Self-destruction of the individual, how to save yourself from self-destruction?

Personal self-destruction is ideas, emotions and behavioral patterns of a destructive nature directed at oneself. The self-destructive pattern can manifest itself in a variety of formats, including physical self-harm such as suicide attempts, chemical addictions, and eating disorders; in some cases of choosing extreme sports, risky sexual behavior, choosing high-risk work; behavior that provokes danger, active self-blame and self-humiliation.

In psychology, when talking about self-destruction, they use the term “auto-aggression” (auto-destruction) - auto- and aggression mean turning against oneself, in English - “turning against the self”. In the classification of psychological defense, it refers to secondary defenses, when negative affect is redirected from an external object to oneself, due to the undesirability of external manifestation.

When analyzing the correlation between scales of types of aggression using valid methods, self-destruction does not correlate with other scales, which distinguishes the phenomenon from other features of aggression in personal psychology. Among personality types, it is most characteristic of depressive and masochistic individuals according to the McWilliams classification.

The desire for self-destruction is divided into various classifications:

– by area of influence – physical, mental, social;

– according to the characteristics of the structure – ideational (idea, thoughts);

– affective (emotional experiences), behavioral;

– direct, indirect, transgressive (transitional), extended;

– conscious, unconscious;

– according to dynamics – acute, chronic (sluggish);

– transient, relapse, persistent (persistent, constant), transforming, stable, progressive, regressing, etc.

The variety of classifications is explained by the ambiguity and broadness of the manifestation of the phenomenon.

What is the will to die

Long before Freud, many philosophers thought about what exactly determines human life and what role drives play in it.
At first, Freud considered only sexual attraction, which, in his opinion, combines a polar pair - creative love and the desire for destruction. From this he concluded that human activity is determined by the intertwining of the “instincts of life and death” - the forces of eros and thanatos, named after the Greek gods of love and death. These forces are the basic unconscious drives that predetermine all human life. Eros is considered a life-giving force, and this does not raise questions, but why is thanatos called the same? Freud suggested the existence of the death instinct, based on the idea of the evolution of all living things: having reached the maximum of organic existence, it eventually begins the way back and after death returns to the inorganic state. According to this hypothesis, the desire to preserve life forms in a living organism its own path to death. Freud formulated this position as follows: “The goal of all life is death.”

Philosophers Jacques Lacan and Friedrich Nietzsche talk about the death instinct as an aggression inherent in any person from birth. In his work “Aggression in Psychoanalysis,” Lacan describes the cruelty that people hide in their psyche, and illustrates it with the works of Hieronymus Bosch, where one can “recognize an atlas of all those aggressive images that disturb people.”

Vices and passions have always been the object of artistic depiction. But the theme of sex and various forms of violence in art are not an end in themselves, but only a device necessary to reveal the social or personal drama of the hero. It is no coincidence that many modern Western writers and film directors, in response to accusations of abuse of crime episodes, refer to the plays of Shakespeare or the novels of Zola.

One of the leaders of poststructuralism, Jean Baudrillard, in his work “Symbolic Exchange and Death,” considers the attraction to death as a kind of abstract idea, which is based on a certain culture of death accepted in society. This culture is largely mythological in nature and requires interpretation.

How to resist

It is important to learn to identify your self-knowledge. A person must decide on his place in society.
It is unacceptable to suppress your feelings and emotions. You need to be able to deal with what you feel.
If you need an outlet for aggression, you can resort to active recreation, for example, playing sports, shooting at a shooting range, or simply starting general cleaning in the apartment.
Reducing stereotypical perception and thinking, which will teach you to respond adequately to reality.
Reduce the importance of dependence. A person must decide what exactly destroys his personality. If he devotes too much time to work, start fighting workaholism; if he smokes, quit this bad habit. It is important to be consistent; actions should be gradual; abrupt decisions will not achieve anything good.

Now you know what the path of self-destruction can be. As you can see, this is often due to improper parenting. Sometimes everything is in the hands of the person himself; he can change his life by changing his priorities. If you realize that self-destruction is taking place in your life, then it’s time to change something, love yourself, and start a new chapter.

Why did the magicians want to free themselves from the flesh?

The culture and mythology of death are rooted in early systems of opposition between two fundamental, equal world forces: God and the devil in religious consciousness, mental and physical in philosophical consciousness, black and white in everyday life. This dualism in the perception of life and death in many cultures is expressed through the concept of time.

Earthly birth is preceded by death; dying, the body is reunited with the earth, and the soul with the higher spirit. Death also means rebirth, and this idea is reflected in the ancient symbol of the dragon (snake) biting its own tail.

