School is one of the first to open up the world of social life to a child. In parallel with the family, he takes on one of the main roles in raising the child.

Thus, school becomes one of the determining factors in the development of a child’s personality. Many of his basic properties and personal qualities are formed during this period of life; all his subsequent development largely depends on how they are laid. It is known that changing social relationships pose significant difficulties for a child. Anxiety and emotional tension are associated mainly with the absence of people close to the child, with changes in the environment, usual conditions and rhythm of life. This mental state of anxiety is usually defined as a generalized feeling of a non-specific, vague threat. The expectation of impending danger is combined with a feeling of uncertainty: the child, as a rule, is not able to explain what, in essence, he is afraid of. Unlike the similar emotion of fear, anxiety does not have a specific source. It is diffuse and can manifest itself behaviorally in a general disorganization of activity, disrupting its direction and productivity.

Two large groups of signs of anxiety can be distinguished: the first is physiological signs that occur at the level of somatic symptoms and sensations; the second is reactions occurring in the mental sphere. Both somatic and mental signs of anxiety are known to everyone from personal experience. Most often, somatic signs manifest themselves in an increase in the frequency of breathing and heartbeat, an increase in general agitation, and a decrease in sensitivity thresholds. Such familiar sensations as a sudden rush of warmth to the head, cold and wet palms are also accompanying signs of anxiety. The psychological and behavioral reactions of anxiety are even more varied, bizarre and unexpected. Anxiety, as a rule, entails difficulty making decisions and impaired coordination of movements. Sometimes the tension of anxious anticipation is so great that a person unwittingly causes himself pain.

Anxiety, as a stable state, interferes with clarity of thought, effective communication, enterprise, and creates difficulties when meeting new people. In general, anxiety is a subjective indicator of personal distress. But for it to form, a person must accumulate a baggage of unsuccessful, inadequate ways to overcome the state of anxiety. That is why, in order to prevent an anxious-neurotic type of personality development, it is necessary to help children find effective ways in which they could learn to cope with anxiety, uncertainty and other manifestations of emotional instability. Each period of development is characterized by its own prevailing sources of anxiety. Thus, for a two-year-old child, the source of anxiety is separation from the mother; for six-year-old children, it is the lack of adequate patterns of identification with their parents. In adolescence, there is a fear of being rejected by peers. Anxiety pushes a child into behavior that can save him from trouble and fear. In order to free a child from worry, anxiety and fears, it is necessary, first of all, to fix attention not on the specific symptoms of anxiety, but on the underlying causes - circumstances and conditions, since this condition in a child often arises from a feeling of uncertainty, from demands that are beyond his strength, from threats, cruel punishments, unstable discipline. However, for fruitful work, for a harmonious, fulfilling life, a certain level of anxiety is simply necessary. That level that does not exhaust a person, but creates the tone of his activity. Such anxiety does not paralyze a person, but, on the contrary, mobilizes him to overcome obstacles and solve problems. That's why it's called constructive. It is she who performs the adaptive function of the body’s life. The most important quality that defines anxiety as constructive is the ability to realize an alarming situation, to calmly, without panic, sort it out. Closely related to this is the ability to analyze and plan one’s own actions. As for the pedagogical process, a feeling of anxiety inevitably accompanies a child’s educational activities in any, even the most ideal school. Moreover, in general, no active cognitive activity of a person can be accompanied by anxiety. According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, an optimal level of anxiety increases productivity. The very situation of learning something new, unknown, the situation of solving a problem, when you need to make an effort so that the incomprehensible becomes understandable, is always fraught with uncertainty, inconsistency, and, consequently, a reason for anxiety.

The state of anxiety can be completely relieved only by eliminating all difficulties of cognition, which is unrealistic and unnecessary. However, in a significant proportion of cases we are dealing with a destructive manifestation of anxiety. It is quite difficult to differentiate constructive anxiety from destructive anxiety, and one cannot focus only on the formal results of educational activities. If anxiety makes a child study better, this does not at all guarantee the constructiveness of his emotional experiences. It is quite possible that, dependent on “significant” adults and very attached to them, a child is able to give up independent actions in order to maintain closeness with these people. The fear of loneliness gives rise to anxiety, which simply spurs the student on, forcing him to strain all his strength to meet the expectations of adults and maintain his prestige in their eyes. However, working in a state of significant overstrain of mental strength can bring only a short-term effect, which, in the future, will result in an emotional breakdown, the development of school neurosis and other undesirable consequences.

Emotional instability in the lower grades and middle 6-8 grades is replaced by lethargy and indifference. An attentive teacher can easily understand how constructive a child’s anxiety is by observing him in a situation that requires the maximum activity of all his available capabilities. It is important that the task is non-standard, but, in principle, acceptable for the child. If he falls into panic, despondency, and begins to refuse without even understanding the task, it means that the level of anxiety is high, the anxiety is destructive. If at first he tries to solve the problem using the usual methods for him, and then refuses with an indifferent look, most likely his level of anxiety is insufficient. If he carefully understands the situation, begins to go through possible solutions, including unexpected ones, gets carried away by the task, thinks about it, even if he cannot solve it, then he detects exactly the level of anxiety that is necessary.

So, constructive anxiety gives originality to the decision, uniqueness to the plan, it contributes to the mobilization of the emotional, volitional and intellectual resources of the individual.

Destructive anxiety causes a state of panic and despondency. The child begins to doubt his abilities and strengths. But anxiety disorganizes not only educational activities, it begins to destroy personal structures. Of course, it is not only anxiety that causes behavioral disorders. There are other mechanisms of deviations in the development of a child’s personality. However, psychologists-consultants argue that most of the problems for which parents turn to them, most of the obvious violations that impede the normal course of education and upbringing are fundamentally associated with the child’s anxiety.

B. Kochubey, E. Novikova consider anxiety in connection with gender and age characteristics. It is believed that in preschool and primary school age boys are more anxious than girls. They are more likely to have tics, stuttering, and enuresis. At this age, they are more sensitive to the effects of unfavorable psychological factors, which facilitates the formation of various types of neuroses.

