The concept of crisis in psychology

Life is full of amazing stories, wonderful events, interesting twists of fate. It was given to man so that he could do something useful for himself and for society. However, harsh everyday life is fraught with the appearance of various kinds of problems, stressful situations and crises. They comprehend absolutely every person at one or another stage of his life. But what is a crisis? How is it manifested? What does the concept of crisis mean in psychology?

Crisis concept

Often a person is faced with a moment when he begins to care about some problem. The feeling of excitement is constantly increasing and does not leave him, negative thoughts continue to constantly visit his consciousness. Often such a problem arises due to a change, which served as an impetus for the transition to a new life stage. He does not agree with this change and is not ready to put up. This condition is called a crisis.

In psychology, a brief definition of this concept is given. A psychological crisis is a person’s emotional state resulting from a stressful situation associated with undesirable changes in life. A more detailed transcript of the definition of crisis in psychology says that a crisis is a state of severe transitional change in a person’s sensations, resulting from experienced stress, associated with an illness or received as a result of mental trauma. A crisis is also determined by an emotionally significant event or a radical change in status in personal life, which negatively affects a person’s moral well-being.

Varieties of crisis in psychology

There is a classification of crises experienced by a person, which differ in their form, the sources of the emergence of experiences and the stages of their life development. So, psychology in life crises makes a distinction in three main areas:

• Neurotic crises. They are based on age-related changes and can be generated in a person’s mind even without changing external conditions or the influence of external factors on his psycho-emotional state. As a rule, neurotic crises originate in childhood, when primary communications with the surrounding society and environment are established. This type of turning point in life predetermines, in fact, an unreasonable feeling of hopelessness of the situation, a feeling of getting into a dead end. This entails the maladaptation of personality or, quite simply, hermitism.

• Crises of development. Otherwise referred to as age-related crises. In the psychology of modernity, a number of boundary age stages are distinguished, at which the human emotional and psychological state changes, the perception of what is happening and the attitude to the surrounding world varies. Changes in the form, duration, and severity of such tipping points depend directly on the individual’s individual personality and its typological characteristics, as well as on the social conditions of the stay and the pedagogical impact. Some experts consider the manifestation in the psychology of the crisis of the ages to be absolutely normal, since the personal and characteristic components of a person are formed as a social unit. But many see this as a malignant manifestation that prevents a person from adapting normally to communicating with peers in childhood and adolescence and finding communication in adulthood.
• Traumatic crises. The psychology of children, adolescents, adults and the elderly is not immune from the negative impact of such external factors as tragic life situations on the conscious processes. Accidents, natural disasters and other catastrophic events give a powerful impetus to the emergence of depression resulting from a stressful state and a long crisis process of stagnation.
  

Age crisis

In the system of vital turning points, the crisis of development occupies a significant niche. It is customary to divide age crises in psychology into nine stages.

• Stage 1 - the crisis of the newborn. It implies the instability of all levels of the physiological and psycho-emotional state of the baby. Accustomed to the established processes in the womb, he is not ready to immediately reorganize into another sphere of habitat after birth. The psychology of the age crisis in infants is the mildest and easiest to experience, since difficulties are expressed more in physical restructuring of the baby.
• Stage 2 is a one-year crisis. It involves the formation of a baby open to the first educational processes. He learns to sit, walk, talk, and change from breast milk to adult nutrition. This is a kind of stress for the child, because he crosses the border of the first year of his life.
• Stage 3 - a three-year crisis. It manifests itself in children in different ways, but is mainly determined by extreme obstinacy, whims and self-will. During this period of life, it is common for a baby to periodically refuse food that he does not like, to resist when laying down to sleep, not to want to dress and clean toys on his own.
• Stage 4 - the pre-school crisis. Age psychology in a 7-year-old child is based on the formation of a social sense of his “I” in him. At this time, the baby begins to imitate adults, behave, talk about their desires. This is not the same baby who can only pronounce individual words and carelessly play game attributes scattered across the floor. Age psychology of the crisis of 7 years involves the departure of the child from early childhood and the loss of childish naivety and spontaneity. At this time, it becomes more difficult for parents to control their child, because the baby begins to spend more time outside the home, with his peers, in school. The process of adapting to new living conditions, getting to know a large number of new people, classmates and teachers become unusual for a child of 7 years old. The psychology of the crisis of this time for children's consciousness is determined by the first manifestations of the child’s own "I".
• Stage 5 - 13 year crisis or puberty crisis. Psychology of adolescence suggests the beginning of a child’s personal development, the formation of his psycho-emotional development. This period is accompanied by rapid changes not only in moral terms, but also in the physical. Therefore, this age is also called transitional.
• Stage 6 - youth crisis. It occurs in a teenager when he reaches the age of 17, when he, it seems, is no longer a teenager, but also not an adult. At this stage, the question arises of choosing your future, associated with the end of general education and the need to enter a university, determine your profession. Often young people can not cope with their desires and their preferences, it is difficult for them to understand what they want from life, what they dream of becoming, therefore a critical crisis moment arises.
• Stage 7 - 30 year crisis. In the psychology of age, a special place is occupied by the period of maturity, which is marked by the summing up of the first life results. If he is welcomed by men, then women want to delay the moment of thirty years as far as possible.
• Stage 8 - the crisis of 40 years. This period of life is transferred by women even more painfully than the previous one. They begin to feel not as beautiful as before, therefore they are often discouraged. But not only the ladies are experiencing this stage with difficulty. For men, fortieth anniversary is the first bell in the gradual extinction of former forces in all physiological respects, and yet physical strength and health are almost the main dignity of every man.
• Stage 9 is a crisis over the age of 50. At the time when a fifty-year-old person must take stock of the work done in life and his dreams come true, he, unfortunately, has to realize the fact that more than half of his life has already been lived, that he will not return those happy moments who had so pleased him before that they didn’t become younger and healthier, that they couldn’t already do all that could be done in their youth.

