A special period of life characterized by dramatic psychological changes. Age crises

Critical and stable periods of development. The problem of age crises.

Elkonin's periodization.

Eras / Age

Early childhood

Childhood

Adolescence

Periodization

Infant (0-12 months)

2-6 7-12

Early age

1-3 years

Preschool

3-7 years old

Junior school

7-12 years old

Junior teen

12-15 years old

Senior teen

15-18 years old

Development line

Motivational-needs sphere

Situational-personal

Situational-business communication

Operational and technical

Subject-weapon

Motivational-need

Operational and technical

Motivational-need

Operational and technical

Social development situation

Contradiction: helplessness-addiction

An adult is a model, practical cooperation with an adult, an adult as a carrier of cultural and historical experience

Adult as a carrier of social and personal relationships

An adult as a carrier of generalized modes of activity in the system of scientific concepts

Peer as an object and subject of relationships

Adult as a senior ally

Leading activity

Direct emotional communication with a close adult

Subject-tool activity

Play activity

Learning activity (cognitive, thinking, intellectual and cognitive sphere)

Intimate and personal communication with peers

Age problem solved through SSR

Solve the problem of how to communicate with an adult, develop ways of communication

Disclosure of the social functions of objects; awareness of what can be done with objects

Subordination of motives and manifestation of the child's personality characteristics

Mastering the system of scientific concepts

Self-determination in the system of relationships with peers

Professional choice; autonomy

Mental neoplasm

Individual mental life

Revitalization complex

Speech

Perception

Self-awareness

Formation of internal positions

Arbitrariness of thinking (logical type of generalization)

Internal action plan

Reflection

Internal mediation of all mental processes

Self-assessment

Feeling mature

Reflection

System of values

Formation of logical intelligence

Hypothetical-deductive thinking

Thinking style

Result

Destruction of the symbiotic situation

I myself

Self-awareness

Change Proud.

Independence

Own position to the system of social relations (rudiments of worldview social relations)

Own cognitive activity

Cooperation with peers

Self-control

Formation of the "I" system development of self-awareness

Development of worldview and philosophical thinking

Formation of a system of theoretical knowledge

Age-related crises.

Age crises are some temporary periods in human development, during which sharp mental changes are observed. They do not last long, from several months to a year, and are a normal phenomenon in a person's personal development.

The duration of these crises and their manifestations depend on the individual characteristics and the conditions in which a person is in a particular period of time. Conditions are understood as both the family and the social environment (at work, in a company, hobby clubs ...).

Psychologists differ on age-related crises. Some believe that the crisis is the result of improper upbringing, that development should proceed smoothly and harmoniously. Others believe that a crisis is a normal process of transition to a more difficult age stage. Some psychologists believe that a person who has not survived the crisis will not develop further.

Domestic psychologists distinguish stable and crisis periods of development. They alternate with each other and are a natural process of the child's development. There are obvious shifts in development, the child changes greatly in behavior (can be extremely emotional), conflicts with adults (not only with loved ones). Lost interest in classes. This is observed not only at school, but also in circles. Some children have unconscious experiences, internal conflicts.

The famous Russian psychologist D.B. Elkonin said: “The p-k approaches each point of its development with a certain discrepancy between what he has learned from the system of man-man relations and what he has learned from the system of man-object relations. Just the moments when this discrepancy takes the greatest value, and are called crises, after the cat. is the development of the side, the cat. lagged behind in the previous period. But each of the parties prepares the development of the other. "

Now let's look at crises by age:

- newborn crisis

It is associated with changes in living conditions. A child from a familiar environment finds himself in completely different conditions. All nine months he was in the womb. First, it is the aquatic environment. It's warm there. He ate and breathed through the umbilical cord without making any effort. At birth, everything changed dramatically. From the aquatic environment, the child enters the air. You need to breathe and eat on your own. Adaptation to new conditions is in progress.

- one year crisis

During this period, the child has new needs.

This is the age of independence, and various emotional and affective manifestations are the result or, if you want, the child's response to the lack of understanding of adults. It is during this period that children's speech manifests itself. She is quite peculiar, different from an adult, but at the same time she corresponds to the situation and is emotionally colored.