At the age of 9-11 years, the intensity of experiences in both sexes levels out, and after 12 years, the general level of anxiety in girls generally increases, and in boys it decreases slightly. It turned out that the content of girls' anxiety differs from boys' anxiety, and the older the children, the more significant this difference is. Girls' anxiety is more often associated with other people; they are worried about the attitude of others, the possibility of a quarrel or separation from them. The main cause of anxiety in girls aged 15-16 years is fear for their family and friends, fear of causing them trouble, worries about their health and state of mind.

At the age of 11-12, girls are often afraid of all sorts of fantastic monsters, the dead, and also experience anxiety in situations that are traditionally alarming for people. These situations were called archaic because they frightened our distant ancestors, ancient people: darkness, thunderstorm, fire, heights.

At the age of 15-16, the severity of such experiences decreases significantly. What worries boys the most can be described in one word: violence. Boys are afraid of physical injuries, accidents, as well as punishment, the source of which is parents or authorities outside the family: teachers, school principal.

A person’s age reflects not only the level of his physiological maturity, but also the nature of his connection with the surrounding reality, features of the internal level, and the specifics of experience. School time is the most important stage in a person’s life, during which his psychological appearance fundamentally changes. The nature of anxious experiences changes. The intensity of anxiety more than doubles from the first to the tenth grade. According to many psychologists, the level of anxiety begins to rise sharply after the age of 11, reaching its peak by the age of 20, and gradually decreases by the age of 30.

The older the child gets, the more specific and realistic his worries become. If young children are worried about supernatural monsters breaking through the threshold of their subconscious, then teenagers are worried about a situation associated with violence, expectation, and ridicule. The cause of anxiety is always the child’s internal conflict, his inconsistency with himself, the inconsistency of his aspirations, when one of his strong desires contradicts another, one need interferes with another.

Conflicting internal states of a child’s soul can be caused by:

1. conflicting demands on him, coming from different sources (or even from the same source: it happens that parents contradict themselves, sometimes allowing, sometimes rudely prohibiting the same thing);

3. negative demands that put the child in a humiliated, dependent position.

In all three cases, feelings of “loss of support” arise, loss of strong guidelines in life, uncertainty in the world around us. Anxiety does not always appear in obvious form, since it is a rather painful condition. And as soon as it arises, a whole set of mechanisms is activated in the child’s soul that “process” this state into something else, albeit also unpleasant, but not so unbearable. This can change the entire external and internal picture of anxiety beyond recognition.

The simplest of psychological mechanisms works almost instantly: it is better to be afraid of something than to be afraid of something unknown. So, children's fears arise. Fear is the “first derivative” of anxiety. Its advantage is in its certainty, in the fact that it always leaves some free space. If, for example, I am afraid of dogs, I can walk where there are no dogs and feel safe. In cases of pronounced fear, its object may have nothing to do with the true cause of the anxiety that gave rise to this fear.

A child may be terrified of school, but this is based on a family conflict that he feels deeply. Although fear, compared to anxiety, gives a slightly greater sense of security, it is still a condition in which it is very difficult to live. Therefore, as a rule, the processing of anxious experiences does not end at the stage of fear. The older the children, the less often the manifestation of fear, and the more often - other, hidden forms of anxiety.

For some children, this is achieved through certain ritual actions that “protect” them from possible danger. An example would be a child trying not to step on the joints of concrete slabs and cracks in the asphalt. In this way, he gets rid of the fear of getting a bad mark and considers himself safe if he succeeded. The negative side of such “rituals” is a certain probability of such actions developing into neuroses and obsessions (obsessive neuroses). However, it must be taken into account that an anxious child simply has not found another way to deal with anxiety. Despite the inadequacy and absurdity of such methods, they must be respected, not ridiculed, but the child must be helped to “respond” to his problems with other methods; one must not destroy the “island of safety” without giving anything in return.

The refuge of many children, their salvation from anxiety, is the world of fantasy. In fantasies, the child resolves his insoluble conflicts; in dreams, his unsatisfied needs are satisfied. In itself, fantasy is a wonderful quality inherent in children. Allowing a person to go beyond reality in his thoughts, to build his own inner world, unfettered by conventional boundaries, and to creatively approach solving various issues. However, fantasies should not be completely divorced from reality; there should be a constant mutual connection between them.

The fantasies of anxious children, as a rule, lack this property. A dream does not continue life, but rather opposes itself to it. In life I can’t run; in my dreams I win a prize at regional competitions; I am not sociable, I have few friends - in my dreams I am the leader of a huge company and perform heroic deeds that evoke admiration from everyone. The fact that such children and adolescents could actually achieve the object of their dreams is, not surprisingly, of no interest to them, even if it costs little effort. Their real advantages and victories will meet the same fate.

In general, they try not to think about what actually exists, since everything that is real for them is filled with anxiety. As a matter of fact, the real and the factual change places for them: they live precisely in the sphere of their dreams, and everything outside this sphere is perceived as a bad dream.

However, such withdrawal into one’s illusory world is not reliable enough - sooner or later the demands of the big world will burst into the child’s world and more effective effective methods of protection against anxiety will be needed. Anxious children often come to a simple conclusion: in order not to be afraid of anything, you need to make them afraid of me. As Eric Berne puts it, they try to convey their anxiety to others. Therefore, aggressive behavior is often a form of hiding personal anxiety.

Anxiety can be very difficult to discern behind aggressiveness. Self-confident, aggressive, humiliating others at every opportunity, do not look alarming at all. His speech and manners are careless, his clothes have a connotation of shamelessness and excessive “uncomplexedness.” And yet, such children often hide anxiety deep down in their souls. And behavior and appearance are only ways to get rid of feelings of self-doubt, from the consciousness of one’s inability to live as one would like.

