Wood grouse is worse than a pistol: their worst failures were revealed on Psychologist’s Day

Egocentrism in Russia is becoming epidemic

In the relatively halcyon period of the 2000s, being a psychologist became so fashionable that some even joked that everyone in Russia was either a psychologist or a nutcase. Therefore, Psychologist Day, which is celebrated on November 22, is truly a national holiday. But, despite the presence of a large number of psychologists, we are going crazy and killing each other more and more often. They can’t cope with us, it turns out?!

And since saving drowning people is the responsibility of the drowning people themselves, then those who want to be saved go to the other side – to psychologists. Fortunately, we have a dime a dozen monthly courses in this area; their graduates then “prescribe” shopping and a new lover for all occasions. And to a person who is heartbroken, without blinking an eye, such psychologists answer: I don’t work with grief, come when your husband goes on a spree.

But the new sad realities presented such a serious challenge to these “monthly” psychologists that some actually got scared and went back to being housewives, which is at least a little encouraging. And there are fewer recruits: prices for accelerated courses are now steep. But the holy place is still not empty: now anyone with unlimited Internet is distributing free advice, forecasts and diagnoses from their own sofa. While what is happening requires specialists in clinical psychology, to which only persons with an existing higher medical education are admitted (through several years of specialized residency). In schools, beatings and even murders are increasingly occurring among children, and the school psychologist should not be a subject teacher who works part-time in the style of “do you want to talk about this?”, but a specialist with pedagogical and medical education and experience working with a specific age group . Alas, unlike armchair “brain scientists,” we have catastrophically few of them.

Things aren’t great with adults these days either, even with practically healthy ones. The domestic community of psychiatrists notes that the decline in emotional intelligence and “borderline” (to an extreme degree) egocentrism in Russia is taking the form of an epidemic. An egocentric, like an egoist, uses those around him – but not in deed, but in word. If an egoist can travel at the expense of his neighbor and in silence, then an egocentric tirelessly and categorically imposes his vision of the world on others, and reacts aggressively to any “dissent.” A person with reduced emotional intelligence, who is simply emotionally dull (in psychiatric parlance is correctly called “emotionally deaf”), is unable to recognize the emotional and psychological state of others and respond adequately to it. Both egocentrics can be latent (dormant), but they invariably “aggravate” against the background of stress: in theory, this is a natural strategy for protecting our psyche, activated in difficult times (the terms were first used in European psychology during the First World War). But in practice, an neglected egocentric and “emotional wood grouse”, from whom it is impossible to distance yourself (if he is, say, your spouse or boss) is capable of morally “raping” those around him so much that their response will be unpredictable and in most cases destructive. And if they used to say that evil tongues are worse than a pistol, now “emotional wood grouse” are definitely worse than them. And then we wonder why so-and-so “out of the blue” came to work or school with a gun and killed his comrades. And he just put an end to our emotional dullness.

Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist and philosopher, who at the beginning of the 20th century was the first to speak out about the dangers of egocentrism and the decline of emotional intelligence at the social level, believed that all children have their rudiments, but in a prosperous society they “outgrow” them on their own. And if he has lived as a wood grouse to adulthood, one must look for the disease – either in himself, or in the society in which he flourished.

However, I got carried away, but I just wanted to congratulate. Well, happy Psychologist’s Day, in short!