- crisis of three years

The crisis of three years precedes the crisis of seven and is one of the most difficult periods in a child's life. The child distinguishes his "I", moves away from adults and tries to build other "more adult" relationships with them. The well-known Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky identifies 7 characteristics of a three-year-old crisis.

Negativism. Child's negative reaction to a request or demand from an adult. This reaction is not directed against the actual action required of the child. It is directed at the request itself. The main thing that motivates the child at this moment is to do the opposite.

Display of stubbornness. The child insists on something, not because he really wants it, but because he demands that his opinion be considered.

The line of manifestation of independence is very clearly traced. The child wants to do everything himself.

In general, this is good. But everything is good in moderation. A hypertrophied manifestation of independence often does not correspond to the child's capabilities. That can lead to internal conflict with oneself, and conflict with adults.

It happens that conflicts between children and adults become, as it were, a system of relationships. One gets the impression that they are constantly at war. In such cases, one can speak of a protest-riot. In families where the child is alone, despotism can manifest itself. In families with many children, instead of despotism, jealousy towards other children may appear. Jealousy in this case will be regarded as a tendency towards power and intolerance towards the younger.

Devaluation of old rules and norms of behavior, attachments to certain things and toys. Psychologically, the child moves away from close adults and realizes himself as an independent subject.

- crisis of seven years

A seven-year crisis can occur between about 6 and 8 years. Since at this age almost all children go to school, this period is associated with the discovery of a new social position - the position of a student. At this age, the child's self-awareness changes, and accordingly, a reassessment of values \u200b\u200boccurs.

According to LS Vygotsky, at this age stage there appears - a generalization of experiences. A child has shown himself to be successful or failed in any of his areas of activity (whether it is study or communication with peers, classes in circles or sports ...) - either a feeling of self-importance, exclusivity or a feeling of inferiority is formed. These experiences lead to the formation of the inner life of the child. There is a distinction between the external and internal life of the child, which leads to a change in his behavior. This is where the semantic basis of the action appears. The child thinks before doing anything - an attempt to assess the future action in terms of possible consequences or unfolding actions. Due to the fact that the semantic basis of actions appears, impulsiveness disappears from behavior and children's spontaneity is lost. The child tries to think over his steps, begins to hide his feelings.

One of the manifestations of the seven-year crisis is antics, strained behavior due to the delimitation of internal and external life. All these manifestations disappear when the child enters the next age stage.

- (puberty - 11-15 years old)

This crisis is associated with the puberty of the child. The activation of sex hormones and growth hormones is characteristic at this age stage. Rapid growth of the body, the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics. Due to rapid growth, problems with cardiovascular activity, lung function, etc. can arise. Emotionally unstable background at this age increases the sexual arousal that accompanies puberty.

Teens are guided in behavior by patterns of masculinity or femininity. Consequently, interest in one's appearance increases and a certain new vision of oneself is formed. This age is characterized by strong feelings about their imperfect appearance.

One of the most important neoplasms is the feeling of adulthood. In adolescence, a strong desire arises - to be or at least seem to be an adult and independent. Teenagers do not share any information about their personal life with their parents; quarrels and conflicts with adults often arise. The main social circle in this period is peers. Intimate and personal communication takes the main place in the life of a teenager. Also, this age tends to unite in informal groups.

Age crises are special, relatively short (up to a year) periods of ontogenesis, characterized by sharp mental changes. Refers to the normative processes necessary for the normal progressive course of personal development (Erickson).

The form and duration of these periods, as well as the severity of the course, depend on individual characteristics, social and microsocial conditions. In developmental psychology, there is no consensus about crises, their place and role in mental development. Some psychologists believe that development should be harmonious and crisis-free. Crises are an abnormal, "painful" phenomenon, the result of improper upbringing. Another part of psychologists argues that the presence of crises in development is natural. Moreover, according to some ideas in developmental psychology, a child who has not really experienced a crisis will not fully develop further. Bozovic, Polivanova, Gail Sheikhi addressed this topic.