Another common outcome of anxious experiences is passive behavior, lethargy, apathy, and lack of initiative. The conflict between conflicting aspirations was resolved through the renunciation of all aspirations. The “mask” of apathy is even more deceptive than the “mask” of aggression. Inertia and the absence of any emotional reactions make it difficult to recognize the disturbing background, the internal contradiction that led to the development of this condition. Passive behavior - “apathy” - often occurs when children are overprotected by their parents, during their “symbiotic” coexistence, when the elders fully fulfill all the wishes of the younger ones, receiving in return a completely obedient child, but devoid of will, infantile, and lacking sufficient experience and social skills .

Another reason for passivity is authoritarian upbringing in the family, the requirement of unquestioning obedience to parents, edifying instructions: “Don’t do this and that” contribute to the emergence of a source of anxiety in the child due to the fear of violating the instructions. Apathy is often a consequence of the failure of other adaptation methods.

When neither fantasies, nor rituals, nor even aggression help cope with anxiety. But apathy and indifference are most often a consequence of inflated demands and excessive restrictions. If a child does not want to do anything on his own, then parents need to carefully reconsider their claims. A way out of apathy is possible only through overcoming conflict experiences. The child should be given complete freedom to show any initiative and encourage any activity. There is no need to be afraid of “negative” consequences.

Anxious children are characterized by frequent manifestations of restlessness and anxiety, as well as a large number of fears, and fears and anxiety arise in situations in which the child would seem to be in no danger. Anxious children are particularly sensitive, suspicious and impressionable.

Also, children are often characterized by low self-esteem, which causes them to expect trouble from others. This is typical for those children whose parents set impossible tasks for them, demanding things that the children are not able to do. Moreover, in case of failure, their rule is to punish them by “humiliating” (“You can’t do anything!”).

Anxious children are very sensitive to their failures, react sharply to them, and tend to give up activities in which they experience difficulties. In such children, you can notice a noticeable difference in behavior in and outside of class. Outside of class, these are lively, sociable and spontaneous children; in class they are tense and tense. Teachers answer questions in a low and muffled voice, and may even begin to stutter. Their speech can be either very fast and hasty, or slow and labored. As a rule, motor excitement occurs: the child fiddles with clothes with his hands, manipulates something.

Anxious children tend to develop bad habits of a neurotic nature: they bite their nails, suck their fingers, and pull out their hair. Manipulating their own body reduces their emotional stress and calms them down.

One of the reasons that causes childhood anxiety is improper upbringing and unfavorable relationships between the child and his parents, especially with his mother. Thus, rejection and non-acceptance of the child by the mother causes him anxiety due to the impossibility of satisfying the need for love, affection and protection. In this case, fear arises: the child feels the conditionality of maternal love (“If I do something bad, they won’t love me”). Failure to satisfy the need for love will encourage him to seek its satisfaction by any means (Savina, 1996). Childhood anxiety can also be a consequence of the symbiotic relationship between the child and the mother, when the mother feels like one with the child and tries to protect him from the difficulties and troubles of life. She “ties” the child to herself, protecting her from imaginary, non-existent dangers. As a result, the child experiences anxiety when left without a mother, is easily lost, worried and afraid. Instead of activity and independence, passivity and dependence develop.

In cases where upbringing is based on excessive demands that the child is unable to cope with or copes with difficulty, anxiety can be caused by the fear of not being able to cope, of doing the wrong thing. Parents often cultivate “correct” behavior: their attitude towards the child may include strict control, a strict system of norms and rules, deviation from which entails censure and punishment. In these cases, the child’s anxiety may be generated by the fear of deviating from the norms and rules established by adults.

A child’s anxiety can also be caused by the peculiarities of interaction between an adult and a child: the prevalence of an authoritarian style of communication or inconsistency of demands and assessments. In both the first and second cases, the child is in constant tension due to the fear of not fulfilling the demands of adults, not “pleasing” them, and transgressing strict boundaries.

When we talk about strict limits, we mean the restrictions set by the teacher. These include restrictions on spontaneous activity in games (in particular, in outdoor games), in activities, etc.; limiting children's inconsistency in classes, for example, cutting children off. Restrictions can also include interrupting the emotional manifestations of children. So, if emotions arise in a child during an activity, they need to be thrown out, which can be prevented by an authoritarian teacher.

The strict limits set by an authoritarian teacher often imply a high pace of classes, which keeps the child in constant tension for a long time and creates a fear of not being able to do it in time or doing it wrong. Disciplinary measures applied by such a teacher most often come down to reprimands, shouting, negative assessments, and punishments.

An inconsistent teacher causes anxiety in a child by not giving him the opportunity to predict his own behavior. The constant variability of the teacher’s demands, the dependence of his behavior on his mood, emotional lability lead to confusion in the child, the inability to decide what he should do in this or that case.

The teacher also needs to know situations that can cause children's anxiety, especially the situation of rejection from a significant adult or from peers; the child believes that the fact that he is not loved is his fault, he is bad.

The child will strive to earn love through positive results and success in activities. If this desire is not justified, then the child’s anxiety increases. The next situation is a situation of rivalry, competition. It will cause especially strong anxiety in children whose upbringing takes place in conditions of hypersocialization. In this case, children, finding themselves in a situation of competition, will strive to be first, to achieve the highest results at any cost.

Another situation is a situation of increased responsibility. When an anxious child falls into it, his anxiety is caused by the fear of not meeting the hopes and expectations of an adult and of being rejected. In such situations, anxious children usually have an inadequate reaction. If they are foreseen, expected, or frequently repeat the same situation that causes anxiety, the child develops a behavioral stereotype, a certain pattern that allows him to avoid anxiety or reduce it as much as possible. Such patterns include systematic refusal to answer questions in class, refusal to participate in activities that cause anxiety, and the child remaining silent instead of answering questions from unfamiliar adults or those to whom the child has a negative attitude.

Left-handed child at school

About 10% of people are left-handed, and, according to estimates of foreign and domestic experts, the proportion of left-handed people tends to increase. In almost every elementary school class you can find 1-2 (and sometimes more) children who actively prefer their left hand to their right when writing, drawing and performing other activities.

