Personality crisis - stages of overcoming. This terrible word "crisis"

In fact, the classification of personality crises should have been placed earlier, before the description of the midlife crisis.
But she wrote later. Well, as it was written, I post it.
I postpone the rest of the crises until February.

In psychology, there are several types of crises: situational, age-related, existential and spiritual.

Situational crises

With situational ones, everything is most clear, they have a clear objective criterion: this is when a person is suddenly overtaken by an ass on several fronts. The passage of this crisis is obvious: complaints will not help the cause, practical actions are needed, we need to get out of the crisis. You don't need to be a psychologist to think of this: "When the guns speak, the muses are silent."

The help of a psychologist sometimes becomes necessary already: to integrate the experience gained - that is, in other words, in order to live normally, having learned that "this happens too." This becomes especially difficult when the experience goes beyond the normal. In this case, a person often “destroys the whole world”, and here the help of a psychologist is simply necessary.

Age crises

Age crises, like situational ones, have objective causes. For the most part, they are determined by age, corresponding physiological changes and changes in social roles. Age crises include childhood (there are many of them), adolescence, entry into adulthood, and aging.

Of all of them, only it is not accompanied by pronounced hormonal changes and is rather indirectly associated with a change in social roles. Therefore, there is definitely something existential in it, although formally it is not existential.

existential crises

With existential ones, unlike the previous ones, not everything is so clear: they have no objective reasons, they do not happen to everyone, although those existential givens that serve as their topics - these givens concern everyone:
1. Death
2. Freedom
3. Insulation
4. Meaninglessness of life.

These four existential givens can plunge a person into the abyss of crisis at any age. Such problems are fundamentally unsolvable at an objective level - that's why they are called existential, because we all have to live with it. Nevertheless, the awareness of such a reality in its entirety often takes a person to a new level, as it were. Speaking in the rough language of the psychological protocol, the maturity of the psychological defenses used increases, which has a beneficial effect not only on understanding these final givens themselves, but also on the general standard of living.

spiritual crisis

Unlike the previous ones, clearly classified and described in detail in the literature, strictly speaking, nothing is clear at all. There is no generally accepted concept and evidence base. This is due to the fact that it is in a spiritual crisis that a person encounters on his own experience a feeling of non-duality, unity and the absence of opposites, the verbal descriptions of which, in our dual world, cannot but be contradictory and vague.

A spiritual crisis is often the result of intensive spiritual practices, when a person does not have enough opportunities to integrate the experience gained into everyday life. But this contact with non-duality is not so simple. Quite expectedly, causal cause-and-effect relationships do not work in this area: sometimes a spiritual crisis overtakes a person without objective reasons, without any spiritual practices, for no reason. I, as a person spoiled by causality, still look for subjective reasons: an unconscious request, when the psyche needs more and more powerful resources for functioning, at some point gives an appeal to the most powerful resource of all. In other words, you will be rewarded according to your needs: whoever needs a resource will receive a resource. And whether he will be able to chew it - this is the question. How will it go.

The experience of the numinous experience of non-duality, given to us in sensations, is the most resourceful experience of all possible. In practice, this is an endless resource of the collective unconscious - it is the Holy Spirit, it is the Atman, it is the Tao, etc. The ability to deal with this resource is often not enough for a person, and this power is sometimes experienced so painfully that the probability of dying becomes quite obvious.

However, most crises in their pathological course have death as an alternative to overcoming the crisis: the most attractive alternative to “living as before” in a crisis, alas, does not last very long. Crises, in fact, are called crises because they combine not only opportunities, but also dangers. Fortunately, the dangers are not as dire as they seem. But the possibilities are unimaginable.

The main thing to remember is that they are.

Do you know the feeling of helplessness, loss, misunderstanding, how and why to live on? Do you think that an identity crisis is always difficult and painful?

Is it possible to turn a period of personal crisis into the next step for your development and do it as much as possible easy and comfortable?

From this article you will learn:

what in fact signifies a personal crisis,
what types of crises does each person go through,
how to get through these periods with maximum effect for your personal and spiritual development.

What is an identity crisis

A personal crisis is an experience of a turning point, a critical moment that affects the future course of life. Such periods are characterized by strong negative emotional experiences.

The word crisis comes from the Greek krisis and literally means “parting of the roads, turning point”. And in Chinese, this word consists of two hieroglyphs: wei - danger, trouble, threat, and chi - a turning point, the essence of being, an opportunity ...

That is, when you find yourself on the brink of a crisis, life provides you opportunity to choose a new direction and, having gone through difficulties, reach a different level of development.

According to the American psychologist J. Jacobson, a crisis occurs if life events pose a potential threat to the satisfaction of fundamental needs, and at the same time they pose a problem for the individual, from which he cannot escape and which he cannot resolve in a short time in the usual ways.

Thus, it is important to understand that the crisis requires changes in the way of being:

lifestyle,
way of thinking,
relationship with yourself
the world around
basic existential issues.

It can be said that overcoming age-related crises contributes to the development of a person, and existential crises - to the formation of a Personality.

Imagine how your life will change when you master the art of mastering through periods of crisis, seeing them as great opportunities for choosing a new life.

Studying at the Institute of Reincarnation helps to solve the main task of the crisis period: to know oneself, to see the ways of change and reach a new level of development.

Do you think there are differences in the causes of the onset and how the crisis proceeds for men and women?

Despite the fact that in our time the traditional roles of men and women overlap strongly, internal experiences and causes of crises continue to persist.

Men are more acutely experiencing crises associated with their implementation in society. And in those moments when the situation develops as a crisis, requiring a new solution, which is not yet available, they experience despair and tend to show aggressive reactions.

Women endure crises more painfully with relationships.

Feelings of uselessness, loneliness often push on the path of self-realization according to the male type. If the relationship does not add up, then maybe this is not necessary; I will develop as a professional.

Such a decision can temporarily bring relief, color life with a new meaning. But over time, the feeling of loneliness will only grow.

Types of personality development crises

Crises can be classified according to different criteria:

Age-related personality crises:

Children's age crises 3, 7 and 14 years. You have already passed each of them. Perhaps they have already passed or your children and grandchildren will pass. Each is important for the development of certain qualities.
First adult crisis or crisis of adolescence usually falls on 17-18 years. At this time, self-determination of the further life path takes place.
Midlife crisis 35-40 years makes you sum up the preliminary results of life, evaluate the experience gained and adjust the future path.
At 55-60 years old With retirement, there is a change in the usual way of life and it is important to find your fulfillment in this world again.

In fact, there are several more age crises.

The Institute of Reincarnation is often visited by people going through midlife crises and retirement. Training helps appreciate the experience gained and find new ways to implement.

Also important is the supportive environment of like-minded people, where there is an atmosphere of trust and loving acceptance of each student.

Do you know a state similar to the age crisis, before your birthday?

I confess that I myself belong to this category. This is not surprising, since as we grow older, we begin to perceive a birthday not as a holiday, but as a kind of milestone for summing up the results of the passed stage.

And if you don’t like the results, self-criticism begins like “I already ...., but what have I achieved / what do I have?”

Age crises are the most predictable. It is enough just to know the features of each of these periods and the tasks that they set for you - and then you will be able to draw up a specific plan of action for yourself and mitigate the passage of a difficult period.

Smile! I recalled the novel by Boris Akunin “The whole world is a theater”, in which the main character Erast Fandorin, having stepped over his 50th birthday, made up an “ageing plan”.

