The article examines the phenomenon of two personalities of an alcoholic. Research into alcoholism has shown that in alcoholic reality a person behaves differently than in ordinary life. He commits a number of acts that he usually avoids for various reasons; at the same time, the alcoholic experiences unusual sensations and states. If we look at these observations from the point of view of the teaching developed by the author about "psychic realities", then an assumption about a certain similarity between the reality of dreams and alcoholic reality suggests itself. Indeed, in both realities a person realizes desires that he usually cannot realize for a number of reasons (the so-called "blocked desires"); in both cases, a person's consciousness is weakened and altered; to realize blocked desires in both cases, the psyche builds in consciousness the events necessary for this, which the person experiences. In both cases, there is an unusual logic of "life" (in the first case, the logic of dreams, in the second, the logic of alcoholic experiences). Just as after dreams a person wakes up in another (ordinary) world, and often does not remember at all what he dreamed about, after intoxication a person also comes to his senses without any particular consequences. The features of alcoholic behavior considered here can be attributed to the phenomenon of multiple personality. A sober person is one personality, and a drunk person is another. Other features of the two personalities of an alcoholic are also considered.

Keywords: reality, personality, consciousness, experience, psyche, behavior, realization, dreams

Features of mental realities

Observing ourselves, it is easy to notice that we behave and experience differently in the areas of work, in play, in the sphere of art, in our own dreams. Each such area or reality (I have indicated only some of them), from the point of view of psychology, can be considered as a system of events connected by a certain logic. For example, the events of dreams are conditioned by biological and psychological factors and are characterized by a special conventionality described in the works of Z. Freud and K. Jung. Events in the sphere of art are conditioned by artistic language and are subject to the conventionality of art, considered in aesthetics. Getting into a certain reality, we use our knowledge of the events of this reality, tune in to them and the corresponding logic. For example, in the reality of art we know that events, on the one hand, are created by man, on the other hand, they should be perceived as real, we know that they belong to a certain genre, have dramaturgy, imply the fulfillment of a number of conditions of perception and experience. In the doctrine of mental realities, events are interpreted, on the one hand, in a semiotic sense (defined by language, knowledge, schemes), and on the other hand, in a psychological sense, namely as conscious and experienced units of reality. Here we can recall the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky.

The latter, as is well known, saw the peculiarity of the human psyche in the mechanism of mediation of its processes by signs. With their help, he believed, a person masters his own mental processes, constitutes and directs them. A necessary condition for this, as Vygotsky repeatedly emphasized, is the process of socialization, during which the transformation of external social function and activity into internal mental occurs with the help of signs. And indeed, socialization, entry into joint activity, building relationships with other people, assimilation of all this are inseparable from the self-organization of the human psyche; in this case, probably, certain mental realities and relationships between them are formed.                                                                  

Although each mental reality is perceived by a person as a closed world of objective events that obey a certain logic, in the external plane, the mental realities of a person regulate each such part, establish various relationships between the parts. Observations show that mental realities are not formed immediately. Thus, a very small child practically does not have different mental realities, he has one "primordial reality". He mixes reality and sleep (dream), reaches out to take an apple drawn on oilcloth. Mental realities do not appear in a preschooler either, although he already clearly distinguishes between parents and himself, dreams and visual impressions of waking life, ordinary activity and play, etc. A preschooler can say something about himself and even to a certain extent be aware of his desires and possibilities.

Mental realities begin to form only with the acceptance by a junior schoolchild of the requirements for independent behavior and the real need for such behavior in school and extracurricular life. If earlier a parent and an adult prompted a child what to do in a new or unusual situation, how to behave, what he can want and what he cannot, supported the child in difficult moments of life, controlled him, then with the emergence of requirements for independence, a child (usually a teenager) must prompt himself, allow or prohibit, support himself, direct, etc. A necessary condition for the development of independent behavior is the discovery, opening of his Self by a teenager, it is inseparable from the formation of his "self-image", attributing certain qualities to the Self: I am such and such, I lived, I will live, I saw myself in a dream, etc. In essence, a person's Self is paradoxical: it is the one who advises, directs, controls, supports and the one to whom this advice, control influences, support are addressed.

