that is significant for an individual or a group of people implies the need to significantly narrow one's own contacts with a familiar environment. For example, sports boarding schools.

Man is the most perfect creature on planet Earth, but at the same time, during the neonatal period and in infancy, he is the most helpless creature, since he does not have any ready-made forms of behavioral response.

Deprivation of young children leads to a decrease in their success in understanding society and difficulties in building communications with individual subjects and society as a whole, which in the future will significantly affect the effectiveness of their life activities.

In addition, being in institutions of a closed type does not remain without detrimental consequences for the developing child's psyche.

Social deprivation of orphans sharply activates the formation of undesirable personality traits, such as: infantilism, self-doubt, dependency, lack of independence, low self-esteem. All this slows down the process of socialization, leads to disharmony in the social development of orphans.

Deprivation of children

The shortage of any conditions, objects or means that satisfy material needs, spiritual and mental needs, in conditions of constant shortage can be chronic, that is, chronic deprivation. In addition, it can be intermittent, partial or spontaneous and depends on the duration of the loss.

Prolonged deprivation of children retards their development. Flaw social incentives and sensory stimuli in the process children's formation leads to inhibition and distortion of mental and emotional development.

For the full formation of babies, diverse stimuli of various modalities (auditory, tactile, etc.) are needed. Their deficiency generates stimulus deprivation.

Unsatisfactory conditions for learning and mastering various skills, a disorderly arrangement of the external environment, which does not make it possible to comprehend, predict and control what is happening from the outside, gives rise to cognitive deprivation.

Social contacts with the adult environment and, first of all, with the mother ensure the formation of personality, and their deficiency leads to emotional deprivation.

Emotional deprivation affects crumbs in the following way. Children become lethargic, their orienting activity decreases, they do not strive for movement, and a weakening of physical health inevitably begins. There is also a delay in development in all major parameters.

Maternal deprivation does not lose the destructive power of its own influence at all stages of childhood growing up. As a result of maternal deprivation, the attitude of a small personality towards itself is distorted, there may be a rejection by the child own body or auto-aggression. In addition, the child loses the opportunity to establish full-fledged relationships with other people.

Limiting the possibilities of social implementation through the assimilation of certain social roles, and also through familiarization with public ideas and goals leads to social deprivation.

The pronounced result of a slowdown or disturbance in the development of babies, which occurs as a result of some form of deprivation, is called hospitalism.

Mental deprivation is a mental condition that has arisen as a result of such life situations where the subject is not given the opportunity to satisfy some of his basic mental needs sufficiently for a long time.

The mental needs of the child the best way satisfied, no doubt, by his daily association with environment. If for any reason the child is prevented from such contact, if he is isolated from the stimulating environment, then he inevitably suffers from a lack of stimuli. This isolation can be of varying degrees. With complete isolation from the human environment for a long period, it can be assumed that the basic mental needs, which were not satisfied from the very beginning, will not develop.

One factor in the occurrence of mental deprivation is the insufficient supply of stimuli - social, sensitive, sensory. It is assumed that another factor in the occurrence of mental deprivation is the termination of the connection already established between the child and his social environment.

There are three main types of mental deprivation: emotional(affective), sensory(stimulus) social(identities). According to the degree of severity, deprivation can be complete and partial.

Czech scientists J. Langmeyer and Z. Mateychek emphasize some conventionality and relativity of the concept of mental deprivation - after all, there are cultures in which it is considered the norm that which would be an anomaly in another cultural environment. In addition, of course, there are cases of deprivation that have an absolute character (for example, children brought up in the situation of Mowgli).

Emotional and sensory deprivation.

It manifests itself in an insufficient opportunity to establish an intimate emotional relationship with any person or break such a connection when one has already been created. A child often finds himself in an impoverished environment when he finds himself in an orphanage, hospital, boarding school or other closed institution. Such an environment, causing sensory hunger, is harmful to a person at any age. However, for a child, it is especially destructive.

As numerous psychological studies show, a necessary condition for the normal maturation of the brain in infancy and early childhood is a sufficient amount of external impressions, since it is in the process of entering the brain and processing various information from the outside world that the sense organs and the corresponding structures of the brain are exercised.