In each next year of life, you need to master two milestones: sports-physical and intellectual. Then aging will not be scary, but interesting. And he remarkably implemented this plan, until life made adjustments, adding a crisis from the unpredictable category - love for an actress.

And with that smile, let's move on to the next, often unpredictable, category of crises.

Situational crises

A sharp change in familiar conditions, moving, the departure of loved ones, the loss of a job, a change in financial situation - there are many surprises in life, both pleasant and painful.

Recall how you went through similar events in your life. Perhaps the most interesting thing about most situational crises is that even assuming some moments, planning certain events, you do not know how it will be implemented and what you will have to face.

One of the strongest and most protracted crises in my life was in 2011. Within 2 months, life went downhill. In February - dismissal from your favorite job to reduce. In March, the son seriously injured his knee. Then my mother passed away. Gradually, problems began in the relationship with her husband.

A chain of events from different spheres of life, both planned and sudden. I was ready for dismissal, the process of liquidating the organization in which I worked lasted more than a year. But: the work was loved, she was given almost 14 years and everything was built from scratch with her own hands, and this is where the main social circle is.

No matter how I prepared for the first free day of my life, everything turned out to be completely different. Only the first two weeks were perceived as rest. And then my internal throwing and thinking “why?”

The most unpredictable and painful was the death of my mother. She was only 60. In the evening I was visiting her, and at 9 am I got a call from her work and was told about her death. She worked at the ambulance and emergency station, all resuscitation measures were carried out without delay. For an hour, the best doctors tried to bring her back to life and could not do anything.

Then I realized that if the Soul decided that all the tasks were completed, it leaves. And there is no point in blaming doctors for being late or incompetent. I grew up among these people, I knew how much they love my mother and I was completely sure that everything in their power was done.

But later another tricky thought was added, dragging me into a deeper whirlpool of crisis. And this idea is connected with guilt- what I didn’t do as a daughter, what I didn’t have time to say. There were even deeper experiences associated with our relationship.

My crisis period has dragged on. Pain, misunderstanding of what to do, and why all this is for me. At the same time, the reluctance to move - I could not get out of bed for hours, and if I got up - I could not concentrate and hung in mental chewing gum or fell into the void.

Very soon I will tell you about what helped me cope and really get out of this crisis wiser, calmer, more confident and start a new interesting life. And now I propose to consider another frequently encountered category of crises.

Spiritual, existential crises

Most often they come unnoticed or are concomitant (or a consequence) for the two types discussed above.

During spiritual crises there is a revision deep life values and search for the meaning of life. And these are the most transformational periods in the development of you as a person.

In 1999-2000 under the guidance of Doctor of Psychology V. V. Kozlov, a study was conducted at the Yaroslavl State University.

In the questionnaire proposed to the participants of the study, there was a question about the reasons for the spiritual crisis they experienced. You can see the answers below.

- loss of a loved one (26.7%);
— illness of a loved one (17.2%);
— severe illness (12.4%);
- unhappy love (6.6%);
— a life-threatening situation (8.5%), etc.

From the answers it is clear that the reasons can concern both you personally and are related to feelings for loved ones. And this - peculiarity of spiritual crises, in contrast to age or situational ones, which mainly affect you.

Let's summarize what you've learned so far about crises. There are many classifications of personality crises. At the same time, it is important to understand that the human psyche is one, and all attempts to classify are needed more by professionals in order to determine how to help a person in a given situation.

And for an ordinary person who is in a difficult life situation, it does not matter whether it is a midlife crisis or the loss of a loved one.

Pain and experiences take you on all levels and interfere with being productive and happy.

Stages of development of a personality crisis

Do you think it is possible to prepare for the onset of a crisis period, make its passage less painful and even benefit?

Yes, it is possible if you know about the stages in which any kind of personality crisis develops.

At the same time, one must understand that often the crisis period does not have clear time limits. It can be difficult to determine its beginning and end. For this important to be aware for their psychological state.

Immersion stage

Usually a crisis begins with the emergence of a certain situation, some event in your life, which is characterized by two things:

Powerful emotions.
The inability (misunderstanding, ignorance) to act in the usual, familiar way.

It is these characteristics that lead to emotional and mental chewing gum as you begin to go around in circles, gradually sinking deeper and deeper into negative experiences.

Since emotions and thoughts at this stage are chaotic, chaotic, then in this state hard to find a new good solution. And any attempt to act in the usual ways is doomed to failure.

At this stage, it is important to track your condition, to identify cause-and-effect relationships. Need to add to your life more positive things, which will allow you to switch. It helps a lot to be surrounded by like-minded people who support you.

It is also important to really live, and not push negative emotions deep into yourself.

From my example about the death of my mother - due to the fact that I had to take over the entire organization of the funeral (dad was in even worse condition, the husband was at work, the son had a leg in a cast), then there was simply no time to live through emotions .

I remember the moment when the coffin was lowered into the grave, and I was called aside so that I could pay off the priest, who had been invited for the funeral service. When I returned, the grave was already being formed. When was it like a woman to mourn here? All the tears were left unshed mental pain driven into the body.

And this happened to me, having knowledge and even working with people for many years. She understood everything, but she couldn't do anything. Until I realized: I can’t cope alone, I need to turn to specialists.

After 4 months from the beginning of the crisis period, at the immersion training for two weeks, I splashed out all these unspoken, suppressed emotions.

I remember well how, at one of the practices, I clearly understood that I saw and felt a coffin in front of me and surrendered to the will of tears, allowed myself to cry out my grief.

Only after that did a gradual recovery begin and it became possible to proceed to the next stage - the search for a solution and answers to questions about what to do next.

Now imagine that at the beginning of the crisis period you were surrounded by people who are ready to support you. And you get the opportunity to communicate at the Soul level with departed relatives.

To you no need to suppress emotions, but you can calmly realize them, live and accept them. And you see the whole causal chain that led to this point in life. How much easier and faster will this stage of the crisis period pass for you?

dead end stage

At this stage, you have already realized the problem, managed to objectively see the task that is before you. But how exactly to act- you don't know yet. And very often here begins an endless search for reasons “why and for what?”.

It is this retreat into the past exacerbates the deadlock. The reasons can be endless: in past deeds, thoughts, actions or inaction. The reasons may lie in the recent past, or may be in childhood or past lives.

And looking into the future at this stage is very difficult, because it seems negative, unpromising. But right now it is very important to find a new meaning of life, to find new solutions, to see new ways of development.

There is a great opportunity in the 1st year of IR remember the tasks of your Soul and those lessons that she planned for herself for this incarnation. It helps to rediscover the purpose of life.

Relief comes from the reminder that the crisis is over. A black stripe is always followed by a white stripe. And, of course, any practices aimed at self-acceptance, attunement with the natural rhythm of life, meditation.

Fracture stage

And here is the solution. Or you managed to see the situation from a different angle and change your attitude towards it. Now you have to act differently!

It is very important at this stage to really introduce new qualities, a new vision. Integrate new experience into activities, form new models of behavior.

Here another danger awaits you - the fear that it will not work out, you will not cope, they will not understand.

Allow yourself to try and fail, learn new things as if you were a child learning to walk. Implement new solutions, apply your new qualities in everyday situations.

And be sure to enlist the support of like-minded people. Secure your positions.

You really went through a difficult period with dignity and emerged victorious, having accumulated certain experience, which becomes your life wisdom.

The space of the Institute of Reincarnation has everything you need for a comfortable passage through any personal crisis.

In the basic course, students under the guidance of experienced teachers master the remarkable exercise "Matryoshka", which helps at each stage not to get stuck in the emotional and mental “chewing gum”, but to see what is happening through the eyes of the Soul.