L.S. Vygotsky examines the dynamics of transitions from one age to another. At different stages, changes in the child's psyche can occur slowly and gradually, or they can - quickly and abruptly. Stable and crisis stages of development are distinguished, their alternation is the law of child development. A stable period is characterized by a smooth course of the development process, without abrupt shifts and changes in the personality of the district. Long in duration. Minor, minimal changes accumulate and at the end of the period give a qualitative leap in development: age-related neoplasms appear, stable, fixed in the structure of the Personality.

Crises do not last long, several months, with an unfavorable set of circumstances, stretching up to a year or even two years. These are brief but tumultuous stages. Significant developmental shifts, the child changes dramatically in many of its features. Development can become catastrophic at this time. The crisis begins and ends imperceptibly, its boundaries are blurred, indistinct. Aggravation occurs in the middle of the period. For the people around the child, it is associated with a change in behavior, the emergence of "difficult to educate." The child is out of control of the adults. Affective outbursts, moods, conflicts with loved ones. Schoolchildren experience a decline in their ability to work, a weakening of interest in classes, a decline in academic performance, sometimes painful experiences, internal conflicts arise.

In a crisis, development takes on a negative character: what was formed at the previous stage disintegrates, disappears. But something new is also being created. The neoplasms turn out to be unstable and in the next stable period are transformed, absorbed by other neoplasms, dissolve in them, and thus die off.

D.B. Elkonin developed L.S. Vygotsky on child development. “A child approaches each point of his development with a certain discrepancy between what he has learned from the system of man-man relations and what he has learned from the system of man-object relations. It is precisely the moments when this discrepancy takes on the greatest value, and are called crises, after which the development of the side that lagged behind in the previous period takes place. But each of the parties prepares the development of the other. "

Newborn crisis... Associated with a sharp change in living conditions. A child from comfortable habitual living conditions falls into difficult ones (new nutrition, breathing). Adaptation of the child to new living conditions.

1 year crisis... It is associated with an increase in the child's capabilities and the emergence of new needs. A surge of independence, the appearance of affective reactions. Affective outbursts as a reaction to misunderstanding on the part of adults. The main acquisition of the transition period is a kind of children's speech, called by L.S. Vygotsky autonomous. It differs significantly from adult speech also in sound form. Words become ambiguous and situational.

Crisis 3 years... The boundary between early and preschool age is one of the most difficult moments in a child's life. This is the destruction, the revision of the old system of social relations, the crisis of the separation of one's “I”, according to D.B. Elkonin. The child, separating from the adults, tries to establish new, deeper relationships with them. The emergence of the phenomenon "I myself", according to Vygotsky, is a new formation of "external I myself". "The child is trying to establish new forms of relationship with others - a crisis of social relations."

L.S. Vygotsky describes 7 characteristics of the crisis for 3 years. Negativism is a negative reaction not to the action itself, which he refuses to perform, but to the demand or request of an adult. The main motive for action is to do the opposite.

The motivation of the child's behavior is changing. At the age of 3, he first becomes able to act contrary to his immediate desire. The behavior of a child is determined not by this desire, but by the relationship with another, adult. The motive of behavior is already outside the situation given to the child. Stubbornness. This is the child's reaction, which insists on something, not because he really wants it, but because he himself told adults about it and demands that his opinion be considered. Obstinacy. It is directed not against a specific adult, but against the entire system of relations that has developed in early childhood, against the norms of upbringing adopted in the family.

The tendency towards independence is clearly manifested: the child wants to do everything and decide for himself. In principle, this is a positive phenomenon, but during a crisis, a hypertrophied tendency towards independence leads to self-will, it is often inadequate to the child's capabilities and causes additional conflicts with adults.

For some children, conflicts with their parents become regular, they seem to be constantly in a state of war with adults. In these cases, they speak of a riot protest. In a family with an only child, despotism can appear. If there are several children in a family, instead of despotism, jealousy usually arises: the same tendency towards power here acts as a source of jealous, intolerant attitude towards other children who have almost no rights in the family, from the point of view of a young despot.

Depreciation. A 3-year-old child may begin to swear (old rules of behavior are devalued), discard or even break a favorite toy offered at the wrong time (old attachments to things are devalued), etc. The child's attitude towards other people and towards himself changes. He is psychologically separated from close adults.

The crisis of 3 years is associated with the awareness of himself as an active subject in the world of objects, for the first time a child can act contrary to his wishes.