A large contribution to the development of this problem was made by a group of Soviet scientists who united under the leadership of N.M. Shchelovanova. They found that those areas of the child's brain that are not exercised cease to develop normally and begin to atrophy. N.M. Shchelovanov wrote that if a child is in conditions of sensory isolation, which he has repeatedly observed in a nursery and children's homes, then there is a sharp lag and slowdown in all aspects of development, movements do not develop in a timely manner, speech does not occur, and mental development is retarded.

Data obtained by N.N. Shchelovanov and his collaborators were so vivid and convincing that they served as the basis for the development of some fragmentary provisions of the psychology of child development. The well-known Soviet psychologist L. I. Bozhovich put forward the hypothesis that it is the need for impressions that plays the leading role in the mental development of the child, arising approximately at the third or fifth week of the child’s life and being the basis for the formation of other social needs, including social in nature, the need for communication between the child and his mother. This hypothesis opposes the ideas of most psychologists that the initial needs are either organic needs (for food, warmth, etc.) or the need for communication.

One of the confirmations of his hypothesis L.I. Bozovic considers the facts obtained in the study of the emotional life of an infant. So, the Soviet psychologist M.Yu. Kistyakovskaya, analyzing the stimuli that evoke positive emotions in a child in the first months of life, found that they arise and develop only under the influence of external influences on his senses, especially on the eye and ear. M. Yu. Kistyakovskaya writes that the data obtained show “the incorrectness of the point of view according to which positive emotions appear in a child when his organic needs are satisfied. All the materials we have received indicate that the satisfaction of organic needs only removes emotionally negative reactions, thereby creating favorable conditions for the emergence of emotionally positive reactions, but does not in itself generate them. The fact that we have established - the appearance of the child's first smile and other positive emotions when fixing an object - contradicts the point of view according to which a smile is an inborn social reaction. At the same time, since the emergence of positive emotions is associated with the satisfaction of some need of the body, this fact gives reason to believe that the infant, along with organic needs, also has a need for the activity of the visual analyzer. This need is manifested in positive, continuously improving reactions under the influence of external influences, aimed at receiving, maintaining and strengthening external stimuli. And it is on their basis, and not on the basis of unconditional food reflexes positive-emotional reactions of the child arise and are fixed and his neuro- mental development". Another great Russian scientist V.M. Bekhterev noted that by the end of the second month, the child seemed to be looking for new experiences.

Indifference, lack of a smile in children from orphanages, orphanages were noticed by many from the very beginning of the activities of such institutions, the first of which date back to the 4th century AD (335, Tsaregrad), and their rapid development in Europe dates back to about the 17th century. A saying of a Spanish bishop dating back to 1760 is known: “In an orphanage, a child becomes sad and many die of sadness.” However, as a scientific fact, the negative consequences of being in a closed children's institution began to be considered only at the beginning of the 20th century. These phenomena, first systematically described and analyzed by the American researcher R. Spitz, were called by him the phenomena of hospitalism. The essence of the discovery made by R. Spitz was that in a closed children's institution the child suffers not only and not so much from poor nutrition or poor medical care how much from the specific conditions of such institutions, one of the salient points of which is a poor stimulus environment. Describing the conditions of keeping children in one of the shelters, R. Spitz notes that the children constantly lay in glass boxes up to 15-18 months, and until they themselves got up on their feet, they saw nothing but the ceiling, since curtains hung on the sides. The children's movements were limited not only by the bed, but also by a depression in the mattress. There were very few toys.

The consequences of such sensory hunger, if assessed by the level and nature of mental development, are comparable to the consequences of deep sensory defects. For example, B. Lofenfeld found that, according to the results of development, children with congenital or early acquired blindness are similar to deprived sighted children (children from closed institutions). These results are manifested in the form of a general or partial developmental delay, the emergence of certain motor features and personality and behavioral characteristics.

Another researcher, T. Levin, who studied the personality of deaf children using the Rorschach test (known psychological methodology based on the subject's interpretation of a series of pictures with images of color and black-and-white blots) found that the characteristics of emotional reactions, fantasy, control in such children are also similar to those of orphans from institutions.