In the 1st year, our students explore the space between incarnations - the World of Souls. And they remember the tasks of their Soul and how they planned this release.

In addition, there is always the opportunity to remember your own experience - and how in past lives they coped with similar situations, what gave strength and what decisions were made then.

Surely in this life you already have the experience of going through a crisis period of life.

Meditation Way out of a personal crisis

I suggest doing a practice that will help you fill up with a resourceful state and see how you grew as a person at that time.

Another favorite tool of reincarnists is alternative future planning- allows you to try on various solutions and consciously choose the best one.

And most importantly, here, in the space of the Institute of Reincarnation, you are always in circle of like-minded people, very carefully, lovingly supporting each other. Here you can be sure that you will always be understood, accepted and helped in the most difficult moments.

Now you know what an identity crisis is, how it develops and what happens at each stage. And you saw how at the Institute of Reincarnation you can learn how to go through periods of crisis with the best result for your personal and spiritual development.

Let's look at times of crisis periods of opportunity reach a qualitatively new level of your Path. And for this, your awareness and understanding is important that you are not only a physical body, you are not only feelings and emotions.

You already have much more experience than can be seen in one mortal life. Learn to remember and use this experience for your personal, professional and spiritual development!

What's this?

In psychology, a personality crisis is called the stage of transition from quantity to quality, which occurs after the accumulation of a critical level of personality changes. Each of us changes every second: every decision made and every change in the external world is reflected in the internal world. Therefore, personality crises are normal, inevitable stages of development. Replacing the outdated reality editor.

Unfortunately, sometimes it happens that a person cannot cope with the coming changes, cannot in any way move into a new quality that his own inner world or circumstances of external life require from him. Often this is due to so-called "personality deformities" that make it difficult to reformat the internal reality editor. Then they talk about the pathological course of the crisis, and in this case, emergency help from a psychologist is required: the crisis itself is an extremely difficult period, which, in the presence of complicating circumstances, alas, can become fatal.

In psychology, there are several types of crises: situational, age-related, existential and spiritual.

Situational crises

With situational ones, everything is most clear, they have a clear objective criterion: this is when a person suddenly overtakes a complete failure on several fronts. The passage of this crisis is obvious: complaints will not help the cause, practical actions are needed, we need to get out of the crisis. You don't need to be a psychologist to think of this: "When the guns speak, the muses are silent."

The help of a psychologist sometimes becomes necessary after the crisis situation has passed, in order to integrate the experience gained - in other words, in order to live normally, having learned that "this happens too." This becomes especially difficult when the experience goes beyond the normal. In this case, a person often “destroys the whole world”, and here the help of a psychologist is simply necessary.

Age crises

Age crises, like situational ones, have objective causes. For the most part, they are determined by age, corresponding physiological changes and changes in social roles. Age crises include childhood (there are many), adolescence, entry into adulthood, middle age and aging.

Of all of them, only the midlife crisis is not accompanied by pronounced hormonal changes and is rather indirectly associated with a change in social roles. Therefore, there is definitely something existential in it, although formally it is not existential.

existential crises

With existential ones, unlike the previous ones, not everything is so clear: they have no objective reasons, they do not happen to everyone, although those existential givens that serve as their topics concern everyone:
1. Death
2. Freedom
3. Insulation
4. Meaninglessness of life.

spiritual crisis

Unlike the previous ones, clearly classified and described in detail in the literature, with a spiritual crisis, strictly speaking, nothing is clear at all. There is no generally accepted concept and evidence base. This is due to the fact that it is in a spiritual crisis that a person encounters on his own experience a feeling of non-duality, unity and the absence of opposites, the verbal descriptions of which in our dual world cannot but be contradictory and vague.

A spiritual crisis is often the result of intensive spiritual practices, when a person does not have enough opportunities to integrate the experience gained into everyday life. But this contact with non-duality is not so simple. Quite expectedly, causal causal relationships do not work in this area: sometimes a spiritual crisis overtakes a person without objective reasons, without any spiritual practices, for no reason. I, as a person spoiled by causality, still look for subjective reasons: an unconscious request, when the psyche needs more and more powerful resources for functioning, at some point gives an appeal to the most powerful resource of all. In other words, you will be rewarded according to your needs: whoever needs a resource will receive a resource. And will he be able to chew it - this is the question ... How will it go.

The main thing is to remember that they are.

V.V. Kozlov, YarSU

If you let out what is in you,
What you allow to manifest will save you.
If you don't let what's in you come out,
What you don't let manifest will destroy you.
Gospel of Thomas

In my opinion, the experience of the crisis, as well as the archaic initiatory journey of the hero, can be divided into five main stages, certain forms of existence that differ in meaning and strength of experience: everyday life of a person with his usual concerns and functions, call, death-rebirth, lesson , the end of the crisis and the return to normal life with new qualities.

ordinary existence

The first form is a habitable way of life for each of us. We exist in accordance with the conventions of society, without strong tensions - "like everyone else." Public beliefs, morality and restrictions are either accepted by us unconditionally, as completely natural, or we violate them as much as they are violated by everyone. Every person in Russia knows that a respectable citizen should not violate laws and regulations (tax laws, traffic rules, etc.). We violate them to the extent that this violation is a measure of sanity and to the extent that everyone does it.

In science, this stage of human development is called linear. Due to simplicity and clarity, this designation is correct. At this stage, we are far from unusual questions and global problems, unless, of course, they are the usual way of structuring space and time. Ordinariness, clarity, dullness, filled with illusions - these are the characteristics of this form of life. From this stage, the perspectives of life are built into the usual worldview, understood, we have the ultimate knowledge of what is good, what is bad, how to act, how not to, where to strive, where not to... All the knowledge, skills, skills that we acquire on this stage, are an expression of our habitual tendencies, motives, goals, interests.

In the East, this state, this conditionality is denoted by a weakened, clouded state of consciousness, samskara or maya. Asian advanced thinking refers to being captured by illusions, in European philosophy and psychology it is described as universal hypnosis, consensus trance or herd mentality, which is not noticed because it is shared by everyone.

We do not know worries, neither joy nor pain... and if they are present in our lives, they do not have a shocking intensity: "God suffered and commanded us." Everything is good as far as it is socially acceptable. Everything is as bad as it is for everyone ...

I would say that nothing happens at this stage, even if someone dies or is born - this happens to everyone and does not disturb the rhythm of life.

For the bulk of the life is normal to the extent that it is familiar and ordinary. Moreover, a person makes every possible effort to maintain this "normality". In a sense, we sleep and dream, which is called life, and quietly hate those who want to wake us up. In a stable, linear segment of their lives, people tend to live in a comfort zone. Nothing happens in this zone, or life just happens: time and space are structured in accordance with the motivational-need and value-orientation systems of the individual. Meaningful and active structures are self-sufficient and stable. In this zone, the well-established socio-psychological communications are observed. Life in the comfort zone is associated with the usual way, style of existence. Gurdjieff's man-machine comes to mind associatively. A. Pyatigorsky called life in the comfort zone profane, ordinary, ordinary.

The intensity of life circumstances is such as to maintain a certain background activity of existence. It cannot be said that there are no problems, tensions, conflicts in this zone. They undoubtedly exist, but they are of an ordinary nature and are some characteristics of the usual ways of interacting with internal and external reality.