Another necessary condition for independent behavior is the actual formation of mental realities. Indeed, the development of independent behavior presupposes planning and anticipation of future actions and experiences, the replacement of some modes of activity and forms of behavior with others, and the teenager must do this himself. Such plans and anticipations, changes and switches of consciousness and behavior are initially suggested and come from the outside, from an adult (there is no independent behavior yet). But gradually the teenager himself learns to make these plans, to anticipate future events and their logic, to change his actions and behavior in certain situations. It is from this period, when such plans, anticipations and switches become necessary conditions for independent behavior, that a person considers and realizes as different conditions in which he acts, lives, these plans of future activity, knowledge of its logic, anticipations of events, switching methods and other formations turn into mental realities.

Thus, the mental realities of the personality are not only chains of events that determine the activity and its logic, but also external and internal conditions of independent behavior. Let us emphasize that the discovery and formation of the human Self and the formation of mental realities are two sides of the same coin. As the differentiation of human realities becomes more complex, his Self is enriched and differentiated, and vice versa. But their functions are different: mental realities characterize the world assimilated by behavior, where a person builds independent behavior, and his Self sets the main guidelines and lines of development of this behavior. To simplify somewhat, we can say that mental realities are projections of independent behavior onto the external and internal world, and the Self is the understanding of independent behavior as a subject.

In addition to the Self, three types of realities play an important role in the life of a modern person: “immediate”, “derivative” and “counter-realities” (I called the organization of all these realities in the personality the “pyramid of reality”). Immediate realities are recognized by a person as something that actually exists, unconditionally. For a religious person, this is God, for an atheist, nature and its laws, for a teenager, his Self, for an adult, the Self and Others, etc. Unlike immediate reality, “derivative” realities (dreams, fantasies, worlds of art, games, etc.) are conditional, exist in a special sense, their events relate to a person only through the plane of awareness. For example, what a person dreams is accepted by him if he believes in dreams, and rejected if he does not believe. God can in no case be rejected by religious consciousness, this would mean rejecting being itself and oneself.

Derivative psychic realities receive their meaning and sense from the immediate ones and therefore exist in many ways as if for them. It is the immediate psychic realities that support the entire "pyramid" of derivative realities. Just as the death of Kashchei the Deathless was on the tip of a needle hidden in an egg that was in a duck hidden in a chest hanging on an oak tree. While the immediate psychic realities are "in order", a person is full of strength and energy, active and cheerful. If for some reason such realities fail, become paralyzed, everything loses meaning for him.

Two realities are in counter-relationships (i.e. they are counter-realities) if, when they are simultaneously actualized in a certain life situation, opposing motives collide, in other words, the realization of motives in one reality blocks activity in another, and vice versa. The struggle of counter-realities leads not only to a constant blocking of activity, but also often gives rise to various problems and sharp opposite fluctuations in behavior and mood in a person. Observations show that mental counter-realities are often formed in childhood (fear of new situations and people, lack of confidence in one's own strength, desire for protection, etc.), but they can appear in more mature age. Let us now illustrate the effect of the doctrine of mental realities.

Formation and features of alcoholic reality

It is known that when committing a crime, alcohol intoxication is an aggravating circumstance. But it seems that a drunk person does not realize what he is doing and therefore, in some sense, is not responsible for his actions? To understand this, let's take a closer look at the features of the "alcoholic reality".

Alcoholic reality is, on the one hand, the world in which a drunk person finds himself, and on the other hand, the events experienced in this world and connected by a certain logic ("alcoholic"). It is in alcoholic reality that "alcoholic desires" (drives) crystallize and are resolved, and a necessary condition for their occurrence is the experience of certain events. For example, the events of alcoholic reality are the experiences of the alcoholic desire itself, the smell and appearance of alcohol, places of drinking and alcoholic communication, euphoria and other pleasant and unpleasant sensations after drinking, etc. It is easy to notice that these events unfold in a certain sequence and are connected by a certain logic. For example, in alcoholic reality, many events cannot be swapped (say, first experience euphoria and then drink), the implementation of events presupposes the creation of a special atmosphere (as is known, the last thing to do is to drink alone), taking an excessive dose entails serious conditions, etc.

Numerous studies of alcoholism have shown that in alcoholic reality, a person behaves differently than in ordinary life. In particular, he commits a number of actions that he usually avoids for various reasons (he is embarrassed, afraid of looking ridiculous, does not suspect that he is capable of this, etc.), and also experiences unusual sensations and states. If we look at these observations from the point of view of the doctrine of "psychic realities", then the assumption suggests itself about a certain similarity between the reality of dreams and alcohol. Indeed, in both realities, a person realizes desires that a person for a number of reasons usually cannot realize, and in both cases, a person's consciousness is significantly weakened and changed, in order to realize blocked desires, in both cases the psyche builds in the consciousness the events necessary for this, which a person experiences, in both cases there is an unusual logic of life (in the first case, the logic of dreams, in the second, the logic of alcoholic experiences). Just as after dreams a person wakes up in another (ordinary) world, and often does not remember at all what he dreamed about, after intoxication a person also comes to his senses without any particular consequences.

