Basics of psychological counseling: 9 insights from the book by R. Kociunas

Insight is a popular psychological term that implies a sudden insight that has become the cause of great scientific discoveries, allowing you to look at a problem from a completely new, objective, internal side and solve previously impossible tasks.

First voiced in the works of W. Keller and G. Wallace, an intellectual breakthrough is the result of a long thought process, connecting conscious thinking with the unconscious part of the psyche, capable of bringing the thought process to a new, previously inaccessible level.

Definition

Insight in psychology is a breakthrough in consciousness and an opportunity to penetrate into the very essence and nature of things. The term, widely used in psychology and zoology, was first voiced by G. Wallace, who defined it as “insight,” and then by W. Koehler, who studied the nature of chimpanzees and the response of monkeys to various, non-standard reactions.

Having placed the animal in a cage, Keller placed a banana and a stick at a certain distance from it. No matter how hard the animal tried, it could not reach the banana, but as soon as a stick came into the monkey’s field of vision, all parts of the picture instantly merged, allowing the animal to get the desired banana.

The discovery was so firmly established in the chimpanzee's subconscious that in the next similar case the action was repeated.

In the process of its discovery, the behavioristic, behavioral concept of people’s lives came into question and became the basis of the experimental psychological theory (gelstatt psychology) of people, which describes “insight” as a process of human mental activity, which is the result of full knowledge of the phenomenon and finding a way out of the current situation.

According to Gelstat psychology, insight, translated from English as insight or a sudden guess that reveals meaning, is understood as awareness of the essence of a problem situation and finding a non-standard, previously unapplied solution.

The most striking examples of insight were laws discovered by Newton sitting under an apple tree or Archimedes climbing into a barrel of water.

Z. Freud characterized insight as obtaining the necessary insight, through which the unconscious can be transformed into the conscious, and consciousness should become a unifying part of the entire structure of the personality and its ability to find the necessary solutions.

The most striking and non-standard definition of the concept is given in the concept of K. Jung, where insight is associated with intuition, which determines a person’s attitude towards himself, his actions, decisions and the world around him.

Jung tested his concept of insight on himself, trying to connect his pathological adultery with the Protestant moral principles accepted in society, and came to the idea of ​​his own polygamous essence.

In psychoanalysis, insight is understood as the ability of an individual to change his behavior, to be aware of the interaction of different parts of his own consciousness and to understand the meaning of human behavior.

Traditionally, psychoanalysis distinguishes between 2 types of “breakthrough of consciousness”:

• mental, understood as the individual’s ability to correctly assess the individual’s behavior;
• emotional, manifested in the individual’s ability to feel his unconscious side.

In the early stages of the development of psychoanalysis, the term “insight” meant only the therapist’s emotional response to the information received from the patient. With the development of Freud's "drive theory" the patient's understanding of his problems was also added to the terminology of insight.

Emotional experiences are also added to this concept of psychology, since if based only on intellectual understanding, then a psychologist, according to J. Sandler, to treat an illness would simply have to offer the patient to read a textbook on psychiatry.

According to J. Barnet, knowledge becomes insight only when it is accompanied by significant changes in the patient’s psychiatric activity and ways of organizing previous experience.

In the works of K. Duncker and M. Wertheimer, “Insight” is presented in the form of human thinking, in which the result is achieved through speculative conclusion, rather than detailed analysis.

ME AND. Ponomarev understood insight as the result of an intuitive mental search for a possible solution.

In addition, modern psychologists have also come to the conclusion that insight can be caused by insight associated with past memories.

In psychiatry, the term insight was used as the patient's understanding of his existing pathology. Insight in this case is understood as a diagnosis that allows one to preserve personality, while refusal to see the problem is seen as a form of neurosis.

Simultaneously with the study of insight, research began on the human ability to gain insight. Thus, H. Kennedy believed that the ability to insight develops throughout a person’s life, starting from states of pleasure and pain accidentally learned by a child, to the conscious and subjective observation of an adult.

A. Freud wrote about insight as an ability that is established from childhood, and meant by it one of the factors in normal human development.

According to P. Gray, each step that a person goes through when gaining insight becomes an important aspect of personal cognition for managing his inner Ego.

In modern psychology, the concept of insight is closely related to gelstatt psychology, which is the sum of various parts (thoughts, feelings, images) collected by a person to realize a certain internal need.

Insight for gelstat psychology is the most important, final ingredient that allows you to look at the very essence of the problem and complete the required image.

The importance of insight is that a person who has not found an answer to a question that torments him will constantly, subconsciously look for a solution to the problem that has arisen and at some point the desired answer will dawn on him, arising from the auditory, visual and mental images of the past preserved in human memory.

According to G. Wallace. - the human brain will not be able to calm down until it finds the only correct, final answer, just as when watching a film for a long time, the excited consciousness of a person will persistently demand the final scene of the picture, and will not calm down until he gets what he wants.

Keller's experiments

This kind of thinking was clearly demonstrated in the experiments of W. Keller [1]. He decided to prove that even animals are capable of thinking, and not just acting on the basis of instincts. For the experiment, the scientist took apes and offered them two-phase tasks (tasks with a detour). For example, to get a banana, it was not enough for the monkey to reach it with his hand. It was necessary to place the box, climb on it and only then take the banana. In another problem, she had to connect two sticks into one in order to reach a banana. Or the monkey could use only one stick, but in such a way as to push the banana through the side wall of the box, rather than pull it towards itself. All such problems were rather complex sequences of two stages, which were difficult to solve by a simple trial and error method. But the monkeys managed. At first they made various unsuccessful attempts, then they sat down and thought. And then they solved the problem and took out a banana.