Thus, an impoverished environment negatively affects the development of not only the child's sensory abilities, but also his entire personality, all aspects of the psyche. Of course, hospitalism is a very complex phenomenon, where sensory hunger is only one of the moments that in real practice cannot even be isolated and its influence as such cannot be traced. However, the depriving effect of sensory hunger today can be considered generally recognized.

According to I. Langmeyer and Z. Mateychek, babies brought up without a mother begin to suffer from a lack of maternal care, emotional contact with their mother only from the seventh month of life, and until that time, the most pathogenic factor is precisely the depleted external environment.

According to M. Montessori, whose name is special place in child psychology and pedagogy, author famous system sensory education, and went down in history as the Montessori system, which participated in the organization of the first orphanages, nurseries for children of the poorest segments of the population, the most sensitive, most sensitive to the sensory development of the child, and, therefore, subject to the greatest danger from the lack of a variety of external impressions is a period of two and a half to six years. There are other points of view, and, apparently, the final scientific solution issue requires further research.

However, for practice, it can be recognized as fair the thesis that sensory deprivation can have a negative impact on the mental development of a child at any age, at each age in its own way. Therefore, for each age, the question of creating a diverse, rich and developing environment for the child should be specifically raised and in a special way solved.

The need to create a sensory rich external environment in children's institutions, which is currently recognized by everyone, is in fact implemented primitively, one-sidedly and incompletely. So, often with the best of intentions, struggling with the dullness and monotony of the situation in orphanages and boarding schools, they try to saturate the interior as much as possible with various colorful panels, slogans, paint the walls in bright colors, etc. But this can eliminate sensory hunger only for the most a short time. Remaining unchanged, such a situation in the future will still lead to it. Only in this case, this will happen against the background of significant sensory overload, when the corresponding visual stimulation will literally hit on the head. At one time, N.M. Shchelovanov warned that the maturing brain of a child is especially sensitive to overloads created by prolonged, monotonous influence of intense stimuli.

Social deprivation.

Along with emotional and sensory, social deprivation is also distinguished.

The development of a child largely depends on communication with adults, which affects not only the mental, but also, in the early stages, the physical development of the child. Communication can be viewed in terms of different humanities. From the point of view of psychology, communication is understood as the process of establishing and maintaining a purposeful, direct or indirect contact between people, one way or another psychologically connected with each other. The development of the child, within the framework of the theory of cultural and historical development, is understood by Vygotsky as the process of appropriation by children of the socio-historical experience accumulated by previous generations. Extracting this experience is possible when communicating with elders. At the same time, communication plays decisive role not only in enriching the content of children's consciousness, but also determines its structure.

Immediately after birth, the child has no communication with adults: he does not respond to their appeals and does not address himself to anyone. But already after the 2nd month of life, he enters into an interaction that can be considered communication: he begins to develop a special activity, the object of which is an adult. This activity is manifested in the form of attention and interest of the child to an adult, emotional manifestations in a child to an adult, proactive actions, sensitivity of the child to the attitude of an adult. Communication with adults in infants plays a kind of starting role in the development of response to important stimuli.

Among examples of social deprivation, such textbook cases as A. G. Houser, wolf children and children-mowglis are known. All of them could not (or spoke poorly) speak and walk, often cried and were afraid of everything. During their subsequent upbringing, despite the development of the intellect, violations of personality and social ties remained. The consequences of social deprivation are irremovable at the level of some deep personality structures, which manifests itself in distrust (with the exception of members of the group who have suffered the same thing, for example, in the case of the development of children in concentration camps), the significance of the feeling of "WE", envy and excessive criticality.

