The material was prepared on the basis of the textbook “Psychology of extreme situations” / under the general editorship of Yu.S. Shoigu
The concept of an extreme situation
Extreme situation(from lat. extremus - extreme, critical) - a sudden situation that threatens or is subjectively perceived by a person as threatening life, health, personal integrity, well-being.
By extreme we mean situations that go beyond the limits of ordinary, “normal” human experience. In other words, the extremity of the situation is determined by factors to which a person has not yet adapted and is not ready to act in their conditions. The degree of extremeness of the situation is determined by the strength, duration, novelty, and unusualness of the manifestation of these factors.
However, what makes a situation extreme is not only the real, objectively existing threat to life for oneself or loved ones, but also our attitude to what is happening. The perception of the same situation by each specific person is individual, and therefore, the criterion of “extreme” is, rather, in the internal, psychological plane of the individual.
The following can be considered as factors determining extremeness:
Various emotional influences due to danger, difficulty, novelty, and responsibility of the situation.
A lack of necessary information or a clear excess of conflicting information.
Excessive mental, physical, emotional stress.
Exposure to unfavorable climatic conditions: heat, cold, oxygen deficiency, etc.
Presence of hunger, thirst.
Extreme situations (threat of loss of health or life) significantly violate a person’s basic sense of security, the belief that life is organized in accordance with a certain order and can be controlled, and can lead to the development of painful conditions - traumatic and post-traumatic stress, other neurotic and mental disorders .
Factors determining extremeness:
Emotional impact due to the danger, difficulty, novelty, responsibility of the situation.
Lack of or inconsistency of information.
Excessive mental, physical and emotional stress.
Exposure to adverse conditions (heat, cold, lack of oxygen, etc.).
Presence of hunger, thirst.
The influence of extreme situations on humans
In the human mind, extreme and emergency situations sharply divide life into “before” and “after”. It is difficult to make an unambiguous conclusion about which type of emergency has the most severe consequences on the mental state of people, and which ones are more easily experienced - natural originor anthropogenic.
There is an opinion that people usually experience natural emergencies much easier than anthropogenic ones. Such natural disasters as earthquakes, floods, etc. are regarded by victims as “God’s will” or the action of faceless nature - nothing can be changed here.
Extreme situations anthropogenic nature, such as the tragedy in Beslan, have such a destructive effect on the individual that they not only disorganize a person’s behavior, but also “explode” the basic structures of his entire personal organization - the image of the world. A person’s habitual picture of the world is destroyed, and with it the entire system of life coordinates.
Each situation has its own specifics and characteristics, its own mental consequences for participants and witnesses, and is experienced by each person individually. In many ways, the depth of this experience depends on the personality of the person himself, his internal resources, and coping mechanisms.
According to rescue services in different countries, about 80% of people in moments of danger fall into a stupor, 10% begin to panic, and only the remaining 10% quickly pull themselves together and act to save themselves. See how a clear understanding of the situation and self-control help a person survive in any, even the wildest conditions.
A 17-year-old girl was one of the passengers on a plane that flew over the Peruvian jungle in 1971. The plane was hit by lightning and it fell apart in the air. Only 15 of the 92 passengers managed to survive the fall, but all except Julian were seriously injured and died before help arrived. She was the only one lucky - the tree crowns softened the blow, and, despite a broken collarbone and torn ligaments in her knee, the girl, fastened to the seat and who fell with him, remained alive. Juliane wandered through the thickets for 9 days, and she managed to reach the river along which a group of local hunters was sailing. They fed her, provided first aid and took her to the hospital. All the time she spent in the countryside, the girl was inspired by the example of her father, who was an experienced extreme sportsman and walked the path from Recife (Brazil) to Lima, the capital of Peru.
A British couple spent 117 days on the open ocean in 1973. The couple went on a trip on their yacht, and for several months everything was fine, but off the coast of New Zealand, the ship was attacked by a whale. The yacht received a hole and began to sink, but Maurice and Marilyn managed to escape on an inflatable raft, taking documents, canned food, a water container, knives and a few other necessary things that came to hand. The food ran out very quickly, and the couple ate plankton and raw fish - they caught it with homemade pin hooks. Almost four months later, they were picked up by North Korean fishermen - by that time both husband and wife were almost completely exhausted, so rescue came at the last minute. The Baileys traveled more than 2,000 km on their raft.
