Mental and psychological trauma: what is the difference? Features of the human psyche and consciousness. The difference between the mental activity of animals and humans
In the section on the question: how does the human psyche differ from the psyche of animals? given by the author Irochka)) the best answer is for some - nothing
Answer from Wake up[guru]
in fact, the giraffe thinks about the same thing as a person
Answer from No clique[guru]
The psyche of animals is natural and that of humans is artificial.
Answer from Neuropathologist[master]
Animals have consciousness, but no thinking.
Answer from hospitable[guru]
the absence of a huge pile of problems with which a person complicates life for himself and others.
Answer from Andry Titov[active]
I think that a person is more based on consciousness and thought, animals on impulsive desire, instinct.
Answer from Yoveta cool[guru]
The human psyche is 100 times more mental and psychopathic than that of animals
Answer from Natalia Balbutskaya[guru]
Types of memory and attention color vision, a completely different range of sounds in humans, many animals hear sounds below or above the threshold that a person has, the same is true in smells. A person usually has a complex logical chain associations. And for an animal it’s simpler - meat = food, water = drink))
In addition, a person can plan his actions, while an animal, although it has an algorithm of actions, mostly reacts to stimuli immediately.
Answer from Elena Filatova[guru]
Comparison of the psyche of animals with the human allows us to highlight the following main differences between them.
1. An animal can act only within the framework of a situation that is directly perceived, and all the acts it performs are limited by biological needs, that is, motivation is always biological.
Animals don't do anything that doesn't serve them. biological needs. The concrete, practical thinking of animals makes them dependent on the immediate situation. Only in the process of orienting manipulation is an animal able to solve problematic problems. A person, thanks to abstract, logical thinking, can foresee events and act according to cognitive necessity - consciously.
Thinking is closely related to broadcasting. Animals only give signals to their relatives about their own emotional states, while a person uses language to inform others in time and space, conveying social experience. Thanks to language, every person uses experience that humanity has developed over thousands of years and which she has never directly perceived.
2. Animals are capable of using objects as tools, but not a single animal can create tools. Animals do not live in a world of permanent things and do not perform collective actions. Even watching the actions of another animal, they will never help each other or act together.
Only man creates tools according to well-thought-out plans, uses them for their intended purpose and preserves them for the future. He lives in a world of permanent things, uses tools together with other people, takes on the experience of using tools and passes them on to others.
3. The difference between the psyche of animals and humans lies in feelings. Animals are also capable of experiencing positive or negative emotions, but only a person can sympathize with another person in grief or joy, enjoy pictures of nature, and experience intellectual feelings.
4. The conditions for the development of the psyche of animals and humans is the fourth difference. The development of the psyche in the animal world is subject to biological laws, and the development of the human psyche is determined by socio-historical conditions.
Both man and animal are characterized by instinctive reactions to stimuli, the ability to gain experience in life situations. However, only a person is capable of appropriating social experience that develops the psyche.
From the moment of birth, the child masters the ways of using tools and communication skills. This, in turn, develops the sensory sphere, logical thinking, shapes the personality of the individual. A monkey in any conditions will manifest itself as a monkey, and a person will only become a person if his development takes place among people. This is confirmed by cases of human children being raised among animals.
In some sciences, the concepts of “psyche” and “consciousness” are fundamental. Each of them has its own meaning. Let’s try to explain these terms and find out how the psyche differs from consciousness.
Definition
Psyche- this is the property belonging to some living beings, in particular humans and animals, to reflect reality in a special way.
Consciousness– a complex manifestation of brain activity observed at the highest level mental development.
Comparison
The basis for the existence of both qualities is nervous activity. And the difference between the psyche and consciousness is that it is the first of the two concepts that is basic.
People and creatures that are one step lower in their development—animals—have a psyche. It is a function of the brain and acts as a kind of tool that helps adapt to environment and survive. The processes occurring in the psyche can be elementary and very complex.
Totality higher manifestations Such activity forms consciousness. Only the human brain functions at this level, not animals. The latter are able to operate exclusively with visual thinking, acting on the basis of objective perception. This is typical even for such “smart” creatures as monkeys, dolphins or dogs.
At the same time, the possibilities of consciousness inherent in man, are not limited to the formation of images. Here great role speech plays. It allows you to perform important abstract logical operations and acquire new knowledge that can be passed on even through generations. People tend to plan and set goals. In addition, they are prone to evaluating their own behavior and self-control.