Left-handedness is not a pathology or a developmental defect. And especially not the whim or stubbornness of a child who simply does not want to work “like everyone else” with his right hand, as some parents and “experienced” teachers sometimes believe. Left-handedness is a very important individual characteristic of a child, which must be taken into account in the process of education and upbringing.

Hand asymmetry, i.e. dominance of the right or left hand, or an unexpressed preference for one of the hands (ambidexterity) is due to the characteristics of the functional asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres. In right-handed people, as a rule, the left hemisphere is dominant, specializing in processing verbal information (in 95% of right-handers, the speech center is located in the left hemisphere).

In left-handers, the arrangement of the main functions between the hemispheres is more complex and is not simply a mirror image of the brain asymmetry found in right-handers. Numerous studies (Springer S., Deutsch G.) show that functional asymmetry in left-handers is less pronounced, in particular, speech centers can be located both in the left and simultaneously in the right hemisphere, and visual-spatial functions are usually performed by the right hemisphere , can also be controlled by the left. Thus, left-handers have less clear specialization in the functioning of the cerebral hemispheres.

The specificity of the brain functions of left-handers affects the characteristics of their cognitive activity, which include: an analytical method of processing information, element-by-element (in parts) work with the material; better recognition of verbal stimuli than nonverbal ones; decreased ability to perform visual-spatial tasks (Bezrukikh M.M.; Mikadze Yu.V., Korsakova N.K.).

Until recently, left-handedness represented a serious pedagogical problem. It was considered necessary to systematically retrain left-handed children who had no alternative when choosing a hand for writing - everyone had to write with their right hand. When retraining, sometimes the most severe measures were used (punishment, putting a mitten on the left hand, etc.), regardless of the individual characteristics and capabilities of the child and sacrificing his health. There is numerous data showing that in left-handed children, neurotic conditions and neuroses are much more common than in right-handed children. One of the main reasons for the development of neuroses in left-handed people is considered to be forced learning to use the right hand in the first years of life or in the first year of school. This reason becomes obvious in the light of data on the features of functional asymmetry of the brain: relearning leads to a breakdown of the naturally developed individual lateralization profile, which serves as a powerful stress factor. Essentially, forced retraining is a form of pressure from the right-handed environment, which equates a left-handed child and ignores his individuality. In recent years, the school has abandoned the practice of retraining left-handed children and they write with a hand that is comfortable for them. However, this does not eliminate the problem of left-handedness for schools, since children remain - hidden left-handers. We are talking about those cases when a natural left-hander is retrained in preschool childhood. Such retraining can be purposeful in nature, when parents, noticing the child’s tendency to prefer the left hand, strive to correct this “shortcoming” and prevent the possible difficulties that await the child in the future. Most often, this happens in families with hereditary left-handedness, where one or both parents or immediate relatives are also left-handed. In such families, adults are especially attentive to this aspect of the child’s development, since they themselves have encountered the problems of living as a left-hander in a right-handed environment.

In preschool age, non-violent retraining is also possible. In early preschool age, parents and educators do not always pay special attention to which hand the child has, especially since the direction of “handedness” is clearly established only by the age of 3-5. Meanwhile, when learning new actions, children try to do as the adult says: take a spoon in the right hand, hold a pencil with the right hand, etc. And the left-handed child, fulfilling the adult’s demands, does as he is told, even if this action is for him not very comfortable. As a result of such non-violent retraining, many parents may not even suspect that their child is left-handed.

When mastering everyday skills, a child’s hidden left-handedness, as a rule, does not affect the success of performing actions, however, when starting systematic learning at school, especially when mastering writing and reading, such children may encounter unexpected difficulties.

Therefore, it is important to determine the direction of the child’s “handedness” before the start of education: in kindergarten or when entering school. To diagnose the type of leading hand in children starting from 5-6 years old, it is possible to use various functional tests: the interlacing of fingers test, the “applauding” test, the test of crossing the arms on the chest, or the “Napoleon pose”, etc.

In the practice of working with children, the method of assessing the participation of hands in the process of performing various actions is widely used. These can be symbolic actions when the child is asked to show how he, for example, waters flowers, cuts bread, holds a toothbrush, scissors, etc. Actions can also be real, performed in specially selected tasks that require manipulation.

The test battery of such tasks includes the following game tasks: drawing with the right and left hands, opening a box, cutting along the outline of a picture with scissors, stringing beads, tying knots, etc. (Bezrukikh M.M.) In each task, the degree of activity of the right and left is assessed hands. Based on this, a conclusion is made about the child’s dominant hand and appropriate recommendations are given regarding which hand is appropriate to teach him to write. The child who scores more positive marks in the “Left hand” column is considered left-handed. As the authors point out, if such a child takes a pen in his left hand and tries to write with it, it is inappropriate to retrain him and force him to write with his right hand. But even if the child received more pluses in the “Right hand” column, but draws with his left hand and the quality of the drawing is higher than when drawing with his right hand, he should not be forced to write with his right hand (provided that he himself is trying to write with his left). Certain difficulties arise when choosing the dominant hand for ambidextrous children, that is, those children who have demonstrated equally good command of both their left and right hands. In this case, the following options are possible: Pronounced everyday left-handers, but graphic ambidextrous, i.e., equally good at writing and drawing with their right and left hands. As a rule, these children are left-handed, but at home or in kindergarten they were retrained from early childhood, and they were encouraged to work with their right hand when drawing. For these children, the process of learning to write is easier if they write with their left hand, although the quality of writing may not be satisfactory enough (poor handwriting, writes like a chicken with its paw). They are clearly right-handed in everyday life, but they write and draw with their left hand or equally with their right and left hands. In practice, the reason for using the left hand rather than the right hand when writing and drawing may be a previous injury to the right hand or a violation of its motor functions. In this case, it is advisable to teach the child to write with his right hand.

