Star fever - the view of a psychologist. Star fever: symptoms and treatment

"Star fever", the main symptom of which is self-aggrandizement, manifests itself in the most different areas professional activity. It is common for people with Star Syndrome to become furious at the slightest criticism. It is vital for them to be first in the ranking, hence their constant desire to rank others. Character traits such as inflated claims and neglect of the needs of other people make their contacts with others unstable.

If we talk about the so-called “star fever” from the point of view of psychology, it is worth noting that in its manifestations “star fever” is very similar to the narcissistic personality disorder known in psychology. This is actually an unhealthy (neurotic) personality manifestation that leads to serious problems in interpersonal communication.

These types of people live with constant feeling envy of everyone who has achieved success and even of those who live the usual rich and interesting life. Problems in communication for such individuals arise against the background of the fact that their behavior causes others negative attitude to yourself.

Narcissistic individuals view everyone else as inferior to them. They seek the admiration of others primarily in order to receive confirmation of their greatness and maintain their superiority over others. To protect their weak self from destruction, they use various defenses, but their most favorite remedy for anxiety is idealization and devaluation. They either idealize someone else and devalue themselves, or they idealize themselves and devalue others. When their strategies hit a snag, they may become depressed.

If after these explanations it seemed to you that any desire for success can lead to “star fever”. That's not true at all. It all depends on what motives drive your aspirations for success.

Anyone healthy body There is a completely normal need for self-development. The motive for new achievements is the desire for self-realization, the search for new knowledge, the development of skills and abilities that open up new prospects in life. In this case, a person strives not for fame as such, but for new achievements and discoveries, developing professionally and personally.

In a painful (neurotic) manifestation, other motives rule, this is the desire for prestige, the need to impress others, to be an object of admiration and respect.

This is the main difference between neurotic desires for power, prestige, and wealth from the healthy need for personal development and self-realization, which ultimately is the meaning of our existence.

Your successes have made you incredibly important in your own eyes. It’s good that you have high self-esteem, but it’s still better when our successes are assessed not by ourselves, but by other people. It's not your friend's fault that she was less fortunate. Your career and wealthy boyfriend are not a reason to turn away from your loved ones. It sounds sad, but a boyfriend in the capital can leave you, or fire you from your job. Will you then go to that same “ex-girlfriend” for advice and consolation? No matter how high you rise, continue to appreciate your friends. Otherwise, you risk being left completely alone.

The cuckoo praises the rooster

Your star fever began in childhood. Every day your mom told you that you were the most beautiful, and the teacher insisted that there was no one smarter than you in the class. You are used to praise and now you literally demand it from others. It’s good if your expectations coincide with reality, and you continue to be praised by your boss, husband and business partners. Just make sure that the praise is not flattery and be prepared for constructive criticism. Ideal people does not happen, and you are no exception. Even if you want to think differently.

Moment of glory

star fever well known to celebrities - singers, actors and other showbiz figures. But many people don’t need to release albums and sell out stadiums to get sick. It’s enough just to “light up” somewhere once. Did you go to the set of a talk show? Won the regional poetry competition? Yes, this is your small victory. But this is no reason to turn up your nose. First, make people appreciate your talents. Do not succumb to the tempting shine of the spotlight: it often deceives even very high hopes.

Cure for illness

For whatever reason you get star fever, it needs to be treated. Remember that at school you probably teased arrogant people. Why did you become like this when you grew up? No matter how significant your successes are, remain yourself. Continue to value your family and friends, respect the opinions of others and themselves. Don't gloat if you managed to leave your friends far behind. And don’t forget that difficult times happen to everyone, when those who lavished praise yesterday may turn away from you. For real successful people They do not take unnecessary credit for themselves, do not judge others, and help those who need it. Be truly successful!

The phrase “star fever” is heard modern man and is most often used with condemnation in relation to famous people. But not everyone knows that this is a psychological term, which means one of the forms personality disorder, often having common features with Let’s get acquainted with the causes and symptoms of the phenomenon.

Description

Star sickness is characteristic not only of celebrities who amaze the public with their whims and odd behavior, but also ordinary people who begin to put themselves above others, behave defiantly, lose friends and experience many other problems. Nothing good about this phenomenon no, but a person suffering from such a disorder is unable to do otherwise. Most often, the root cause of personal deformation is success - a promotion up the personnel ladder, a well-appreciated job, a project brought to life. Praise and admiration make one’s head spin, giving a person thoughts about his own uniqueness and genius.