Crisis 7 years... It can start at age 7, and may shift by age 6 or 8. Discovery of the meaning of a new social position - the position of a student associated with the performance of educational work highly valued by adults. The formation of an appropriate internal position radically changes his self-awareness. According to L.I. Bozovic is the period of the birth of the social. "I" of the child. A change in self-awareness leads to a reassessment of values. There are profound changes in the plane of experiences - stable affective complexes. It appears that L.S. Vygotsky calls the generalization of experiences. A chain of failures or successes (in school, in broad communication), each time about the same experience by the child, leads to the formation of a stable affective complex - a feeling of inferiority, humiliation, offended pride or a sense of self-importance, competence, exclusivity. Thanks to the generalization of experiences, the logic of feelings appears. Experiences acquire a new meaning, connections are established between them, a struggle of experiences becomes possible.

This leads to the emergence of the inner life of the child. The beginning differentiation of the child's external and internal life is associated with a change in the structure of his behavior. A semantic orientational basis of an act appears - a link between the desire to do something and the unfolding actions. This is an intellectual moment that makes it possible to more or less adequately evaluate a future action in terms of its results and more distant consequences. Semantic orientation in one's own actions becomes an important side of inner life. At the same time, it excludes the impulsiveness and immediacy of the child's behavior. Thanks to this mechanism, the childish spontaneity is lost; the child thinks before acting, begins to hide his feelings and hesitations, tries not to show others that he is bad.

A purely crisis manifestation of the differentiation of the external and internal life of children usually becomes antics, mannerisms, artificial tension of behavior. These external features, as well as the tendency to whims, affective reactions, conflicts, begin to disappear when the child comes out of the crisis and enters a new age.

Neoplasm is the arbitrariness and awareness of mental processes and their intellectualization.

Puberty crisis (11 to 15 years) associated with the restructuring of the child's body - puberty. The activation and complex interaction of growth hormones and sex hormones cause intense physical and physiological development. Secondary sexual characteristics appear. Adolescence is sometimes referred to as a protracted crisis. In connection with the rapid development, difficulties arise in the functioning of the heart, lungs, blood supply to the brain. In adolescence, the emotional background becomes uneven, unstable.

Emotional instability increases the sexual arousal that accompanies the process of puberty.

Gender identification reaches a new, higher level. An orientation towards masculinity and femininity in behavior and the manifestation of personality traits is clearly manifested.

Due to the rapid growth and restructuring of the body in adolescence, interest in their appearance sharply increases. A new image of the physical "I" is being formed. Because of his hypertrophied significance, the child acutely experiences all the flaws in appearance, real and imaginary.

The image of the physical "I" and self-awareness in general is influenced by the rate of puberty. Children with late maturity are in the least advantageous position; acceleration creates more favorable opportunities for personal development.

A sense of adulthood appears - the feeling of being an adult, a central neoplasm of younger adolescence. There is a passionate desire, if not to be, then at least to seem and be considered an adult. Defending his new rights, a teenager protects many areas of his life from the control of his parents and often goes into conflicts with them. In addition to the desire for emancipation, a teenager has a strong need for communication with peers. The leading Activity during this period is intimate and personal communication. Teenage friendships and informal groups emerge. There are also bright, but usually replacing hobbies.

Crisis 17 years old (15 to 17 years old)... Arises exactly at the turn of the usual school and new adult life. May be displaced by 15 years. At this time, the child is on the verge of real adult life.

The majority of 17-year-old schoolchildren are oriented towards continuing their education, a few towards looking for work. The value of education is a great blessing, but at the same time, achieving this goal is difficult, and at the end of grade 11, emotional stress can increase dramatically.

For those who have been going through the crisis for 17 years, various fears are characteristic. Responsibility to oneself and one's family for the choice, real achievements at this time is already a big burden. Added to this is the fear of a new life, of the possibility of a mistake, of failure when entering a university, among young men - of the army. High anxiety and against this background, pronounced fear can lead to neurotic reactions, such as fever before graduation or entrance exams, headaches, etc. An exacerbation of gastritis, neurodermatitis or other chronic disease may begin.