Determining the child’s dominant hand is necessary in order to make fuller use of his natural characteristics and reduce the likelihood of complications that arise in left-handed children during the transition to systematic schooling. However, in an effort to prevent difficulties that await a left-handed person when learning to write with the right hand, one must remember: determining the leading hand and choosing the hand for writing on this basis is an extremely important step. Indeed, retraining left-handed children in many cases is not only undesirable, but also unacceptable. As experience in working with such children shows, often retraining, begun after the child has begun systematic learning to write (in the middle to late 1st grade), only aggravates the situation. Therefore, the question of retraining a left-handed person can only be raised before learning to write begins. However, along with this, there are many cases of successful retraining of left-handed children without negative consequences.

Thus, the issue of retraining a left-handed child in each specific case should be decided strictly individually, taking into account individual physiological and psychological characteristics, the adaptive capabilities of the body and the child’s personal attitudes. In this case, one should take into account the diagnostic results of all lateral signs accompanying left-handedness: dominance of the eye, ear, lower limb (Krylov D.N., Kulakova T.P.). As already mentioned, left-handed children have a certain specificity of cognitive activity. This applies to both true left-handers and overeducated ones, whose cerebral hemispheres perform functions unusual for them.

In the activities of a left-handed child, the peculiarities of the organization of his cognitive sphere may have the following manifestations:

Reduced ability of visual-motor coordination - children cope poorly with tasks of drawing graphic images, especially their sequence; have difficulty holding a line when writing or reading; usually have bad handwriting.

Disadvantages of spatial perception and visual memory, difficulties in analyzing spatial relationships: left-handed people often experience distortion of the shape and proportions of figures when depicting graphically; mirroring of the letter; skipping and rearranging letters when writing; optical errors, confusion in writing of letters with similar configurations (t-p, m-l, n-k, i-n); errors when determining the right and left sides, when determining the location of objects in space (under-above, on-behind, etc.).

A special strategy for processing information, an analytical style of cognition: left-handers are characterized by element-by-element work with the material, putting it “on shelves”; on the basis of such detailed analysis, a holistic idea of ​​the object of activity is built. This largely explains the slowness of left-handed children, since for complete perception or understanding they need a longer, step-by-step elaboration of the material (Mikadze Yu. V., Korsakova N. K.).

Weakness of attention, difficulty switching and concentrating.

Speech disorders: errors in sound-letter analysis. The listed features most directly affect the success of mastering academic skills, primarily writing (to a lesser extent, reading), which left-handed children have the greatest difficulty mastering.

One of the most important characteristics of left-handed children is their emotional sensitivity, increased vulnerability, anxiety, resentment, irritability, as well as reduced performance and increased fatigue. This is a consequence not only of the specifics of interhemispheric asymmetry, but also of attempts at relearning, which many left-handed children could not avoid. In addition, the fact that approximately 20% of left-handed children have a history of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, birth injuries (according to some data, birth trauma can be one of the causes of left-handedness, when the functions of the damaged left hemisphere, more susceptible to the influence of unfavorable conditions, partially taken over by the right hemisphere).

The increased emotionality of left-handed children is a factor that significantly complicates adaptation to school. For left-handers, the transition to school life is much slower and more painful than for most peers. Therefore, left-handed first-graders require close attention from teachers, parents and school psychologists. A child's left-handedness can be identified by a psychologist during the child's enrollment in school. With such children, it is advisable to conduct a more in-depth diagnostic examination aimed at identifying their psychological characteristics in order to give parents the necessary recommendations on organizing special classes in the summer.

Based on the book by Hellem R. Counseling on anxiety problems. - M.: PER SE; 2009.
In everyday usage, anxiety refers to a complex dynamic interaction between a person and a situation:
*1 - behavioral and physiological reactions caused directly by the situation;
*2 - assessment of reactions and their consequences;
*3 - a person’s intentions in a specific situation;
*4 - assessment of the resources available in a given situation;
Anxiety does not arise automatically, but depending on how prone a person is to anticipating troubles.
The inability to recognize one's own anxiety makes a person unprepared for the development of the situation. Knowing that a person is “anxious” forces us to consider the possibility of an unproductive interaction. It is no coincidence that we trust the calmest people the most. "...verbal information can act as a powerful stimulus for anxiety. Information that something might happen can fill us with fear. family subculture and real life experience: “Never talk to strangers,” “You are upset about something - so excited, excited.” Parental instructions and real life experience determine the child’s sensitivity to those threats that are considered significant in our culture Therefore, a lot depends on the “emotional education” received in childhood.
The inability to think logically or act in a coordinated manner, especially in non-standard, conflict or threatening situations, does not always cause anxiety itself, since some aspects of human psychology are ignored, such as awareness, habits, mood, physical and personal factors. It is known that the conscious desire not to think or remember about one’s anxiety leads to the use and gradual expansion of anxious memory.
In difficult situations, negative thinking seriously interferes with attempts to change the client's negative perception of the situation.
Most forms of human activity unfold between the poles of the opposition “security - danger”. People constantly strive for safety and security in order to avoid the threats of real or perceived disease, poverty, environmental disasters, old age, etc.
From a biological point of view, the range of behavioral patterns spanning the safety-danger continuum can be divided into three zones: safety, alertness, and reaction to existing danger.
Safety. When working with the problem of anxiety, therapy uses eating, aggressive actions or intentional relaxation. "Hand on the shoulder" is a common way to calm an anxious person, but is rarely used by counselors because it can be misinterpreted or cause discomfort. The consultant, at the first stage, needs to try to discover the client’s main sources of feeling of safety and security, and use them as much as possible until the client’s self-confidence increases and he learns to move along this route on his own. .
Alertness - heightened alertness looks like a continuous search for danger. In a state of activation, a person can move fussily, jump up, walk aimlessly, and stamp his feet. The mental work of describing threats, naming them, and evaluating alternatives can significantly reduce the severity of both anxiety and tension.
Reaction to a dangerous situation.
There are two main types of fear reactions:
* become numb and numb;
* recoil, scream, run away.
In the latter case, the person cannot move (for a short time), speak, scream, the body trembles, freezes, becomes numb and becomes insensitive to pain. Reactions can replace each other, so fear and aggression alternate.
Intense fear - the avoidance response is a feeling of terror, the desire to run and hide, screaming, rapid heartbeat, increased blood pressure, muscle tension, rapid breathing, pale sweaty skin, standing hair, dry mouth, the urge to urinate or defecate, dilated pupils , weakness in arms and legs, feeling of lightheadedness, fainting.
Biological predisposition to threat: Physical threats - extreme cold or heat, very loud noises, sudden loss of support, pain, heights, lit open spaces, darkness, confinement in small confined spaces, new unknown objects, places or sensations, unexpected movements, small animals (eg snakes, spiders). Social threats: strangers (especially in infants 8-24 months), contact/closeness (from strangers), being watched (especially staring), loneliness.
The realization of danger in itself cannot lead to a strong defensive reaction. We learn from an early age how to avoid harm, resist hostility, and deflect criticism. Anxiety implies that there is hope for a successful development of the situation, because if the threat is definitely uncontrollable, then we are more likely to observe resignation and despair. In this case, expressing fear is dangerous.