An 11-year-old boy showed an amazing example of endurance and self-control in an extreme situation. The light-engine plane, in which Norman's father and his girlfriend, the pilot, and Norman himself were, crashed into a mountain at an altitude of 2.6 km and crashed. The father and pilot died on the spot, the girl tried to go down the glacier and fell down. Fortunately, Ollestad Sr. was an experienced extreme sportsman and taught his son survival skills. Norman built some kind of skis found in the mountains and went down safely - it took about 9 hours. As an adult and writer, Norman Ollestad recounted the incident in his book Crazy for the Storm, which became a bestseller.
A traveler from Israel and his friend Kevin were rafting in Bolivia, and they washed up at a waterfall. Both survived the fall, but Kevin almost immediately managed to get ashore, and Yossi was carried down the river. As a result, the 21-year-old guy found himself alone in a wild forest far from civilization. One day he was attacked by a jaguar, but with the help of a torch the young man managed to drive away the beast. Yossi ate berries, bird eggs, and snails. At this time, a rescue group was looking for him, which Kevin assembled immediately after the incident - after 19 days the search was crowned with success. One of the stories on the popular Discovery Channel program “I Shouldn’t Have Survived” was dedicated to this incident.
In 1994, a police officer from Italy decided to take part in the Marathon des Sables, a six-day, 250-kilometer race in the Sahara Desert. Caught in a severe sandstorm, he lost direction and ended up getting lost. 39-year-old Mauro did not lose heart, but continued to move - he drank his own urine, and ate snakes and plants that he managed to find in the bed of a dry river. One day Mauro came across an abandoned Muslim shrine where there were bats - he began to catch them and drink their blood. After 5 days he was discovered by a family of nomads. As a result, Mauro Prosperi walked 300 km in 9 days, losing 18 kg during the journey.
The Australian lost almost half of his weight during forced wanderings through the deserts of the northern part of the continent. His car broke down, and he set off on foot to the nearest town, but did not know how far away or in what direction it was. He walked day after day, feeding on grasshoppers, frogs and leeches. Then Ricky built himself a shelter from branches and began to wait for help. Luckily for Ricky, it was the rainy season, so he didn't have much trouble getting drinking water. As a result, he was discovered by people from one of the cattle farms located in that area. They described him as a “walking skeleton” - before his adventure, Ricky weighed just over 100kg, and when he was sent to hospital, where he spent six days, his body weight was 48kg.
Two 34-year-old Frenchmen survived for seven weeks in the deepest part of Guiana in 2007, eating frogs, centipedes, turtles and tarantula spiders. The friends, lost in the forest, spent the first three weeks in place, building a shelter - they hoped that they would be found, but then they realized that the dense crowns of trees would not allow them to be seen from the air. Then the guys hit the road in search of the nearest housing. At the end of the journey, when, according to their calculations, there were no more than two days left to go, Gilem became very ill, and Luke went alone to bring help as quickly as possible. Indeed, he soon reached civilization and, together with the rescuers, returned to his partner - the adventure ended happily for both.
A tourist from France survived a fall from a height of about 20 meters, and then spent 11 days in the mountains in north-eastern Spain. A 62-year-old woman fell behind the group and got lost. She tried to go down, but fell into the ravine. She couldn't get out of there, so she had to spend almost two weeks in the wild waiting for help - she ate leaves and drank rainwater. On the 11th day, rescuers spotted a red T-shirt from a helicopter that Teresa had spread on the ground and rescued her.
