SYSTEMS PSYCHOLOGY
AND SOCIOLOGY

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THREE DISEASES AND THREE PARADOXICAL ABILITIES:

SYSTEM PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION

B. N. Ryzhov,

MCU, Moscow

The article is devoted to the justification of a systematic interpretation of pathopsychological disorders of mental system processing in three endogenous (endogenous-organic) mental diseases: a circular (bipolar) disorder, epilepsy and schizophrenia. The methodological basis of the research is the theory of system psychology and the concept of system-psychological genesis of changes in mental activity caused by these diseases. In accordance with this concept a person’ s mental potential is based on a set of characteristics such as the number of elements of a regulated system that are available to a person, the complexity of the connections established in the system and the rate of system formation. It is these three characteristics that might be subject to specific «targeted» changes in three endogenous mental diseases of traditional psychiatry and these diseases have a progredient course and they are not associated with simple involutional processes of old age. System psychological analysis reveals the predominant influence of each of these diseases mainly on a major one characteristic, that is the most vulnerable in this disease. So if it is a circular disorder,  the rate of mental activity (the rate of system formation or the speed of the mind) becomes the most vulnerable characteristic; if it is an epilepsy — the number of elements of the regulated system or the breadth of the mind becomes weaker; and if it is a schizophrenia — the complexity of the links in the system or the depth of the mind becomes weaker.

Methodically the work is based on the use of systematic psychological analysis of the products of a number of outstanding persons of creative professions and public persons, suffering from these diseases. The paper shows that in the depressive phase of a circular disorder the pathological decrease in the rate of mental activity may be interrupted by a paradoxical increase in the rate and efficiency of activity in the manic phase in some exceptional cases (like R. Schumann, for example). Similarly, the typical epilepsy narrowing of mental activity can cause a hypercompensation in equally exceptional cases of the talent (like Napoleon I, Van Gogh, for example), that is reflected in a paradoxical expansion of intellectual abilities due to the effect, similar to the epileptic aura. Thus the growing defect in the organization of system connections in schizophrenia in rare cases of a talent (P. Dadd, for example) leads to the «revival» connectivities of the elements of mental activity, closing them in new and valuable for society composition,  providing a specific type of hypercompensation caused by this disease. 

Key words: system psychology; systematic psychological analysis; mental potential; circular disorder; epilepsy; schizophrenia; hypercompensation; hypomaniacal state; depression; epileptic aura; paradoxical abilities; Robert Schumann; Napoleon I; Vincent Van Gogh; Richard Dadd.

For citation: Ryzhov B. N. Three diseases and three paradoxical abilities: system psychological interpretation // Systems psychology and sociology. 2019. № 1 (29). P. 5-18

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