- 39.59 Kb

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education "Southern Federal University"

PEDAGOGICAL INSTITUTE

Discipline:

Specialty 050706 “Pedagogy and Psychology”

Essay

Counseling anxious clients

Completed:

Student of the course

Checked:

Rostov-on-Don

2010

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………..3

1. The problem of anxiety in foreign and domestic psychology…..4

2. Features of counseling anxious clients:

2.1. Psychophysiological manifestations of anxiety……………….…10

2.2. Types of “masking” of anxiety……………………………………11

2.3. Defense mechanisms in working with anxious clients…………13

2.4. Features of counseling anxious clients……………..15

Conclusion…………………………………………………… …………….17

Bibliography…………………………………………………. …….19

Introduction

In psychological counseling, we primarily encounter people experiencing difficulties in everyday life. The range of problems is very wide: difficulties at work, unsettled personal life and troubles in the family, poor performance at school, lack of self-confidence and self-esteem, painful hesitations in decision-making, difficulties in establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships, etc. That is, in A wide variety of problems fall into the field of psychological counseling.

Counseling is defined as the professional relationship of a qualified counselor to a client, which is usually presented as a person-to-person relationship, although sometimes more than two people are involved. The purpose of counseling is to help clients understand what is happening in their life space and comprehend the achievement of their goals based on conscious choice in resolving problems of an emotional and interpersonal nature.

Thus, we see that the central figure in the counseling process is the client, that is, a specific person with his own specific problems, his own personality type, a certain set of ways of behavior and response to environmental influences.

On the other hand, it is increasingly noted that anxiety is the conductor of our time, one of the most intrusive problems. It is defined as a mental state, a stable personal formation, an emotional state. The problem of anxiety is widely represented in foreign and domestic psychology, primarily as a problem of psychological practice. In this regard, we consider it relevant to consider the features of counseling anxious clients as a requirement of modern practice.

Thus, the purpose of this work is to study the features of counseling anxious clients.

1. The problem of anxiety in foreign and domestic psychology

Emotions and feelings are a reflection of reality in the form of experiences. According to the classification proposed by K. Izard, in his “theory of differentiation of emotions,” fundamental and derivative emotions are distinguished. The fundamental ones include: interest - excitement; joy; grief is suffering; astonishment; anger; disgust; contempt; fear; shame; guilt.

The rest are derivatives. From the combination of fundamental emotions, a complex emotional state arises, such as anxiety, which can combine fear, anger, guilt, and interest - excitement. Different authors give different definitions to this emotional state.

The Dictionary of a Practical Psychologist defines anxiety as an individual’s tendency to experience anxiety, characterized by a low threshold for the occurrence of an anxiety reaction: one of the main parameters of individual reactions.

V.V. Suvorova, in her book “Psychophysiology of Stress” defines anxiety as mental state of internal restlessness, imbalance and, unlike fear, it can be non-objective and depend on purely subjective factors that acquire meaning in the context of individual experience. And he attributes anxiety to a negative set of emotions in which the physiological aspect dominates.

A. M. Prikhozhan, defines anxiety as sustainable personal education that persists over a fairly long period of time. It has its own motivating force, notes A. M. Prikhozhan, and constant forms of implementation of behavior with a predominance of compensatory and protective manifestations in the latter.

Like any complex psychological formation, anxiety is characterized by a complex structure, including cognitive, emotional, and operational aspects, with the dominance of the emotional.

It should be noted that anxiety can arise already in a newborn state, or more precisely, one of the components of anxiety is fear.

“Fear is an emotion that arises in situations of threat to the biological or social existence of an individual and is aimed at the source of real or imagined danger.”

In general, anxiety is a subjective manifestation of a person’s ill-being and maladjustment. Anxiety as an experience of emotional discomfort, a premonition of impending danger, is an expression of the dissatisfaction of significant human needs, relevance in the situational experience of anxiety and steadily dominant in a hypertrophied body with constant anxiety.

Therefore, anxiety is a personality trait, a readiness to fear. This is a state of expedient prepared increase in attention of sensory and motor tension in a situation of possible danger, providing an appropriate reaction to fear.

Since fear is the most important component of anxiety, it has its own characteristics. Functionally, fear serves as a warning about upcoming danger, allows you to focus attention on its source, and encourages you to look for ways to avoid it. In the case when he reaches the strength of affect, he is able to impose behavioral stereotypes - flight, numbness, defensive aggression. If the source of danger is not defined or identified, in this case, the resulting condition is called alarm. Anxiety is an emotional state that occurs in situations of uncertain danger and manifests itself in anticipation of unfavorable developments.

L. I. Bozhovich, defined anxiety as conscious, past experience, intense illness or anticipation of illness.

Unlike L.I. Bozhovich, N.D. Levitov, gives the following definition: “Anxiety is This is a mental state that is caused by possible or probable troubles, surprise, changes in the usual environment, activities, delay of something pleasant or desirable, and is expressed in specific experiences(fears, worries, disturbances of peace, etc.) and reactions» .