He begins to mistakenly live by double standard, believing that he, the “star,” is allowed much more than “mere mortals.” Such is the general outline star fever.

Manifestations and signs

Many people can remember how famous people behaved arrogantly and defiantly. But what are the signs of star fever in psychological science? There are several of them:

• Unjustifiably inflated self-esteem, exaggeration of one’s own importance and achievements.
• The belief that other people are “worse.”
• A painful need to constantly impress others, to be the center of attention.

Deviation is quite dangerous because it leads to personality degradation. At the same time, people can put themselves on an equal footing with some others (who, let’s say, have achieved a similar result); this is precisely what distinguishes the state from delusions of grandeur.

Causes

Let's consider the factors that could cause star fever in a person far from show business; they can be divided into internal and external. For convenience, the data is presented in table form.

This deviation can result from various combinations these factors. For example, if a person with high self-esteem achieves unexpected success, it can “turn her head” and lead to the onset of star fever. Then even the immediate environment will be perceived by this person as people unworthy of her attention.

Symptoms

How to recognize a person suffering from this personality deformation? The components of star fever will help, which include:

• The desire to always be the center of attention.
• Envy of others' success.
• Inattention to family and friends, complete concentration on oneself.
• Contrasting two forms of relationships - to oneself as to to a higher person, self-aggrandizement, and others, belittling their role.
• Often such individuals allow themselves to violate the norms accepted in society, because they consider themselves above them.

Also in the specialized literature you can find the term “narcissism”, narcissism, it has much in common with the deviation in question. Such a person not only behaves arrogantly, he is sincerely confident in his superiority and believes that those around him have the same opinion.

Treatment

What to do if a person gets sick with star fever, can it be cured and how? This is possible, since personality deformation is still initial stage, but the person suffering from it does not understand the problem, and therefore is unlikely to turn to a professional psychologist.

Those close to him can help him dispel illusions by setting a difficult goal, making it clear that not everything has been achieved and there is something to strive for. Only honesty will help the “stars” come down to earth and understand that they are no better than others. If, out of love, you close your eyes to their whims and caprices, then the deviation will only intensify and it will become much more difficult to defeat it.

This deviation can and should be fought, because star fever, while the “patient” seems harmless, can cause the end of his career. Even if you have talent and hard work, bad temper, pride and narcissism can become the reasons that the choice will be made in favor of a less gifted, but more pleasant person to communicate with. Friends and relatives will turn away from a person suffering from narcissism, tired of tolerating his ingratitude and inattention. And he risks being left alone with his own genius and talent.

Do you know what “star fever” is? This is not exactly what you thought. This disease does not at all apply to social giants like Philip Kirkorov or Paris Hilton; it is characteristic mainly... of astronauts.

The second name for this disease is Space Adaptation Syndrome, which affects astronauts while moving between areas with different levels gravity during flight. This ailment lasts only a few days, fortunately, but most astronauts are susceptible to it, regardless of experience and age. According to statistics, more than half of them complain about this syndrome (and how many don’t complain and tolerate it? That’s just me, by the way...)

Typically, adaptation to changes in gravity takes certain time. Gravity accompanies our entire lives, and all body systems are adapted to normal, earthly gravity. When flying spaceship astronauts experience several phases of sensations associated with its changes. Firstly, during take-off, an astronaut may experience nausea, hallucinations and disorientation. Secondly, when weightlessness sets in, a person also adapts to the disappearing force of gravity, which also does not add to his pleasant sensations- the same nausea, loss of orientation and other troubles.

Document written by researcher Suzanne Nooy, Dr. medical sciences from the University of Delft, shows that such effects can be caused (naturally) by the application of increased gravity, for example with the help of centrifuges in which pilots and astronauts are trained. Despite the fact that such high-gravity sessions last on average about an hour, pilots often complain of symptoms of space sickness. As it turned out, such symptoms are not caused by changes in gravity, but by the inability to adapt to this change. The results of a study carried out using the Soesterberg centrifuge showed that symptoms obtained in the centrifuge and during space flight were caused in the same way.

The human organ that controls position in space and balance is located in inner ear. It is called an otolith and consists of two perpendicular canals rolled into a ring, lined with sensitive cells on the inside and half filled with fluid. This gives them sensitivity to tilt and acceleration in different directions. In my opinion, the system, despite its simplicity, is ingenious (not surprising, since it was created by nature). By the way, humans have two such organs - in the left and right ears.