Couldn't the alcoholic behavioral characteristics discussed here be attributed to the phenomenon of multiple personality? A sober person is one personality, and a drunk person is another. How often do we hear from loved ones: he is generally a good person, quiet, hard-working, but when he drinks...

It is known that in a dream a person usually cannot control his dreams (for example, to realize certain blocked desires, to order the necessary plots); in this sense, mental activity in a dream is quite spontaneous and automatic. The situation is different in the case of alcoholic reality. Here a person orders certain experiences: pleasant, euphoric, sad, dramatic, etc. In fact, both an ordinary healthy person and a drunkard, and a potential criminal, getting ready to drink, tune in to a certain scenario of experiences: they are going to experience joy or grief, suspect someone of treason, feel sorry for themselves or repent of sins, demand recognition or respect from others (what is the famous question worth - "do you respect me"?), and finally, sometimes, they aim for a crime.

But aren't alcoholic experiences also automatic and conditioned by our physiological processes? This is usually believed. However, psychological studies of the last 2-3 decades have shown that in the absence of a setup for a certain scenario of alcoholic experiences (subjects were told that glucose was being injected into their blood, although alcohol was injected), the introduction of alcohol causes only vague sensations in content; on the contrary, if a person is tuned to a certain scenario of alcoholic experiences, they occur even in the absence of alcohol in the body (in the experiment, a placebo was injected into his blood). Of course, in the end, the drinker establishes a connection between the physiological processes of the body associated with alcohol and certain mental experiences, but apparently this connection is secondary.

Thus, the events of alcoholic reality only resemble the events of dreams, rather, they obey the logic of "dream-like states" (realities), combining the features of dreams and waking activity. The main psychological and semantic purpose of alcoholic dream-like reality isthe realization with the help of alcohol of very specific (scriptually conscious) blocked desires of the individual, which for various reasons he cannot realize in his ordinary lifeA few words about how alcoholic reality is formed.

It all starts with a person who has problems (and who, one wonders, doesn’t have them; in the language of realities, these are blocked desires and problematic situations) discovering that drinking and the atmosphere that goes with it (communication with friends, drinking rituals, experiencing states caused by alcohol) helps to cope with problems, realize oneself, and experience new unusual sensations. Of course, solving problems and realizing one’s personality unfold more symbolically than in practical behavior and life, but for the psyche, there is no difference. Naturally, a person begins to strive for a new world that has opened up to him in order to feel the fullness and joy of life again and again. Of course, many know that this is dangerous, but most often they hope not to cross the line separating pleasure from alcohol addiction. Other people do not consider this world worth giving up being in reality, where they feel at their best. In Elena Dolgopyat’s story “1880-1995. Black Hole” we read:

“He felt very uncomfortable in the world, lonely. Other people became inaccessible to him, like the past. And yet he found a way to get to them. A pass. Vodka let him in to them. They really were there if he got drunk. He felt such closeness to everyone then, as if he himself were any of them. An amazing feeling... So when the doctor told him in the bright office his wife was waiting and crying in the hallway that vodka is an escape from reality, he answered: “Entrance.”¹

Why does addiction to an already mastered dose of alcohol occur (i.e., tolerance increases)? For both physiological and psychological reasons: on the one hand, the body begins to adapt to the absorption of alcohol, on the other hand, new and new impressions are psychologically required, which can no longer be provided on the basis of the old dose. As a result, the dose of alcohol constantly increases and the frequency of consumption increases. A person increasingly gets used to the world of events of alcoholic reality, feels and discovers new plots and themes of alcoholic experiences (see the wonderful novel by V. Erofeev "Moscow - Petushki"), gets a thrill from all this. But as a result (which he, as a rule, does not notice), the field of normal life activity begins to narrow and close, it is blocked.