In the comfort zone there is no challenge, situations that frustrate the personality. A person has a margin of safety, a reserve of experience, a system of knowledge, skills, and habits in order to linearly structure the field of meaning and activity and, at the same time, not encounter unsolvable situations. Remember: "The smart one will not go uphill, the smart one will bypass the mountain." This is the strategy of living in the comfort zone. This is precisely the main strategy of the individual as a complex system striving for homeostasis. Moreover, I sometimes think that many psychological structures at the level of perception of life are arranged in such a way as to keep existence in a comfort zone. Any complex system can function only with a threshold of sensitivity. It’s like we don’t notice or don’t join, we don’t want to get involved in emotional states with situations that threaten a comfortable homeostasis. All defense mechanisms are arranged in accordance with this logic. The threshold of sensitivity is often deliberately lowered precisely by our desire to live in a comfort zone.

Existence in the comfort zone is provided by several variables:

a) non-conflict between the main global structures “I-material”, “I-social”, “I-spiritual”. Undoubtedly, without any tension and conflicts within these spheres and between them, the existence of a person is impossible. Conflicts and contradictions are the source of the functioning of the personality. It is important that these conflicts do not have a traumatic intensity, do not have a stressful charge. Existence inside the comfort zone is always associated with the idea of the correctness of life, with the idea of the stability of the “I”.

b) total identification with the “I” and taboo on interaction with the “non-I”.

c) a decrease in the threshold of sensitivity and high selectivity to the expressions “non-I” due to an increase in the internal rigidity and rigidity of the “I”.

In many cultures, there were certain rituals of transition from one status state to another at critical moments in life, which were critical, crisis for members of communities.

For example, there were rituals of initiation of adolescents into adulthood. Before him, young people were specially prepared for this important moment in their lives. They mastered the basic production skills, mastered the basic traditions and norms of behavior in society, knew by heart the necessary spells, prayers, ritual ceremonies. After passing through this ritual, a young man, still an inferior member of society, became its full member.

In many ways, the state of crisis is reminiscent of an initiation rite, i. initiation of the individual into the new mysteries of life. It is crises that lead a person to a deep experience of the mystery of the meaning of life, the spiritual spaces of culture. A crisis is not just a way of transferring a person to a new quality and a more complete social individual, but something more.

The crisis state is an initiation into the nuclear semantic structure, leading to the inclusion of new life values in the consciousness of the individual and thus becomes a real transformation of the individual.

A crisis state is a test for the compliance of a new situation in the material, social, spiritual self, with new social requirements. A psychologically critical state requires the concentration of all forces together to solve the problems that are set before the individual. Positive disintegration occurs when a person has the strength and skills to organize activity to overcome the test, and also when he can and knows how to gather them into one whole at the moment. Positive disintegration requires skills of awareness, self-control, self-regulation.

A crisis state is always deprivation, frustration. The crisis in a sense is a surgical intervention in the personality structure. A person gets used to a certain structure of his life and identifications, which are mainly external in relation to mental reality - the image and condition of the body, food, clothing, more or less comfortable living conditions, bank account, car, wife, children, social status, meanings and spiritual values. The crisis state deprives some elements of external support and precisely at the same time it singles out what will remain human from a person, what will remain inside him, what is rooted in him and sits firmly, and what immediately collapses as soon as the external support is removed. In psychology, there is a beautiful metaphor for the formation of the "inner mother". With the full development of the child, he forms the image of the inner mother. First, there is a real, “external” mother, she loves the child, supports, helps, and the child knows that he can always turn to her in difficult times, and she will come and help. And with proper development, the image of the inner mother is gradually formed in the child. He, as it were, absorbs his real mother into himself and provides support to himself. First, the mother leaves behind various substitutes (toys, for example, which remind the child of the presence of the mother), then the internal image of the mother is gradually formed. The mother leaves her love, her skills to help and the rules for making decisions in difficult times to the child. So the child stays with the mother for life.

And if a person does not have such an image inside, he will always cling to the outside, seek support and consolation outside himself.

A crisis is always a challenge for an individual. It is a test of rootedness, introjection of some important attitudes of the personality.

A crisis state is also the destruction of everything external, unrooted, everything that sits shallowly in a person. And at the same time it is a manifestation of the inner, rooted, truly personal. This destruction of the external and the manifestation of the internal is important, first of all, for the true maturation of the personality, becoming a Human. Everything external comes out in the process of crisis, and a person becomes aware of its appearance. If he also refuses this external husk, then there is a purification of consciousness, contact with the true existential depth of human existence.

Any significant step in the development of a person presupposes an understanding of one's limitations and going beyond one's limits. This is not a war of all against all or a rebellion involving a confrontation with the social laws of coexistence and ethical norms.

This is a change in the place of perception of oneself in life, looking at oneself from outside oneself and an honest recognition of one's limitations, illusions.

In the end, the law of development is that there are some harbingers of change. At first imperceptibly, but then more and more intensely, life begins to indicate to you that the bosom that you have lived in is already outdated or whether it smells strongly of mustiness. Whether you hear it or not, the call for change begins to fill the space of your life. And we call this call a crisis.

The call of the crisis is many-sided.

This may be a breakdown of established ideas about your body and other parts of the material Ego: illness, the threat of death, loss of home or money. It can be a shocking encounter with sickness, old age, or death, as it was with the Buddha. Sometimes not the very deprivation of a significant part of one's material existence, but even the threat of this deprivation becomes the cause of the crisis, its call.

Often the call can be realized through the breaking of habitual social relations and identifications with roles and statuses: loss of a job, betrayal of a wife, inability to earn money, deprivation of prospects for professional growth, divorce, loss of children, friends, close relatives ... The call is stronger, the more significant parts of the social the body is touched by its sweeping force.

The call of the crisis is even more intense in the spiritual dimensions of the personality. It may be an existential crisis that breaks all his usual ideas and beliefs. Sometimes the call can also come as a push from within: an impressive dream or vision, a phrase accidentally dropped by someone, an excerpt from a book, or as a deep and sincere response to a teaching or teacher.

The call can be embodied in ominous figures of existential anguish, feelings of loneliness and alienation, the absurdity of human existence, the painful question of the meaning of life. A spiritual crisis can take the form of a painful, as it were, causeless divine dissatisfaction, depriving the usual interests, small and large pleasures of life from sex, fame, power, bodily pleasure.

We can assume that the call is in intensity a manifestation of the gourmet zone, which is less inhabited by man, but more filled with vitality and strange attraction. The name itself already speaks of the bewitching appeal of what is rarely found.

A gourmet (fr. gourmand) is a lover and connoisseur of fine dishes, delicacies, that is, the majority of people are quite satisfied with scrambled eggs and sausage, but there are a few people out of a thousand who definitely need to try the insides of a tiger snake or a bat neck for a full life. The gourmet zone is attractive with unusual experiences and the main emotional content is a mixture of curiosity and fear: “Scary, but curious”, “Curious, but scary”. No wonder the most peak expression of curiosity in Russian is “terribly curious.”

The gourmet zone is always an opportunity for a somewhat dangerous but real expansion of the inner experience.

The gourmet zone is always associated with contact with the walls of "not I".

The intensity of the gourmet zone is directly proportional to the degree of tension between the fragments of "I" and "not-I" in the material, social, spiritual aspects. Such words as “shake up”, “cheer up”, “break away”, “relax” have an associative connection with the gourmet zone… As the semantic analysis shows, it is not so important how the intensity increases, it is important that the personality “interrupts” the linearity of the comfort zone new states. The gourmet zone is a game of “want” and “happens”, that is, contact with this zone is associated with a subjective desire or objective circumstances.

