Loss of vision. Features of personal reactions to vision loss. Psychosomatics of diseases on the example of poor vision
Such a dual organization of the process of seeing the world around us has formed two main approaches to eye disorders - ophthalmological and neuropsychiatric. A kind of dispute between physicists and lyricists in the study of the human visual system.
The ophthalmological approach considers vision, first of all, as an optical and electrochemical system, that is, a very complex, but still a machine. Accordingly, if something does not happen in the mechanism as it should, this implies a breakdown of one of the parts, a violation of the transportation of technical fluids, improper operation, or, in general, an initial marriage during assembly. In other words, three pillars of traditional ophthalmology: trauma, heredity and long-term visual strain in conditions that are difficult for the functioning of the eyes.
Psychologists and neuroscientists, on the contrary, admit that our vision can be influenced by psychological trauma and stressful conditions. On the one hand, stress and stress on the psyche directly affect the organic matter. For example, trying to stay within the framework adopted during social contacts, we “hold face” by willpower, but emotions will still find a way out. As a result of an increase in arterial or intracranial pressure, the pressure of the fundus vessels will also rise, or the muscles focusing the lens will be overstrained for a long time, etc. Such conditions are close to classical psychosomatosis - it is not surprising that migraine has now been added to the "golden seven" of psychosomatic diseases , with its characteristic eye pain, light intolerance, and sometimes aura (partial or complete short-term loss of vision). On the other hand, a destructive mental load may not disrupt the functioning of the organs of perception, but it is quite capable of causing distortion or blocking of the interpretation of visual information.
My eyes would not look!
As a system of perception and processing of the information flow, vision not only perceives what is seen, but also, if necessary, displaces it. Denial of access to awareness of traumatic, dangerous information can be compared to fuses in electronics. With extremely high psychological stress, vision can simply turn off - “I don’t want to see”, “I can’t see”. As a result, the body implements the imperative literally - we really stop noticing something.
Cases of blindness or vision problems due to mental stress or shock have been known since ancient times.
Herodotus has a description of the psychogenic blindness that struck the Athenian warrior during the Battle of Marathon: “The Athenian warrior, Epicelius, the son of Kufagor, fought bravely on the battlefield when he suddenly lost his sight. Both his eyes stopped seeing, although he was not struck by a sword, a spear, or a stone fired from a sling. From that moment until the end of his life he remained blind. The high emotional intensity and the sudden realization of imminent death caused Epicelius' psyche to block visual information.
The most common psychogenic visual impairments are partial or complete blindness, tunnel vision, one- or two-sided decrease in its acuity, bifurcation and disorder of objects. The nature of disorders leading to such results is very different. Most often, the unconscious reproduction of symptoms in an attempt to resolve social conflict is to blame. For example, vision is sharply lost or critically deteriorated in strictly defined situations.
At the same time, the “patient” also receives some benefit. The primary one is that it is possible to avoid a destructive conflict between what a person sees and the basic settings of his inner reality. The secondary consists in acquiring bonuses in interpersonal relationships and social life. These are manipulations of close people, and the opportunity to implement certain behavioral patterns - for example, "let go of the oars", - and a chance to receive care and constant attention from relatives. Moreover, the symptoms are not associated with any changes in the organs: they can suddenly appear, hold steady and just as suddenly disappear. To incredulous observers, this gives reason to suspect the patient of a simulation.
Depending on the psychological school, the process is interpreted in different ways, but the general basis is based on classical psychoanalysis. For example, psychogenic blindness indicates a direct unwillingness to see a problem, myopia indicates a refusal to try to predict the future, farsightedness indicates a rejection of what is at hand, routine, and the immediate environment.
Often, somatic disorders are supported linguistically: many stable phraseological units seem to illustrate what is happening or set the direction of the reaction to a traumatic event - “I don’t want to see this”, “my eyes wouldn’t see you”, “don’t show yourself in front of my eyes”, “it went dark in my eyes” , “as if through a fog”, “black in the eyes”, “cannot see further than the nose”. Although it cannot be argued that the impulses repressed into the unconscious literally use language stamps to manifest themselves in the form of functional disorders.