The logic of this process eventually leads to a dangerous metamorphosis: constant alcohol consumption leads to the formation of a somatic basis, including cyclic physiological processes that require constant alcohol consumption for their maintenance. Alcohol thirst is already formed at the physiological level, which is provided and maintained in the psyche with the help of alcohol craving. A person enters the phase of alcohol disease. In psychological terms, from this period on, two directly opposite processes unfold: an ever-increasing desire not to leave the alcoholic world, to live in it day and night, and the opposite desire to free oneself from alcohol addiction, since unpleasant and painful conditions of the body and psyche begin to increase, caused by both alcohol poisoning and various social tensions (for example, troubles at work and in the family become the norm of life). Over time, the life of a drinker becomes so unbearable that for him the values ​​of a normal, alcohol-free lifestyle begin to decisively outweigh all the advantages of the alcoholic world and its experiences. The alcoholic is ready to quit drinking, but is unable to do so, since the alcohol disease has made him powerless, deprived him of his own will. But, of course, this is just one, albeit quite common, scenario of events, much, naturally, depends on the personality and physical health of the person.

Psychiatrists' research shows that a person's second, so to speak, "alcoholic personality" does not develop immediately. He can drink for a long time without major consequences for his psyche. However, if the alcoholic reality becomes as significant as the ordinary world, if life begins to unfold in both places, if, finally, it is in the alcoholic world that many important stories for a person are realized, this means that multiple personality has arisen.²

An alcoholic does not necessarily develop a second persona, he can remain one person, but deviant behavior becomes the norm, in which two aspects can be distinguished: asociality of varying degrees of severity, and distortion of actions under the influence of daydreaming and hallucinations. Therefore, an alcoholic does not remember well what he did, and does not attribute the actions committed to himself. If a second (“alcoholic”) personality develops, the drunken state is perceived as completely natural and even genuine. In it, paraphrasing Marina Tsvetaeva, who wrote about sleep, the drinker could exclaim: “in a state of intoxicationI am completely free, this is the air I need to breathe. My weather, my lighting, my hour of the day, my season, my latitude and longitude. Only in it am I myself. The rest is chance".³

An example of treating alcoholism using acupuncture

The essence of this method, developed by Yulia Timofeevna Yatsenko (candidate of medical sciences, psychiatrist-narcologist, neurologist, reflexologist of the highest category), consists ofin the following. Against the background of selective supportive drug treatment, a series of acupunctures is carried out­therapeutic stimulations (impacts) on certain points of the patient (first on all points of the back in general, then on individual acupuncture points in different parts of the head and body), and at the same time the patient must reproduce states characteristic of alcoholic reality - the desire to drink, the expectation of euphoria, the sensation of a "bottle" in the hand, the sight (image) of the bottle, places and images of a feast and drinking company, places of sale of alcohol, etc. We will give an abbreviated example taken from the application for the invention.

"Patient M., born in 1957, has been suffering from alcoholism for about 10 years, came to the anonymous treatment office due to the failure of repeated treatment for alcoholism with conventional medications... When stimulating certain points on the face and body, the images of alcoholic beverages in the patient's mind became covered in fog and seemed to "move away from him to the horizon", while retaining their shape and color. When stimulating other points, the color of the bottles and their contents gradually disappeared completely (both of these procedures took about 30 minutes). Stimulating a number of the following acupuncture points for 30 minutes allowed the bottle and alcoholic beverages to be completely "ousted from the horizon." To the question "Does the patient want to drink?" he answered: "I don't know, it doesn't really matter"... After connecting the point that increases the blood flow to the kidneys and stimulating it for 5 minutes, the patient was asked to imagine the last places where he drank, friends with bottles, companies and stores where he stood in line for alcohol, feasts; while certain points were stimulated for 15 minutes. (During this time, after about an hour of work, cardiac activity normalized, breathing became easy, and the rumbling in the stomach stopped).

Finally, the patient was asked to imagine a glass of vodka and imagine that he was about to take a sip and feel the burning effect. To the question “Do you want to drink or not?” the patient answered:til: "No." He explained that he could not fix the glass in front of his eyes, and when he tried to imagine the sensation of vodka, he felt a nauseating and vomiting reaction. Further attempts to imagine the taste of vodka did not work, and therefore he had no desire to drink. In short, he felt indifferent to alcohol.⁴ Isn't it impressive, but it also raises a number of fundamental questions, which the author decided to answer himself.