Considering the importance of the level of personal maturity as a factor of tolerance for social exclusion, it can be assumed from the very beginning that what younger child the harder it will be for him to be socially isolated. In the book of Czechoslovak researchers I. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek "Psychic deprivation in childhood" there are many expressive examples what social isolation can lead to. These are the so-called "wolf children", and the famous Kaspar Hauser from Nuremberg, and essentially tragic cases from the life of modern children who have not seen anyone and have not communicated with anyone since early childhood. All these children could not speak, did not walk well or did not walk at all, wept incessantly, they were afraid of everything. The worst thing is that, with a few exceptions, even with the most selfless, patient and skillful care and upbringing, such children remained flawed for life. Even in cases where, thanks to the ascetic work of teachers, the development of the intellect occurred, serious violations of personality and communication with other people persisted. At the first stages of "re-education" the children experienced an obvious fear of people; subsequently, the fear of people was replaced by unstable and poorly differentiated relations with them. In the communication of such children with others, importunity and an insatiable need for love and attention are striking. Manifestations of feelings are characterized, on the one hand, by poverty, and, on the other hand, by acute, affective coloring. These children are characterized by explosions of emotions - violent joy, anger and the absence of deep, stable feelings. They have practically no higher feelings associated with a deep experience of art, moral conflicts. It should also be noted that they are emotionally very vulnerable, even a small remark can cause a sharp emotional reaction, not to mention situations that really require emotional stress, internal stamina. Psychologists in such cases speak of low frustration tolerance.

A mass of cruel life experiments on social deprivation was set up with children by the second World War. A thorough psychological description of one of the cases of social deprivation and its subsequent overcoming was given in their famous work by A. Freud, daughter of 3. Freud, and S. Dan. These researchers observed the process of rehabilitation of six 3-year-old children, former prisoners of the concentration camp in Terezin, where they ended up in infancy. The fate of their mothers, the time of separation from their mother were unknown. After their release, the children were placed in one of the family-type orphanages in England. A. Freud and S. Dan note that from the very beginning it was striking that children were a closed monolithic group, which did not allow them to be treated as separate individuals. Between these children there was no envy, jealousy, they constantly helped and imitated each other. Interestingly, when another child appeared - a girl who arrived later, she was instantly included in this group. And this despite the fact that the children showed clear distrust and fear of everything that went beyond their group - adults who took care of them, animals, toys. Thus, the relationships within the small children's group replaced for its members the relationships that had been broken in the concentration camp with the outside world of people. Subtle and observant researchers have shown that it was possible to restore relations only through these intra-group connections.

A similar story was observed by I. Langmeyer and Z. Mateychek “from 25 children who were forcibly taken away from their mothers in work camps and brought up in one secret place in Austria, where they lived in a cramped old house among the forests, without the opportunity to go out into the yard, play with toys or see anyone other than his three inattentive caregivers. After their release, the children also at first screamed all day and night, they did not know how to play, did not smile, and only with difficulty learned to observe the cleanliness of the body, to which they had previously been forced only by brute force. After 2-3 months, they acquired a more or less normal appearance, and the “group feeling” greatly helped them during readaptation.

The authors give another interesting, from my point of view, example that illustrates the strength of the WE feeling in children from institutions: “It is worth mentioning the experience of those times when children from institutions were examined in a clinic, and not directly in an institutional environment. When the children were in the waiting room in a large group, there were no peculiarities in their behavior compared to other children preschool age who were in the same waiting room with their mothers. However, when a child from the institution was excluded from the team and he remained in the office alone with a psychologist, then after the first joy from unexpected meeting with new toys, his interest quickly fell, the child became restless and cried. While children from families were in most cases content with the presence of the mother in the waiting room and cooperated with the psychologist with an appropriate measure of confidence, most preschool children from institutions could not be individually examined because of their unadaptedness to new conditions. This succeeded, however, when several children entered the room at once and the examined child felt support in the other children who were playing in the room. The point here apparently concerns the same manifestation of "group dependence" that characterized in a particularly pronounced form certain groups of children brought up in concentration camps, and also became the basis of their future "re-education" (re-learning ). Czechoslovak researchers consider this manifestation to be one of the most important diagnostic indicators of "institutional deprivation".

The analysis shows that the older the children, the more soft forms social deprivation is manifested and the faster and more successfully compensation occurs in the case of special pedagogical or psychological work. However, it is almost never possible to eliminate the consequences of social deprivation at the level of certain deep personality structures. People who suffered in childhood social isolation, continue to distrust all people, with the exception of members of their microgroup who have suffered the same thing. They are envious, overly critical of others, ungrateful, all the time, as it were, waiting for a dirty trick from other people.