Using glasses, eye drops, and surgery to cure vision problems as a defensive reaction of the psyche is naive to say the least. If the patient chooses such a way of protection or manifestation of unmanifested mental processes, an attempt to medically nullify these signs will only aggravate the situation - the following somatic signals can be even more sophisticated and tougher. Much more effective in this case are psychotherapeutic methods in combination with sedatives and antidepressants, and this is a question for specialists.
TEXT: Denis Grachev
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, there are 4.3 million people who are blind or visually impaired in the United States. Many of us have such people among our acquaintances and we would like to support them, but not everyone knows how to behave and be useful. Warn the person when you enter the room, ask how you can help - this is quite simple ways show courtesy and help a blind person. First of all, your behavior should be based on respect and understanding of the fact that the person you want to help is not just blind.
Steps
Basic standards of courtesy
- Identify yourself so that the person understands who you are dealing with.
- If a person offers you a handshake, then do not refuse.
-
Report when you leave the room. It's not always intuitive, but care should be something to say. You should not rely on the fact that a person will hear your receding steps. Leaving without warning is just impolite, because the person may continue to contact you. Such an awkward situation is frustrating.
Offer your help. If it seems to you that your help does not fit the person, then instead of making assumptions, it is best to ask directly. Politely offer, "Let me help you?" If the answer is yes, then ask what you should do. But if the answer is no, then it is impolite to insist. Many blind people have learned to do very well without any outside help.
- If your help is ready to accept, then do only what is asked. Often sighted people take on too much out of good intentions, and such behavior can offend a blind person.
- In some cases, you don't even need to ask. For example, when everyone sits down at the table, and a blind person is already sitting, then there is no need to come up and ask how you could help. Try to feel the situation, not guess.
-
Ask questions directly. Many do not have experience with blind people and do not know how they should be treated. For example, in a restaurant, waiters often address a person sitting next to a blind person when they offer the blind person more water or bring a menu. Blind people can't see, but they can hear everything, so always speak directly to them.
Use the words "look" and "see". You may be tempted to change your language habits and try not to use words like "look" and "see". Better use them, otherwise an awkward situation may arise. A blind person will be unpleasant not from using these words, but from the fact that you speak to him differently than to everyone else.
- Feel free to say phrases like "It's great to see you."
- But don't use the words "look" and "see" to describe this person's actions. For example, if a person is at risk of stumbling on something, then it is better to say “Stop!”, Not “Watch your feet!”
-
Guide dogs should not be stroked. These are specially trained animals that are designed to protect the life and safety of blind people. Blind people rely on guide dogs for orientation and should not be called or petted. If the dog is distracted, a dangerous situation may arise. Don't distract your dog. You can iron it only if the blind person himself offered it to you.
Do not speculate about the lives of the blind. Asking a lot of questions or discussing the issue of blindness is unethical. They answer questions like this all the time. Every day they find themselves in places and situations in which the sighted feel more comfortable. You will do much more courtesy by talking to a blind man about the most ordinary things.
- A common myth often asked about by the blind is their incredible hearing or sense of smell. The blind have to rely on these senses much more than the sighted, but they do not have any superpowers, and it is ugly to assume such a thing.
- Usually the blind do not like to talk about the reasons for their blindness. They can start this conversation themselves. Only then can you ask a few questions.
-
Help me walk up the stairs. First, state whether to go up or down, and describe the approximate slope and length of the stairs. Then put the blind man's hand on the railing. If you are leading a person, then take the first step and wait for the person being guided to keep up with you.
Help to get through the doorways. Approaching the door, the blind person should be on the side of the hinges and he should be told in which direction the door opens. First, open the door and go through it yourself. Then place the blind man's hand on door handle and let him close the door on both of you.