The psychology of life crises over the years, using the example of people of different age categories, reveals the features and forms of manifestation of emotional instability and human restructuring against the background of age-related changes in his body.

How it happens in men

Crisis moments manifest themselves differently in people of different sexes, age groups, and social layers of the population. For example, the psychology of the age crisis in children differs significantly from adults, and the forms of transferring critical life moments in men and women differ among themselves. When is the most critical turning point in a man’s life? How is it justified?

A crisis in the psychology of men often occurs with the onset of his fortieth birthday. Forty “fatal” ones - this is how they interpret a period for a man when he comes to the realization that he is no longer that young and lively handsome man, full of health and strength. The fact is that a man is essentially a getter. To his forty years, he summarizes the half-life he has lived and assesses the current situation. If by this time he has reached the pinnacle of his career, has successfully completed his career, is financially secure and able to support his family, he is happy. But a man constantly needs emotional nourishment. He wants to be admired, thanked for his work, told him what a "well done" he is. A common problem that occurs in men closer to forty is the search for a “viewer”. After all, his wife, who had long been accustomed to his achievements in a professional way and had lived with him for twenty years, took his earnings for granted and did not consider this to be something special. And a man wants to be appreciated, he requires constant attention. The fact is that the representative of the strong half should feel powerful and omnipotent, and the wife no longer provides him with this feeling.

That is why so often men after forty start looking for themselves young beauties who admire their position in society, their achievements, their stateness.

In addition to feelings of moral and emotional dissatisfaction, their first “bells” give signs of rectal dysfunction. Male libido is his strength, his faith in himself, his pride in himself. And then suddenly, it would seem, for no apparent reason, the first signals of age-related resistance of the body begin to appear. At the same time, a man becomes irritable, he loses faith in himself, constantly thinks about it and begins to think negatively. It is then that a form of age crisis manifests itself in representatives of the stronger sex.

The psychology of many men is structured in such a way that his “dignity" is the main evidence that he is truly a man. When for some reason it stops working, as before, it seems to him that life has ended, that everything is very bad, that the wife, the employees at work, and the whole world are to blame. According to statistics, this is the age category that accounts for the largest number of divorce proceedings, because the "alpha males" explain all their troubles with the inattention, coldness and indifference of their wives, find any clues in order to make a scandal and blame the woman that she is where was mistaken. Although the point here is exclusively in the man and in his crisis state of the “fatal” forties.

How does this happen in women?

If we talk about women, their crisis stage begins ten years earlier than men. At the age of 30-35 years, the representatives of the fair half usually begin to come to the idea that half their lives have already been lived, and the goals and dreams that were invented in a distant youth did not find their fulfillment. Mature beauties begin to rush about in their own doubts. During this period, many of them are characterized by a bad mood, loss of spirit, and a depressed state. All this in aggregate is generated by a midlife crisis. How is it manifested?

• Loss of self confidence. It is difficult for representatives of the weak half of humanity to be satisfied with themselves when they are tormented by any doubts. They sneak up unnoticed, but grow with lightning speed and powerful force. Uncertainty in their irresistibility, in their strengths, in their need for family drive a woman into a dead end and exacerbate the crisis.
• Dissatisfaction with the appearance is one of the worst female phobias. The reason for this condition is the loss of youthful beauty and charm, the appearance of facial wrinkles and weight gain. At this age, many women especially suffer from an inferiority complex, often completely unreasonable.
• Awareness of the beginning of the aging process - panic fear seizes women when they "exchange" the fourth decade of life. Many of them think that they are already completely unattractive to men, that they can no longer enjoy success among them. There is a constant comparison of yourself with the young generation of young beauties. Thus, an analysis of their age-related changes is made and the state of depressive stagnation is enhanced.
• Feeling of uselessness - if a lady in her thirty is not yet married, the fear of eternal celibacy settles in her mind. She looks at the surrounding female colleagues, friends, acquaintances who have successfully married and have long been happy wives, and she is enveloped in a feeling of total gloom and emotional discomfort. She wants love, attention, affection, care, and (most importantly) a stamp in her passport.
• Sense of bad debt. Any female representative has a maternal instinct. This is laid down by nature, which does not choose to whom to give happiness to become a mother, and to whom not. Basically, all women dream of becoming mothers, raising their children to their joy. But present-day modernity is so harsh that girls, being young, purposeful, and highly evaluating themselves, often refuse men who want to connect their lives with them. First, they push away a potential husband from themselves, and then cry at the age of thirty that there is still no spouse who could give the opportunity to become a happy mother. In fact, this period is experienced by women very, very painful. This is perhaps one of the peak moments of the crisis of thirty women.