Stages of passage

Insight in psychology is a long-awaited answer, received unexpectedly and suddenly, and allows you to put together all the elements of a previously impossible task.

The onset of insight cannot be missed, since the moment of insight is accompanied by a feeling of inspiration and euphoria that occurs at the end of the mental imbalance caused by an unresolved problem. Despite the fact that the insight seems completely unpredictable, scientists managed to study and analyze it.

Thus, W. Keller, during his observation of insight, identified 3 main stages of the process:

• chaotic behavior;
• pause, distraction;
• appropriate behavior.

Shortly before him, while studying the exact sciences, the mathematician Henri Poincaré, considering insight when studying the exact sciences, independently of psychologists, identified 4 stages of insight, distributing the chain of the process from the preparatory stage to the practically applied correct solution.

Z. Freud and K. Jung connected conscious insight with unconscious thinking, and G. Wallace formulated and identified 4 stages of a “mental breakthrough”.

The theory of insight created by G. Wallace, based on the concept of A. Poincaré, in the human psyche means that the moment of a mental breakthrough does not arise immediately, but overtakes a person gradually, going through 4 successive stages in its development.

1. At the first, preparatory stage, a person collects data about the problem that is tormenting him and diligently searches for possible solutions, relying on previous life experience.
2. The second stage - incubation, begins from the moment when a person, desperate to find a solution, frees his consciousness from work and switches from the problem that torments him to other areas of action, thereby giving the brain a rest. Disconnected consciousness triggers the work of unconscious thinking, which occurs against the background of rest or a change in human activity
3. Lack of effort and a change in life activity leads to the fact that a person is visited by insight (3rd stage), which becomes the fruit of the work of the individual’s subconscious. At the moment of apparent rest, the unconscious “I”, studied by S. Freud, rethought the facts carefully collected and assimilated by human consciousness, putting forward a new, previously non-existent answer.
4. From the moment of insight, the personality enters the 4th stage - testing, during which the conscious part of the psyche tests and applies the idea put forward by the unconscious “I”.

Text of the book “Psychotherapy of schizophrenia”

Manifestations of maladaptive psychological defense in behavior

Violations of the strategy of problem-solving behavior 1. Regressive role patterns.
They are accompanied by increased, age-inappropriate dependence of the patient on parents and other authoritarian figures, and a tendency to establish symbiotic relationships. In this case, submissiveness and obedience alternate in patients with episodes of protest against parental care, which are pseudo-emancipatory in nature, with the goal of simultaneously satisfying mature needs while maintaining the advantages of an infantile position that relieves oneself of responsibility and the difficulties of ensuring a completely autonomous existence.

2. Mask role behavior.

It manifests itself in the form of using roles that are alien to one’s true needs, replacing personal qualities necessary for successful functioning with attributes of social prestige borrowed from outside. These techniques are aimed at artificially increasing acceptance of oneself by others, not provided by true psychological and communicative capabilities.

This includes: the development of esoteric prestigious skills, the desire to acquire and demonstrate externally socially prestigious characteristics of existence, making appropriate changes to one’s appearance, giving it certain communicative functions, getting used to the “masks” of literary and film characters that personify ideal ideas about social success, orientation for mechanical mastery of communication techniques (collecting and telling jokes without connection with the context of communication), etc.

Regardless of protective strategies, which are complex structures of behavior, the inability of patients to cope with the everyday tasks of adaptation in communication and professional activity is also manifested in more elementary, tactical techniques.
Violations of tactics of problem-solving behavior
1. Defensive avoidance of difficult situations, refusal to attempt to solve problems.

The patient's avoidance of difficult situations is closely related to the unconscious desire to limit the field of activity in familiar and accessible ways. What was perceived as a manifestation of a defect, with an in-depth study of the patient, can appear as a psychological defense of the type of care aimed at preventing full awareness of intrapsychic conflicts.

2. Loss of metacommunicative techniques for establishing communication.

Difficulties that arise in communication are not discussed with patients; the partner’s position, his assessments, and expectations are not clarified. The patient avoids giving his partner information about the reasons for his dissatisfaction, about his claims against him. The partner is expected to figure all this out on his own.

3. Interpersonal conflicts.

They usually result from ineffectiveness in fulfilling social roles with a tendency to withdraw from communication or become defensively aggressive.

4. Wrong tactics of approach to solving metacommunication problems.

Most often, the patient is unable to properly plan production activities, perform household duties, prepare for exams, etc.

Psychological defense within the framework of resistance

The following types of patient behavior are non-specific with respect to the content types of psychological defense; they represent only the most characteristic external signs that allow the doctor to assume the presence of unconscious defense mechanisms. We have arranged them in order of increasing intensity of the patient's resistance to psychotherapeutic intervention.

1. Selective presentation of arguments in favor of one’s defensive strategy, arbitrarily taken out of the social context and indicating insufficient consideration of the entirety of the situation.

2. When the analysis approaches subjectively painfully perceived material:

– references to memory difficulties, a sudden inability to understand, concentrate, feel, etc., to an implausible lack of focus on a patient’s known issue or the inability to formulate it; – excessive compliance, hasty agreement with the doctor’s statements without internal acceptance;

– tears or a suddenly appearing symptom, excluding the possibility of discussing the problem despite the outwardly declared desirability of its continuation;

– being late or failing to show up for a psychotherapy session without compelling reasons.