Say hello loudly. When you enter a room where a blind person is already present, a loud greeting will alert them to your presence. If you remain silent until you approach this person, he or she may think that you appeared out of nowhere, and this can embarrass anyone.
This article will focus on the psychosomatic causes of poor vision, and will also give some recommendations for changing the ways of thinking that caused visual impairment.
Our eyes are not just one of the sense organs, they are completely responsible for our perception and vision of things both around us and in ourselves. Eyes - personify the ability to clearly see the past, present and future. If vision is impaired, the perception of reality and oneself as they are is impaired. Visual impairment is an unwillingness to see or notice certain things around oneself (nearsightedness) or in oneself (farsightedness), as well as in life in general.
Psychosomatic causes of poor vision
Aggressive emotions such as hatred, anger, anger accumulate in the soul, and they create problems with the eyes, because the eyes are the mirror of the soul. Such people are prevented from seeing the good by their pride and stubbornness. They do not understand that they see the bad in their world only because they look at the world through the prism of their aggressive emotions. There is only one way out - to clear your perception of negative thinking, patterns and prejudices, then the world will become a better place. Create for yourself a world that you would be pleased to look at.
The eyes are where sadness is released. Vision problems occur when sadness is not fully poured out. Therefore, the eyes get sick both in those who cry constantly and in those who never cry. When people reproach their eyes for seeing only one unpleasant thing, the foundation of an eye disease is laid.
Poor vision is a direct consequence of a suppressed desire not to see something and (or) someone. Visual impairment is a signal (metaphor, message) that the need and need for something and someone not to see has become unbearable, and there is no way to satisfy it (i.e. avoid a harmful stimulus).
Losing sight, a person receives a “secondary benefit” for this, that is, he gains the opportunity not to see intently what he does not want to see, and over time this develops into the benefit of not doing something (for example, doing small work with farsightedness). He cannot (or rather does not allow himself) to manage his life in such a way that the stimulus disappears from his field of vision, so that by weakening his vision, he facilitates psychological experience (compensation takes place).
Forced to see what he does not want to see, a person creates a contradiction between the parts of his experience.(good vision on the one hand and "bad" psychological vision on the other), - and his good vision equates to "poor psychological vision"(synchronization).
And finally, it is obvious that a person thereby generates in his mind rigid programs of "bad" visual experience(it manifests itself in the words: “I don’t want to see you”, “get out of my eyes”, “my eyes wouldn’t see you”, “and don’t show yourself in my eyes”, “it’s sickening to see you”, “it hurts to look at all this " and so on and so forth).
It is no coincidence that, according to statistics, young people's vision deteriorates, as a rule, with a minus sign ( myopia or myopia) and in the elderly - with a plus sign(farsightedness). Older people have a lot of past, and in the past there is a lot of pain, disappointments, mistakes and all that you don’t want to see in yourself. And for young people it is a fear of “prospects”, a fear of the future.
Another reason for the deterioration of vision is associated with the establishment of a forced physical boundary at a glance distance. Such boundaries are the walls of houses, fences, books, monitor and TV screens, etc. (there are even studies confirming that the more densely populated the city and the less space it has (the house literally stands on the house), the statistically worse the eyesight of its inhabitants).
There is always an obstacle in front of your eyes, on which you focus your eyes. The eyes, meeting constant obstacles, train to see only up to a certain distance ( a common person, waking up, does not see beyond the walls, going out into the street immediately directs his eyes under his feet, in public transport he looks at a book, at work - at a monitor and vice versa).
Many eyes are simply not trained to look beyond a few meters.(that is why, when working with the vision restoration system, I insist not only to completely abandon glasses, but also to relieve the eyes as much as possible). This distance is set unconsciously by the person himself in order to isolate himself from something external.(for example, not seeing the real world beyond your book, TV or computer game).
Visual impairment can also be associated with the type and style of thinking. In addition to our eyes, we have another kind of “eyes”, which are able to see at any distance and overcome any obstacles, which see equally well both at night and during the day. These "eyes" are our minds.