Many similar features can be seen in boarding school pupils. But, perhaps, the nature of their social contacts after graduating from the boarding school, when they entered normal life, is perhaps more indicative. adulthood. Former pupils experience obvious difficulties in establishing various social contacts. For example, despite the very desire create a normal family, enter the parental family of your chosen one or chosen one, they often fail along the way. As a result, everything comes to the fact that family or sexual ties are created with former classmates, with members of the same group with which they suffered social isolation. To all others, they feel distrust, a feeling of insecurity.

The fence of an orphanage or boarding school has become a fence for these people, separating them from society. He did not disappear even if the child ran away, and he remained when he was married, entering adulthood. Because this fence created a feeling of an outcast, dividing the world into “Us” and “Them”.

Deprivation situations.

In addition to the deprivation itself, a number of terms associated with this phenomenon stand out. deprivation situation such circumstances of a child's life are called when it is not possible to satisfy important mental needs. Different children subjected to the same deprivation situation will behave differently and will bear different consequences from this, because they have different constitutions and different previous development.

For example, insulation- one of the options for a deprivation situation. J. Langmeyer and Z. Matejczek also single out the term effects deprivation ("deprivation lesion"), which they call external manifestations deprivation results, i.e. behavior of a child in a deprivation situation. If the child has already been in a deprivation situation once, but this, fortunately, was not for long and did not lead to gross mental deviations, then they speak of a deprivation experience of the child, after which he will be more hardened or, unfortunately, more sensitive.

frustration i.e., the experience of annoyance due to the blockade of a need is not deprivation, but a more particular concept that can enter into the general concept of deprivation. If a child is taken away, for example, a toy, the child may be in a state of frustration (and usually temporary). If the child is not allowed to play at all long time, then it will be deprivation, although there is no more frustration. If a child at the age of two was separated from his parents and placed in a hospital, then he may give a reaction of frustration to this. If he stayed in the hospital for a year, and even in the same room, without visiting his parents, without walking, without receiving the necessary sensory, emotional and social information, then he may develop conditions that are classified as deprivation.

Cases of extreme social isolation can lead to distortion and retardation of the mental development only of more or less older children who are already able to secure some kind of existence for themselves and survive in difficult conditions. Another thing is when we are talking about small children or babies - they usually do not survive, having lost human society, his worries.

Delimited from social isolation separation. By the latter, Czechoslovak researchers understand not only the painful separation of the child from the mother, but also any cessation of the specific connection between the child and his social environment. Separation can be sudden and gradual, complete or partial, short and long. Separation is the result of a violation of mutual contact, it affects not only the child, but also the parents. Parents have anxiety, etc. If the separation lasts for a long time, then it turns into social isolation, which was mentioned earlier. Separation has great importance for the development in the child of certain social attitudes. Back in 1946, the English scientist Bowlby published comparative data on the development of 44 underage thieves and the same group of minors, but without antisocial tendencies. It turned out that separation in childhood was many times more common among offenders than among non-offending peers. Bowlby believes that separation affects, first of all, the aesthetic development of the personality and the formation of a normal feeling of anxiety in the child.

The same deprivation conditions affect children differently different ages. With age, the needs of the child change, as well as the susceptibility to their insufficient satisfaction.

In 1951, Bowlby's most famous book, Maternal Care and Mental Health, was published, in which the results of the research were collected. Based on the data of his observations, as well as on the research of Spitz, (who formulated the concept of hospitalism, describing the conditions for keeping children in one of the shelters, R. Spitz notes that children constantly lay in glass boxes until they were 15-18 months old They couldn't see anything but the ceiling, as the boxes were draped with curtains.The children's movements were limited not only by the bed, but also by a depression in the mattress.There were very few toys.

They were deprived of contact with adults, this led to the fact that they lagged behind in physical and mental development, some began to fade for no apparent reason and could only be cured by carrying them in their arms), Bowlby concluded: a child at an early age should be brought up in an atmosphere emotional warmth and must be attached to the mother on the basis of intimate and enduring emotional ties, which for both represent a source of satisfaction and joy.

The situation in which a child suffers from the disruption of such an emotional connection seriously undermines his mental health. Depending on the degree and persistence of deprivation, mental development distortions can be varying degrees difficult, and sometimes irreparable.

Social, intellectual deprivation - deprivation of experience necessary for the development of emotions.