3. Avoidance of a problem or conflict during analysis, unproductive redirection of initiative, slipping onto another topic or into excessive generalizations, using humor to devalue the emotional significance of experiences and reduce their scale.

4. Supplying real facts with arbitrary interpretations of their meaning, internal inconsistency of the reported information, distortion of cause-and-effect relationships.

5. Unsubstantiated defense of the subjective legitimacy of one’s own maladaptive behavior.

6. Denial of the existence of reality (events that actually took place, manifestations of maladaptation, realistic forecast).

7. Presentation of pseudo-arguments, information containing intentional, conscious distortions of reality.

8. Presentation of material in a form cleared of conflicts and emotions, silence or uninformative speech flow. The desire to conceal information essential for the analysis of problems, even to the point of refusing to report or discuss it. The position of therapeutic nihilism: denial of the value of therapy, constant complaints about the lack of effect, that the patient does not learn anything new. Instant, thoughtless denial of the meaning of careful interpretive work (at such moments the contrast is often visible between complaints about the patient’s disappointed expectations and his triumphant appearance).

9. Defensive aggression (both verbal and physical).

Familiarity with the most typical targets of psychotherapy in patients with schizophrenia allows us to move directly to the technique of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the next section will be devoted to a review of the two most common options - supportive and insight-oriented therapy.

Psychoanalytic models of psychotherapy

Supportive psychotherapy

This model represents the integration of psychoanalytic techniques into the structure of supportive psychosocial rehabilitation. The goal of supportive psychotherapy is to mitigate the adverse emotional reaction of patients {567-569}, increase confidence in the doctor {570} and social adaptation of patients by improving cognitive differentiation, social perception, communicative and problem-solving behavior. Simple encouragement and support give the patient only short-term relief, so the main task is to provide him with self-help tools that he can use himself.

The goals of supportive psychotherapy can be high or modest, but even modest ones can exceed the patient’s capabilities. A modest goal might be to make a patient who is unable to function without support for the foreseeable future capable of relative autonomy within existing limitations with ongoing psychotherapeutic support. In other cases, the goal may be to focus on the use of alternative structures of the social environment, which would make it possible to stop supportive psychotherapy. Goals are set in the direction of increasing the autonomy of the patient’s existence, taking into account his capabilities, and are pushed aside towards simple charity only in the absence of the corresponding personal resources of the patient. It is this flexibility of goals and the ability to attract a wide contingent of patients that makes supportive psychotherapy the most common of all models used in schizophrenia. In particular, it is considered as a strategy of choice in all cases of the acute phase of the process {571}.

The main function of the doctor is to provide information that could help the patient better understand himself and his problems and overcome them more effectively. The doctor, as it were, lends the patient his healthy ego {572}, which allows the latter to better adapt to reality. Non-psychoanalytic interventions are widely used here: advice, emotional stimulation, explanation, persuasion, manipulation in the social environment, role training {573}.

In increasing cognitive differentiation, the patient must move from the subjective amorphous feeling of complete stupefaction to a vision of individual problems. The complex phenomenon of cognitive dysfunction is divided into separate fragments with specific problems that have a mutually potentiating effect, with the definition of a therapeutic approach to each of them. The doctor strives to make the patient understand that he is not obliged to solve all his problems at once, but must do it sequentially, working on no more than one of them at a time. This reduction in the scale of goals reduces the fear of completing the entire plan and makes it easier to get started. In the early stages of treatment, preference is given not to deep penetration into cognitive dysfunctional patterns, but to optimization of problem-solving behavior, which is the cornerstone of supportive therapy {574}.

In the acute period of the disease, the main problem of the patient is coping with productive psychotic symptoms. To solve it, the methods of coping that the patient himself spontaneously finds are initially identified and encouraged. It has been shown {575} that anticipation of a psychotic symptom can increase the frequency of its occurrence. This leads to self-control techniques, including, for example, loading information from the outside, which sometimes prevents the appearance of psychotic products in the patient’s mind {576}.

But, of course, the main coping strategy is the active and competent cooperation of the patient in the medical process. Supportive psychotherapy sets itself the following tasks {577}: 1) teach the patient to recognize early signs of relapse, which serve as a signal to see a doctor; 2) put medicine in the context of the patient’s life, help him see that the main thing is not whether he takes the medicine, but whether he has achieved an improvement in his condition with its help; 3) change the patient’s ideas about his own role in treatment, show that medicine is not something that is done to him, but something that he himself does in order to increase control over the situation and expand his capabilities; 4) if the patient completely refuses to take medications, maintain psychotherapeutic contact with him in order to be able to intervene earlier in the event of a relapse.

Regarding the solution of communication problems, the following sequence of using cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy techniques is used:

1) correlating the patient’s assessment of the situation with reality, correcting distortions;

2) improvement of social perception, expansion of vision and accuracy of recognition of the most important parameters of the social context {578} (the nature of the interaction situation, the meaning of verbal and non-verbal information, mutual expectations, expressed emotions, predicting the outcome of interactions). Practicing the skills of understanding others and clarifying with questions the meaning of what is being expressed and the accompanying emotions. Correction of inappropriate nonverbal behavior, incompleteness and ambiguity of statements, excessive generalizations, ignoring the behavior of the interlocutor;

3) formulating problems of interpersonal relationships, ranking their priorities;

4) identification of communication defects and its psychodramatic demonstration, clarification of the specifics of communication disorders, explanation of their origin and formation mechanisms;

5) formulating alternative behavior options, ways to solve problems, choosing the optimal option based on an analysis of available communication resources and anticipating possible consequences;

6) planning the implementation of problem-solving behavior, demonstration of successful models, practical testing of them with the patient;

7) analysis of task performance during therapy sessions, emotional reinforcement of the success achieved, generalization of a new behavior strategy, transition to reproducing it in a real life situation (homework).