The mind can model visual sensations without any connection to the this moment time see our own eyes. A person who reads a lot, dreams of an unrealizable, fantasy future, or often draws pictures of the past, all the time creates visual pictures in his head that are not in reality (not here and now). Over time, his eyes (physical vision), in fact, become a sensory vestige psychological vision. The true visual function is oppressed all the time, roughly speaking, as unnecessary, and visual impairment occurs.
People who live all the time "here and now" have very little chance of ruining their eyesight. e, because most time they use only physiological vision, and very little - vision, so to speak, psychological.
It was a generalization of several of the most adequate theories of visual impairment. And now, for convenience, I will analyze each of the cases of visual impairment separately.
Myopia
With myopia, a person does not see far, but sees well near - this means that a person is concentrated on himself and on his immediate environment. It is usually difficult (or scary) for people with myopia to look into the future, to make long-term plans (i.e. they do not see a picture of their life in a year, in five, ten years), it is difficult for them to predict the consequences of their actions.
IN this case a person needs to develop the skill of building his long-range plans, and in addition to expand the scope of his interests to a large area (for example, to begin to be interested in world events, etc.)
In the case of farsightedness, people experience fear of the future, the inability to perceive it objectively. b, distrust of what awaits them ahead, a sense of constant danger, alertness, hostility of the world towards them. Such people do not see the future.
In addition, myopia develops in people prone to generalization and schematization of reality.. Those of its realities that do not fit into their logical structure are ignored.
Myopia often suffers from people who are too focused on themselves and hardly perceive other people's ideas (they see and perceive only ideas “close” to them in spirit, and those that are “far away” do not see, do not perceive, do not allocate space for them in the world). They have limited vision.
Myopia can also mean fixation on the external, on the form, on the surface., the presence of rigid stereotypes of perception that interfere with the objective perception of reality.
“Nearsighted” people are constantly judging other people, and they literally can’t see beyond their own noses. They don’t like what they see around them, they don’t notice either this beautiful world or beautiful people, but they see only the negative, that’s why they unconsciously chose “not to see” (there is nothing to look at, there is nothing good there). In fact, what short-sighted people do not like about the world around them and people is just a reflection of their own behavior.
The psychological causes of visual impairment can also be determined based on the period in which it began to fall:
For example, some develop nearsightedness as early as early school or preschool age. The reasons are that they have a lot of negativity at home, in the family, in the relationship of their parents - quarrels, screams, even beatings. It is painful for a child to see this, because for him his parents are the closest people, and he himself cannot influence the situation. And as a psychological defense, his eyes weaken, myopia helps him dull the pain, "not seeing" what is happening. This is one of the reasons.
There is also a reverse option. For example, d oma, before school or kindergarten, a harmonious atmosphere reigns in the child's family, good and respectful relations between parents, the child receives love and support. Having got used to such an attitude, he finds himself in a team where conditions are completely different - no one loves him just like that, he has to fulfill certain conditions in order to achieve a good attitude from teachers and friendship from classmates.
The model of the world that he learned in the family turns out to be absolutely different from the “big” world, and he himself turns out to be not ready for reality. The child does not want to put up with what he now sees, is experiencing stress, pain. As a result, this leads to the fact that he develops myopia - and he can clearly see only what is next to him, fencing himself off from the injustice and cruelty around him.
For many, visual impairment occurs during puberty. Adolescents are faced with the topic of self-identification with their gender and, accordingly, many fears arise on these issues: how boys look like men, and girls like women, whether they will succeed as partners and choose them as partners, etc., if it is very difficult for a teenager to look into the above areas, as a result, vision falls.
Such teenagers are afraid of becoming adults, as they are alarmed and frightened by what they see in the adult world (example: they do not like the lifestyle of the adults who surround him, they want a different fate and live differently, but in fact they simply avoid growing up , not wanting to see their future).
