— Much of your work is devoted to the connection between the soul and various diseases. You have specifically studied the somatoform forms of disorders; What kind of diseases are these?
— Somatoform disorders are a group of mental illnesses that manifest themselves as ordinary, somatic illnesses. These include hypochondria or Munchausen syndrome.
In other words, the person is sick and has complaints, but the tests and examinations show that he is healthy. But he still doesn’t feel well and begins visiting doctors to find a diagnosis. This is a somatoform disorder that mimics some kind of physical illness, but may actually be a manifestation of anxiety.
— Has it been revealed that emotional state can really affect health and cause diseases?
– Definitely not that way. It has been proven that anxiety and depression in humans lead to decreased immunity, which can lead to other diseases but do not themselves cause them.
If we talk about psychosomatics, this implies that a psychological factor contributes to the development of any disease, but is not the main factor. This is, for example, a person’s behavior: how risky a lifestyle he leads, whether he maintains hygiene or whether he has bad habits. For example, people prone to myocardial infarction often have a stenic character, they are successful, “enthusiastic about everything.”
This is psychosomatic. But not all of these factors are a death sentence; they can be easily corrected. Sometimes a person can do this on his own, sometimes with the help of a doctor.
There are also people who tend to exaggerate illnesses – they are hypochondriacs. In general, they suffer mainly from imagination, but in reality everything is fine with them. This is also psychosomatic.
— Conversely, can character help a person recover from illness?
– Definitely. I worked in an oncology center for 15 years and saw that people who had hope for success had a better chance of beating cancer, while patients who laid down and resigned died sooner. It’s just that the first one better follows the doctor’s recommendations, performs all procedures on time, and the second one stops fighting.
— How is cyberchondria different from hypochondria?
— The prefix “cyber” is a description of a new environment in which hypochondriacs can access unlimited amounts of information. So this is a new stage in their development. They can form online interest groups, share their diagnoses and support each other.
The fact is that with the development of the Internet, we are experiencing an epidemic of hypochondria, especially among the younger generation, because now it is much easier to find all kinds of information. Previously, you had to go to the library, open reference books, read them, but now you can look for symptoms and find a bunch of diseases.
– Why do people become hypochondriacs?
– He’s such a character. These are very anxious, impressionable and suspicious people. Often during childhood, parents were overly worried about the child’s condition and had the idea that the child’s health was poor. Hypochondriacs exaggerate ordinary bodily sensations and often perceive them as symptoms of some life-threatening disease.
— Techniques for “self-healing” from such anxious thoughts, such as neurography, are now gaining particular popularity on the Internet. The idea is that by drawing certain lines and shapes, a person understands his/her unconscious thoughts and feelings better and gradually finds a solution to the problem. Does this technique work?
— People have always drawn some lines and shapes and painted them. This technique does not work as advertised. Behind the buzzword “neuro” lies hacking. Nanocream for the skin, nanoshoes – all from the same series.
This procedure, of course, can help a person relax like regular drawing, but nothing more. This isn’t even art therapy; involves more complex activities.
— You also tried to identify the characteristics of psychological self-regulation in young people and their predisposition to drug use. What results did you get?
—Adolescents susceptible to various addictions are characterized by underdeveloped voluntary regulation. This is what makes them vulnerable: They cannot stop, they have developed the so-called “field behavior”: What I see is what I do. I saw the food and ate it.
— What is voluntary regulation?
“This is a complex function of the psyche that involves the processes of regulating emotions and desires, planning one’s actions, and predicting outcomes. This is a means of self-restraint when we tell ourselves: “I want candy but I won’t, I can’t” or “I don’t want to work but I have to, I’ll go.”
It is precisely this function that is somewhat underdeveloped among young people, they remain in the state of “I want and I will”. Drugs or alcohol are an easy pleasure that can be obtained here and now, and the consequences are a distant possibility that a person without developed regulation is unaware of.
— Why has the development of voluntary regulation been stalled?
“This function has been developed since childhood. For the timely and effective formation of voluntary regulation, it is necessary to teach the child to independently set a goal, achieve it step by step, take into account possible changes in the conditions of activity in the process of implementation, control the result; Sometimes people rise above their desires and do what is necessary. As a rule, the development of regulation occurs before the age of 12.
Lack of regulation is also cultivated by parents. Today you can often hear: “Why do we force children to do things? Let them play with the tablet!” You don’t force them to “do something”, you teach them voluntary regulation, you develop it.
— What else does a lack of voluntary regulation lead to?
— A person does not have any complex forms of behavior: foresight, prediction, planning. That’s why many people today have no plans for the future: People don’t know what they want. Goal setting also suffers; Such people have difficulty engaging in work, cannot sustain attention, and often act impulsively.
— Is it possible to develop this skill on your own?
— Theoretically yes, but only unique individuals can do this. This is extremely difficult and there is no special technique. But we all know that there are people who, for example, escape from alcoholic families and achieve something in life. If we are talking about average people, someone needs to develop regulation from childhood.
— Part of your work was devoted to examining the behavior of Russians during the coronavirus outbreak. What results did you get?
— We evaluated the population’s readiness for treatment and vaccination. The results we got were quite expected: Russians do not trust the authorities, and their readiness for treatment largely depends on this. Accordingly, while readiness for treatment was low among residents of Russia, the public was inclined to seek alternative, unproven methods for recovery and to produce various conspiracy theories.
The results also showed a low level of readiness for vaccination: People do not understand why the vaccine is needed. Many people think that the vaccine will provide complete protection, but those who understand that this is not the case do not see the point of getting the vaccine.
– Why is this happening?
— The problem is that you need to speak to the public in understandable and convincing language. Even if we go on television, we will see funny images of doctors being discredited by some stories.
There is also a problem with the selection of opinion leaders. We need to elect the right people who will contribute to eliminating illiteracy. Imagine that I am going to tell schoolchildren something about vaccination – who will listen to me? They will think: “An old man came and is telling something”… If someone who really interests them comes to them, the effect will be different.
In the context of coronavirus, we also noticed that different generations of Russians have different attitudes towards fake news.
– So what did you find?
— We looked at modern youth, those born in the 90s, and older generations. In general, Russians are not critical of information, but there are differences in attitudes towards news depending on generations.
Older people are more likely to believe official sources of information: television, newspapers. They are less influenced by fake news, but if fake news is shown on television they will believe it.
Young people focus exclusively on Internet resources and foreign or little-known resources. They are more susceptible to the influence of fakes. Here we can talk about a certain paradox: today’s young people are distrustful, but they believe it if fake news is published on a little-known source and is not supported by anything. This is a result of distrust of official sources: people think they want to hide something from them.
And what is most interesting, the generation born in the 90s turned out to be the most resistant to fraud. I think this is because they grew up in a time when no one was trusted.
— What research are you currently doing?
— Now we examine how the media affects the health of Russians. We want to find out why people know very well what they need to do for various diseases but do not do it. We will tell you the results after the research is completed.