Individualization of tasks for each patient and flexible selection of skills are the most important conditions for problem-solving training. Just like any other therapy, support therapy cannot be conducted according to a “prescription book” of skills. Teaching the patient when it is appropriate to use a skill is no less important than teaching him how to perform it {579}.

The doctor must help patients understand truths that stimulate motivation for training and are not always obvious to them - for example, that others cannot guess their thoughts. This causes the patient to actively make himself understandable to others. Or - that there is no all-knowing servant called to take care of him in everything, so he has to do a lot himself. A big mistake in this case is not to expect the patient to actively contribute to cooperation with the doctor.

One should also take into account the individual sensitivity of the patient to the training, the specific conditions of his social environment, which can negate all the results. It is extremely important to make sure how the patient reproduces the skills acquired during training in real life. The difficulties experienced by patients in social situations can be caused by a variety of other reasons, in addition to deficits in social skills {580}.

And, finally, the lower the level of mental productivity of patients, the more important is proper emotional reinforcement, constant assistance to patients in processing information, providing them with multiple opportunities to repeat tasks, taking into account the reduced possibilities of their extra-therapeutic reproduction {581}.

Interpretative analysis of primitive types of psychological defense is not included in the tasks of supportive therapy, however, this is also a significant difference between supportive psychotherapy and the so-called rational one - they should not remain untouched. These defensive techniques themselves weaken personal capabilities. This makes one of the most important technical requirements of supportive psychotherapy non-interpretive, although limited by correlations with situations of reality “here and now,” but consistent work to neutralize such defenses and puts this model of psychotherapy into the category of psychoanalytic. Interpretations can also be used, but selectively, in certain, focused areas, leaving others untouched. Moreover, such work is carried out exclusively with conscious and preconscious material.

Working with psychological defense requires the ability to distinguish directive guidance from psychotherapeutic stimulation of patient autonomy. There is a big difference between telling a patient how to live and helping him to see how some of his personal reactions affect his life, his assessment of reality and his decision-making process.

Increasing the accuracy of the assessment of reality and one’s behavior, the patient’s better vision of psychological defense techniques and their maladaptive consequences reduces the intensity and frequency of their occurrence, and the establishment of satisfaction from productive forms of behavior stimulates, in turn, their preferential use.

One should be careful when assessing the information reported by the patient about his past, since they may not be a reflection of actual events, but a modern subjective justification of existing difficulties, which can lead the doctor to pseudogenetic constructs when trying to analyze them.

The relationship between the patient and the doctor, unlike exploratory methods, is not one of the central themes in the support model; however, this aspect is also very important. Completely ignoring the relationship with the patient can lead to a pseudo-adaptive adaptation, in which the doctor stops confronting the patient with the manifestations of his maladaptation in communicating with himself. The patient ceases to conflict in the treatment situation, and therapy takes place in superficially friendly, but essentially formal relations, without in any way affecting events in the patient’s real life.

An exclusively permissive, all-permissive attitude towards the patient in the hope that he uses the doctor as a model for positive imitation, turns out to be insufficient due to persistent distortions in the perception of the doctor, which sooner or later will manifest themselves in the form of supposedly paradoxical negative reactions to him, to taking medications, etc. Manifest manifestations of a negative attitude towards a doctor, recognized by the patient, must certainly become the subject of discussion and comparison with similar episodes in real life. Discussing the relationship with the doctor does not touch upon unconscious material in attitudes towards the doctor or past events. The use of material brought to consciousness comes down to the patient’s confrontation with the real situation of treatment and parallel maladaptive behavior outside of therapy. Correcting the doctor’s unrealistic perception includes the patient’s awareness that the potential cessation of psychotherapy as a result of the patient’s refusal is not a life-threatening threat for the doctor. At the same time, this does not mean that he rejects the patient or his indifferent attitude towards him.

Insight-focused therapy

This model is a modification of classical psychoanalysis. It is well known that Freud, due to his clinical failures, considered psychoanalysis of psychoses impossible. He blamed the patients for this, believing that these nosological populations were unsuitable for treatment with psychodynamic methods. Life has refuted this point of view, confirming the opposite - the classical method of psychoanalysis turned out to be unsuitable for the treatment of psychosis, requiring significant modification, a radical change in the goals, means and understanding of the mechanism of action of therapy in order to become adequate to the tasks of treating psychosis.

For the first time, C. Jung began to systematically engage in psychoanalytic therapy for patients with schizophrenia in 1903 {582}, which marked the beginning of the development of these methods. This period is now called heroic, meaning that this was done mainly by single enthusiasts, whose courage was determined by the gigantic amount of work they invested in many years of drug-free therapy for patients with schizophrenia, with the assessment of this work being far from enthusiastic from the majority of their professional colleagues, quite however, understandable given the modesty of the initial results.

The departure from classical psychoanalysis, focused on the treatment of neuroses, was caused by the most important circumstance - fundamental differences in the etiology, pathogenesis and psychodynamic mechanisms of neuroses and schizophrenia. These differences make direct attempts to interpret the meaning of psychodynamic processes pointless {583}. The understanding of past events becomes fundamentally different due to the fact that it defines current interpersonal disorders in schizophrenia in a completely different way.

