SUMMARY - Аномалии личности - Б. С. Братусь

The book -opens with a critical re-examination of the concept of mental health. The author challenges the majority of the prevalent criteria defining mental health in terms of pathology (mental health as the absence of mental disease), statistics (mental health as minimal deviation from the average), adaptation (mental health as adjustment to environment), etc. On the threshold of the XXI centu­ry mankind enters not only the era of super-advanced technology but also the epoch of ultimate actualization of man's humanity, human rationality and spirituality, individual uniqueness and multitude of individual manifestations. Hence some other principles underlying the difference between mental health and pathology should be sought. The author contends that it is individual's ability to reveal his humane­ness, to actualize his human essence in his existence that constitutes normalrty rather than his ability to adjust to environment, to be typical or atypical, similar or dissimilar to others. This evokes another question: what are the specific characteristics of being human or what are the essential attributes of human existence?

The answer to this question, in the author's opinion, should be a starting point for a comprehensive study of abnormal personality development. Having considered philosophic foundations of the concept of mental health and its meaning, the author comes to the examination of general psychological premises and tentative assumptions of perso­nality study. A tentative multilevel model of mental health is put forward. Special emphasis is laid upon the structure and functioning of meaning-motivational domain of personality and some patterns of their distortions in cases of deviant behaviour are outlined. Exposing the limitations of prevalent methods of personality study the author proves the necessity to elaborate new approaches, more oriented to real persons in real life situations. In this book he presents an example of such an approach which he calls analytic-transformational method.

The two remaining chapters of the book contain the exposition of the author's experience in the application of this method to a specific study of abnormal personality development. Chapter IV gives an examination of some psychological mechanisms, involved in the formation of pathological personality characteristics. It also includes some psychological techniques, aimed at the psychocorrection of various disturbances of mental health. Chapter V is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of personality changes characteristic of alcoholism and drug addictions. The author puts forward a hypothesis concerning the origins of psychological drug dependence, traces the stages of drug dependent motivation and elucidates the mechanisms of motivational deformation. Specific psychological characteristics differentiating adolescent alcoholism from adult alcoholism are singled out. Principles and techniques of psychological correction and prevention of adolescent and adult alcoholism are described.

Thus we can trace in the book three basic successive planes of the consideration of abnormal personality development: philosophic general psychological and applied special psychological levels. Such comprehensive treatment of the problem is unprecedented in the Soviet psychological literature. There is no doubt that the book will be of interest not only for the specialists concerned — philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, educators, psychotherapists. It may also promote their mutual understanding and cooperation in their combined efforts to solve the most urgent problems of modern science of man.