If your eyesight began to deteriorate during graduation ( first year of college) this may mean that you are afraid of joining a new, more adult community.
During the period of graduation from the institute, young people, like before the institute, have a fear of adult life, a fear of not taking place in the professional field - “children's games are over, here it is adulthood”, in this case, fear also blocks vision.
IN in general terms mechanism is clear. And it also works in adults, since most of our states we take out of childhood without much revision.
Sometimes myopia is not associated with fears of the future and prospects. In this case, it is necessary to understand at what age vision began to fall, because. perhaps at this age some event happened that was hard to watch and the person “chosen” due to his vision “not to look” at this event.
If vision has not returned to normal with age, then the theme of the event or period for a person is still subconsciously relevant. In this case, it is necessary to deal with the event or period that was difficult for him to look at or was difficult to accept, survive.
For example, if your eyesight fell during puberty and never recovered after that, then you still do not accept yourself as an adult man / woman and do not take on the functions associated with these roles. Or if vision has fallen sharply after childbirth - the key to recovery in motherhood(in relation to oneself as a mother, in relation to a child, in accepting the role of a mother, etc.).
Recommendations: in order to correct your vision (nearsightedness), you need to get rid of the fear that caused visual impairment. This may not be one fear, but several at once, for example, vision began to fall during puberty, it worsened a little more at the institute and became completely ill after childbirth. Each of these periods is accompanied by certain fears that could not be accepted..
It is necessary to open up to new ideas coming from outside, to accept the points of view of other people.(not to fix rigidly on your view of the world, but to allow several opinions to exist in parallel). You need to learn how to solve problems as they arise and stop expecting the worst from the future..
Such fears are actually caused not by objective reality, but by the excessive activity of your imagination.. Learn to look to the future with optimism. Learn also to listen respectfully to other people's opinions, even if they don't match yours.
farsightedness
With farsightedness, a person sees well in the distance and does not see close, which means that a person is interested in what is happening in the world, in a distant environment, his distant plans are interesting, and not interested in looking at yourself and your immediate environment(I'm interested in something global, but everyday little things are so annoying that I don't want to see them). Therefore, farsightedness is considered an age-related ailment, since in old age a person, for one reason or another, does not accept himself, age-related changes that happen to him or in his immediate environment. Your life seems to become boring, and the world and the distant environment become more interesting.
According to statistics, farsightedness occurs earlier in women than in men.. And this is understandable, women are harder to accept their age-related changes.
In modern medicine, it is considered a normal physiological phenomenon when the deterioration of accommodation starts from about the age of 45 years. “Normal” here means only that, according to statistical studies, people over 45 years of age are far more likely to suffer from farsightedness than people under 45 years of age. Interestingly, the word "accommodation" means "accommodation" or "process of adaptation."
Therefore, we can assume that those who find it difficult to adapt to what is happening suffer from age-related farsightedness. It is hard for them to look at themselves in the mirror, to see how their beloved body is aging, to feel less and less attractive, they believe that aging is only a deterioration. Perhaps it is even harder for them to see the situation that is developing in their own family or at work.
People with farsightedness worry too much about everything that happens around them and are too attached to the physical dimension. Because of this, their inner vision is weakened, and they do not see their significance, acquired along with experience over many years.
Far-sighted people go overboard with their good intentions. They want to see far, they want to get a lot at once, but they don’t want to see a little (everyday little things). If a person demands from others, including the state, to ensure his future, then his eyesight deteriorates, since he does not see that everyone must, first of all, arrange his own life.
Recommendations: Farsighted people need to learn to accept themselves, look at themselves with love and live in the here and now. Don't forget that your future depends on how you feel about your life today. Learn to adapt to the people and situations that appear in your life, and this will greatly improve its quality, and at the same time your eyesight.
Far-sighted people in life must first of all learn to enjoy the little things, then life will be able to entrust them with more. In order to move forward, they should first look at their feet and only then direct their gaze into the distance (after all, you can not see the obstacle under your nose, blurt out, and eventually get nowhere).