The result of the modification of the classical procedure was the emergence by the end of the seventies of the last century of methods that were somewhat different from each other in the placement of individual technical accents, but based on a single basic model. These methods are usually referred to as exploratory, insight-oriented, expressive, or, to emphasize the difference from psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy have different goals and, therefore, different means of achieving them. The short duration and intensity of psychoanalytic psychotherapy place higher demands on the technical qualifications, flexibility and initiative of the doctor. Despite the significant differences from psychoanalysis, insight-oriented therapy still undoubtedly remains psychoanalytic, because it contains the basic parameters that Freud himself considered indispensable for any psychodynamic therapy: recognition of the significance of unconscious components of experiences, the problem of the patient’s resistance to psychotherapeutic correction and the use of reactivation of past experiences in his interaction with the doctor.

It is worth touching upon the attitude towards this development in Soviet literature, where it was covered in a very tendentious manner. The mechanism of action of psychoanalytic approaches in schizophrenia was presented in a way that was far from reality: “to ensure that the patient reproduces the situation that caused the illness and relives it” {160}. Empirical data on the effectiveness of these methods were ignored, the effect was explained by suggestion or spontaneous remissions, that is, essentially denied.

Despite this, some researchers have confirmed the importance of psychodynamic mechanisms. For example, the fact that the degree of mismatch between conscious and unconscious personal reactions to a doctor is one of the factors that determines resistance to psychotherapy {2}, and the discovery of fixed pathological forms of psychological defense is an important stage in psychotherapy for schizophrenia {495}.

Psychodynamic mechanisms are the focus of the original Russian model of pathogenetic psychotherapy of neuroses, developed at the Research Institute named after. V. M. Bekhterev by Professor B. D. Karvasarsky and his students {49, 584} based on the theory of relations of V. I. Myasishchev. This model deserves special consideration.

The main principle of pathogenetic psychotherapy is to increase the adaptability of behavior on the basis of personal reconstruction, an essential prerequisite of which is the patient’s awareness of the role of certain aspects of significant relationships with others and understanding of oneself in the formation of intrapsychic conflict. This determines the qualitative difference between this model and rational psychotherapy and suggestive methods and fully justifies its second name – reconstructive.

Within the framework of the model, a hierarchy of levels of awareness is introduced during therapy: first, the connection between emotional factors and symptoms is established, then personal positions that generate conflicts, and finally, needs or motives that determine these personal positions. In accordance with the degree of awareness, the correction of disrupted relationships and the development of new relationships can be carried out at the levels of cognition, emotions and behavior. A useful technique is to draw the patient’s attention to possible analogies of his emotional relationship with the doctor and relationships with significant persons around him, which, in essence, is an analysis of transference.

And finally, the patient’s resistance to the doctor’s interventions is recognized as a naturally occurring reaction, and overcoming it is an important component of psychotherapy. This resistance, however, is considered not as a consequence of the action of maladaptive psychological defense techniques, which are not specifically considered within the framework of this model, but as a conscious reaction of the patient to a painful touch to the painful experiences he is hiding. Hence the refusal to correct the unconscious and focus exclusively on the analysis of conscious or preconscious material, that is, located in the marginal field of consciousness, the full awareness of which is not prevented by repression mechanisms.

Thus, the fundamental difference between pathogenetic psychotherapy and psychoanalytic models is that in this case we are not talking about analyzing the unconscious, but about searching for connections between previously disconnected ideas in the patient’s consciousness, clarifying unclear experiences, that is, not so much about expanding the sphere of the conscious, but about its ordering. Hence the limitation of interventions to emotional support, which reduces the patient’s resistance and makes him more accessible to confrontation, the second main tool of pathogenetic psychotherapy.

This technical structure of this model, which is quite adequate for the tasks of treating neuroses, does not provide sufficient opportunities for correcting specific motivational disorders in patients with schizophrenia and the variants of primitive psychological defense characteristic of these patients.

The main task of modern exploratory psychotherapy is the awareness and correction of the mechanisms of maladaptive psychological defense. These mechanisms are involuntarily reproduced by the patient during his contact with the doctor or members of the psychotherapeutic group, representing a manifestation of the so-called transference. Transference means the presence in the therapeutic interaction of the patient’s inappropriate behavior, reflecting the unconscious reproduction of conflict and pathogenic relationships with persons in his significant environment.

The manifestation of transference is not all inappropriate behavior, but only the cliches of infantile expectations of protection, guardianship, accompanied by the fear of losing it, which are typical for a given patient, revived in communication with a doctor, as well as rivalry with the goal of suppressing a partner or impressing, impressing, delighting. Subjectively, for the patient, this is not a distortion of perception, but a plausible point of view for him, based on repeatedly repeated life experience {585}. Awareness of this mechanism in communication with a doctor helps the patient to see these distortions in his communication with other persons, which increases the accuracy of his assessment of the surrounding reality and the effectiveness of social behavior.

It should be emphasized that during transfer we are not talking about a specific reproduction of past situations, but about the revival of conflict attitudes and behavioral stereotypes integrated into the structure of the patient’s personality. Not only past experiences can be transferred into modern communication, but also relatively recently formed attitudes, including in communication with a doctor. Manifestations of transfer can also be observed in the patient’s non-verbal reaction (the so-called acting-out) - a behavioral discharge of a motivational impulse that arose in another situation and an inadequate situation of appearance, which is unconsciously identified with the original one.

Awareness of the maladaptive psychological defense mechanisms manifested in the transference causes inevitable resistance from the patient, mainly due to the action of special psychological mechanisms that prevent this awareness. Therefore, overcoming resistance is an indispensable prerequisite for awareness and the main mechanism of psychotherapeutic correction, which has the same great importance in insight-oriented therapy as cathartic response in psychoanalysis.