Intellectual deprivation - if the child does not have enough toys, cognitive experience.

Socio-emotional deprivation - deprived of affection, contact, stroking - violations in an emotional way. Girls who lose contact with their mother at 9 months of age develop emotional tendencies to become depressed later on.

Deprivation of tactile contact - when they don’t pick them up, they tell the boy that real men are strong, they don’t cry, they don’t pick them up. He grows up emotionally cold, but intellectually developed.

In Czechoslovakia, 2 twins lost their mother at the age of 1.5. The stepmother locked them in the bathroom. At the age of 6 they were discovered - intelligence was below the norm IQ less than 70%, mentally retarded, shorter, physically underdeveloped. Psychologists compensated emotional deprivation for 1.5 g, and by the age of 14 they were brought to the intellectual norm.

The search for tactile contact with a psychologist is the result of insufficient warmth and affection.

Mental ill health of parents is a factor of deprivation for children.

Socio - economic status - parents all day at work - deprivation.

A large number of children in the family (5-6 children), a decrease in attention to each child - deprivation. (Lectures)

Scientists, analyzing the stimuli that cause positive emotions in a child in the first months of life, found that they arise and develop only under the influence of external influences on his senses, especially on the eye and ear.

The strategy for overcoming deprivation is compensation.

For each age of the child, a varied, rich and developing environment should be specially created.

The mother must not be separated from the child in the first year of life!

Types of deprivation

Depending on what exactly a person is deprived of, there are different types of deprivation. For psychology, such types of deprivation as motor, sensory, informational, social, sexual, emotional and maternal are of the greatest interest.

Let us consider those types of deprivation that are most important for studying the development of children deprived of normal parental care.

Sensory deprivation. Sensory deprivation can also occur in life when, for one reason or another, a person experiences the so-called sensory hunger, does not receive enough stimuli - visual, auditory, tactile, and others. To describe such living conditions, psychologists also use the concept of a depleted environment, and more recently, a depleted information environment.

A child often finds himself in an impoverished environment when he finds himself in an orphanage, hospital, boarding school or other institution of a closed type. Such an environment, causing sensory hunger, is harmful to a person at any age. However, for a child, it is especially destructive.

Numerous psychological studies show that a sufficient number of external impressions is a necessary condition for normal maturation of the brain in infancy and early childhood, since it is in the process of entering the brain and processing various information from the outside world that the sense organs and the corresponding structures of the brain are exercised.

It has been established that those parts of the child's brain that do not exercise cease to develop normally and begin to atrophy.

The outstanding child psychologist L. I. Bozhovich (1968) put forward the hypothesis that the need for new impressions is the leading factor in the mental development of an infant. According to this hypothesis, the need for impressions arises approximately at 3-5 weeks of a child's life and is the basis for the formation of other social needs, including the social need in nature for communication between the child and the mother. This position is opposed to the ideas of most psychologists that the initial needs are either organic needs (for food, warmth, etc.) or the need for communication.

At what age is the impact of sensory deprivation on the child's mental development the greatest?

Some authors believe that the very first months of life are critical. So, I. Langmeyer and Z. Mateychek note that babies brought up without a mother begin to suffer from a lack of maternal care, emotional contact with their mother only from the seventh month of life, and until that time, the most pathogenic factor is precisely the depleted external environment (1984) .

The most sensitive, critical for the sensory development of the child is the period from two and a half to six years.

There are other points of view, and, apparently, the final scientific solution of the issue requires additional research. However, for practice, it should be recognized as fair that sensory deprivation can have a negative impact on the mental development of a child at any age, in each in its own way. Therefore, for each age, the question of creating a diverse, saturated and developing environment should be specially raised and in a special way solved.

(Book "Psychology of orphanhood" 2nd edition)
Mental deprivation is a type of sensory deprivation when, at an early stage of ontogenesis, the organism is isolated from society or receives incomplete or distorted information about the external, i.e. from his social environment.

Possible types and forms of mental deprivation are extremely diverse. The most acute forms of psychic deprivation occur when, say, a human child enters an animal pack at a young age. There, his upbringing takes place, which results in the fact that such a child can never subsequently become a person. His soul developed according to the laws of an animal pack and can no longer become human.