Astigmatism
With astigmatism, a person has his own stable outlook on life, and it is correct for him, and all other opinions are not true for him (hence the splitting of the visual picture arises: one image is an objective reality, the second is subjective, and their imposition on each other friend does not occur). People with astigmatism need to accept that other points of view are also correct and start accepting them. Astigmatism can also be a signal of fear of actually seeing yourself.
color blindness
When a person does not see colors / colors, it means that a person subconsciously excludes this / these colors from his life for some reason. It is necessary to figure out what certain colors symbolize for a person that he has excluded from his life (not their generally accepted symbolism is important, but their personal meaning for a person).
When a person confuses close shades, it means that a person sees his life in polar colors., and shades as nuances of life does not see or does not want to see.
When a person confuses contrasting colors, it means that a person’s life does not have rainbow colors and as if everything in life is one for him.
The situation with diseases is different in children under three years of age. A child under three years of age is psychologically in a strong connection with his mother and does not yet identify himself as a separate person, therefore, all diseases in a child under three years old are maternal diseases.
Those. a child under three expresses through his body(in this case eye disorders) mother's problems and if the mother deals with these symptoms as her own and deals with them, the child will no longer need to show the symptoms of the mother.
Conjunctivitis (styes or eye inflammation)
From the point of view of psychosomatics, the symptoms of this disease mean that something happens in a person’s life that causes irritation, anger, hatred and resentment in him, and the person does not agree with what is happening (this can be a situation, a person, etc.) and he does not want to see this annoying factor.
The reasons are not important, the main thing is that a person experiences a feeling of irritation and anger. The stronger the negative emotions, the stronger the inflammation. Your aggression comes back to you and hits you in the eyes. In this case, if a person identifies what factors cause him feelings of irritation or anger and deal with these factors (either, finally, he accepts annoying factors, or removes them from his field of vision), the body will not need a symptom of conjunctivitis.
Sometimes the manifestation of gloating, malicious thinking can lead to inflammation. After all, what is the evil eye? This is a wish for evil on another person. And it will show up in your eyes.
Strabismus
When a person sees normally with both eyes, both pictures are synchronously superimposed on one another. With strabismus, a person sees two different pictures, from different angles of view. And his subconscious is forced to choose one. This is how a one-sided view of things is formed..
Versatile strabismus in a child means that he sees conflicting messages from his parents. For example, when a mother wants one thing from a child, and a father wants another, and when parents are equivalent for a child, i.e. he cannot set a priority between mom and dad, a situation occurs when the child does not know who to listen to, and his eyes diverge in the literal sense.
Convergent strabismus. Unlike versatile strabismus, the cause of convergent strabismus is is the receipt by the child of conflicting messages from educators of the same sex(for example, mothers and grandmothers) and the child also cannot set priorities, in connection with which physical level the above psychological "discord" can be expressed in the convergence of the eyes to one point.
Strabismus in adults means that a person looks with one eye into real reality, and with the other either into an “illusory reality” or into some “other world”. In this case, I put an esoteric meaning into the concept of "another world". Strabismus in adults means the fear of looking at the present right here and now.
Glaucoma
With glaucoma, intraocular pressure rises, severe pain in the eyeball appears. It literally hurts to see. A person is pressed by old resentments against people, against fate, some kind of mental pain, he does not forgive the wounds inflicted on him in the past. By stubbornly not wanting to forgive, you only hurt yourself.
Glaucoma signals to a person that he is exposing himself to intense internal pressure. Blocks out your feelings. In this case, it is very important to learn how to express your emotions, to give vent to your feelings. This disease is always associated with sadness. If glaucoma is accompanied by a headache, this means that the process of increasing this very sadness is underway.