1. How to explain the action of the main technique - stimulation of certain points, why does this stimulation lead to healing and removal of alcohol cravings?
2. Is it necessary to combine stimulation with psychology?­ical imitation of the patient's states of alcoholic reality? Or does this combination perform only control functions, helping to understand whether this stimulation has achieved its goal.
3. Why (as is evident from other observations of Yatsenko) does incomplete stimulation cause persistent unpleasant dreams containing alcohol-related plots?­
4. How can we explain the almost instantaneous restoration of the patient’s body functions and mental state compared to the previous period of the disease?
5. Why does the former patient's alcohol addiction quickly return?­becomes in case of an accidental breakdown (for example, if friends persuade him to drink, or he drinks, thinking, automatically)? And also, why after two, three, four years (depending on the person) the attraction begins to recover and therefore preventive repeated treatment with the Yatsenko method is required?

In turn, I realized that in order to answer the questions posed, it is necessary to think through two more topics: what is alcoholic realitynature, how it is formed and functions, and what is the acupuncture method?­

Let us turn again to the concept of alcoholic reality. It is in alcoholic reality that “alcoholic desires” (drives) crystallize and are resolved. The experiences of the alcoholic himself act as events of alcoholic reality.attraction, smell and appearance of alcohol, places of drinking and alcoholic communication, euphoria and other pleasant and unpleasant sensations after drinking, etc. It is easy to notice that these events unfold in a certain sequence and are connected by a certain logic.

Above we have shown that the main psychological and semantic­the meaning of alcoholic dream-like reality is the realization with the help of alcohol of very specific (script-conscious) blocked desires of the individual, which for various reasons he cannot realize in his ordinary life.

The essence of the acupuncture method

Let's pose this question; let's assume that not­which acupuncture point "a" has a certain effect on the work of the organ of the body "A" (relieves pain, excites, inhibits); the question is, is point "a" connected with organ "A" by direct neural connections (for example, by means of a specialized neural pathway)? Probably not, in any case, physiological studies do not confirm this. In this case, it remains to assume that the connection between acupuncture points and the corresponding organs of similarity (parts of the body) is carried out through an intermediary - the general nervous system of the body, including the brain.

In other words, evolution did not initially assume specialized neural connections between acupuncture points and their corresponding organs in the human body; these connections arose accidentally due to the complex systemic structure of other already specialized connections. But having arisen accidentally, they then become functional and specialized both in the process of human evolutionary development (it is not without reason that many acupuncture points are located on the working organs of the body - the hands and feet, where "natural massage" takes place) and within the framework of human conscious activity - the experience of treatment, the study of therapeutic effects and the body.

At present, the explanation of the acupuncture method is sought, first of all, in physiological terms: researchers are trying to understand and describe the physiological connections that connect acupuncture points with organs of their similarity. We will do it differently, going from two sides at the same time - from the psyche and physiology.

Observations by Yu. Yatsenko showed the following. When exposed tocertain acupuncture points (their search sometimes took several years) psychological experiences associated with the "organ of similarity" (for example, the desire to drink, the sensation of smell, the sight of a bottle or alcohol, etc.) first weaken. Then they are transformed in a direction where the realization of the corresponding experience becomes more and more difficult (the desire becomes less vivid and defined, the bottle disappears into the horizon, the vodka evaporates from the glass, etc.). In the end, the crystallization of such alcoholic experiences becomes simply impossible­.⁵ How can these facts be understood in terms of the acupuncture method?

Our first assumption is this: every mental processthe process requires its own physiological support (support­ki) and vice versa.That is, for example, the desire to drink presupposes not only a certain mental process (tension and event), but also certain physiological processes that support it. And vice versa, a physiological process cannot unfold if it is not supported at the mental level by a certain mental process, tension, event.

The second assumption­effect: the physiological impact from the acupuncture point and the corresponding organ of similarity comes to one zone of the “psychophysiological platform”, where their interaction occursaction.Logically, one can assume a number of variants of such interaction: interference and synthesis (a similar type of interaction is observed, for example, in dreams, when the current dream includes a strong signal an alarm clock, a bright(light from a lamp, physical pressure, etc.), the destruction of a weaker effect by a stronger one, the displacement of a weaker effect to another area of ​​the bridgehead or the blocking of a weaker effect, resonant amplification of both effects.

Judging byApparently, the application of Yatsenko's method causes a type of interaction related to the third case pushing away or blockinga weaker physiological effect than a stronger one.The stronger effect in this case is acupuncture, and the weaker effect is that caused either by the diseased organ or, in the case of alcohol-related disease, by the corresponding physiological processes (i.e., the somatic basis of alcohol thirst, the smell of alcohol, the sight of a bottle, etc.). The repression and blocking of the alcoholic somatic basis is accompanied and ensured in the psyche by the corresponding processes a weakening of the brightness of psychological desires and experiences, as well as their transformation up to their complete disappearance, that is, the impossibility of realizing the corresponding alcoholic psychological attitudes and experiences; the latter means the disappearance of alcohol craving.