Psychodynamic approach examines anxiety as follows. According to S. Freud: “fear is a state of affect, i.e. the combination of certain sensations of the series “pleasure - displeasure with the corresponding innervations of tension release and their perception, and also, probably, a reflection of a certain significant event.” Fear arises from libido, according to S. Freud, and serves self-preservation, is a signal of a new, usually external, danger.

Z. Freud identified 3 types of anxiety: realistic, neurotic and moral. He believed that anxiety acts as a signal warning the ego of impending danger posed by intense impulses. In response, the “Ego” uses a number of defense mechanisms, including: repression, projection, replacement, rationalization, etc. Defense mechanisms act unconsciously and distort the individual’s perception of reality.

A representative of the same direction, K. Horney, argues that the decisive factor in personality development is the social relationship between a child and an adult. In the social theory of personality, K. Horney identifies two needs that are characteristic of childhood: the need for pleasure (in this she agrees with S. Freud) and the need for security, which she considers the main need, the motive of which is to be mobile, desired and protected from danger or a hostile world. And in this the child is completely dependent on his parents. There are 2 possible ways for the development of such a personality: if parents provide this need, the result of which is a healthy personality, and the second way, if there is no protection, then the formation of the personality follows a pathological path. However, the main result of such mistreatment by parents is the development in the child of an attitude of basal hostility. The child, on the one hand, depends on the parents, and on the other, experiences a feeling of resentment and indignation towards them, which naturally leads to defense mechanisms. As a result, the behavior of a child who does not feel safe in the parental family is guided by feelings of security, fear, love and guilt, which act as psychological defense, the purpose of which is to suppress hostile feelings towards the parent in order to survive, all of which leads to basic anxiety. And, this “intense and pervasive feeling of insecurity is one of the fundamental feelings of K. Horney.”

According to K. Horney, in order to overcome basal anxiety, the child is forced to resort to defensive strategies, which K. Horney called “neurotic needs.” In total, I identified 10 such strategies. She divided all these strategies into 3 main categories: orientation towards people, from people and against people. In other words, each of these categories is aimed at reducing anxiety.

According to C. D. Spielberger, there are anxiety - as a state and anxiety - as a personality trait. C. D. Spielberger's concept is influenced by psychoanalysis, overestimating the influence of parents in childhood on the occurrence of anxiety, underestimating the role of the social factor. Differences in the assessment of equal practical situations among people with different anxiety are attributed, first of all, to the influence of experience and childhood and the attitude of parents towards the child.

Functional approach allows us to consider the state of anxiety not only as a series of reactions characterizing the state, but also as a subjective factor influencing the dynamics of activity.

The question of psychological functions often touches upon the discussion of such traditional problems as the genetic roots of anxiety, the conditions and situations of its occurrence, the influence of anxiety on activity, etc. Initially, the functional characteristics of anxiety are highlighted in most directions of interpretation of this condition. Anxiety is sometimes defined as an internalized, vague, pointless fear or as a state caused not by the presence of danger, but by the inability to avoid it if it suddenly appears. The effect of anxiety often extends far beyond the actual situation, transferring the subject both to the future and to the past.

K. Goldstein distinguished that the freedom of a healthy individual actually means that he can choose between alternatives, achieve the opportunity to overcome difficulties in a new environment.

Also V. M. Astapov, identifies another function of anxiety, the function of assessing a tilted situation. In this case, what meaning is given to it is of paramount importance. It should be emphasized that negatively colored experiences of anxiety arise when an individual assesses the situation as dangerous and does not have ready and sufficiently reliable, in his opinion, ways to resolve it. Thus, based on the functional approach to the study of anxiety, this state can be defined as the result of a complex process that includes quantitative, affective and behavioral reactions at the level of individual values.

2.3. Defense mechanisms in working with anxious clients…………13
2.4.Features of counseling anxious clients……………..15
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….17
References…………………………………………………………………….…….19

Counseling anxious clients

Psychological counseling of anxious clients has some specifics related to both the client’s personal characteristics and his behavior during consultations.

In the normal state of a person, a feeling, a sensation of anxiety warns of danger, a threat. This feeling of anxiety not only warns of danger, but also encourages avoidance of it. Anxiety has no less value than pain. If pain warns of an internal problem in the body, then anxiety warns of an external threat.

Z. Freud defines anxiety as a signal from the Ego, warning the individual about an internal conflict. In this case, anxiety is considered as a very long-term state of anxiety that affects the entire personality. This conflict - from the point of view of psychoanalysis - occurs between unacceptable impulses of the unconscious and psychic forces aimed at suppressing these impulses. Anxiety is not only a warning signal, but also protects against conflicts, because it activates psychological defense mechanisms.

In psychoanalysis, anxiety is viewed as an intrapsychic phenomenon, that is, caused internally. Anxiety is associated with external objects only to the extent that they stimulate a person’s internal conflicts. Anxiety, unlike fear, is usually a reaction to an imaginary, unknown threat.

Psychoanalysts believe that anxiety is always based on internal personality conflicts. In other words, anxious people are always seen as neurotic. It’s hard to disagree with the fact that this often happens. However, not in all cases anxiety can be considered a neurosis. A long-term state of anxiety can be caused solely by external factors. For example, a person has been waiting for a layoff for a long time; he is afraid of it because objectively for him it is a life catastrophe; at the same time, the employee is poorly oriented in the situation, does not know what he can do in this situation, which further increases anxiety; as soon as the threat of layoffs completely disappears (other people were fired, for example), anxiety disappears in the shortest possible time.

From a physiological point of view, anxiety is a reactive state. It causes physiological changes that prepare the body for one of the instinctive methods of salvation:

– attack (active resistance),

– retreat (flight),

– fading (passive resistance).

The specificity of anxiety is that a person has not yet decided what to do. At the same time, in his imagination he plays out different options for action. Active resistance and flight require mobilization: the cardiovascular system is excited, the activity of the digestive tract is inhibited (in a word, the sympathetic part of the nervous system is excited). With passive resistance, you need to be quiet and inconspicuous, strive to evoke pity and compassion from others. An anxious person plays out different behavior options in his head. From here he develops an unbalanced state, an “anxious fever.”