Congenital glaucoma - the mother had to endure a lot of sadness during pregnancy. She was greatly offended, but she clenched her teeth and endured everything, but she cannot forgive. Sorrow lived in her even before pregnancy, and during it she attracted injustice, from which she suffered and became vengeful. She drew to her a child with an identical mentality, whose debt of karma was given the opportunity to be redeemed. Congenital glaucoma means being overwhelmed and overwhelmed by these feelings.
Cataract
Inability to look ahead with joy. The future is shrouded in darkness. Why do cataracts usually occur in older people? Because they do not see anything joyful in their future. It is "foggy". What awaits us there, in our future? Old age, sickness and death (so they say). Yes, there seems to be nothing to be happy about. This is how we program ourselves in advance to suffer at this age. But our old age and our departure from this world, like everything else, depend only on ourselves, on the thoughts and moods with which we meet them.
dry eyes
Refusal to see, to experience the feeling of love. I would rather die than forgive. The person is malevolent, caustic, unfriendly.
vision loss
The emergence in memory and the scrolling of some bad events.
Vision loss due to aging is the reluctance to see the annoying little things in life. An aged person wants to see the great things that have been done or achieved in life. If he does not understand that life begins with small things that are just as important as big ones, since one cannot exist without the other, and begins to hate these small things, then they will annoy him more and more. Although vision is deteriorating so that a person cannot see the little things, as he wants, but the person does not like it. He does not want to see the little things, but for some reason he puts on glasses so that he can see them. Anger contributes to more and more weakening of vision. Whoever stops wasting himself on trifles, appreciating time in old age, can wear glasses of the same optical power for decades. And if an aged person stops paying attention to the little things in life, because he feels that they have lost their meaning for him, then his vision begins to improve. What is a trifle? Yes, everything that is of little importance to you has been published.
Ksenia Golitsyna
If you have any questions, ask them
P.S. And remember, just by changing your consumption, we are changing the world together! © econet
Suddenly emerging blindness or even a significant decrease in vision, disrupting habitual life, are one of the most severe mental shocks for a person. As we have already indicated, the organ of vision is one of the main, general analyzers that provides all visual information about the outside world and the possibility of appropriate adaptation to environment. For a certain period of time, until compensation occurs, a suddenly blind person becomes helpless, which often leads to acute psychotic reactions, in some cases dragging on for a long time.
R. Sussmann, a psychiatrist, pointed out that ophthalmology is a close "nursing" discipline in relation to psychiatry. We fully share this point of view and are convinced that the structure of a large ophthalmological department should provide for the position of a psychiatrist, and the staff of an ophthalmological institute should include a group of psychiatrists who would not only study the features of neuropsychiatric disorders in various ophthalmological diseases, but and were engaged in the development of therapeutic and preventive measures for this contingent of patients.
Should Mark that, just as with one or another pathology, severe neuropsychiatric disorders develop in the ophthalmic sphere, so various disorders of the function of this sphere, such as amblyopia, amaurosis, ptosis, blepharospasm, etc., occur with many diseases of a psychogenic nature (neurosis, reactive states, decompensation , psychopathy).
Kalxthoff, having examined about 7,000 patients with psychogenic amblyopia, noted that in children under 15 years of age, this pathology occurs 5 times more often than in adults.
Undoubtedly, the persons suddenly blinded in adulthood, organic symptoms, caused by the underlying disease that led to blindness, are complicated by functional psychogenic disorders and the very fact of a decrease or loss of vision. Here, the structure of the patient's personality plays a significant role in the development of pathological disorders. Thus, L. Holden believes that the mental reaction to blindness is closely related to the characteristics of the personality structure before the onset of blindness. The more a person's dependence on others was revealed before the loss of vision, the more pronounced and sharper his reaction to blindness.
L.Cholden, G. Adams, I. Pearlmen indicate that, in addition to neurotic reactions to loss of vision, blind people often develop anxiety depression, sometimes with persistent suicidal thoughts and actions. Loss of vision, according to F. Deutsch, leads to emotional conflict and the development of anxiety.