A sharp change in lifestyle, inclusion in new types of Activities, communication with new people cause significant tension. A new life situation requires adaptation to it. Mainly two factors help to adapt: \u200b\u200bfamily support and self-confidence, a sense of competence.

Striving for the future. Personal stabilization period. At this time, a system of stable views of the world and their place in it - a worldview, is being formed. Known associated with this youthful maximalism in assessments, passion in defending their point of view. The central neoplasm of the period is self-determination, professional and personal.

The crisis is 30 years old. Around the age of 30, sometimes somewhat later, most people experience a crisis. It is expressed in a change in ideas about one's life, sometimes in a complete loss of interest in what was previously the main thing in it, in some cases even in the destruction of the previous way of life.

The crisis of 30 years arises as a result of the failure to implement a life plan. If at the same time there is a "reassessment of values" and "revision of one's own Personality", then we are talking about the fact that the life plan in general turned out to be wrong. If the path in life is chosen correctly, then attachment to "a certain Activity, a certain way of life, certain values \u200b\u200band orientations" does not limit, but, on the contrary, develops his Personality.

The crisis of 30 years is often called the crisis of the meaning of life. It is with this period that the search for the meaning of existence is usually associated. This quest, like the entire crisis in general, marks the transition from youth to maturity.

The problem of meaning in all its variants, from private to global - the meaning of life - arises when the goal does not correspond to the motive, when its achievement does not lead to the achievement of the object of need, i.e. when the goal was set incorrectly. If we are talking about the meaning of life, then the common life goal turned out to be mistaken, i.e. life plan.

Some people in adulthood have another, "unplanned" crisis, confined not to the border of two stable periods of life, but arising within this period. This is the so calledcrisis 40 years ... It is like a repetition of the crisis for 30 years. It occurs when the crisis of 30 years has not led to the proper solution of existential problems.

A person is acutely experiencing dissatisfaction with his life, the discrepancy between life plans and their implementation. A.V. Tolstykh notes that added to this is a change in attitude on the part of colleagues at work: the time when one could be considered “promising”, “promising” is passing, and a person feels the need to “pay bills”.

In addition to the problems associated with professional activity, the crisis of 40 years is often caused by the aggravation of family relations. The loss of some close people, the loss of a very important common side of the spouses' life - direct participation in the life of children, everyday care for them - contributes to the final understanding of the nature of the marital relationship. And if, apart from the children of the spouses, nothing significant for both of them binds, the family may fall apart.

In the event of a 40-year-old crisis, a person has to once again rebuild his life plan, to develop a largely new “I-concept”. Serious changes in life can be associated with this crisis, up to a change of profession and the creation of a new family.

Retirement crisis... First of all, a violation of the usual regime and way of life is negatively affected, often combined with an acute feeling of contradiction between the continuing ability to work, the ability to benefit and their lack of demand. A person turns out to be, as it were, “thrown to the sidelines” of the current life without his active participation. A decline in their social status, the loss of the rhythm of life that has been preserved for decades sometimes lead to a sharp deterioration in the general physical and mental state, and in some cases even to a relatively quick death.

The retirement crisis is often aggravated by the fact that around this time the second generation - grandchildren - grows up and begins to live an independent life, which is especially painful for women who have devoted themselves mainly to their families.

Retirement, which often coincides with the acceleration of biological aging, is often associated with a deterioration in the financial situation, sometimes a more secluded lifestyle. In addition, the crisis can be complicated by the death of a spouse, the loss of some close friends.


Age period


Signs of the age stage


Social development situation


Characteristics of the leading activity


Crisis manifestations


Major neoplasms


Characteristics of cognitive, motivational-need, emotional spheres of development


Features of behavior


Leading directions

life activity


1. Newborn (1-2 months)


Failure to distinguish yourself and others

breathing, sucking, protective and orienting, atavistic ("grasping") reflexes.


Complete biological dependence on the mother


Emotional communication with an adult (mother)


Birth process, physical separation from mother,

adaptation to new conditions using unconditioned reflexes


Sensory processes (the first types of sensations), the emergence of auditory and visual concentration. revitalization complex.


Personal, need-motivational:

getting pleasure.


Inactivity, sleep, facial expressions of displeasure, crying and well-fed well-being.