It is found in a number of cultures, but has become known by the name the Greeks gave it, ouroboros. The meaning of this symbol is formulated as “the beginning is where the end is.” It is used in alchemy, Gnosticism and even psychoanalysis to denote the self-generating process of self-destruction and fertility.

Another aspect of death is the unknown, the incomprehensibility, because no one has ever returned from “there” with concrete evidence. From here the mythological consciousness takes the idea of omniscience of the dead - after all, the deceased joins the secret knowledge of the gods and thus himself becomes an object of worship. The cult of ancestors was widespread in the ancient world, in the Ancient East, in Central America, as well as among the ancient Slavs. The deified ancestor protects his family; priests and sorcerers turned to him for predictions of the future or in search of sacred knowledge.

From this form of shamanism originate the rituals of necromancy - practical magic that was used to establish contact with the dead or tell fortunes on corpses.

According to Pliny the Elder's Natural History, magical rites were created by Zarathustra in Persia, magic also existed in Babylon and then spread to the Greco-Roman world.

Strabo, in his work Geography, speaks of “death spellcasters” as the main predictors among Persian magicians.

Egyptian magical papyri describe the ritual of summoning the spirit of a deceased person. Egyptologist Robert Richter believes that such practices were not borrowed from other traditions, but developed from indigenous beliefs and rituals.

To learn more about magic, the philosophers Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus and Plato went on long journeys, and when they returned, they talked about what they saw, and, as Pliny believed, they most contributed to the spread of the magical teachings of the work of Democritus. The oldest artistic description of the ritual of necromancy can be found in Homer's Odyssey.

Following the instructions of the sorceress Circe, Odysseus goes to the underworld to find out how he can return home to Ithaca. Homer describes the ritual itself in detail. Arriving at the entrance to the kingdom of the dead, Odysseus and his companions dig a hole and sacrifice animals over it, their blood calling on the spirits of the dead. The travelers then make an offering to the underground gods Hades and his wife Persephone. Odysseus' goal is to summon the shadow of the soothsayer Tiresias. He appears and, having drunk black blood, gives Odysseus an answer.

In the Middle Ages, the pursuit of magic and science was not very different. Many people believed that one could know the future by observing the stars, and astrologers prospered in royal courts as important advisors on many matters. Astrology was even taught in universities and was considered the highest level of mathematics and an integral part of medicine. Almichy and necromancy were the subject of no less interest to learned men of the Middle Ages. They believed in a certain supernatural power of the words of sacred texts, considered them secret writing and interpreted the Bible allegorically. They saw a mystical meaning in every number in the Holy Scriptures and believed that every letter contained knowledge with the help of which they could control all processes in the Universe.

The Italian thinker Pico della Mirandola insisted that magical and cabalistic (derived from Jewish mysticism) teachings proved the divinity of Christ better than any other sciences.

The German humanist Johann Reuchlin associated the letters in Holy Scripture with individual angels. Inspired by Reuchlin's works De verbo mirifico and De arte cabbalistica, Agrippa of Nettesheim proclaimed that he who knows the true pronunciation of the name of Yahweh has “peace in his mouth.” Agrippa's occult works were highly praised by the 19th century kabbalist Eliphas Levi, who described communication with the spirit of the Greek philosopher Apollonius of Tyana as a ritual with magical signs and objects, the result of which is a somnambulistic trance.

Personal astrologer and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee, who had a reputation as a magician, once declared that he had a magic mirror that could show fate. But he was unable to discern anything in him until the necromancer Edward Kelly offered himself as a medium. Kelly later stated that angels spoke to him through a magic mirror in the language of Enoch (however, he was later accused of quackery).

According to all these mystics, if the ethereal entity frees itself from the framework of the mortal mind, it will be able to comprehend what lies beyond human perception.

The idea that the flesh is only an obstacle in achieving sacred knowledge is also present in the ascetic practices of various religious and philosophical teachings.

Initially, in Ancient Greece, asceticism was called the exercise of virtue. It consisted of self-restraint and abstinence from satisfying certain human needs - food, clothing, sleep, sex life, as well as refusal of entertainment and intoxicating drinks.

It was believed that thanks to such practices a person overcomes himself, grows in the knowledge of the Supreme and achieves a full spiritual life.