As we have indicated in previous articles on our website, blind-born there is a certain originality of mental functions: perceptions, ideas, memory, emotional-volitional reactions. In these individuals, the development and formation of the psyche occur in conditions of visual deprivation - turning off vision, leading to a violation of the adaptive function of the body. Adaptation in the blind born comes slowly, gradually, as the child grows and the volume of his vital social functions expands.
The persons blind in adulthood, the process of the formation of the psyche is almost completed, a certain personal structure has developed; in addition, before losing their sight, they were already to some extent adapted to the environment. Therefore, loss of vision for them is not an initial state, as is the case with those born blind or blind in early childhood, but the complete collapse of all life plans and hopes.
As is known, " plastic» adaptive-compensatory functions in adulthood are significantly lower than in childhood, and adaptation with a lost function is slower. Sudden blindness in adulthood is not very common, but still not so rare. At the same time, little is known about the clinical manifestations and dynamics of neurotic reactions in these patients and the features of their adaptation from literary sources, and the available information is scattered and contradictory.
Since 1970, we (together with A. I. Semenov) have studied psychopathological disorders in individuals suddenly blinded in adulthood (up to 45 years). In the conditions of an ophthalmological hospital and outpatient, 133 people were examined, mostly men (75%). The main research method was clinical-dynamic using experimental psychological techniques (associative-verbal experiment, antonymic series, memorization of 10 words, etc.). Simultaneously, a neurological and electroencephalographic examination was performed.
Excluded from the study were persons with mental illness , organic brain damage with mental disorders, as well as with pronounced psychopathic features.
The main cause of blindness was traumatic eye injury, chemical burn and detachment, the duration of blindness ranged from 2 to 5 years. More than 60% of patients lost their sight before the age of 35 years. Persons not older than 45 years old were selected for examination in order to exclude the possibility of influencing the clinical picture of manifestations of cerebral atherosclerosis.
In 30% of the examined patients, residual vision in the form of light perception was observed.
In professional and social terms before loss of vision, the patients were distributed as follows: workers and peasants - 64%, employees and students - 36% and 56% of the surveyed were married.
A. I. Semenov identifies three stages of the neurotic reaction that arose in response to blindness: the first stage is acute reactive; the second is transitional, lasting up to 3 years, during which either practical adaptation to blindness occurs, or pathocharacterological, mainly neurotic, changes in the personality structure gradually increase; the third stage is characterized by the formation of persistent pathocharacterological traits (personality psychopathization).
Representations are the material with which figurative memory operates. This type of memory develops simultaneously with the development of speech. Already by the age of 2-3, the child has a certain stock of ideas. Therefore, people who lost their sight during the formation of speech, and even more so in subsequent periods of life, retain visual representations. It is by the presence of visual images that a group of blind people is distinguished from the contingent of the totally blind, which include people who lost their sight after three years, or rather, after they had a second signaling system in general terms, and who have visual representations.
The presence of visual representations, their brightness, completeness, and differentiation depend on many factors. Studies have shown the dependence of the preservation of ideas on the age at which vision was lost, the length of time blindness and the skill of using visual images in activities.
In persons who have lost sight in early childhood, visual images of memory are few and reflect only individual objects and phenomena that caused strong emotional experiences at one time (the flames of a fire in which vision was lost, or a red capsule of a projectile, the explosion of which made the child disabled and etc.). These representations can be very bright, emotionally colored and cause sensations and emotions associated with the perception of an object. For example, the blind man described by Kroeger imagined the snow illuminated by the sun so clearly that he had a feeling of blindness and tears came to his eyes.
With loss of vision at an older age, the stock of visual representations is large; moreover, a particularly noticeable increase in the number of memory images is observed in persons who have lost their sight after seven years, which is explained by their inclusion in this period in learning activities significantly expanding the scope of sensory knowledge. The presence of visual images of memory is well confirmed by their involuntary reproduction in dreams. So, according to a number of authors, blind people see visual dreams for quite a long time, which then gradually begin to include auditory, tactile, and motor images.