Even the mental processes themselves, people, possessing consciousness, are able to control to some extent. This happens when, for example, we force ourselves to memorize a poem or specifically concentrate our attention on something. Animals with their simplest psyche cannot do this. Human consciousness has historically developed and exists together with his social and labor activities.
What is the difference between psyche and consciousness? The fact is that the latter, despite its complexity and versatility, is only part of the system. In all mental activity There is a lot going on that is unconscious and not yet fully understood.
A.V. Petrovsky identifies the following significant differences between the psyche of animals and humans:
Differences in the thinking of humans and animals. Many experiments have proven that higher animals are characterized only by practical thinking. Human behavior is characterized by the ability to abstract from a given specific situation and anticipate the consequences that may arise in connection with this situation. The “language” of animals and the language of humans are different and this also determines the difference in thinking.
The second difference between man and animal is his ability to create and preserve tools. Outside specific situation the animal never singles out a tool as a tool, does not retain it for use. Man creates a weapon according to a pre-planned plan.
The third difference is in feelings. Both animals and humans do not remain indifferent to what is happening around them. However, only a person is able to empathize in grief and rejoice at another person.
The most important difference between the animal psyche and the human psyche lies in the conditions of their development. The development of the psyche of the animal world followed the laws of biological evolution. The development of the human psyche itself, human consciousness, is subject to the laws of historical development. But only a person is capable of appropriating social experience, which develops his psyche to the greatest extent.
3.4. Consciousness as the highest level of the psyche
A qualitatively new level of development of the psyche was the emergence of human consciousness. Consciousness - highest level man's reflection of reality. The main condition for the emergence and development of human consciousness is the joint instrumental activity of people mediated by speech. Consciousness is interpreted in Russian psychology as the highest form inherent only to humans mental reflection reality in the light of historically established social relations and sociocultural experience. Along with sociocultural conditioning, consciousness is characterized by activity, intentionality (direction towards a specific object), varying degrees of clarity, motivational-value character and the ability for reflection - introspection and reflection of one’s own contents.
The sphere of scientific interests of psychology includes two fundamental problems of consciousness: 1) the socially determined nature of the formation of consciousness in ontogenesis; 2) dynamic relationship between conscious and unconscious substructures in the whole system human psyche.
The psychological structure of consciousness includes the following most important characteristics: the first characteristic of consciousness is already given in its name: consciousness is knowledge about the world around us. A person gains knowledge through cognitive processes; the second characteristic of consciousness is the distinction between subject and object enshrined in it, i.e., that which belongs to the “I” of a person and his “not-I”; the third characteristic of consciousness is ensuring goal-setting human activity; the fourth characteristic is the presence of emotional assessments in interpersonal relationships.
The characteristics of consciousness are formed in the speech activity of people.
Unconscious
Not all mental phenomena are realized by a person. Some phenomena of reality that a person perceives, but is not aware of this perception, are recorded by the lower level of the psyche, which in turn forms the unconscious. The unconscious is understood as a specific form of reflection of reality, in which an account of the actions being performed is not given, the completeness of orientation in time and place of action is lost, and speech regulation of behavior is disrupted. The unconscious principle is represented in almost all mental processes, properties and states of a person. The sphere of the unconscious includes all mental phenomena that arise in sleep; some pathological phenomena; human reactions that arise in response to sensations that actually affect a person, but are not felt by him; movements that were conscious in the past, but through repetition have become automated and therefore no longer conscious.
For the first time, the unconscious in the structure of personality was identified by S. Freud. According to his theory, the personality structure includes three spheres: the unconscious (id - “it”), consciousness (ego - “I”), superego (“super-I”). In the development of mental states, S. Freud identified a number of mechanisms, which he called the defense mechanisms of the “I”. These include mechanisms of denial, repression, projection, rationalization, inclusion, compensation, identification, sublimation. Psychological defense mechanisms work in combination.
At present, the question of the relationship between the unconscious and the conscious remains complex and is not resolved unambiguously.
Division into psychological And mental, as a norm and a pathology, is historically understandable, but terminologically unjustified. If they say that a person has mental problems- most often, in fact, they mean psychotic problems, which narrows the concept of the psyche to psychosis, extreme form mental disorders. And if they want to say that a person is experiencing universal human difficulties, then they talk about psychological problems, which, strictly speaking, is very strange, because psychological problems can only exist in the scientific sense (yes, science has psychology many problems), but a person can only have mental problems. Talking about “psychological problems” in a person is just as semantically incorrect as talking about “ medical problems" instead of "health problems".