A representative of the school of religious existentialism, Nikolai Berdyaev, understands asceticism as a metaphysical and religious principle and formulates two main forms of ascetic metaphysics. The first is the recognition of the world and life as evil, as in Hinduism, which considers the world illusory and evil; the ultimate expression of such a philosophy is Buddhism. Another form of ascetic metaphysics is found in Greece - this is, for example, Neoplatonism, which preaches deliverance from the material world. Greek philosophical thought always saw the source of evil in matter, although it understood it differently than Descartes and the thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries. From this point of view, the lower (matter) cannot be raised to the higher (spirit).

Asceticism here means cutting off the spirit from the material principle: “evil” matter cannot be defeated or transformed, one can only separate from it.

In addition to spiritual asceticism, Berdyaev also considers sports and revolutionary asceticism. In his opinion, serious training is required from the athlete - not only physical, but also mental, because he risks his life and must be psychologically prepared for death. Discussing revolutionary asceticism, Berdyaev turns to Nechaev’s “Catechism of Revolution” and writes that a revolutionary is a doomed person who has no personal interests, because everything in him is captured by one passion.

Ants and hair shirts: why did Christians torture themselves?

In early Christianity, ascetics were those who spent their lives in solitude and self-torture, in fasting and prayer.

Traditional self-torture is common in various cultures. The Satere Mawe Indians of Brazil have a male initiation rite during which the young man must endure painful ant bites. The festival in honor of the Hindu god Murugan, leader of the army of gods, includes wearing shoes with nails.

The Islamic holiday of Ashura is widely known, it is celebrated by all Muslims, but its meaning varies in different branches of the religion. Sunnis consider the tenth day of Muharram a significant date: it was on this day that the Almighty created Adam, the Great Flood ended and the prophet Musa (Moses) escaped from Egypt. But for Shiites, this is a day of mourning for religious martyrs, primarily for Hussein ibn Ali. Mourning lasts the first ten days of the month of Muharram, and the culmination of mourning ceremonies occurs on the day of Ashura. On October 10, 680, Imam Hussein, his brother Abbas and 70 of their companions were killed in the Battle of Karbala. In memory of their martyrdom, Shiites organize religious mysteries - tazias, which include self-flagellation, symbolizing Hussein's suffering before death. During the ritual, believers beat themselves in the chest with their fists and hit themselves on the back with a zanjeer - a chain with blades attached to it. Each blow rips open the skin and leaves bloody wounds. Some men cut the skin on their heads and blood floods their faces.

Among Christians, religious self-torture appeared under the influence of the traditions of the ancient Jews, who wore rough clothes made of goat hair as a sign of sadness and memory of the dead.

All close relatives of the deceased had to wear sackcloth or hair shirt; in special cases, these clothes made of coarse hair were not removed even at night.

In the Middle Ages, a hair shirt was a mandatory attribute of monasticism. Monks and communicants wore these clothes as a sign of humility and frailty of the flesh. Suffering from constant itching and skin irritation had to be overcome with fortitude and prayer. Wearing a hair shirt was an integral part of serving God, and wounds on the body were perceived as evidence of suffering for Christ and his faith.

Devotion to faith, expressed in self-sacrifice, is the only justification for voluntary death (that is, suicide) in Abrahamic religions and Eastern religious and philosophical teachings. In Christianity, Judaism and Islam, suicide is condemned because, in addition to murder, it involves the sin of despondency. In addition, in Christianity, suicides are deprived of funeral services, and sin can be forgiven only if the person is declared insane.

How to avoid and cope with auto-aggression

You need to learn to express negative emotions in a socially acceptable way without harming yourself. If you are angry with a person, tell him so. Don't keep it to yourself. People are capable of a wide range of experiences, and that's a beautiful thing. Anger, irritation, anger have the same right to exist as joy and pleasure. Don't be afraid to express your anger with words. Be aware of it, do not forbid yourself to be angry, because anger is not violence. If you learn to express emotions correctly, without harm to yourself and others, there will be no reason for self-aggression.

Listen to yourself more often, do not build your life solely on a sense of duty. No, the angels will not take you alive to heaven, even if you are too good for others, but it is very likely that you will stop being good to yourself. Allow yourself to have conflicts with other people, do not accumulate resentment and anger. Resolve internal conflicts when you want one thing but need to do something else. The fewer internal contradictions, the less tension and self-aggression.

Exodus from the kingdom of Antichrist: self-immolation of Old Believers

In 1650–1660, Patriarch Nikon decided to bring Russian religious rituals closer to the contemporary Greek tradition. However, many believers, who were later called Old Believers or schismatics, categorically refused to accept changes in the order of worship: baptism with three fingers, kneeling, chromatic singing in church choirs. In addition, the schismatics announced that the Antichrist was now on the throne, under whom life was unrighteous, and the current government was forced to take some radical measures.