The comfort zone, for all its stability, stability and reliability, in the end causes nausea and boredom. These feelings appear especially quickly if there is a lot of vital energy in the personality. I think that if a person is once again placed in paradise, even today, with all his knowledge and experience, he will again find the Tree of Knowledge and taste the forbidden fruit.

A person masters new areas of experience, acquires new knowledge, skills, knowledge in the gourmet zone. L.S. Vygotsky wrote about the zone of proximal development as the most optimal learning option. The gourmet zone is the zone of proximal development.

Learning or over-learning occurs precisely in that life situation when ignorance or inability is dangerous. This is well known to students during the session.

The gourmet zone has a huge positive potential due to the fact that it brings to life the resources of the individual, increases physical, intellectual, heuristic and other psychological capabilities. At the same time, the gourmet zone is the training of new opportunities, the discovery of new perspectives of life and the recognition of its new facets.

There are two unpleasant patterns in interaction with the gourmet zone:

– the more we explore it, the further its boundaries shift, the more intensity we need experience to achieve new states or embodied living of old ones. That is, each interaction with the gourmet zone pushes the comfort zone and it takes more and more intensity of experience to reach the gourmet zone.

- a long stay in the gourmet zone leads not only to “intensity drug addiction” and devaluation of the comfort zone, but also to psychobiological exhaustion, to the formation of the habit of living at the limit of possibilities and, as a result, to crisis states with negative disintegration.

It is not so important what form the call of the crisis takes. It is important that it is heard in an intensity of experience greater than in ordinary existence. It is important that he touches the most important strings of the personality, extracting a heartbreaking cry of despair and shows the limited possibilities of the Ego, the usual perception of life and calls a person to new expanses of development. It is important that it causes fear and panic, curiosity and inspiration at the same time.

This challenge puts a person before a choice:

· follow the call to incomprehensible and unknown areas of reality, to new territories of personality, consciousness, activity, to a new quality of life;

· do not accept the challenge, as if not to notice the impending crisis and close deeper into the familiar.

In both cases, a person is in a situation of cardinal choice, which only at first approximation seems to be an expression of human freedom. Choice is not only the highest gift. Often it becomes a curse for a reflective and doubting person. It is at the moment of the call that one must remember the words of Nietzsche: "Creators - be firm."

The call is a message of fate about the demiurgical destiny of the human spirit.

Deafness to the call, caused by anesthesia of curiosity with fear, can turn into regret for a person about missed opportunities, that everything could be different - better, stronger, deeper, brighter ...

And that peace, chosen at some point for the sake of the usual sofa and lying in full laziness in front of the TV, may turn out to be poisoned by a feeling of unfulfillment, worthlessness, fading of habitual existence.

If the call is heard, then, by and large, a more unenviable fate can await a person than the usual routine. But such is the path of the mystery of the crisis - all five forms are mastered only by warriors in spirit or frantic in their determination to survive and become different.

Death and rebirth

This phase is the climax in experiencing the crisis. The experience of this phase consists in the ruthless destruction of important former pillars and foundations in human life. We can designate this form as the death of the former structure, content of the Ego, its assessments, relations. The death of the former structure can be the result of an intense physical experience (sexual, pain, change in the image of the self), an emotional catastrophe, an intellectual defeat, a moral collapse. Death and rebirth come only in the shock intensity of the experience or the cumulative effect of strong experiences from the gourmet zone.

With the cumulative effect of the gourmet zone and the depletion of the biopsychic potential, a shock effect can be induced by an instant "last straw". In a debilitating crisis, the person first copes effectively with a succession of single or stress-related events. But in the end, resistance weakens, and a person can reach a point where he no longer has sufficient strength and resources - external and internal - in order to cope with the cumulative effect of subsequent blows. In such a situation, a state of acute crisis is inevitable.

At shock intensity, a sudden cataclysm in the material, social or spiritual ego can cause a strong emotional reaction that overwhelms the adaptive mechanisms of the individual. Since the event occurs unexpectedly and the person usually does not have time to prepare for a terrible blow, he can fall into an emotional shock and "wasting away." Shock intensity is always associated with the impact of the crisis on important core constructs of the personality - the self-image, integrative status, existential values.

Rice. Three zones of experience intensity.

j - intensity, t - time continuum

There are only 4 exits from the shock zone:

Positive disintegration with the transition to a new qualitative level of integrity of consciousness and personality,

Madness with different possible content,

Negative disintegration with loss of social communications, vitality and return to a comfortable zone with a minimum level of vitality,

With positive disintegration, the death of the Ego is perceived not as a disappearance with its metaphysical fear of non-existence, but a qualitative transformation, a departure from the usual perception of the world, a sense of general inadequacy, the need for overcontrol and domination. Ego death is a process of self-denial. This form is revealed to us through a reassessment of all values, a change in the goals of life. At this stage, much that seemed valuable no longer is. Many important meanings are “blown away by the wind of change” and a person can part with them. The symbolism of death and rebirth at the level of individual awareness brings to life manifestations of the mythological aspects of destruction and sacrificial characters.

The crisis is the death of the former identity, which no longer corresponds to the tasks of the current stage of personal development. And in death a new fabric of vitality is reborn. The old self-image must die, and from its ashes a new individuality must sprout and unfold, more in line with evolutionary, material, social, and spiritual purpose.

In a new, accepted quality, a feeling of spiritual liberation, salvation and redemption arises. A person perceives the deep meaning of freedom as a state. The content of this stage is connected with the immediate birth of a new personality. At this stage, the process of struggle for new qualities comes to an end. The movement through the troubles of the crisis reaches its climax and the peak of pain, suffering and aggressive tension is followed by catharsis, relief and filling life with new meanings.

At the same time, it must be taken into account that this phase is not only a stage of psychobiological or socio-psychological evolution of a person, but also a real experience of psycho-spiritual evolution. This stage, in addition to the individual personal experiences included in them, has a pronounced archetypal, mythological, psycho-spiritual, mystical content, has a distinctly numinous character and is associated with deep existential insights that reveal a comprehensive unity behind the world of separation.

The lesson phase requires discipline and the ability to be a “learner of crisis” from the individual. For her, constructive experience is very important. Behind death and rebirth, it is important to search for new goals, life strategies, new values. Finding them can be a breakthrough that dramatically changes the perception of the world. These can be new social projects, insights regarding the existential meanings of existence, understanding one's place in society and one's mission. In the spiritual space, this can be expressed in enlightenment, sattori, liberation, union with God, or in a feeling of unusual lightness, clarity and simplicity of life.

During the period of awareness and clarification of prospects in a new capacity, people are especially sensitive to help. Habitual defense mechanisms are weakened, normal behaviors seem inadequate, and the person becomes more open to external influences. A minimal amount of effort during this period can often have a maximum effect, and appropriately directed, a little help can improve the situation more effectively than more intensive help during periods of less emotional receptivity.

Due to the experience of the crisis in this phase, the individual develops new conflict resolution mechanisms and develops new adaptive ways that will help the person cope more effectively in the future with the same or similar situation.