Resistance is far from being limited to defensive-aggressive manifestations. In patients with schizophrenia, it mostly manifests itself in the form of passivity and various forms of care. Awareness is hampered by emotional and evaluative connections with the meanings of repressed attitudes, as well as the ego-syntonicity of the latter and their foreignness to the patient. The patient often positively evaluates medical intervention aimed at eliminating symptoms and direct manifestations of the disease that are alien to his personality, but, as a rule, he has a negative attitude towards attempts to eliminate those symptoms that are a manifestation of psychological defense techniques welded to his personality.

Overcoming resistance is also highly dependent on the general background of the patient’s motivation for treatment: the higher the motivation, the greater the chance of success for insight-oriented therapy; the lower, the greater the need to use supportive therapy techniques {586}. In the presence of a perceived secondary benefit from the disease, insight-oriented therapy sometimes becomes impossible, although motivational deficit is not an absolute contraindication to exploratory therapy. The success of free (paid for by insurance companies) psychoanalytic treatment refuted Freud's thesis that psychotherapy is successful only if it involves large financial sacrifices for the patient, thereby guaranteeing his high personal interest.

A nonspecific means of overcoming resistance is general work to increase the patient’s motivation for treatment and his emotional support. When using the latter, it is advisable not to miss a single opportunity to positively evaluate any productive activity of the patient during the treatment process. The sooner the patient gives up resistance, the less he experiences a feeling of defeat in communicating with the doctor.

It is essential, however, that the doctor’s empathy with emotional support be directed towards helping in overcoming the difficulties of reconstructive work, and not at satisfying the patient’s infantile needs for dependence and aggression. It is also very important to establish the boundaries of indications for correction: resistance in itself is not a disease and not every resistance must be overcome.

Successful overcoming of resistance during therapy ends with awareness of the mechanisms of maladaptive defense, or insight (from English - insight, German - Einsicht). Insight is a more complex phenomenon than awareness; it represents the simultaneous identification by the patient of a characteristic pattern of his behavior in three dimensions: in the past, in modern relationships with people and in relationships with the doctor. Hope for a successful outcome of therapy appears no earlier than when the patient sees in at least one episode his distorted perception of the doctor and recognizes him as such.

The essence of insight is that it transforms pathogenic unconscious personal constructs into harmless memory and creates the prerequisites for increasing the effectiveness of behavior by eliminating previously unconscious obstacles. Insight helps to eliminate contradictions between the conscious and unconscious motives of an individual and, on this basis, to carry out a rational adjustment of motives and life goals.

The success of the insight achieved is determined by the balance between its emotional, cognitive and behavioral components. Insight is not identical to perception or even understanding of information. Only when he receives emotional support can he promote behavior change. Insight obtained without effort, not accompanied by a transient disturbance of the patient’s intrapsychic balance and, above all, by his preoccupation with the pathological aspects of his behavior and experiences, is designated as intellectual insight, which does not give a chance for the emergence of true structural changes in the psyche.

At the same time, the emotional response itself provides only short-term relief, without leaving behind a lasting result. An emotional reaction to an interpretation cannot change behavior unless accompanied by sufficient understanding and cognitive restructuring. The main tool in this case is not emotional response, but cognitive reconstruction, however, its effectiveness is determined by the level of mediation in the patient’s behavior. To understand, feel and be reflected in changed behavior - this is the formula for true insight.

Kinds

Insight in psychology is a bright, sudden guess, characterized by an intuitive breakthrough aimed at solving a problem that has been tormenting an individual for a long time.

In psychology, there are 2 types of insight:

Taking into account the above division, it becomes clear that a breakthrough in consciousness is based not only on human intellect, and thinking in psychology becomes effective only if it helps to combine knowledge and human emotions into one whole.

At the same time, insight should not be considered the result of psychological work, since, according to Keller, insight worked only when the monkey not only figured out how to get food, but also knocked down a banana with a stick, putting his idea into practice.

Insight is part of human development and an important stage in self-knowledge, but the idea must certainly be followed by an action that allows one to go beyond the usual behavior.

Where to start searching for insights?

Modern consumers do not hide information, so they willingly share their opinions on social networks, personal blogs, and on the pages of manufacturers and sellers. Information is collected by marketers and analysts who study thousands of opinions and then extract valuable facts and wishes from them. Working with insights is primarily about communication with the target audience, and not about promoting a product. Thematic questionnaires, interviews and focus groups demonstrate high efficiency in collecting opinions. Let's look at the stages and best ways to help you correctly collect opinions and form working insights.

Defining objectives and target audience

When collecting opinions, it is necessary to take into account that Ukraine is a large country. Each region is home to consumers with different tastes and interests, and the opinions of residents of megacities and small towns may differ. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the following nuances:

• determine what values ​​you are looking for: generally accepted ones, characteristic of one age group or representatives of a particular profession;
• highlight the factors that unite clients into a single group;
• evaluate the environment in which the potential buyer is constantly located;
• identify the pain points of a potential consumer;
• pay attention only to current issues that concern most of the target audience;
• highlight the important aspects that play a primary role in personalized marketing.

Insights should bring something new to the buyer's life, but at the same time solve important problems, for example, internal conflict. You must find the factors that prevent a person from leading the lifestyle that he wants.