In their sermons, the Old Believers often relied on the Apocalypse, the last book of the New Testament. Its author, the Apostle John, saw through visions the upcoming birth of the Antichrist on Earth, the second coming of Christ, the end of the world and the Last Judgment. The Book of Revelation ends with a prophecy that God's victory over evil will end the difficult struggle for faith.

Brutal repressions under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich gave way to the approach of Peter I, and among the Old Believers a series of works emerged - “Collection of the Holy Scriptures about the Antichrist,” which radically interpreted the activities of the emperor. One of the most serious accusations that the Old Believers brought against Peter was the abolition of the patriarchate, “so that he alone could rule, having no equal.” Not accepting innovations, the Old Believers believed that they would be able to defeat the “Nikonian heretics” and the old faith would triumph, but this never happened. Prohibitions, taxes, and violence did not help eliminate the schism, but led to tragic consequences such as mass hunger strikes and “gari” - acts of self-immolation.

At the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century, the Vygovsky hostel, an Old Believer community, where preachers presented self-immolation to people as a godly purification, became a notable center for preaching suicide. One of them was Semyon Denisov, the local cinematographer (abbot), who in his writings shows deep respect for those who died a “pious death by burning.” Another rector of the Vygovskaya community, Ivan Filippov, in his “History of the Vygovskaya Old Believer Hermitage” emphasized the spiritual superiority of the self-immolators over their merciless persecutors in “persecutive times.”

Vygov’s preachers considered participation in mass suicide not only a possible, but also an absolutely necessary measure and contrasted it with the “cursed belly,” that is, unrighteous life in a world ruled by the Antichrist.

Under the conditions of the schism, the eschatological spirit of early Christianity was revived - for true believers, to burn themselves meant to keep “their piety intact.”

For Old Russian Orthodoxy, special veneration of martyrs is uncharacteristic, so the Old Believers turned to the lives of the saints of early Christianity for role models. When opponents of self-immolation declared that suicide contradicts the precepts of Holy Scripture, schismatics objected to them: many righteous people who lived in the first centuries of Christianity preferred death to desecration.

The self-immolation was preceded by a long, cold-blooded preparation. Usually the role of a preacher was played by a wandering old man who, having arrived in the next village, gradually began to talk about the need for a “fiery death.” Obsessed with the idea of unity with God through a painful but necessary path, people with their own hands built “burnt izbas”, prepared smolniks, gunpowder, and resin in order to burn entire families.

The ritual of self-immolation fit perfectly into folk ideas, in which fire was endowed with special purifying powers and the ability to transfer the souls of the dead to the afterlife. This idea turned among the self-immolators into the idea of a “second undefiled baptism of fire.”

Northern peasants believed that fire by its nature is not one and has two manifestations: the first is not capable of causing harm, since it is a sacred, blessed flame, the other is harmful, causing fires. Therefore, the idea of cremation is associated with ideas about life force, its indestructibility and eternity. But now this force finds a new home - heaven, where the souls of the dead end up along with the smoke of the funeral pyre.

To be fair, it should be noted that not all Old Believers accepted the idea of self-immolation. Its opponents found themselves in a difficult position, because, while defending the rejection of mass suicide, they encroached on the very basis of the Old Believer doctrine - the idea of the end of the world and the afterlife. Soon after the start of the series of “fiery deaths,” some Old Believers created bright and talented polemical works to stop the epidemic of ritual suicides.

The new official faith not only did not consider such self-sacrifice heroic, but, on the contrary, severely condemned it, anathematizing all those who were burned. As often happens in world history, the church itself decides whose suffering was more righteous and who will ascend to heaven and gain holiness.

Suicide as a political protest

A cold and considered decision to accept death can be an act of good will or even a form of protest.

On June 10, 1963, American newspaper branches in South Vietnam received a message that the next day something important would happen in one of the squares of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). Many journalists ignored this news, but some still showed up on June 11 at the appointed time and place. Three Buddhist monks appeared at one of Saigon's busy intersections. One placed a meditation cushion on the road, the other sat on it in the lotus position. The third monk took a can of gasoline from the trunk and doused the man sitting. Having finished reading the mantra, he took out matches and set himself on fire. Monks, passers-by, and even police officers performed prostrations (a type of full bow in Buddhism). One of the monks shouted several times through a megaphone in Vietnamese and English: “A Buddhist monk has committed self-immolation! A Buddhist monk became a martyr!”

