The phantom reality and psychodramatic practicе: 2013

THE PHANTOM REALITY AND PSYCHODRAMATIC PRACTICЕ

This is the companion blog for the following book.

Iryna .M. Serhiyenko,THE PHANTOM REALITY AND PSYCHODRAMATIC PRACTICЕ. 140 p.

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Introduction
Working as a psychologist and rendering psychotherapeutic aid to people with different psychological problems, I often get conclusions which can be useful both for the specialists in the sphere of emotional well-being and for those who are tormented with such questions but still haven’t decided to seek help. In this book I want to share my reflections on such a little-known psychological phenomenon as psychological phantoms.

The theory of phantom reality, which I have suggested and am now developing in the context of psychodramatic method, allows us to look at familiar and daily phenomena, revealing themselves in the sphere of human interaction in a completely new way. Psychological phantoms can be of different types: phantom personality, phantom reality, phantom feeling or phantom self-evaluation, etc. This phenomenon refers to the sphere of the unconscious. It can even be found with mentally sane people. Modern diagnostics, correction and psychotherapy can considerably facilitate in a psychoprevention of addictions, mental diseases, suicides and destructions in relationships with close people.

This paper introduces cases from the actual practice of a psychologist and a psychotherapist, which concern interconnection of excess weight and phantoms, depression and “phantom support”, influence of the phantom reality on formation of addictions, description of a phantom of an “ideal” mother and its forms, disclosure of psychological reasons of children’s mental insanity, psychological problems of immigration, difficulties in relationships of siblings, married couples and other aspects of the real life of human beings in the context of psychodramatic method. Cases of phantom reality with siblings and psychological influence of loss of a significant person are described via analyzing the feature films. There is also a test and a questionnaire for self-diagnosis of presence of phantoms in an individual’s psychological reality.

I hope that psychological analysis of cases and the recommended exercises will help some of my readers in establishing good relations with those around in real life, showing more love to the real close people (and not to phantoms), which means becoming happier in life and bringing happiness to the other people.

Dear readers, I want to thank you for your attention to my thoughts and my work. While writing this book I found great help in your interest in my blog “Psychological Notes of I.M. Serhiyenko” http://irynamaratovna.blogspot.com (іn Russian). I am very pleased to see that my blog, dealing with an analysis of phantom phenomena, is attended by the readers from all around the world: Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Lithuania, Russia, the USA, Finland, Sweden, Ukraine, etc. I would be glad to receive commentaries and questions in Russian, Ukrainian and English which will be answered to in the next publications.

SECTION 1. CONCEPT OF PHANTOM REALITY

The psychological phantom phenomena – what is it?

The phantom phenomena have been known in medicine and children's psychology since long ago. Such psychological phenomena as "the phantom friend", "the magic defender", were observed by researchers and were described in children's psychology. Disabled people feel "phantom pains" in amputated limbs. Personal practice of the author in the field of psychological consultation allowed her to allocate additionally such phenomena as "the phantom of the lost relations", "phantom marriage", "phantom pregnancy", "phantom support" and many other phantoms.
In psychodrama consultation the whole area, a phantom reality, was opened for new researches, being an imagined mental reality which exists as "reality" in the subconsciousness of a person. The phantom reality brings disorientation in self-control of a person because the mentality of a person finds itself before a dilemma, deciding in what reality it should act (in actual or imagined), what information (true or made up) should guide it in creation of the process of a creativity of life.
Alive and true reality demands creativity and efforts for the solution of new worldly tasks, but in phantom reality it isn't required to perform new creative actions. It is reliable and predictable because it is constructed on the programs copied and modeled from the past. The psychotherapy of emotional traumas has to include diagnostics of the phantoms which have arisen due to loss of significant people and communications, and also works on "saying farewell" to them.

Definition of the phantom reality

The phantom reality is the part of internal subjective subconscious reality created by mentality of a person for the purpose of protection against intolerable mental anguish (for example, at loss or threat of loss of someone or something cherished as a hobby) or in case of impossibility to satisfy emotional need (for example, children have a need for warm emotional communication and emotional friendly contact).

The psychodrama is an effective method of psychotherapy in the presence of phantom phenomena

The classical operation technique in "sur-reality" provides opportunity for a psychodramatherapist to stage psychodrama games in which there are imagined figures, feelings and events. It allows us to apply it at therapy of clients, who are carriers of phantom reality. When carrying out the psychodrama the technique of the role exchange allows the protagonist to glance at "the world of feelings and thoughts" of the other person, to feel the subjective reality of other person from within, and then return to reality.

Why it is necessary to study phantom reality?