Previously, experts believed that this syndrome was caused by an imbalance in the left and right otoliths. The above study showed that the disease is caused when there is prolonged rotation of fluid within the channels. At the same time, the asymmetry of the left and right organs does not have balance of great importance, because discomfort caused precisely by the unusual behavior of the fluid inside each individual canal and otolith.

In the process of writing this article, I realized that it could be called not “Star fever”, but “The Genius of Nature-222”. You can substitute any number, because the nature that created us is infinitely ingenious, and the complexity of even such a small organ as the “position sensor” in a person once again confirms this.

To understand the cause of “star fever” and recommend an effective “treatment”, it is worth first defining the terms and finding out whether it is actually a disease, and who suffers from it more than others.

In psychology there is no concept of “star fever” as such. Psychologists look at a number of signs that appear in some people under the influence of success, in this case, in sports activities, and work with the reasons for their occurrence.

These are signs such as: arrogance, intolerance to criticism, arrogance, arrogance, condescension towards coaches and classmates, disdainful attitude towards opponents. This period is difficult for those around the “sick” athlete, who are forced to observe such unpleasant behavior. But paradoxically, the “star” athlete himself experiences this moment no less dramatically. The fact is that “stardom” and the feeling of one’s own imperfection and insignificance are two sides of the same coin. And in order to understand how these, at first glance, polar experiences coexist in one person, it is worth going back to the time when the child had not even thought about sports.

Similar violation originates in early childhood when a child is praised only for successes or not praised at all, but is punished or ignored for failures, thereby showing him that without achievements he is nothing. Or, in another version, the child is presented as special: the most talented, the smartest, the most beautiful, etc. At the same time, parents notice and recognize the child only when he approaches them. ideal model, thereby letting the child understand that only by being “the very best” he can earn their love. In such families, parents tend to compare their child with other children, and often not in favor of their own child. The eternal dissatisfaction of parents, who for some reason cannot be sincerely interested in the child or at least simply happy that he exists, forms in the child a persistent feeling that he is still not good enough, which means that his achievements and successes mean nothing. Such a child understands early on: in order to earn the attention and recognition of his parents, he must constantly achieve success, as if buying their love. Sports in this case - fertile soil, here you can take high places, break records, receive titles.

Growing up, such a child becomes very dependent on external evaluation. At the same time, he always criticizes himself, but with the same ease he blames others. Therefore, he is always dissatisfied with himself and the world around him. He has not learned to look for himself, understand and accept own characteristics, his parents taught him to endlessly and meaninglessly compare himself with someone, and since the criteria are high, the comparison, as a rule, is not in his favor. This inevitably gave rise to a hidden conflict in the child: on the one hand, he wanted to feel unique and inimitable, on the other, he quickly got used to the feeling that he was just “one of”, and more often than not, not the best.

Thus, “star fever” is nothing more than defensive reaction a grown-up person, when he himself learned to perceive (evaluate) himself exclusively through the prism of achievements. This is the desire to gain recognition, to take some special place in the circle of acquaintances. This is some attempt to smooth out the experience of his own imperfection, since being better is the only mechanism known to him for receiving love or recognition. Even when he treats others with contempt - “let him, the other one, now experience his imperfection, and not I myself.” Pushing away the disdain of other people, the “sick” person does everything so as not to be exposed, so that under beautiful mask success, they did not notice a deeply suffering person experiencing his low value (significance) for himself. Inside himself, he most likely does not consider his achievements particularly significant, but he really wants others to consider them as such. Although during the period of recognition of his achievements, such a person really feels great and powerful. However, this moment is very short - just a few minutes or hours, and everything returns to normal.

Having understood the mechanism of occurrence of “star fever”, one cannot fail to mention the methods of its “treatment”, or rather prevention. So, for parents whose children are just starting their sports careers, the recommendation may seem strange at first: don’t be afraid to praise your own child. It is a big misconception that praise leads to star fever. Praise is those nutrients, without which it cannot develop adequate self-esteem. However, praise must be appropriate. You should not raise a child to heaven if his success is undeserved. But those achievements to which the child has made an effort should not go unnoticed. But the most important thing is to praise not even for achievements, but simply to be happy that he exists, that he is who he is, with all his characteristics.

You cannot punish a child for failures and failures - this is an experience, albeit a negative one. It’s better to help him analyze what happened and draw conclusions that can protect him from repeating his mistake in the future.

It is important for a child to realize that he is important and valuable to his parents, regardless of his success.