The martyr's name was Thich Quang Duc. By self-immolation, he protested against the actions of the South Vietnamese authorities who persecuted Buddhists.

Thich Quang Duc's last words are known from the letter he left: “Before I close my eyes and look towards the Buddha, I respectfully ask President Ngo Dinh Diem to show compassion to the people and ensure religious equality so that the strength of our motherland will be eternal. I call upon Venerables, Reverends, Sangha members and lay Buddhists to show organized solidarity in self-sacrifice for the defense of Buddhism.”

During this period, 70-90% of the country's inhabitants professed Buddhism, but President Ngo Dinh Diem himself was a Catholic. He provided his co-religionists with advantages in careers, business and land distribution, while Buddhists were discriminated against in every possible way.

Catholic priests formed armed groups, forcibly baptized people, and destroyed and looted pagodas.

In early May 1963, authorities banned the Buddhist flag from entering Hue. Believers ignored the ban: on the day of the holiday, a crowd of protesters headed to the government radio station along with the flag. The authorities opened fire and several people were killed. But Ngo Dinh Diem blamed the violence on the Viet Cong, the communist army of North Vietnam. In protest against the government's actions, Thich Quang Duc publicly committed suicide.

Journalist David Halberstam of The New York Times, who witnessed the self-immolation in Saigon, wrote: “I could not cry because of the shock, I could not write or ask questions because of the confusion, I could not even think because I was stunned... He did not move a single muscle, did not make a sound while he was burning; his obvious self-control stood out against the sobbing people around him.”

For their reporting on the self-immolation, Halberstam and photographer Malcolm Brown received a Pulitzer Prize (and Brown also received a World Press Photo prize).

Why would God sacrifice himself?

The central idea of cosmogony in many cultures is that of the “primordial sacrifice.” Any act of creation implies some kind of sacrifice in the cycle of birth and rebirth and identifies man with the cosmos. Sacrifice is also an act of submission to divine providence through offering oneself to God's will, atonement. According to the myths of different cultures, the world was created from parts of the object of sacrifice.

Among the ancient Germans, the younger gods kill their ancestor, the ice giant Ymir, and from parts of his body create the Universe: from flesh - land, from blood - water, from bones - mountains, from teeth - rocks, from hair - a forest, from a brain - clouds, and from the skull - the vault of heaven.
In Sumerian-Babylonian mythology, the goddess of salty waters and the personification of primary chaos, Tiamat, dies in a battle with the god Marduk, when he dismembers her into two parts with an arrow. From her body he creates the world and becomes the supreme deity. From the lower part he made the earth, from the upper part - the sky, from the eyes - the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and Tiamat's tail became the Milky Way.

When a person sacrifices himself, the spiritual energy gained is proportional to the significance of what was lost. All forms of suffering can be sacrificed if they are recognized and accepted wholeheartedly. The physical and negative signs of sacrifice (mutilation, flagellation, self-abasement and cruel punishment or misfortune) are symbols and an integral part of the aspirations of the spiritual order.

The self-sacrifice of a deity is an archetypal motif in world culture. Argentine playwright Jorge Luis Borges, in his typology of plots, calls the suicide of God one of the four stories that humanity constantly retells. The other three are stories about the siege of a city doomed to fall (Troy), the return home (The Voyage of Odysseus), and the search for treasure (The Holy Grail, The Golden Fleece).

Borges calls the suicide of a deity (in addition to the crucifixion of Christ) the myth of the sacrifice of the supreme god of the Scandinavians Odin, the most mysterious figure in the pantheon. He has one eye: Odin gave his eye to the giant Mimir in exchange for the opportunity to drink from a source that gives wisdom. The sacrifice that Borges speaks of is set out in the “Speech of the High One” in the collection “Elder Edda”. In it, the Tall One (aka Odin) tells how, having pierced his body with a spear, he sacrifices himself to himself. Any sacred sacrifice takes place in the center of the world, so for nine days and nights Odin hangs on the branches of the world tree Yggdrasil. After this period, the god falls to the ground and receives magic runes:

I know, I hung in the branches in the wind for nine long nights, pierced by a spear, dedicated to Odin, as a sacrifice to myself, on that tree whose roots are hidden in the depths of the unknown. No one fed me, no one gave me water, I looked at the ground, I picked up the runes, groaned and picked them up - and fell from the tree.