Investigation of phantom reality and phantom individuals is necessary, in our opinion, for searching the ways of preservation of mental and psychological health of a person, ensuring continuous and forward personal development. The phantom personality is a psychohologram (reflection of a lost or absent significant person) which poisons mentality of a subject of activity, tears off it from reality, creates illusory feelings, breaks ability to soberly think and to adequately build the relations with real people, hinders the person from operating flexibly in the actual worldly situations.

About the phantom of personal importance

The phenomenon of the phantom of personal importance is connected with the unconscious feeling of personal significance. Decrease in the level of one's own significance demands from mentality some actions, which would raise it. Psychologically healthy personality uses real actions for increasing the feeling of one's own significance (for example, developing new abilities, acquiring new knowledge, skills, abilities, mastering the new kinds of activity valuable to society). For confirmation of increase of personal significance a feedback from macrosociety and close surrounding people are necessary. How can the society confirm increase of significance of this or that personality? It is carried out by rewarding a person with certificates of appreciation, awards, promotion, increase of rewards for work and achievements. Praise, support, signs of special attention, gratitude for the work from friends, loved people provide a personality with the feeling of significance among close people.
At phantom ways of increasing personal significance, the mentality of a subject uses mental means instead of real actions. It results in psychological expansion of feeling of personal significance unsupported by the real gain of socially valuable qualities and abilities (psychological inflation).
When it is impossible to realize oneself in the social terms, a personality expects significance confirmation from the family members. Increasing personal significance in a family can be carried out in the phantom ways by mentality of a subject unconsciously by means of creation of invisible psychological traps for relatives. "Domestic personal significance" can be implemented in the form of usurpation of important family functions, oveprotectiveness; distancing; violence; economic, physical, sexual and other dependences etc.
Painful inflating of one's own importance of one of the family members at the expense of other participants of the family system can develop so intensively that it will lead to separation from reality. In case of crises which periodically happen in a real worldly situation of each personality, the mentality of a person, constructed on the phantom inflationary significance, faces the impossibility to receive desirable confirmation of personal significance. For example, at adverse combination of circumstances, the continual ability to supervise a worldly situation and direct its course to positive results can be called in question.
It is difficult to predict what option of changes (progressive or regressive) will be chosen by the mentality at subconscious level, therefore the best psychotherapeutic help in such case is a psychoprevention. For the purpose of carrying out psychoscheduled maintenance by psychodrama methods with a concrete individual, I developed the following stages:
• to analyze the feeling of personal significance;
• to diagnose zones of the "phantom" significance and the sphere of their confirmation;
• to help a personality to realize the psychological roots of emergence of zones of the "phantom" significance, the spheres of their confirmation;
• to accompany a subject in making a decision on replacing the inflationary mechanisms of increasing the personal significance for the real actions providing socially useful and significant personal development.

Phantom feelings is the "fuel" for daily living activities

The person who makes life on energy of phantom feelings and communications with phantom individuals, does it, relying on negative feelings. Phantom individuals, by definition (see the article "Definition of Phantom Reality"), are created by mentality on the negative basis (loss, deficiency, a surplus and other traumatic experiences). Some people don't want to say goodbye to phantom reality and phantom feelings because they draw upon these phenomena a support for the personality and force for their "I".
In author's practice as the psychotherapist the phantom love, phantom fear and phantom anger were observed. Alarm, offense and uncertainty can be phantom, too. These feelings are embedded into structure of personal activity and often serve as peculiar psychological "fuel".
Abandoning of negative feelings as the habitual phantom vital background assumes approach to reality of mentality of a subject (at first it can be emotionally painful), formation of ability to creation of such real worldly conditions for themselves and relatives who would generate the healthy positive emotional basis.

Phantoms are psychological idols

In the previous articles, it was shown that phantoms possess high subjective significance for mentality as "psychological support" and as "rescuers of the emotional sphere" of a person. It is difficult for a personality to leave phantoms and phantom reality behind because they create the feeling of reliability, protection, definiteness, stability, at least at illusory level.

Phantom relatives are suicidal tendencies of the living individuals

It is more difficult to love the living individuals than phantom individuals. Living individuals possess imperfection which can create difficulties of interaction with them. The mentality has to work to find interaction options with the real person.
With the phantom everything is simple. All algorithms of interaction are known and invariable. As a result the subconscious principle of economy of energy leads to the fact that a personality becomes focused on the contact with the phantom more and more. It is easier to live (more economically) with feeling of definiteness and predictability than to solve creative problems.