Why do I assume that it is the third case, and not, say, the second, that is, the complete destruction of the weaker physiological effect? ​​Because in the event of a breakdown or accidental intake of alcohol, as well as after two or three years, the alcohol craving is restored and repeated treatment is necessary. But this isbegins that the somatic basis of alcohol craving is only blocked, pushed aside, but not completely destroyed.

Strategy of “unmounting” alcohol reality using Yatsenko’s method

From the above material, one can already understand the essence of Yatsenko's method. It allows one to dismantle the alcoholic reality, depriving it of physiological support and provision. Each event of the alcoholic reality requires physiological support for its implementation and course. Yatsenko's method allows one to feel, firstly, the main "event supports" on which dethe alcoholic reality is laughing, secondly, acupuncture points that allow us to influence these supports, thirdly, with the help of these points, to deprive such event supports of physiological support.

As a result, the events of alcoholic reality are blocked(cannot be implemented by the psyche), which is perceived as the removal of alcohol addiction. Preliminary work with the patient on the Kuznetsov implicator probably creates a favorable background for the main procedure. The fact is that the impact on all acupuncture points of the back allows inducing a general uniform excitation in the cortex of the cerebral hemispheres, reducing the intensity of all painful processes in the body.

To determine the event supports of alcoholic reality, Y. Yatsenko fragments the entire field of events. In doing so, she focuses, on the one hand, on semantic and, so to speak, dramaticcharacteristics of alcoholic events (for example, the desire to drink differs from the smell of alcohol, the smell sometimes follows the desire, and sometimes causes it), on the other hand, the ability to establish a correspondence between an alcoholic event and certain acupuncture points. Naturally, some alcoholic supports can be missed, because each person has his own alcoholic reality, in part. For example, one of Y. Yatsenko's patients, Olga, did not appear for 6 months after treatment.

“After six months,-writes Y. Yatsenko,-came to the appointment in good condition, there were no complaints about craving, but she was bothered by alcoholic dreams with the same strangely shaped bottle, which she had never seen before. She asked, if possible, to rid her of this image, since after such dreams her mood drops and those memories of her previous life that she had forgotten about emerge, and this prevents her from living a full life. During the stimulation of acupuncture points, the patient was asked to remember the most unpleasant moments in her life associated with drunkenness, as well as this tormenting dream and the negative emotions associated with this dream. After the session, her mood leveled out, the dreams no longer bothered her, she calmly attends alcoholic companies, without experiencing craving for alcohol".⁶

In other words, one event basis was missed in the basic treatment. The corresponding event became a source producing a monotonous blocked wish, which was realized in the form of an unpleasant recurring dream during sleep. As we see, additional work was required to deprive this event of physiological support.­­

It is probably not indifferent in what order to work with event supports. The logic to which events in alcoholic reality are subject requires working with event supports in the order corresponding to their course. Since some­events support and strengthen others, you probably need to start with the desire for alcohol, then shoot the sight of the bottle and its uncorking, then the smell of alcohol, etc. Otherwise, alcoholic experiences and desires will, like a phoenix, rise from oblivion every time; if, for example, you start with the smell of alcohol, this smell will be revived by the desire for alcohol.

Why does alcohol cravings begin to return after two or three years (depending on the person)? Probably because the personality of a person who has freed himself from alcohol addiction has remained the same. Indeed, as soon as the reality of alcohol becomes apparent,is dismantled (blocked), the normal personality of a person quickly comes into its own: the previous plans of the psyche and abilities are restored, old interests that could not be realized during the dictatorship of the “alcoholic personality” assert themselves.

In turn, the restoration of one's rights is normal­The effect of this treatment on the individual is also beneficial for the restoration of all somatic functions. The patient comes to life before our eyes, as if he had been sprinkled with living water. For example, Tyurin G.P., one of Yulia Timofeevna's patients, who drank without stopping for a whole year (up to one liter a day), and who had not read or written for a whole year, began to write and read on the second day after recovery.