Code of Honor: Suicide as a Duty

If in European Christian culture there is a strict ban on suicide, then, for example, in Shintoism in Japan this has never happened. According to Christians, the human body belongs to God who created it, and by taking his own life, a person goes against his will and commits a sin. In Japan, it was believed that a person’s body belongs to his parents or master and he must serve them with his body. Harakiri, or seppuku, is a method of ritual suicide adopted among samurai in the Middle Ages and practiced until the 20th century.

The samurai's body belongs to his daimyo (prince), so seppuku is an element of power relations, the relationship between sovereign and vassal.

Therefore, ritual suicide was practiced if the master himself sentenced his subordinate to such execution. If the samurai was slandered, accused of treason, he could resort to hara-kiri in order to thus prove his innocence and loyalty to the daimyo.

This method of suicide is a procedure of cutting open the abdomen, which is extremely painful and excruciating. The Japanese believed that the stomach is the most important part of the body, which contains the vital center of the body. During harakiri, a person eliminated this vital force.

Seppuku was performed in front of many witnesses, and over the suicide stood the kaishaku - a warrior who, after performing the death ritual, had to cut off the samurai's head so that no one could see the face of the deceased, distorted with pain.

In Japanese society, such an execution was considered honorable; it was the privilege exclusively of samurai. Firstly, a person took his own life, and did not accept death at the hands of another. Secondly, such torment is a test that a samurai passes with dignity, dying with honor. If a person was sentenced to seppuk, his family was not persecuted and retained their surname and property.

Suicide was an expression of devotion not only in Japan. Self-immolation of a widow after the death of her husband is common in many ancient Indo-European societies. In Ancient Rus' there was a tradition of burning his slave with the body of the owner. One of Odin’s instructions in the “Speeches of the High One” reads: “Praise your wives at the stake.” In Hinduism, there is a legend about the goddess Sati, who became the wife of the god Shiva against the wishes of her father. Sati's father Daksha gathered the gods for a yajna - a sacrifice, but did not invite Shiva, thus demonstrating his attitude towards his daughter's marriage. The insulted Sati, unable to bear the humiliation, threw herself into the sacred fire and burned.

The widow's self-immolation ritual takes its name from this Indian goddess; it symbolizes a woman's unconditional devotion to her husband and proves her virtue.

In India, the ritual of burning widows is not practiced everywhere. Indian society is still divided into castes, and not all of them encourage such brutal disposal of widows, so the social background of the woman matters here. The practice of sati has largely taken root in areas where remarriage is prohibited, in the upper castes and among those seeking social status, such as in Rajasthan and some districts of Uttar Pradesh. It is believed that a woman should make such a choice voluntarily, but it is possible that the community put pressure on the widow.

Since in India they are ready to marry off a girl at the age of 6, and the age difference with her husband could be huge, it often happened that the husband died earlier. Indian tradition requires the widow to cut her hair, take off her elegant clothes and dress in white. From now on, she is not allowed to participate in the celebrations and will only eat a strictly limited amount of food per day. The family could refuse her, and often widows were forced to sleep on the bare ground and beg.

There was only one alternative to such a life, and from the point of view of an Indian woman, it seems promising, because a righteous wife, upon rebirth, may be lucky enough to step through several steps of incarnation at once.

Hindu believers believe that the will that leads a widow to the fire is the act of the goddess Sati, and the goddess is embodied in the woman herself at that moment.

Back in 1829, the British colonial authorities passed a law making suicide a crime. After this, the self-immolation of widows seemed to stop, but nevertheless, similar things could happen in the 20th century.

One of the most famous self-immolations in the modern world was the case in 1987 of 18-year-old Roop Kanwar, whose husband died of appendicitis just 8 months after their wedding. The next day, Roop, dressed in her wedding attire, threw herself into the funeral pyre of her husband. The arriving police arrested and interviewed about a hundred witnesses, suspecting that the girl was put under pressure by her husband's relatives. Articles appeared in the press condemning this anachronism and its supporters, who cited ancient texts in its defense. The Indian government responded quickly and harshly: a new law threatened life imprisonment or death for incitement to commit sati.

Causes of auto-aggression

Prohibitions . Destructive manifestations of the psyche due to prohibitions occur in childhood. For example, after parents have forbidden a child to do something, he begins to become hysterical, may hit his head against walls and furniture, or fall to the floor, thereby risking self-injury.
Lack of parental love . If a child does not feel proper love and care from his parents, he may deliberately harm himself in order to be pitied and consoled.
Humiliation. If a person is constantly humiliated within his family or in society, this leads to destructive changes in his psyche.
Difficulty communicating with other members of society . The inability to establish contact in a class, group, or work team leads to the development of an inferiority complex. A person considers himself an outcast, which can even become a prerequisite for the emergence of suicidal thoughts.
Public tolerance for certain types of self-destruction . For example, drinking alcohol as an anti-stress drug is encouraged by society and is considered absolutely normal.