The main lesson of the crisis, in my opinion, is Equanimity. This state of equal attitude towards everyone and everything is a deep expression of the factuality of life. For us, life is always involvement in relationships. We love someone, we hate someone, we are indifferent to someone, we despise someone, we consider something right, something wrong ... In Equanimity there is no difference between people regardless of gender, age, race, caste or ethnicity, wealth, education, family relations... From the point of Equanimity, there is no difference between a black man and a Russian, a Japanese and a Chechen, a Jew and a Tatar, my wife and mother, my son Vadim and an Evenk, sitting in a plague, a billionaire and a beggar, the essential difference between Christ and Shakyamuni Buddha, Mohammed and Osho. From the space of Equanimity there is no difference between man and other living beings. In this sense, the cat Maxim, lying right now nearby on an armchair, is equal to Bodhidharma at the essential level and has the same nature. Equanimity is not indifference. In the Orthodox religion, the analogue of this state is Great Humility. Equanimity is a state of impartial attitude to reality - to living and inanimate, awakened and sleeping, to spiritual and non-spiritual, to verbal, emotional, perceptual, symbolic, symbolic ... A person watches the river of life and is an observation outside of relationships and involvement.

He grabs for nothing and considers nothing his own, he has nothing, and at the same time he has everything. It has everything: all states, all ideas, all reactions - it is nothing. He stood above the field of human experiences. And already from this point, it has the ability to enter into any form, into any experience, into any state, into any relationship, into any contact with reality, without losing connection with the state of Equality.

At the same time, this is a state when service to other people remains the main thing and a person is fully manifested in his spiritual potential. He is free from identifications, the desire to be someone and something, but the lesson of wisdom received from the crisis makes him a conductor of the highest values of human existence - love, mercy, compassion, understanding, empathy. It is the crisis that reveals the essential understanding of humanism as the recognition of the self-worth of a person as a person, his right to freedom, happiness, development and manifestation of his abilities. The lesson of the crisis in its highest manifestations is the lesson of virtue - the sacred duty of service to every person on the path of life.

Completion.

When the crisis is over, the person becomes "experienced". I am extremely sure that a person cannot acquire the quality of wisdom in everyday life. The teacher is born in the crucible of crisis. Moreover, any worthwhile personality is formed only through the experience of the crisis.

In fact, the crisis is over. In the inner space there is already a clarity of understanding and "the salt of life on your palms."

But inner clarity is not sufficient for complete completion. The crisis is completed only when its experience is manifested in the return to the familiar society and the service to other people.

The value of people who have lived through a deep crisis is extremely great not only for the spiritual, but also for the social, material life of society. There is a wise saying “For one beaten one gives two unbeaten”. Often the experience of an identity crisis has such a quality that it is an invaluable gift of insight for hundreds of thousands of people. For many people of my generation, Pavka Korchagin's experience was a model of overcoming difficulties. And now, when many accents of assessments have shifted, I feel his heroic warrior spirit also because he was able to overcome egocentric motives and for him the need to serve society was basic and irresistible.

The passage of the crisis may be less dramatic. Many experience a crisis, but few achieve wisdom. It is not always that a crisis intertwines all five forms in peak intensity. We go through many crises in our lives. They look like a series of circles, like a spiral, in which the personality returns again and again to its everyday life, but each time reaching a higher perspective, unless, of course, some of the crises leads to the complete destruction of the personality and the impossibility of returning to the familiar bosom of life.

What is the meaning for us of this occasional experience of ego agony, which we refer to as identity crisis?

It is clear to me that crises are an evolutionary challenge. This is the last mechanism for selecting the most powerful and strong personalities in the struggle for social survival. This is a powerful, eternal experience, the experience of which leads to the ultimate effectiveness of man as a bearer of the human. We can remember in this connection Lao Tzu, Buddha, Mahavira, Bodhdharma, Christ and thousands of other names for whom the crisis has become the crucible of a new understanding of life. But all of them are united by the fact that the good of a person is a criterion for evaluating everything that happens in life, and a person himself can be only an end for another person, and not a means.

For many, the crisis comes as an uninvited guest. But this situation is exactly the call that you can hear and follow.

The crisis is a sacred process hidden in the human psyche and fraught with evolutionary potential.

It is he who can lead to the reconstruction of the psyche, personality and consciousness of the order that is evolutionarily necessary for man and humanity.

And therefore - long live the crisis and the opportunity to experience its mystery in all five forms.

It is he who gives birth to a person less conflicted, free from the past, less attached to his conditioning and to the herd mentality, more healthy and holistic.

It is the crisis that gives birth to all the best in the human.

Every problem holds a gift for you. You look for problems because you need their gifts.

At various stages of life, a person is faced with crisis situations that can provoke personal (existential) crisis. It seems that in some cases it is possible to identify developments that serve as a trigger for a crisis, such as an accident, an operation resulting from an injury, a mutilation. It can also be situations related to the death of a loved one, experiencing various kinds of losses, loss of a family or job; crises caused by separation, loneliness, an incurable disease, a change in social status, etc.

However, the nature of the crisis is such that among the triggers may be not only sad or traumatic experiences. Joyful, positive events can also be the cause of the crisis.- for example, the birth of a child, falling in love, marriage or promotion. Sometimes it is difficult to find any external cause for a crisis. Just a person has a feeling that something has changed inside and today he can no longer live the way he lived yesterday: he became different. Very often, the event "triggering" a crisis can be absolutely insignificant; it works like the "last drop". Thus, the triggers of the crisis are determined not only by the external, but also by the internal content, the dynamics of the psychological life of the individual, which so often remain outside the consciousness, and therefore cannot be controlled and foreseen.

Speaking of triggers, we must also take into account the fact that the emergence of crises can be provoked not only by events in a person’s personal history, but also extreme situations of the global level associated with political, economic, social, environmental and natural disasters. And if we consider our planet and what is happening on it as a context for the biological, psychological and spiritual development of all mankind and individuals, then the connection between the personal and global levels becomes more obvious. As E. Yeomans writes, " those experiences that many, many people go through in their lives are a mirror reflection of events taking place at a more generalized level "and at the same time they are" part of the general world situation". In these cases the depth of a person's experience of his own crisis can be exacerbated by the magnitude of the tragic events.

Sometimes certain names are assigned to crises - for example, " the first love", "farewell to the stepfather's house", "a crisis middle life", "retirement crisis". However, many of these crises remain nameless and are not tied to any external events, although they represent serious personal shifts that affect all aspects of a person's life.

We see that the external characteristics of a crisis can differ from each other: trigger mechanisms can have a completely different character, yes and responses to crisis situations will be specific to each individual. That's why to understand the crisis, it is important to know its inner essence, that is, the psychological mechanism of the emergence. According to J. Jacobson, a crisis occurs if life events create a potential threat to the satisfaction of fundamental needs and at the same time they pose a problem for the individual, from which he cannot escape and which he cannot resolve in a short time in the usual ways". So, the essence of a personality crisis is a conflict between the old and the new, between the familiar past and the possible future, between who you are now and who you could become.

A crisis moves a person into a marginal position or neutral zone; a situation where the usual stereotypes of thinking and behavior no longer work, but there are no new ones yet. This state" between heaven and earth", "interim period", about which E. Yeomans writes that it is " time of questions, not answers to them, this is the time to learn to love questions, to love that which has no solution yet ". The presence in this border area is evidenced by the appearance during this period resistance, experienced as a fear of change, as a fear of being different, to break away from the usual and therefore safe stereotypes and go in search of the unknown in oneself and in the world around.

In this way, a crisis- this is a kind of reaction of the individual to situations that require him to changes way of being - life style, way of thinking, attitude towards oneself, the world around and the main existential problems. It can be said that if overcoming age crises promotes human development, then existential - the formation of personality. So, a crisis is a response to the call of potential opportunities for personal growth, and any crisis is already embedded in the main property of a person - the desire to develop and improve oneself, that is, to constantly change.