SECTION 2. RELATIONSHIPS WITH PARENTS AS BASIS OF FORMING OF PHANTOM REALITY FOR CHILD

Strong parents constitute duality of influence on children

In the provision of psychological assistance some interesting psychological phenomenon related to the influence of the personality "of a strong parent" on the formation of the "I" of the child was found. When we speak of "strong parents” we mean people possessing leadership qualities, active worldly position and people who set and reach goals, specify the tasks to other family members and seek their completeness. Qualities of a high-performance personality, shown by parents at home and in the wider social space, are imprinted by a baby. As an adult, such person may exercise such properties in self-organization of life and, if necessary, effectively manage other people or groups.
Psychological "splinter" of a situation is such that the qualities of "the strength" are imprinted together with negative emotional "makeweights". The negative emotions outspread by "a strong parent" on the relations with the child and other family members, can be connected with a number of factors which are presented in full version of the book "Phantom Reality and Psychodrama Practice".

The phantom of ideal mother brings up a depression of young mothers

Often young mothers seek to become "an ideal mother" for their children and thus fall into a trap which is called phantom reality. Under the concept "a young mother" we mean mothers who conceived for the first time, bore and gave birth to the child, without having previous experience of motherhood.
Why does a young mother get to phantom reality if she aspires to such an apparently good state of "an ideal mother"? It is possible, that happens because the condition of "ideality" is some kind of an abstraction, and as all the abstractions, they are considerably torn off from reality. The divergence between worldly reality of motherhood and abstraction of "the ideal motherhood" can be more or less, but the more it is, the more is a young mother's depression.

The phantom of an overprotective mother

"Mother, leave me alone", – at teenage age many of us said such words when mother broke our personal borders (entered a teenager's room unexpectedly or without permission, read and made comments on a child's personal diary, gave numerous persuasive advice and requirements, etc.). The image of a mother can become the phantom in subconsciousness of an adult and continue to supervise, patronize and impose its thoughts on the personality.

Distancing of a mother and dependencies of their children

Mothers can unconsciously create phantoms in mentality of children not only by overprotecting, but also by distancing from a child's feelings. The distance creates in mentality of the child the need for approaching the mother, increases the emotional significance of contact with her. The basis for psychological inflating of the importance of an image of a mother in a child's soul is founded in such a way. The phantom of a mother is the exaggerated psychological importance of the identity of his mother and emotional contact with her in the subconscious reality of a child.

Phantom children, brothers and sisters.

Developing the subject of phantom individuals in a family, we will talk about "phantom children". Images of children who were lost by a family, but the family couldn't accept the fact of their death, are included in the concept "phantom children". Children lost due to abortions or miscarriages to whom parents could not say goodbye or were not buried as ordinary people, can become phantom individuals for mentality of some family members. If there was no opportunity to bury children lost in the period of pregnancy "properly", to cry on a grave, to tell something at parting, process of grieving can't begin so that it will naturally come to an end later at any time. "Hanging" mentality continues to carry out its program, but already with phantom "child".

Fear of feedback from parents – reality alienation

Let's consider a situation when children grow in the atmosphere of negative feedback both according to the verbal contents, and emotional background. Parents are the main representatives of true reality, external reality. If close people express "hostility" to a child's feelings, there arises an expectation of negative feedback from other people, too.

SECTION 3. PHANTOM PERSONS IN THE RELATIONS WITH THE PARTNER

Man, woman and phantoms

Man and woman! The conjunction "AND" means connection, but is it easy for them to connect their souls (i.e. feelings, views, values)? Unfortunately, not always. To a question: "What interferes with it?" we will try to give an unusual for the majority answer: "Phantom individuals" who often exist in the area of the relations between a man and a woman who are in love. The invisible internal psychological barrier creates an image of the phantom personality which is carried by one of the partners. (More detailed information about how the phantom can separate the man and the woman will be accessible in the full version of the book).

Fantomization of an image of the man in the modern world

The place and role of the man in the modern world changes very quickly. One of the directions of these changes a phenomenon can be called "the fantomization of an image of the man". This phenomenon is connected with technogenic changes in a way of life of a person which minimized a demand for a man as the carrier of physical strength.

Modern woman and the phantom of "an Amazon"

While working with modern young women I noticed that many of them imitate in their private life a phantom of "an Amazon". The myth about the Amazons says that they were the free, mobile, strong women independent of men and bringing up children on their own.
Therapeutic psychodrama work with the women bearing a phantom image of "a Female Soldier, Female Amazon" in their subconsciousness, represents difficult process. The phantom of "Female Amazon" being in a woman's subconsciousness bears some program of realization of the identity of this woman in itself. Understanding of the phantom and saying farewell to it is the general part of psychodrama work with any phantoms.