However, it is important to understand that a normal patient’s personality is still a personality for whom the reality of alcohol is always attractive. Of course, patients who have freed themselves from alcohol addiction become somewhat smarter: they suffered during the period of illness, they could lose their jobs and the trust of family members, they are afraid of being captured by alcohol addiction again. And yet, their personalityity, as a rule, has not changed dramatically; they still long in their hearts for the opportunities they lost when they parted with the alcoholic reality. It is probably this longing, and not physiological reasons, that ultimately contribute to the unblocking of alcohol cravings.

The situation is different if the former patient drank accidentally, automatically. In this case, probably not yet studied physiological mechanisms are triggered, weakening the blockade of the event supports of alcoholic reality. But even in this case, the patient's personality plays a big role in the further development of events.­­

Here, therefore, I have begun to discuss the limits of the method under consideration. One of these limits, apparently, is set by the person­­patient's personality. If the latter has not truly realized that alcohol is the main reason for his illness and the negative attitude of others towards him, if he has not been imbued with a strong desire to get rid of alcohol addiction, then the effect of treatment will be lower than expected. The same patient's personality imperceptibly undermines the tree of health grown during the treatment period. Logically, two ways out of this situation are conceivable: preventive and repeated treatment and work with the personality. How to implement the first is clear, as the second is not very clear, although this would be the best solution to the problem.

The second boundary of Yatsenko's method is set by the type of reality that the doctor or therapist deals with. It is not difficult to understand that Yatsenko's method can be extended to other realities. Incidentally, Yu. T. Yatsenko herself also used her method to remove tobacco and drug addiction. Analysis allows us to assume that the effect of treatment by Yatsenko's method will be higher, the easier it is to establish acupuncture connections between the main event supports of the reality that is being disassembled and the somatic structures that support these supports.­

However, for a number of realitiesof a sick person (for example, developing in schizophrenia, depression, manic-depressive psychosis) it is practically impossible to establish acupuncture connections between the events of these realities and certain physiological structures responsible for these events. In other words, for example, for schizophrenia it is difficult to feel the acupuncture points, the impact on which would deprive the event supports of power.­

Reacting or rethinking

It is interesting to look at Yatsenko's method from a historical point of view.In his early works, Z. Freud theoretically relies on the same idea of ​​the connection between mental structures and somatic ones, but he acts, so to speak, from the opposite end. Freud immediately tries to disassemble the images of the disease, leaving aside the somatic structures that support them (this can be seen, for example, in his work “The Case History of Fraulein Elizabeth von R.”). Thus, Freud asserts that the main condition for healing and the disappearance of painful symptoms-such a reaction of affects and intolerable ideas caused by a traumatic situation, which allows to introduce isolated intolerable ideas into the general field of consciousness, allows to correlate them with other ideas. It turns out (and then all the followers of Freud, and not only them, thought so) that the main link in the mechanism of psychological help-this is the awareness and experience of a traumatic situation.

However, the research of Freud himself and other practicing psychologists has clearly shown that awareness of a traumatic situation is not enough. If a patient is not ready to accept a fact, or his own action, or the action of another in relation to himself, revealed during hypnosis or in some other way, then not only does his condition not improve, but on the contrary, such awareness can lead to real trouble. Recovery or some improvement begins in a situation of rethinking an unbearable idea, when it is possible to look at past events from a new point of view. In essence, when it is possible to somehow change your consciousness, the attitudes of your own personality. And indeed, Elizabeth von R. began to listen to Freud's words and change her behavior only after he helped her rethink the meaning of her actions and desires.

“It was not at all difficult to prove to her that her own statements did not admit of any other interpretation; but the resistance continued long enough until my two consoling arguments-that, supposedly, “one cannot be responsible for one’s feelings and that her illness itself is convincing evidence of her moral purity”-did not have the desired effect on her"⁷ (emphasis added by us, V.R.).

Freud also tries to answer the question of how and why mental changes and tensions (he calls them “mental excitations”) lead to somatic changes.-physical pain, failure of a number of functions, etc. He shows that at first there is a simple coincidence of mental and somatic changes, and then the psyche in similar situations (i.e. in situations where a corresponding mental change occurs) somehow itself begins to cause similar somatic changes and tensions. However, Freud was unable to theoretically explain the emergence of this connection. Let us outline the scheme of such an explanation.