It looks like there is somebody, who really wants a person to gain confidence and strength, become more open and tolerant, let love and a deep understanding of life into their hearts. And he patiently teaches him this. But, alas, a person is too busy today and he is not up to personal growth. And this someone, after several unsuccessful attempts to turn a person to himself, makes a bolder decision. And at this very moment a person gets into a situation that destroys all his habitual foundations and creates such a life problem, "from which he cannot get away and which he cannot resolve in a short time in the usual ways." The person is confused and confused, he perceives this situation as an unbearable evil, as darkness that has fallen on his life, as a complete and irreparable collapse., "moment of immersion to the last depths "(K.G. Jung). And for the one who teaches him, this is just a lesson, another attempt to help a person look into his soul and not recoil. Because, as K.G. Jung writes," when all foundations and supports collapse, there is not the slightest shelter, insurance, only then does it become possible to experience the archetype of meaning" .

Here we recall the great wisdom that came to us from Buddhism: "There is no good and evil - there is good." She says that when any events that happen to a person are freed from assessments in the categories of "good - bad", they become simply experience , the next step in self-realization. As T. Yeomans writes, “the problem is that, when faced with pain, suffering, the nearness of death, do not try to turn away from them, avoid them or mitigate them, but learn to accept them. If we learn to include suffering in a spiritual context, this changes both the experience itself and the meaning of suffering.

Most psychologists, both domestic (K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, L.I. Antsyferova, R.A. Akhmerov, V.F. Vasilyuk, S.L. Rubinshtein, etc.), and foreign (R. Assagioli, T. and E. Yeomans, K. and S. Grof, D. Tyarst, K.G. Jung, J. Jacobson and others), who were involved in crisis psychology, are of the opinion that the crisis is a prerequisite for the most important personal changes, the nature which can be both positive (constructive, creative, integrating), as well as negative(destructive, destructive, separating).

It follows that in resolving a crisis situation, one can single out two main outlets. One is that a person takes risks, opening up to new opportunities and overcoming the fear of change. Thus, he realizes, according to R. Assagioli, " basic desire for growth "or, as F. Charonian called it," responds to the call of the Supreme ". Then a person moves to the next stage of his development, gains new experience, new knowledge about the world and about himself.

Another way out is in maintaining the existing order. As F. Charonian writes, " there are many ways that people resort to to evade the call of the Highest. We fear it because it involves giving up the familiar for the unknown, and that always comes with a risk." . When it comes to cardinal and far-reaching changes, they are sure to causeanxiety . Almost all serious researchers who have studied anxiety are of the opinion that personal growth and anxiety are inseparable. Therefore, often, choosing the need for security and the desire to preserve the existing order, a person stops in his development, while limiting or even destroying himself.

Thus, in order to develop, actualize their potential, and sometimes just survive, a person needs to learn to cope with various critical situations, which determines the importance, relevance and social demand for psychological assistance to people in crisis situations.

However the essence of the crisis is such that it makes a person doubt the possibility of overcoming it. Understanding the Crisislike transition from one way of being to another usually exists in a person outside of a crisis situation. When he finds himself immersed in the gloomy depths of life's vicissitudes, he has a feeling that this will never end and he will not be able to get out of this state. In this case, the crisis is perceived as the finalthe collapse of life .

Therefore, a client experiencing a crisis is characterized by a workload of unresolved problems, a feeling of hopelessness, helplessness, experiencing life as a dead end". In this period a person acutely feels the lack of internal support, connections with the world and with other people are lost; former life goals are destroyed, meanings lose their value. The pressure of this state pushes a person to actions that could solve the problem immediately. Among destructive to personality out of the crisis may be suicide, neuropsychiatric and psychosomatic disorders, social exclusion, post-traumatic stress, criminal behavior, alcohol or drug addiction, etc. Thus, if the crisis is not resolved or is not adequately resolved, then this can bring a destructive aspect to the personality and thereby impede the process of further growth and development.

But a crisis is not only a "threat of catastrophe", but also the possibility of change, transition to a new stage of personality development, a source of strength. And this is its positive aspect. A crisis in this case can become an opportunity for a person to change something in himself and in his life, learn something new, rethink, and sometimes for the first time realize his life path, his own goals, values, attitude towards himself and towards other people.

Adequate resolution of the crisis gives the client the opportunity to move to the next stage of development as a more mature person.. K. and S. Grof note that " if the crisis is correctly understood and treated as a difficult stage in the natural process of development, then it is able to give spontaneous healing of various emotional and psychosomatic disorders, a favorable change in personality, resolution of important life problems and evolutionary movement towards what is called higher consciousness". Similar ideas were followed in their works by C. G. Jung and R. Assagioli.

So, we see that the situation is experienced as a crisis when a person ceases to see possible exits, but at the same time, during a crisis, the client is open to new things for new experiences, which means that a crisis can serve as a basis for positive changes and become an important personal experience. . The pain that a person experiences in a crisis motivates him to search for new solutions, resources, to acquire new skills and, as a result, to further development. In this way, nature of the crisis can be described as transforming, since it simultaneously carries not only the rejection of the old, familiar ways of being, but also the search for and improvement of new, more progressive ones.

It can be assumed that a positive or destructive way out of the crisis is determined not only by the ratio of creative and destructive tendencies in the personality and the way of solving existential problems, but also by the attitude of a person to the crisis situation itself. Based on the data we obtained in the study, two types of such attitudes can be distinguished: we called them " Crisis situation as an opportunity for growth" and " Crisis as martyrdom".

In the first case, the crisis is perceived by the individual as an opportunity for a deeper, more authentic being. This approach is also characterized by the acceptance of one's destiny, a sense of ontological security (according to I. Yalom), which can be described as an experience of a close emotional connection with the parental family and one's own childhood, the acceptance of the spiritual and physical aspects of one's personality, and the desire for growth. Among the existential values that are present in this attitude to the crisis, one can note the meaningfulness of life, tolerance for its variability, a high level of responsibility for oneself, as well as acceptance of one's own feelings in relation to death and belief in the immortality of the soul.

In the second scenario, the crisis situation perceived as punishment or torment and expressed in concentrating on their suffering - illness, old age, fears, evil, helplessness and loneliness. This approach does not imply taking responsibility for overcoming the crisis, but rather personifies passive, "suffering doing nothing." It is interesting that such an attitude towards one's own life is associated with ideas about death as an absolute end and fear in relation to it.

It is noteworthy that in a crisis, a person's choice of a strategy to overcome it is associated with the acceptance or rejection of meaning in ongoing events, as well as with the attitude to such basic existential problems as life and death. A crisis situation, therefore, as a situation of collision with the main existential categories, provides opportunities for the individual both for growth and for "going into illness". The choice in this case depends only on the personality itself, which confirms the basic ideas of the existential-humanistic direction in psychology and determines the main directions in providing psychological assistance in crisis situations. Such directions ("strong points") include assistance to the client in: searching for the meaning of life and the meaning of the crisis, where the most important element is the "sketch of the future"; awareness and acceptance of responsibility for one's life, feelings and actions; integration of the spiritual and bodily aspects of one's personality; understanding the constant variability of life and tolerance for it; contact with the inner child; release of psychological traumas and fears; striving for personal growth, as well as in the awareness of the rational and emotional components of the attitude towards death as a symbol of the inevitability of change.