In most cases, in general, anxiety has a characteristic sign. Some people in a state of anxiety experience chronic overexcitation: they lose sleep, lose appetite, it is very difficult for them to calm down, they are constantly on edge. For other people, it’s the opposite: drowsiness increases, they constantly feel hungry, it’s difficult for them to concentrate, and they want to constantly rest.

Anxiety has a wide range of physiological responses. This explains why prolonged anxiety causes psychosomatic disorders, and the state of anxiety itself is often “masked” by somatic complaints. Sometimes such clients get to the office of a psychologist or psychotherapist through the office of a general practitioner.

As already mentioned, anxiety is not necessarily chronic, unhealthy. In many situations it is objective and disappears after the situation has improved. In psychological consultations, however, unhealthy anxiety is much more common. And still, the first thing you should do is understand the nature of anxiety - how neurotic it is.

Often clients themselves begin to complain of anxiety as a painful, persistent condition, often accompanied by unpleasant physical sensations. Psychologically, such a client feels that something wrong is happening to him, but cannot specify his ailment and does not know when and where a similar nameless tragedy will happen to him again. This kind of complaint clearly indicates that anxiety has ceased to have only an objective nature; it has already acquired subjective meanings. Now, even if the objective threat completely disappears, anxiety will not disappear immediately, it will continue to be fueled by those same subjective meanings.

As R. Kociunas noted, a person who constantly experiences anxiety lives as if under a dark sky and is not able to overcome tension either through the efforts of his own will or with the help of loved ones. In this state they usually end up seeing a consultant. Even objectively unmotivated anxiety often worsens and becomes an increasingly difficult to bear condition. Anxiety can take on an extremely painful nature in people with pronounced schizoid traits - due to delusional, sophisticated constructions.

Anxious experiences affect a person’s entire life, his entire personality. If anxiety were caused only by a particular problem that requires a solution, then this state could be called perplexity. If a problem requires an intellectual solution, it would be intellectual puzzlement. If it were necessary to work the muscles, it would be a physical (physiological) problem. But anxiety is not caused by a problem, but by a problematic situation. And therefore, a person feels the need not to solve a particular problem, but to change his relationship with the situation: either to adapt to it, or to change it for the better, or to escape from the situation completely.

Therefore, a problematic situation affects the whole person. And therefore, vague anxiety is one condition. There cannot be two worries. If new problematic situations arise, general anxiety increases. If some problematic situations are resolved, general anxiety decreases. If a person previously only had problems at work, and then suddenly serious problems appeared at home, then another anxiety does not arise, its overall level simply increases.

As a result, vague anxiety is especially depressing when new unfavorable life circumstances arise. Each new problem now increases the level of general anxiety, and this worries the person more and more. Instead of focusing their efforts on solving a specific problem, a person looks for ways to reduce general anxiety.

The worst thing here, perhaps, is that the person begins to avoid new problems. Every new problem for him is a new torment. When there is a constant threat to social status, financial well-being, etc., then everything around seems potentially threatening. The person stops making contact, he avoids problems, and he does not solve problems that arise. As a result, from the objective side, the life situation only worsens, which further delays the time frame for overcoming anxiety.

It is clear that many people eventually come to the conclusion that unpleasant sensations must be dealt with in some other way than by solving objective problems. Some find a way out in alcohol and drugs, some in medications (for example, antidepressants), others in ways of escaping reality (for example, gambling, computer games). All this makes the situation even more confusing.

The work of a psychologist with a client who has come in because of constant anxiety is tiring, since it is difficult to understand, and then it is difficult to explain to the client, what problems are hidden behind these debilitating experiences. The consultant must be able to discern the different “faces” of anxiety, since anxiety often does not manifest itself directly, but “reincarnates.”

Examples of masking anxiety:

- "I'm annoyed"

- "I'm tense"

- "I have a weakness"

- "I'm afraid of everything"

- "I'm upset",

- "I keep waking up at night"

- “I don’t feel like myself”

“I get a headache in the presence of my wife.”

- tapping fingers on the table,

- twisting buttons,

– annoying blinking of the eyes,

- constant scratching

- binge eating,

– excessive drinking or smoking,

- obsessive need to buy things,

– irritability,

– aggressiveness,

- causticity,

- obsessive desire to joke,

- talkativeness or, conversely, silence, etc.

Of course, each of these examples cannot be considered as a clear symptom of anxiety. Anxiety is determined primarily from a conversation with the client. These examples are given to show that a state of anxiety introduces a lot of chaos and “garbage” into the consultation process. And we have to work with this too.

For example, if a psychologist sees that a client is very talkative, and this talkativeness is only a disguise for self-doubt associated with anxiety, then still the flow of words should not be interrupted, you just need to pay attention to characteristic, significant details that you can cling to in further work . Continuous talking is a peculiar form of self-defense, which it is imprudent to immediately break.

Anxious clients often interrupt the consultant, especially in those moments that promise some unpleasant experiences. They often deny the psychologist’s words - only because they are already accustomed to denying everything that concerns their experiences - so as not to strengthen them. Therefore, when working with anxious clients, a psychologist should very carefully monitor both his intonations and his words. Some questions or statements may seriously hurt the client, but the client himself may understand that without answers to such questions it will be difficult for him to solve his problems. The tone and expressions in which the consultant speaks will determine whether the client decides to make deep contact or continues his wanderings.

Anxious clients may behave differently. Some of them protect themselves from anxiety in a paradoxical way. They immediately “take the bull by the horns”: they openly and demonstratively talk about their problems and concerns, and then ask what they should do. More often than not, this behavior reflects underlying hostility toward the counselor and/or the counseling process. The client is not really going to follow the “instructions”; he generally doubts the value of this kind of interaction. An anxious client is not at all emotionally stable. Right during the course of even one meeting, he can change the “tactics” of his behavior several times.