A 29-year-old ship's cook from Nigeria spent almost three days underwater on a sunken ship. The tug was caught in a storm 30 kilometers from the coast, received severe damage and quickly sank - at that time Okene was in the hold. He groped his way through the compartments and discovered a so-called air bag - a “pocket” that was not filled with water. Harrison was wearing only shorts and was chest-deep in water - he was cold, but he could breathe, and that was the main thing. Harrison Okene prayed every second - the day before his wife sent him the text of one of the psalms via SMS, which he repeated to himself. There was not much oxygen in the air bag, but it was enough until the rescuers arrived, who could not reach the ship immediately due to the storm. The remaining 11 crew members were killed - Harrison Okene was the only survivor.
A 72-year-old Arizona woman survived in the wild for 9 days. On March 31, 2016, an elderly woman went to visit her grandchildren in a hybrid car, but it ran out of charge when she drove through completely deserted areas. Her phone had no network coverage, so she decided to climb higher to call the emergency services, but ended up getting lost. A dog and a cat were traveling with Ann - on April 3, the police, who were already searching, found a car and a cat sitting in it. On April 9, a dog was found along with the inscription “Help” lined with stones. Under one of them was a note from Anne dated April 3rd. On the same day, rescuers first found a makeshift shelter, and a little later, Ann herself.
Extreme situation - This is a combination of conditions and circumstances that create a certain unfavorable or dangerous situation or situation.
The set of extreme situations can be divided into several types:
a) natural,
b) social,
c) intrapersonal.
Let us briefly describe extreme situations of each type.
Natural- usually occur regardless of the person. Examples of such situations include earthquakes, floods, forest fires, a person lost in the forest, in the mountains, etc. A special group includes situations that arose due to human fault. Example: an environmental disaster resulting from human activities and adversely affecting them in the affected area.
Social- these are situations the occurrence of which is associated mainly with unfavorable socio-economic conditions. Examples: instability in society, loss of work, housing; when a person becomes a victim of a crime; restriction or imprisonment, etc.
Intrapersonal - are caused by the complexity and versatility of personality, internal conflicts and crises, and the consequences of unsatisfied desires. Examples could be: unhappy love, dissatisfaction with oneself, etc.
Of course, this division is conditional. All three types of extreme situations are interconnected. And one type of situation may result from another. For example, losing a job can lead to self-dissatisfaction (social - intrapersonal).
Finding himself in an extreme situation, a person comes into a state of extreme emotional arousal and is capable of unusual forms of activity and gigantic muscular efforts. For example, a pilot, leaving a crashed plane, tore with his hands the hose connecting the high-altitude suit with the on-board equipment. Later, four hefty guys tried in vain to tear apart such a hose, reinforced with a thick steel spiral. How can one not recall the words of Napoleon: “A person’s spiritual strength is related to physical strength as three to one.”
In this case, emotional arousal was compensated by the appearance of superpowers. But this does not always happen, and since emotional arousal must be compensated, this happens through crying, rage, laughter, etc. However, the arsenal of means used in this case is quite scarce. Therefore, existing tension can be discharged in forms such as fear or panic, which can only make the situation worse. In order to avoid this and find the most optimal way out of an extreme situation, let us turn to the essence of the processes that such a situation generates.
Purely conditionally, a person can be divided into three levels, as shown in the figure: I - mental level, or intellect, mind, consciousness; II - emotional level - heart, feelings; III - physical level - actions, limbs.
An extreme situation primarily affects the emotional level (manifestation of fear, panic). And the emotional level blocks the mental and physical levels. As a result, the person is either “paralyzed” or panicked.
Based on the processes described above, we can highlight the most rational way out of an extreme situation:
1. Complete, if possible, turning off emotions.
2. Awareness of the situation (analysis).
3. Playing through possible solutions.
4. Decision making (choice).
5. Action.
These tips from specialists (rescue workers, victimologists, criminologists, doctors of various specialties) will help the counselor:
Learn not to get into extreme situations yourself, and if you do, to emerge victorious with dignity;
Teach this to your children - your pupils;
Finding yourself with children in an extreme situation (natural, social, intrapersonal), do not get confused, behave correctly and help children get out of this situation without losses, preserving life and health.
He may behave rashly, which will ultimately become a factor that will put his life in extreme danger.
Classification of extreme situations
Different emergency situations can be classified in several ways:
- In terms of their significance.
- From the point of view of the danger or safety of an event.