Speaking about the possibilities of psychological assistance in crisis situations, one cannot but stop on the main methodology - crisis intervention, which is based on the theory of crisis by E. Lindemann and the concept of life cycle stages and identity crisis by E. Erickson. The main idea underlying crisis intervention is the concentration of counseling on the current situation, that is, work with the problem that arose during the crisis and the client's feelings towards it. In crisis intervention, it is important to stay "here and now", without delving into the client's history and other past problems, even if they are related to the current one. The purpose of intervention is not so much to solve the problem as to make it possible to work on it, since many problems that arise in a crisis cannot be solved immediately. It is clear that the above directions of psychological assistance to people in crisis are just some beacons in the raging sea of human experiences, because everyone who seeks help is unlike anyone else and lives their own, one and only, life, and therefore their own, something special, a crisis.

In conclusion, I would like to dwell on one more type of crisis, which K. and S. Grof singled out in the variety of states experienced by a person in connection with any crisis situation. In their works on this topic, they associate this type of crisis with altered states of consciousness and call it spiritual (also the crisis of the evolution of consciousness or the transformation of personality). Recalling the works of R. Assagioli, one can use his idea that the term "spiritual" "...reflects not only those experiences that are traditionally considered religious, but everything related to perception and cognition, all human activity and all functions, who have one common denominator - the possession of values higher than generally accepted - such as ethical, aesthetic, heroic, humanistic and altruistic ".

Starting with the works of R. Assagioli and C.G. Jung, in psychology the idea that many episodes of an unusual state of mind (extraordinary emotional and physical sensations, visions, unusual thought processes, etc.) are not necessarily symptoms of an illness in the medical sense. They can be considered as manifestations of the evolution of consciousness and compare with the states described in various mystical teachings of the world.

Any spiritual crisis in the terminology of S. and K. Grof can be filled with various experiences, which they divide into three main categories: 1. biographical category - the experience of traumatic events closely related to the life history of the individual; 2. perinatal- experiences addressed to the theme of dying and rebirth; 3. transpersonal- experiences that go beyond the life experience of an ordinary person, since they involve images and motives, the sources of which are outside the personal history of the individual.

Everything that we said above about a personal crisis will also be true for the spiritual one. It can also be triggered by various life situations - dramatic or mundane; its course is also very individual - both in strength and duration, and in the same way, changes in a person experiencing a spiritual crisis can be both constructive and destructive. A spiritual crisis, like a personal one, is filled with intense emotions and experiences that affect the deep foundations of human existence, which means that a person in a spiritual crisis also needs psychological help and support.

For a person experiencing a crisis of personality transformation, the following experiences may be characteristic: misunderstanding of what is happening to them and the resulting panic; fear of going crazy or being mentally ill; experiencing one's loneliness in this process and ambivalent feelings - on the one hand, the desire to receive support, and on the other, the desire to retire, to be alone; hypersensitivity to the words, actions, and even internal states of other people. This crisis can revive old grievances that overwhelm a person with their pain and injustice; fears may be actualized, including those associated with death. A person in this period re-evaluates his life, as a result of which he is seized by various experiences for what he has done - feelings of guilt, repentance, grief, anger, etc.; goals, meanings, values and relationships change, in particular, with loved ones.

Very often, all these spiritual quests occur against the background of unusual physical sensations or mental states, which can significantly complicate the process of overcoming the crisis and increase the requirements for the competence of psychological assistance. However, there are no fundamental differences in the provision of psychological assistance during a spiritual crisis, since all known principles and methods of counseling and psychotherapy described in the existential-humanistic approach can be used when working with such clients. The only, apparently, fundamental difference in psychological assistance in these cases will be determined by the degree of our ignorance about the nature of a person’s spiritual life, the strength of our own fear of the unknown depths of the psyche and the rigidity of traditional beliefs in “material, measurable, tangible”.

The most important task in working with people going through a similar crisis is to create a supportive, trusting atmosphere and tell them about the process that they will go through. Here it is very important to show that the difficulties they go through are "not manifestations of disease, but the expression of a healing and transforming process." As K. and S. Grof write, "all they need is access to the right information, supportive conversations and a good context for spiritual practice."

And, finally, one more important point, which I would like to say in the light of psychological assistance to people in crisis. We said above that a crisis is both a danger and an opportunity, destruction and creation, loss and gain, the death of the old and the birth of the new. Every phenomenon in this world contains its opposite; this is what V. Zhikarentsev called the duality of the world: "... our world is dual, otherwise, dual and consists of only two principles. One half, one opposite exists only because the other exists - it's like one side of the coin exists only because there is another. Therefore, when dealing with a crisis, it is very important to remember for yourself and talk with clients that it contains not only a period of destruction, but also a period of creation, and both of these periods are natural components of the process of growth and development. You can't gain anything without losing anything; it is also impossible to constantly lose without getting anything in return.

One of the features of the states of destruction and creation is that, being in one of them, the other remains hidden. This does not mean that it does not exist; this means that we may not notice it. Another feature is the presence of regularities in each of the processes - both destruction and creation. Sometimes it seems incredible, but both of these processes unfold according to certain laws and all events in them are logically connected with each other. The problem is that, being, for example, inside the process of destruction, it is difficult for the client to see this, and only after going through it and comprehending it, he can understand that he also gained positive experience, despite the fact that during the crisis his experiences were negative, devoid of any meaning and absolutely not connected in a single plot series.

Due to our perception of life, the process of creation attracts us more, so we better know its strengths. The period of destruction is associated with pain, which makes people create a lot of defenses in order to avoid it, as well as bypass the experiences of other people who are in this state. However, as E. Yeomans writes, "an understanding and respectful attitude to the process of destruction as a necessary stage in personal and social development is a gift that we can present to ourselves, our families and our patients, if we really learn to see the destructive phase of development" . Destruction is a gift because it contains unmanifested creation and our role as a consultant is to remember this and try to see what is still hidden. As Ram Dass wrote, “something in you dies when you endure the unbearable. And only in this dark night of the soul can you prepare yourself to see as God sees and love as God loves” [ cit. by 7, p. 115].

In this regard, we can recall the well-known parable about how a man got to heaven and tells God about his life. "Thank You for the help You have given me," he says, looking out over the world below and seeing two pairs of footprints where he and God walked side by side. But then he remembers the dark periods of his life, he looks down again and notices only one pair of footprints. "But where were You," he asks, "when I needed You the most? After all, there are only footprints in the sand." And God answers: "It was then that I carried you in my arms." This parable shows that the process of destruction can support us just as much as the process of creation, if we allow ourselves to see it, because these two processes are one.

Summing up, we can say that a crisis is a time of being in a cocoon, sometimes in complete darkness and loneliness, alone with your fears, disappointment and pain. This is a time of farewell, sadness and rejection; time of endless questions and endless misunderstanding. This is the time to search for that thin line that separates humility and overcoming, the will to live and hopelessness, obstacle and reward, moving forward and silent peace. This is the time that strengthens our spirit with faith and opens the heart of love; a time to learn to understand and accept the variability of life and life itself. A crisis is a time that gives the caterpillar the opportunity to make a choice: to succumb to the fear of the dark and the unknown, or to turn into a butterfly.

P.S We accept this idea as fundamental when dealing with a crisis, but at the same time we understand that those people who seek psychological help may have a different idea of what is happening to them. In addition, each of them has the freedom of choice and they are free to make decisions that, from our point of view, may be wrong, regrettable, sad and even tragic. As K.G. Jung, "... the fate of a person often depends on the transformation experienced" . We know that not all people have enough patience, strength and faith in order for the crisis to help them "turn into a butterfly." To some extent, this also becomes our pain, because "... never ask for whom the bell tolls." In this case, it helps to realize that each of us, not only coming for help, but also providing it, is doing his job. And this is our freedom. But at the same time, each of us is responsible only for his own work. And this is our responsibility - deep, indivisible and enduring.

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