Relationship crisis

The relationship between a man and a woman, their carnal connection, passionate feelings, emotions and love are an integral part of the life of every representative of humanity. Absolutely all people at a certain point in their life wish to love and be loved. As a result, loving, sexual, partnerships are formed between young people of opposite sexes, which, strangely enough, can also undergo a crisis.

The psychology of relationships is based on many factors of spending time together. Often, while not yet being husband and wife, young people undergo a crisis phase of their cohabitation or existence, which ends in a separation. What is it?

A crisis of relations is a period in a couple’s life when one of the parties ceases to arrange the course of coexistence. This is the moment when the partners no longer want to live as before, they want changes and redirecting the love affair to another, new and more pleasant course. But often young people do not find consensus, misunderstand each other, scandal and come to the only true way out - separation. This is a crisis of relations. It is very difficult to overcome if young people have lost interest in each other. Therefore, it is easier to prevent the onset of a crisis phase in a relationship than to try to change something when both of them no longer need it.

Family crisis

The psychology of the relationship of an unmarried couple is different from that of married people. Although there are many similarities between these two types of relationships, the nature of their psychoemotional and mental state is different. The psychology of family crises is more multifaceted and widespread than that of officially unwritten young people, since they have much more responsibilities and responsibilities to each other. Married people have joint property, joint children, are bound by law and official marriage ties. Therefore, it is morally and financially more difficult to survive the crisis of family life.

Family psychology provides for many factors that provoke the emergence of turning points in the life of spouses. What manifests the intensity of marital passions:

• Reducing the level of sexual activity and physical attraction to each other.
• Loss of desire to please each other.
• The emergence of quarrels on the basis of parenting.
• Differences of opinion, loss of common views, interests, values.
• Misunderstanding of each other’s feelings.
• Mutual irritability from actions or conversations in the family circle.
• Manifestations of egoism.
• Losing the need to share your joys and successes with your legitimate soulmate.
• The relationship of the wife with the mother of the husband.
• Relations of the husband with the mother of his wife.
• The wife’s discontent over the fact that (in her opinion) the husband cannot achieve anything in life.
• The husband’s discontent over the fact that his wife is always in business, does not find time to pay attention to him, does not take care of herself (or does it too zealously, while spending the lion's share of the family budget).

Often the manifestation of tipping points appears in the form of crises of family life over the years. Modern psychology counts the period of possible recessions in relationships, starting from two to three months after the day of marriage and ending with the twenty-fifth anniversary of marriage. The main boundary dates are six months, a year, the date of birth of the firstborn, five years, a decade of marriage. These are peculiar stages of restructuring and psychological reorientation, reappraisal of the values ​​of one or each of the spouses. Plus, the previously described age-related turning points separately for men and women also contribute to the distinction in a married couple of family crises by year.

Psychology of the financial crisis and its impact on humans

Another view is the moment of financial insolvency. Probably, every representative of modern society has at least once been in a situation where he fell under reduction or quit his job, when he became financially dependent on his parents or spouse. Moments of lack of money often become the cause of the development of a crisis state in any representative of society in the early or late stages of his life. They are just as difficult to deal with as age-related or family crises. But it is worth paying attention to the fact that all this is fixable, that any negative situation can be overcome in order to prevent the harmful consequences of the effects of crisis oppression.

What is fraught with crisis for a person

The onset of a turning point that develops in an undesirable channel provokes the appearance of many negative factors and negative consequences for humans. It can be:

• Moral oppression.
• The state of melancholic dissonance.
• Depression.
• Stress.
• Breakdown.
• The development of alcoholism.

It is very important to be able to get out of problem situations and prevent the development of the listed behavioral models. After all, each of them together can lead to very unpleasant consequences, even to thoughts of suicide.

How to deal with everyday crises

In order to overcome the overwhelming feeling of a statement about crisis influence, you need to be able to think constructively and act immediately. If you sit idly by, it is difficult to achieve anything.

First, you need to find the cause of the problem. Finding and finding the source of all ills will help you deal with them faster.

Secondly, you need to analyze the situation objectively, try to look at it from the side. Perhaps, having seen the situation in a different light, one will be able to discern his own mistakes that provoked the family crisis, or see the resolution of the situation in predestining a specific way out of it.

Thirdly, you need to be loyal to yourself. The nitpicking of their appearance, their age-related changes should be perceived by people easier. Aging is a natural process. It is necessary to commemorate it not with experiences, but with attempts to live every moment of life with dignity and happiness. Then there will be no need to look for ways to overcome the crisis.