- From the point of view of subjectivity and objectivity, and so on, emergency and extreme situations are most often distinguished.
What are the differences?
This is a certain situation that has arisen as a result of an accident in a certain area. It could be a catastrophe or a natural disaster. That is, phenomena that can lead to human casualties or severe damage to the health of one or another group of people.
An extreme situation is a situation that goes beyond the normal. This is a phenomenon that is associated with an unfavorable or threatening factor for human life. Despite their similarities, these two concepts are slightly different. An extreme situation is a direct interaction between a person and a situation that occurs over a short period of time. Ultimately, this leads him to the need to adapt in order to save his own life.
If we talk about what is worse for human life, of course, examples of extreme situations are not just extreme events, but particularly dangerous events or even a number of threats to life.
Earthquakes
These natural phenomena occur quite often in Russia. The greatest danger during an earthquake is building collapses. In such a situation, people find themselves under destroyed walls and concrete floors. It is almost impossible to get out on your own, and even if such a possibility exists, any unnecessary wrong movement can lead to additional collapses, so it is best to stay in place and wait for rescuers.
Being in such a confined space, most people begin to panic. You should try as much as possible to cope with this condition, since in such a situation there will be very little air in your location.
The more nervous you are, the more frequently you will breathe, and the faster your reserves of precious oxygen will be depleted. That is why you need to try to calmly assess the situation and determine what is best to do at the moment.
Fire
Natural extreme situations or events caused by human activity can lead to quite dangerous consequences. For example, during an earthquake, broken electrical wiring leads to fires. Of course, they can also be caused simply by inattention or drought.
During a fire, the main thing is to remember all the basics of safety. If you are in a room from which there is no way to leave, try to fill all the cracks and doorways with damp rags in order to block the way for fire and acrid smoke. Stay below, as this is where the air remains cleanest and most breathable.
There are often examples of extreme situations when, in case of panic during a fire, people simply jumped out of the windows, and most often this ended in death, although in fact, after examining the premises, it turned out that if the victims had remained inside, the chance of survival would have been much higher.
Thus, starting to panic, you can not only make the wrong decision, but also lead yourself and others to the most tragic consequences. Survival in extreme situations requires utmost calm.
There is no doubt that any threat to a person’s life or health forces him to act impulsively and feel great stress. In fact, this is precisely the main danger.
During an extreme situation, victims spend a huge amount of their energy, and thus, all the resources in the body begin to quickly deplete. Life forces leave a person who succumbs to panic much faster, and his psychosis becomes contagious to others. Examples of extreme situations indicate that, first of all, it is very important to try to remain balanced and not give in to despair.
In such stressful situations it is divided into two categories.
- Rational behavior. The most favorable adapted state, which allows a person to fully control not only himself, but also those around him. The faster the victim adapts to the current situation, the faster he will be able to find ways out of the problem.
- Negative. The most common model. It manifests itself in irrational behavior, which becomes dangerous not only for the person himself, but also for those around him. Such an “alarmist” can set off the entire crowd, and even if the entire group was calm before, then under his influence everyone will become hysterical. If you find yourself next to a person who cannot control his emotions, try to calm him down.
Conclusion
As you know, this does not happen, and the faster you rationally assess your situation, the faster you will cope with your internal stress. Numerous examples of extreme situations clearly demonstrate that only calm can be a decisive factor.
How to behave in extreme cases
The police officer has the right to demand your passport or any other identification document. It must be presented. If you are afraid of losing your passport, then it is enough to have photocopies of the visa and photo pages with you, and store the original in the hotel safe.
If you are taken to a police station, the first thing you should do is contact the embassy's consular service. The use of drugs (both soft and hard) is prohibited in France.
If you are stopped for a traffic violation, the officer will charge you a fine and issue you a ticket. The same applies to speed violations. Fines must be paid.
It's quite difficult to get lost in Paris. Firstly, the city's monuments and landmarks are good reference points. Secondly, on large streets and avenues there are billboards with a block plan, where the point where you are now is marked. You can take the metro to see a map of the city. As a last resort, you can always ask passers-by for directions. If they don't speak English, do it in French: say "Pardon", or better yet "Exusez-moi" - then name the place you're looking for and add "sil vous plait". To better explain where you need to go, take your hotel card or apartment address with you. And buy a city map.
