DYNAMICS OF MENTAL PROCESSES DURING PERIODS OF CRISES, GRIEF, AND RITES OF PASSAGE BASED ON CALCULATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFENSE MECHANISMS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/upj/2023-3-9Keywords:
crisis, rites of passage, work of grief, personality structures, liminality, mechanisms of defense, mental processes, Melanie Klein's theoryAbstract
The idea presented in this paper is the result of practical observations from working with clients, inductive reasoning, comparisons, and analysis of literature related to both psychoanalysis as well as psychotherapeutic and psychological evidence. In this study, the author attempted to trace the dynamics of crises, stages of rites of passage, and phases of the work of grief, drawing parallels with the processes inherent in various mental structures, i.e., psychotic, borderline, and neurotic. The author invited the reader to hypothetically imagine that we are talking about identical processes. The dynamics were determined with the markers of different mental states, calculated considering the active mechanisms of psychological defenses in different stages of crisis or grieving. The work presents tables of relationships between psychological defense mechanisms and mental states, where each state corresponds to its own set of defense mechanisms. The classification was compiled by the author based on the analysis of literature sources and discussions with colleagues. The author determined the percentage ratio of mental states of psychotic, borderline, and neurotic levels and showed the dynamics of mental processes during the stages of crisis, stages of rituals of transition, and phases of grief work. The article highlights the markers of mental processes at different stages of the crisis (rituals of transition and work of grief) and suggests conditions that facilitate exit from painful transformational states. In general, the study confirmed Melanie Klein's theory about the states of paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions and supplemented it with one new position — obsessive-compulsive. The presented results can be used by psychoanalysts and psychotherapists of all disciplines as diagnostic markers during reasoning about the causes of clients' unconscious manifestations. The presented hypothesis requires empirical evidence, practical confirmations, and further theoretical elaboration.
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