What is the reinterpretation of a traumatic situation from the point of view of the theory of realities? Obviously, it is the creation of a third reality, which includes the events of both opposing counter-realities. As a result, so to speak, a “disassembly” of the counter-realities occurs. For example, one of them is weakened or completely ceases to function (as, for example, in the case of Elizabeth von R., who decided that it is not a crime to love her son-in-law). But if the counter-realities are disassembled, then the need to repress and suppress one of them also disappears, and, consequently, the psyche no longer has to resort to induction in relation to somatic structures. In other words, it stops causing somatic changes (for example, physical pain) in order to repress one of the counter-realities.   

Thus, in his early works, Freud, like Yatsenko, proceeds from the connection between mental pathogenic structures and somatic ones, but tries to disassemble the images of the disease through the work of the patient's consciousness, without resorting to influencing the somatic structures. If this is successful, an improvement in the condition or complete recovery occurs. The role of the psychotherapist in this case-stimulate the patient's work aimed at understanding the traumatic situation and rethinking it.

Both of the methods mentioned here have their limitations. In psychoanalytic work, a positive result can be hindered, on the one hand, by significant (even irreversible) somatic changes, on the other-incorrect direction or nature of rethinking. For example, a psychotherapist can, and this often happens, reconstruct as true a completely different traumatic situation that led to the illness. Or he/she was unable to help the patient correctly rethink the identified situation.

¹Tarsier E. Black hole. Yunost; 1995:N 11.

²Only some features characteristic of alcoholic reality can be attributed to narcotic states, but even here, with sufficient development of the disease, as a rule, a second personality is formed.

³Tsvetaeva MI. Andronikova Galpern SN; August 12, 1932. http://tsvetaeva.lit-info.ru/tsvetaeva/pisma/letter-649.htm

⁴Yatsenko Yu T. Virtual realities of alcoholism.Works of the laboratory of virtualistics. Issue 1. Virtual realities in psychology and psychopractice; Moscow: 1995:149–156.

⁵Yatsenko Yu T. Virtual realities of alcoholism.Works of the laboratory of virtualistics. Issue 1. Virtual realities in psychology and psychopractice; Moscow: 1995:149–156.

⁶Yatsenko Yu T. Virtual realities of alcoholism.Works of the laboratory of virtualistics. Issue 1. Virtual realities in psychology and psychopractice; Moscow: 1995:149–156.

⁷Freud Z. Case history of Fraulein Elizabeth von R. Moscow Psychotherapeutic Journal (MPJ). 1992;1:93–95. Freud Z. Case history. MPJ. 1992;2:59–61.

Irreversible somatic changes (for example, characteristic of the third stage of alcoholism) stand in the way of recovery even in the case of using the Yatsenko method. In this situation, a necessary condition for treatment is a combination of medication and acupuncture methods. Another problem-how to help a patient who, as a result of treatment, has lost an important reality for him, since its images and supports have become blocked. Of course, the recovered alcoholic himself wanted to get rid of the pernicious passion that haunted him. However, he did not forget the advantages of alcoholic reality. Indeed, drinking allowed him to escape into another reality, to feel free and uninhibited, to say things that he would never have dared to say in a sober state, etc. By freeing him from alcoholic reality and addiction, Yatsenko's method simultaneously deprives the patient of the joys that accompany drinking. In her research, Yu. Yatsenko notes that many of her patients, after successful treatment, complain of a feeling of emptiness, a certain loss of meaning and taste for life. And this is understandable, given the important place and significance that alcoholic reality occupied in their lives.

Analysis of the Yatsenko method and psychoanalysis suggests that these methods should be supplemented. Firstly, a doctor and psychotherapist can help the patient embark on the path of work aimed at gradually improving their consciousness. This includes dismantling counter-realities, rethinking the structures responsible for somatic changes, and general harmonization of the structures of consciousness. Secondly, it is possible to instill in the patient the need to work in terms of physical culture (healthy eating, exercise, movement, breathing, sleep, rest, etc.). Without these efforts, sooner or later the somatic basis of the psyche will begin to fail, which will entail a range of diseases. Thirdly, those somatic or mental changes that cannot be cured must be compensated. Sometimes this will require constant resort to medications (as in the case of diabetes or severe heart disease), sometimes to lifestyle changes (for example, the regime and nature of nutrition and work), sometimes to both.⁸

So, it makes sense to supplement Yatsenko’s method with another one, focused on such work with the patient’s personality, which makes him realize his problems and complexes and then begin to move towards a healthy lifestyle.­

⁸See Rozin VM. Health as a philosophical and socio-psychological problem. The World of Psychology. 2000;1:12–31.

None.

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.