A detailed atlas of Paris in the form of a booklet, where each district is given a separate page, is called “Paris par arrondissement” and is sold in bookstores and newsstands. The Parisians themselves use it.
To prevent you from becoming a victim of thieves, follow simple rules. Do not carry large sums of money with you, make photocopies of documents and carry them instead of originals, keep an eye on your bag, video camera, camera, and other belongings. Particular vigilance must be exercised at metro stations, the Forum des Halles shopping center and the Notre Dame Cathedral. If, nevertheless, you were robbed, contact the nearest police station, where you will need to file a statement (proces verbal). Without a police report, insurance companies will not compensate you for the damage you have suffered. Commissariats located in each city district are open daily from 9.00 to 19.00. Plus, there's always one open 24 hours a day.
To find out the address of the commissariat of the district you are interested in, call the Central Police Prefecture (Prefecture centrale): 01 53 73 53 73 (24 hours a day).
If you have lost documents, a credit card or things, immediately contact the nearest police station, fill out a form, then call the consulate. If you have lost your credit card, hurry up to fill out a declaration at the police station and notify the bank security service by phone - they will block your card so that no one can use it.
Please be aware that lost items are handed over to the City Lost and Found Office or to the Lost and Found Office of the RATP transport system. Municipal Lost and Found 36, rue des Morillons (15), 01 55 76 20 20, Metro Convention. Lost and Found RATP 01 40 30 52 00.
If you run out of money, you can receive a transfer through Western Union. The sender of the transfer will need to know the recipient's first and last name (as they are written in Latin in the passport), and have a passport with him. Please remember that there is a transfer fee. If the transfer amount exceeds $500, you will also need to indicate the recipient’s special characteristics or a security question. After filling out all the forms, the sender will be given an MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number) code, which will need to be communicated to the recipient - for example, via SMS. In Paris, you can receive a transfer at the post office (for information, call 08 25 00 98 98) or at one of the Western Union branches (central - at Cité, 4, rue du Cloitre-Notre-Dame (4), 01 43 54 46 12 .
Having medical insurance for your trip is mandatory: without a health insurance policy, a visa will simply not be issued. The procedure is described in the instructions for the policy - as a rule, you will need to call the control room and wait for a call from a doctor accredited by the company.
As a last resort, you can contact a private doctor (medecin prive) or a hospital (hopital). To find a good doctor, ask your nearest pharmacy for advice.
You have to pay to see a doctor. Don’t forget to take his sick leave certificate (feuille de soins), which will need to be handed over to the insurance company.
If you are involved in a car accident, you should be able to call the police, ambulance (SAMU) or fire brigade (pompiers). Then, especially if you rented a car, fill out a special form for the insurance company. Under certain conditions, you will be compensated for the damage; if you are at fault, you will have to pay yourself, unless, of course, you paid for additional insurance when renting.
From the book Encyclopedia of a Pickup Truck. Version 12.0 author Oleynik AndreyHow to behave with her Any, even the sweetest girl, some time after meeting you, will begin to gently put pressure on you, testing you to see how much she can control you. This is in their nature and you must be prepared for it. And as soon as it starts,
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From the book Mashkanta.ru author Bogolyubov YuriHow not to behave during interrogation The investigator achieves the necessary results using at least 18 techniques, in particular surprise, consistency, creating tension with an overload of consciousness, relieving tension with the help of a “heart-to-heart conversation,” suppression of lies
From the book Cool Encyclopedia for Girls [Great tips on how to be the best in everything!] author Evening Elena Yurievna From the book Cool Encyclopedia for Boys [Great tips on how to be the best in everything!] author Evening Elena YurievnaHow to behave First of all, you should not commit rash actions. If a rival attacks a guy, then you need to protect him from an immoral person. If a guy himself shows interest in another girl, then you should prove to him that he was mistaken and may pay dearly for it
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