The origins of aggression and self-destructive behavior should first of all be found in childhood psychotraumas. Often such shifts in the psyche lead to:

moral and physical violence in the family;
constantly comparing your child’s successes with the successes of other children is not in his favor;
indifferent attitude of parents towards their child;
an authoritarian system of family relations, the desire of parents to suppress any initiatives coming from their children;
Forcing a child to suppress his emotions.

The psychology of self-flagellation: why should we be a victim?

As we have seen, religion, with some exceptions, condemns suicide. Almost any teaching assumes that the life of a person and his family is worthy of respect, which is expressed in preserving one’s own life, because suicide will cause suffering to the relatives and friends of the deceased.

But in addition to physical suicide, there is also mental suicide - this is psychological destruction, in the language of psychologists - auto-aggressive behavior. Religion would call it despondency (and this is also a sin), philosophy - incessant suffering and constant self-destruction.

In everyday life, mental suicide manifests itself as violence against oneself, which can be expressed in various forms of addiction, eating disorders, excessive physical exertion, or extreme forms of physical harm to oneself.

All this stems from an internal position of self-flagellation, and it is quite difficult to establish the exact reason. Upbringing, heredity, childhood trauma can influence; everything that shapes the environment of a particular person adds up to a complex of causes. Self-dislike is born from growing tension due to some kind of pressure. It can be social - such as the widespread culture of narcissism in the modern world. From this point of view, a person must be beautiful and successful in everything, and someone who does not live up to her values may feel depressed. Often successful and active people end up in a psychotherapist's office because they cannot feel their own desires.

Tension can also be transmitted from parents who have specific expectations of their child. The parents themselves are under pressure from society with its ideals about proper upbringing or the right family. A child in such an environment may become accustomed to treating himself as strictly as his parents did. If everything was always decided for him, then in adulthood he is no longer able to hear himself, which is expressed in constant depression and fear of making important decisions.

The desire for self-destruction, oddly enough, can also manifest itself in aggression directed at others, that is, in the destruction of significant relationships.

For example, a person is in a state of restrained aggression, but is not able to recognize it and therefore ignores his tension. If someone humiliates him, he will not be able to cope with it, and the accumulated tension will result in a breakdown. His aggression directed at another will be an attempt to rehabilitate himself through the humiliation of his opponent, says Gestalt therapist Evgenia Andreeva.

The intensity of these masochistic moods depends on the character, but if we return to Father Freud and the bright minds of philosophy, we remember that the development of the personality of each of us occurs through personal drama. Everyone is familiar with the expression of Friedrich Nietzsche: “What does not kill us makes us stronger.” In psychology, this is more often referred to as “insight”—something that breaks down perception and reassembles it in a different way. This can manifest itself in the form of emotions, sometimes violent (anger, screaming, sobbing), which usually lead to the disappearance of feelings of depression and discharge.

In a broader sense, the term “catharsis” is used. The concept of catharsis was first used in ancient Greek culture and denoted an element of mysteries and religious holidays. In Greek religious healing, catharsis is the liberation of the body from any harmful matter, and the soul from “defilement” and painful affects. This term dates back to ancient Pythagoreanism, which recommended music to purify the soul and characterized the impact of art on humans in ancient Greek aesthetics.

Initially, for Aristotle, catharsis was a state of internal purification that arose in the viewer of an ancient tragedy as a result of worrying about the fate of the hero (which, as a rule, ended in death). In essence, catharsis was a strong emotional shock caused not by real life events, but by their symbolic representation. Tragedy, according to Aristotle, makes the viewer empathize and thereby purifies his soul, elevating and educating him. Plato put forward the doctrine of catharsis as the liberation of the soul from the body, passions or pleasures. Much later, Freud and his mentor Joseph Breuer put forward a theory about cleansing the psyche of pathogenic information and alleviating the suffering of patients through catharsis.

There is no development in comfort. Although this statement is more common when it comes to art and artists who suddenly make breakthroughs under pressure, the simple truth is that every person develops through personal trauma.

Just like forms of ritual self-torture, emotional experiences can help to gain significant or even turning-point experiences in a person’s life. But environmentally friendly management of these conditions is important. Any grief must be burned out; Self-deception that everything is fine when it is not can have the opposite effect. But you need to feel the line between honest recognition of the facts and unhealthy self-pity. If the victim state comes in a complex with others that are naturally born from each other, then the experience of failure can become the foundation of future support.