Collection of data from open sources

To collect primary information, you can use analytics tools, data from advertising accounts and other channels that allow you to work with numbers rather than opinions. Such data will provide answers to questions important to business:

• “Why does a consumer continue to buy a product from a certain brand?”;
• “Why don’t customers want to purchase goods at discounts?”;
• “Why do people buy black dresses right away, while similar yellow models gather dust in a warehouse?” and others.

Analyzing metrics will help you identify problems and develop strategies that will form the basis of successful insights. Data must be compared over time, taking into account seasonal fluctuations and the economic situation at different times.

Working with Emotions

Every consumer experiences a whirlwind of emotions, managing which will help you find successful insights:

• nostalgic emotions. The client may actively respond to music, color palette or images that are associated with his childhood, youth or a certain period of life;
• unfulfilled desires. A person wants to play sports or maintain a healthy lifestyle, but does not have the financial resources or willpower;
• internal barriers. Most often, this problem is faced by a person dependent on the opinion of society. He strives to follow generally accepted rules and wants to be perfect. In this case, the task of insight is to show the consumer the other side of the coin: you can live differently and do as you want.

Experiences can be associated with appearance, cultural aspects, rigid boundaries built by society. Potential clients may experience fear, guilt, or suffer from unfulfillment - these emotions and psychological problems need to be identified and then solved with the help of a properly structured marketing campaign.

Classic examples

Insight in psychology is an almost instantaneous process, the appearance of which requires a split second, but requires long-term and fruitful preparation. As a rule, the birth of a momentary insight in psychologists’ patients can take 1-2 sessions, but for scientists, from the moment of preparation until the insight, years of painstaking collection and comprehension of information can pass.

The most striking examples of insight are:

1. Archimedes' law on the statistics of fluids. The ancient Greek scientist simply decided to take a bath when he suddenly noticed that water was pouring out of it in proportion to the weight of the body immersed in it.

2. Periodic system D.I. Mendeleev, which the famous chemist accidentally saw in a dream. The scientist’s insight was preceded by a long preparation that took many years, during which the Nobel laureate pondered the arrangement of chemical elements, and finally, turning off his consciousness, he saw the correct sequence in a dream.
3. The force of gravity was discovered by I. Newton while drinking tea under an apple tree. The sudden fall of the fruit made the scientist think about the force of gravity that makes apples fall to the ground, and also keeps the Earth from falling into the Sun.
4. The idea of ​​​​an electric motor came to N. Tesla while walking around and was like a lightning explosion, but the moment of insight was preceded by long preparation and study of motor designs, assembly types and electrical specifications.

Similar moments of insight have occurred to countless scientists, writers, musicians and artists and have become a symbol of genius, suggested to conscious thought by the unconscious part of the brain.

How it works: examples of successful insights in the history of world marketing

A striking example of good insights that truly satisfy customer needs is the marketing of companies that sell caring and decorative cosmetics. The Real Beauty campaign launched in 2004 by Unilever for the Dove brand showed good results. The campaign was preceded by a survey, which resulted in interesting information: less than 2% of clients consider themselves beautiful. Therefore, many women and teenagers experienced stress associated with pressure from the fashion industry and the media.

The marketing campaign for real beauty, carried out under the auspices of the British agency Ogilvy & Mather, emphasized the fact that every woman is beautiful in her own way. As a result, natural beauty became a source of confidence rather than anxiety . Within the first three years of Real Beauty's launch, the company's sales increased 100% (from $2 billion to $4 billion), and the concept became core to the Dove brand.

Insights concern not only beauty, but cultural aspects. In 2020, the Nike brand, specializing in the production of sportswear, released a line of Victory Swim swimsuits. It includes standard models and a hijab swimsuit. The new product was presented by figure skater Zahra Lari from the UAE, who calls the product her dream. The company received a request from the community and then brought it to life by creating practical and comfortable swimwear that women who practice Islam need.

False insight and mental defense

In addition to true insight in psychology, one can also distinguish the concept of false insight, implied as a wrong decision that the unconscious helpfully provides in the tired brain of the individual.

False insight occurs in the human mind after a long thought process during which the individual unsuccessfully tries to find a solution to an unknown problem through previous experience. Prolonged functioning of the brain naturally leads to an overstrain of the psyche, which gives a person the wrong decision, which seems simply ideal against the background of hopelessness.

In this case, the work of the unconscious part of the psyche necessary for a breakthrough is absent, and the resulting, incorrect decision is only a way for a tired psyche to get rid of the problem that torments it, thereby preventing the development of neuroses.

In addition to false insight, the emergence of insight can also be hampered by the protective mechanisms of the psyche, which are triggered when it is highly stressed and help a person relax, reduce intrapersonal conflict and relieve anxiety.

In order to protect the psyche, it uses the method of fantasy, which allows a person exhausted by the search for a solution to believe in the correctness of the insight. An individual, tired of hopelessness, begins to look for ways to solve a problem in the world of fantasy, that is, where they cannot exist, and an obliging consciousness, in an attempt to relieve tension, gives him the wrong solution.

What is Gestalt?

Gestalt psychology introduces the concept of “gestalt”—integrity—as an explanatory principle. Thus, if other directions are trying to dismember the mental life of a person and divide it into elements, then here we are talking about a holistic perception of the world. All mental processes in Gestalt psychology occur together, and in the psyche there is an integral structure, which is called Gestalt.

For example, when watching a video, a person perceives the picture and sound as a single whole. At the same time, he does not decompose the audio sequence into individual sounds, and the video sequence into a set of colors and sensations. In addition, people are unable to perceive written words in isolation from their meanings and are easily susceptible to optical illusions. This is due to the fact that the human brain strives to cognize integrity - to create a gestalt.