Nevertheless, not only in everyday life, but also in science, two concepts have taken root: “human psyche” and “human psychology”. Thus, the word "psychology" has become a defense against the recognition of the disturbing truth that every person is endowed with a psyche. It must be admitted that psychologists themselves greatly contributed to this, avoiding in every possible way the use of the word “psyche”. And the word “psychology” has become too tightly integrated into speech in its second, figurative meaning, that it is no longer possible to abandon this meaning of the word. For example, the phrase " psychological support" cannot be replaced with "mental support". The word "mental", however, has acquired more negative character, and the phrase “mental support” will most likely cause associations with “mental treatment”.
By the way, the definition of psychology as the science of the soul is historically understandable, but not justified. The term "soul" (in Greek "psyche") has exclusively religious significance and is not used in any way today among scientific terms in psychology. The soul was “studied” by religious philosophers, and modern psychologists study the psyche, or rather, its manifestations.
However, if someone is frightened by the word "psyche" due to its association with "mental illness", then he should also be frightened by the word "soul" due to its association with " mental illness“However, I must admit, the word “mental” is more repulsive, and, obviously, the merit for this is, first of all, psychiatrists.
But if a person is “afraid” of everything related to the psychic, there must be many reasons for this.
Of course, these difficulties and confusion in concepts are associated not only with historical development these two sciences about the human psyche, but also with the history of attitudes towards people who have mental illness. It is unlikely that psychiatry and psychiatrists could earn trust when, just a few decades ago, such barbaric methods of “treatment” as electroconvulsive therapy and loboectomy were used (remember, for example, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”).
But it’s not even about the horrors of psychiatric clinics that we read about in books and saw in movies. The point is, first of all, in doctors, whose task is to treat, for which it is necessary to study the disease. And the doctors who studied mental illness, talked about the psyche only in connection with illness. But worse than that, because doctors treat patients; anyone who goes to see a doctor who treats mental illness turns out to be, as if right away, mentally ill.
And this is the main frightening meaning of the word “psyche”. And the point is not even that if a person turns to a psychiatrist, or even starts talking about mental problems, those around him immediately classify him as a “crazy person,” so to speak, stick a label on him, although this is very important.
It's scary to think about the mental, because a mentally ill person can almost never notice his mental problems, and we all know this. Of course, psychiatrists know about this, and we know about it too. And we are terrified by the very fact of a visit to a psychiatrist (and, at the same time, to a psychoneurologist, psychologist or psychoanalyst), because we are afraid not only of what they may find in us psychical deviations, and to a greater extent, that they won’t even try to tell us the truth about it.
But some people pluck up courage and come to a psychologist, despite the fact that the name of his specialty contains the root “psycho”.
As a rule, people come to a psychologist for advice.
But who is a psychologist to give advice?
Psyche and consciousness are so close, but different concepts. Having a narrow and broad understanding of each of these words can confuse anyone. However, in psychology, the concepts of the psyche and consciousness have been successfully separated, and despite their close relationship, it is quite easy to see the border between them.
How is consciousness different from the psyche?
Psyche, if we consider the term in in a broad sense, are all mental processes conscious of a person. Consciousness is the process of controlling a person by himself, which is also conscious. Considering the concepts in a narrower sense, it turns out that the psyche is aimed at the perception and evaluation of the external world, and consciousness allows you to evaluate the inner world and realize what is happening in the soul.
The psyche and consciousness of man
Talking about general characteristics these concepts, it is worth paying attention to the main ones of each of them. Consciousness is the highest form of mental reflection of reality and has the following properties:
- availability of knowledge about the surrounding world;
- distinction between subject and object (“I” of a person and his “not-I”);
- setting a person's goals;
- the presence of relationships to different objects of reality.
In a narrow sense, consciousness is considered as highest form psyche, and the psyche itself – as the level of the unconscious, i.e. those processes that are not realized by the person himself. The area of the unconscious includes various phenomena - responses, unconscious behavior, etc.
Development of the human psyche and consciousness
The development of the psyche and consciousness is usually considered with different points vision. For example, the problem of mental development includes three aspects:
It is believed that the emergence of the psyche is associated with the development of the nervous system, thanks to which the entire body functions as a single whole. Nervous system includes irritability as the ability to change state under the influence external factors, and sensitivity, which allows you to recognize and respond to adequate and inappropriate stimuli. It is sensitivity that is considered the main indicator of the emergence of the psyche.
Consciousness is peculiar only to man - it is he who is capable of realizing the flow of mental processes. This is not typical for animals. It is believed that the main role in the emergence of such differences is played by work and speech.