The largest theorist and practitioner of transactional analysis, Stephen Karpman, described in 1968 a typical model of socio-behavioral games, which was called the “Karpman Triangle”. Moreover, the three dramatic roles of this game - Rescuer, Pursuer and Victim - are actually just a melodramatic simplification of real life. Karpman believed that the triangle of these roles develops primarily because each participant receives internal benefits from his role. The main motive of all three is the reluctance to accept responsibility for what is happening. The scientist explains his model using the example of classic children's fairy tales (“Cinderella”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, etc.), emphasizing that a person involved in this game lives in a world of his fantasies, divorced from reality. The higher the degree of awareness and responsibility of a person, the less often he will find himself in this situation. Participants in the triangle necessarily change roles, that is, an individual can move along this triangle, moving from state to state.

The leader of dance and movement psychological trainings, Anna Trish, renamed this model in the format of her trainings into the triangle Student - Teacher - Witness. Improvising as part of dance exercises, training participants physically experience each of the three states and trace the transition from one to another. The main goal is self-disclosure and awareness of what is happening: why do I allow myself to be treated this way and how do I treat myself, since aggression is manifested towards me?

Classic manifestations of auto-aggression are:

unconscious tendency towards risky behavior (for example, alcohol and drug abuse, breaking the habit of looking left before crossing the road, aggressive driving, risky sex, craving for extreme sports, delaying a visit to the doctor and, accordingly, “delaying” the disease ), destructive habits (scratching, tearing skin, biting nails). Like implicit self-destruction - dubious methods of manic “improvement” of the body: changing appearance through plastic surgery, tattoos, piercings, unhealthy diets;
conscious (suicidal attempts) auto-aggressive behavior, which also includes self-harm of varying severity, the forced response to emotional pain, causing feelings of guilt. Suicide is committed deliberately, in a state of passion (in a state of emotional outburst) or in the form of blackmail (an attempt to solve one’s problems with someone else’s hands). By imitating suicide, causing bodily harm to himself, the patient tries to create a feeling of guilt in those around him, motivating them to take actions that suit him.

Auto-aggression is expressed in the following actions:

Intentional refusal of food and food (anorexia nervosa);
Harm to yourself and your health (cuts, burns, bruises, etc.);
Purposeful desire to get into an accident or disaster;
Suicidal attempts;
Abuse of alcohol, nicotine and drugs “to relieve stress”;
Sacrificial behavior (suggestion to loved ones and others like “I will die, and you will regret it”);
Minor deviant factors (a person crushes pimples until they bleed, bites nails, tears off scabs from ulcers and wounds).

Self-accusation, contrived suffering, unhealthy shyness, a sense of duty, jealousy, chronic resentment are manifestations of moral self-aggression.

From the point of view of psychoanalysis, unconscious self-injury - behavior in which a person always bumps into something and is covered in bruises - is also an example of auto-aggressive behavior. Auto-aggression is considered as a protective mechanism of the psyche, and has been known since the time of Freud.

It happens that auto-aggression is not expressed in any actions, but manifests itself in psychosomatics. A person does not release negative emotions, accumulates latent stress and gets a real disease. Most often these are diseases of the cardiovascular system (for example, hypertension) or the gastrointestinal tract (gastritis, ulcers, esophagitis).

Psychosomatoses provoked by autoaggression:

Organic – hypertension, autoimmune, gynecological, endocrine, oncological diseases
Functional – autonomic neuroses
Personality disorders - alcoholism, drug addiction, substance abuse, eating disorders (bulimia, anorexia, obesity), smoking, workaholism, extreme sports

Auto-aggression as a symptom of congenital psychopathology

Psychopathy (anomaly of personality development) is a consequence of congenital biochemical, organic and functional disorders of the central nervous system. The patient is anxious, he shows aggression in any form. Masochism (physical, moral), binge alcoholism, persistent inferiority complex are symptoms of central nervous system diseases.

The famous American psychiatrist Karl Menninger believed that, for example, self-injury is the concentration of the murderous impulse on one part of the body in order to avoid suicide. When a person cuts only his arm or leg, but remains alive. But, one way or another, if self-destructive behavior is pronounced, you need to contact a specialist. Depending on how far a person has gone in the manifestations of auto-aggression, he is not always able to independently monitor his condition and stop. If there is some serious reason for self-destructive behavior, for example, an unprocessed trauma or “clamps” buried in the depths of the subconscious, a person is unlikely to be able to “pull them out” on his own and work with it safely.