Any problematic situation also appears before us as a gestalt - an integral structure with its elements and connections between them. Thinking is carried out through a consistent transition from one such structure to another. With the help of a series of such transitions, the structure is transformed, which ultimately leads to a solution to the problem. Simply put, a solution is found when a person looks at the same situation from different points of view.

Psychological schools and theories

The phenomenon of insight was first described by the French mathematician Henri Poincaré, who in 1910, while studying the exact definition of insight, as the result of long-term unconscious work, was subsequently picked up by G. Wallace, who translated the works of the French mathematician into English.

In his theory of “Insight,” G. Wallace defined the concept as penetration into the essence, replacing the French “Illumination,” first voiced by Poincaré, and also, having studied the practical work of Keller and his research with chimpanzees, he defined the stages of the emergence of insight as preparatory, incubatory, insight and practice.

The founder of Gelstatt psychology, Keller, introduced the concept of insight into his theory, as not a sudden insight, but a long thought process that accumulates results with the obligatory emotional experience.

In Russian science, Natalya Bekhtereva conducted a study of insight, formulating the result of her research in 2 theories:

1. The first contained the opinion that at the moment of insight, a person’s consciousness functions like a radio receiver and independently creates the basis for insight.
2. The second substantiated the phenomenon of insight as a trance that arises in unconscious thinking.

Attempts to explain genius were made in the future, but it was not yet possible to fully establish the essence of important scientific discoveries that occurred with musicians, writers and physicists.

A negative attitude towards insight is characteristic of followers of the behaviorist movement, which understands the subject of psychology not as consciousness, but as human behavior.

Adherents of the behaviorist concept deny the possibility of unconscious interference in conscious thinking, justifying their opinion by the lack of scientific evidence of a brilliant insight, but the question of the origin of great scientific discoveries also does not have a specific answer.

Control method

Insight, understood in psychology as insight, although considered synonymous with genius, can still be artificially synthesized by a person.

The search for non-standard solutions should be carried out according to established laws, including:

1. The need to accumulate a sufficient scientific, assimilated and processed base of information, since insight does not come from nothing, but from external information that has penetrated into the unconscious, comprehended from books, communication and life experience.
2. Creating mandatory pauses that allow the conscious mind to transmit accumulated information to the unconscious part of thinking. A pause can be a rest or a change of activity, which involves complete distraction from the problem of interest. If this condition is not met, as an insight the individual will visit a false insight or fantasy created by a tired and overloaded nervous system.
3. A mandatory change of activity, since most often insights arise during long walks, relaxation and activities that bring pleasure, rather than tedious, monotonous work.

A good way, according to scientists, to achieve insight is considered to be meditative practices that allow a person to concentrate on breathing and distract from the thought process.

Application

In psychological practice, insight is used by doctors in therapy, in order to accumulate information about the problem and, through leading questions, lead the patient to the necessary solutions.

By accumulating information about the condition and problem tormenting the patient, the psychologist gradually asking questions leads the client to the only correct solution, suggested to him by the unconscious, and helping to determine the only correct way out of the current situation.

This technique can take from 3-5 sessions, but is much more effective than a regular consultation, since the patient, having simply heard the opinions of the psychotherapist, may not pay attention to his problem, while the independently made decision will be learned and applied in practice.

In addition to psychology and science, insight is widely used in marketing through the study of consumer interests.

Insight is actively used in Gestalt psychology

In this case, insight has 2 meanings. In the first, it involves brainstorming, the result of which can be a revolutionary concept, and in the second, complete immersion in the consumer environment in order to consistently collect information about the motives driving customers when making a purchase.

Consistently assembling the links of the gelstat chain, the marketer:

• explores the goals pursued by the buyer;
• determines the benefit that the consumer should receive when purchasing a product;
• thinks about the feelings of the consumer, trying to see the product through the eyes of the buyer.

After connecting all the links in the marketing gelstat chain, the only correct solution emerges, allowing you to create a product that fully meets the needs of customers and is endowed with all the necessary qualities.

Insight in psychology is an internal, mental breakthrough that occurs in the unconscious part of the brain and allows you to solve a long-plaguing problem.

It is possible to try to synthesize a sudden insight that has become the cause of brilliant scientific discoveries, but it is not possible to accurately repeat it, since due to the peculiarities of the psyche, the correct answer can simply be blocked by the protective functions of a tired brain.

What are consumer insights: goals and effectiveness

The word insight comes from the English insight, which means “insight” or “understanding”. The term refers to psychiatry and is used to denote the state of a patient who has become aware of a problem and its causes. Consumer insights are a useful tool for marketers, PR specialists, contextual advertising experts and business owners. This technology has been used for fifty years, demonstrating its effectiveness year after year.

Insight embedded in marketing is a motivation that does not allow a potential buyer to pass by a product or commercial offer. For example, a customer says to himself: “I want this product, but I can’t buy it for a number of reasons.” The first part of the phrase is desire, the second is internal obstacles that a correctly selected insight can successfully overcome. Technology helps solve a number of important problems:

• increases the effectiveness of any marketing campaign;
• attracts and holds the attention of potential consumers;
• solves the buyer’s problem, thanks to which he sends the product to the virtual basket without hesitation;
• helps increase sales and increase the conversion of an online store website;
• Personalizes advertising and unique selling propositions.

Insight makes a product, brand or online store closer to a potential consumer. It allows you to abandon generally accepted standards and give a person what he wants to get. Modern consumers are very demanding when it comes to advertising, so on a subconscious level they reject products that are based on uninteresting and generalized marketing.