Love, jealousy and phantom individuals

As I already wrote in the previous articles, in the relations of two loving people almost always there is the third one. The third entity is a phantom personality (sweethearts from the past, phantom ideals and others). The phantom love triangle can exist as long as there is a couple.
The problem is that the phantom image is present in subconsciousness of one of partners, and the second partner intuitively "feels" its presence. This feeling of the third one "loved" by my partner creates the basis for jealousy.

The "bottle" phantom or why do the women choose the men who drink?

In my practice I met several cases in which young women of 30-36-year-age reported about the repeated unhappy relations with men. The problem was that the men chosen by them were "drinkers" (alcohol abusers). The analysis of these cases led to the thought that these women were in love not with drinkers, and with the "bottle" phantom.

SECTION 4. RELATIONS BETWEEN BROTHERS, SISTERS AND PHANTOMS

Siblings – "house terrorism"

Again and again I meet cases when brothers and sisters spend all their childhood engaged in dramatic, hidden from parents' eyes, wars. In these wars the older child is jealous of and hates the younger sibling for his/her birth, for occupying a place beside the mother (and beside parents in general).

Phantom siblings

I already wrote about psychological problems which arise between brothers and sisters, brothers and brothers, sisters and sisters. In this article I want to describe cases of the "phantom siblings". By "a phantom sibling" I mean a brother or a sister who do not actually exist, but they exist "as alive being" in the subjective subconscious mental reality of a person.

SECTION 5. INFLUENCE OF THE PHANTOMS ON HEALTH OF A PERSON

Excess weight and phantoms

Lately I began to work with the subject of "the psychological reasons of excess weight", giving classes for those who want to understand together with the subconscious basis of body the accumulation of nutrients in the form of the additional body weight.
I won't write about the known reasons, information about them is presented in books on psychosomatics. As I develop the idea of influence of the phantom individuals and phantom reality on mentality and on human life, I know that I can apply it to a problem of excess weight.

Excess weight and reality alienation

The people having excess weight, often bear anger for reality and its alienation from them. They often live in conflict with the reality, including with the reality of the size of their bodies. Loss (lack) of desirable weight of a body brings mentality into a condition of the internal conflict. The resolution of conflict goes through creation of the phantom reality.

Phantoms and role of "sufferer" in a family

Depressions of the personality can lead to formation of a role of a "sufferer". In these cases the strong resistance to the psychotherapeutic help often occurs: both from subconsciousness of the "suffering" person, and from the immediate environment, unconsciously interested in preservation of severe conditions of the "sufferer".

SECTION 6. ACCEPTANCE OF REALITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PERSONALITY

Migration and phantom reality

Migrants is the category of people who can get into a phantom trap (see article "Phantom reality – a shelter or a trap?"). Migration (to other country) itself is a strong psychological trauma as it represents numerous losses: loss of the habitual way of life, communication, thinking, behavior, familiar visual and sound environment familiar since the very childhood, food, mode of sleep and rest, organization of everyday work, etc.
If the mentality doesn't cope with all the losses (changes) in the life of the migrant, there can arise the requirement to idealize that abandoned country … Antecedents idealization is the first sign of emergence of the phantom consolatory and soul-warming reality.

Overcome the fear of living in the real world

The fear prevents us from living in the real world. It is difficult to live in the real world by the algorithm of the relations learned since the early childhood. And any algorithms acquired later don't provide help, too! Especially it applies to the reality surrounding us now. It is very plastic, changing, developing at fast rates, opening ways for a great number of choices, etc. The actual reality demands creativity and courage for making new decisions which are to be taken under responsibility, and still to risk realizing them without previous checking via one's own experience and experience of the former generations in a family.
The general conclusion which I would like to bring forward to the reader of this book is that being on friendly terms with phantom individuals (especially if they are images of the deceased people) is dangerous for mental and physical health of a person! It is recommended to engage in self-actualization and preventive psychotherapy so as to find phantom individuals and say goodbye to them.
Uncertainty of the worldly reality and its unpredictability create a vital interest, expectation of a new round of a creating life, feeling of living, various, developing, emotional, sensual, multi-aspect contact with the reality that creates fullness and pleasure of life.
You should befriend true reality, too!

We'd be pleased to get feedback about how this book works out as a textbook, what is missing, or covered in too much detail, or what is simply wrong. Please send any feedback or comments to email: psy.drama.dialog@gmail.com

The phantom reality and psychodramatic practicе

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

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Tuesday, September 10, 2013

THE PHANTOM REALITY AND PSYCHODRAMATIC PRACTICЕ