Formation of the need for communication


2. Infancy (up to 1 year.)


The stage of "trust in the world": the emergence of upright posture, the formation of an individual mental life, the emergence of the ability to more expressively express one's feelings and

relationship to others,

autonomous

speech - humming, humming, babbling first words.


The common life of a child with a mother (situation "We")


Directly - emotional communication with the mother, objective activity


Crisis 1 year:

The growing contradiction between the needs for cognition of the surrounding world and the capabilities that the child possesses (walking, speech, affect and will), there is a need for new impressions, in communication, and the possibilities are limited - there are no walking skills, he cannot speak yet


Elementary forms of perception and thinking, the first independent steps, words, an active need to know the world around, the need to communicate with adults, trust in the world, autonomous speech.


Cognitive processes: The emergence of the act of grasping, Development of movements and postures

the initial form of visual - effective thinking (based on perception and action with objects), involuntary attention, perception of objects, differentiated sensations and emotional states, the formation of prerequisites for mastering speech, the development of motor skills


Affective outbursts, emotional reactions,

expressive actions, active motor reactions, stubbornness.


The need for communication, as the main factor in the development of the psyche, the formation of basic trust in the world,
overcoming feelings of disunity and alienation, knowledge of objects.


3.Early childhood (1-3 years)


The stage of "independence", he himself can understand the purpose of the subject, autonomous speech is replaced by the words of "adult" speech (phrasal speech), psychological separation from loved ones, the development of negative traits of character, underdevelopment of stable motivational relationships. What was familiar, interesting, expensive before is depreciating.


Joint activities with adults, knowledge of the world of things around

situational-business communication in cooperation with an adult, situation ("I am myself")


Subject-manipulative, subject-tool activity


Crisis 3 years:

obstinacy, self-will, devaluation of adults, rebellion protest, striving for despotism and independence, for the first time says “I myself!”, the first birth of a personality. two lines of independence: negativism, stubbornness, aggressiveness, or a crisis of dependence; tearfulness, timidity, striving for close emotional attachment.


Consciousness "I myself"
Active speech, vocabulary accumulation.


Practical thinking.

"Affective"

perception of objects and situations, emotional reactions, recognition and reproduction, the formation of an internal plan of action, visual-active thinking, self-awareness is born (recognizes itself), primary self-esteem ("I", "I am good", "I myself"), attention and memory involuntary. The emergence of a desire for independence and the need to achieve success.


Impulsive behavior, emotional reactions associated with the child's immediate desires and negative r-s to the demand of adults (crying, throws himself on the sofa, covering his face with his hands, or moves chaotically, shouting incoherent words, his breathing is often uneven, his pulse is fast; in anger he blushes, screams , clenches fists, can break a thing that has turned up under the arm, hit) affective reactions to difficulties, curiosity


The emergence of a desire for independence and the need to achieve success, the struggle against a sense of shame and strong doubt in their actions for
own independence and independence.


4. Preschool childhood (3-7 years old)


The stage of "choice of initiative": the emergence of personal consciousness,

imitate substantive activity and relationships between people. The period of birth of the social "I", there is a meaningful orientation in their experiences. The transition from external actions to internal "mental".


Knowledge of the world of human relations and their imitation


Subject-based role-playing game (combination of game activity with communication), didactic and game with rules.


Crisis 7 years "crisis of immediacy":

experiences are associated with the awareness of a new position, the desire to become a schoolboy, but so far the attitude remains as to a preschooler.

Reappraisal of values, generalization of experiences, the emergence of the child's inner life, a change in the structure of behavior: the emergence of a semantic orienting basis for an act (the link between the desire to do something and unfolding actions, the loss of childish spontaneity.


Subordination of motives, self-awareness (awareness of their experiences) and

arbitrariness.


Personal (consumer - motivational): the need for socially significant and evaluative activities,
the first moral feelings are formed (what is bad and what is good), new motives and needs (competitive, play, the need for independence). The sound side of speech develops,
correct speech, creative imagination, developed involuntary memory, voluntary memory is formed, purposeful analyzing perception, visual-figurative thinking, subordination of motives, assimilation of ethical norms, gender identification, self-awareness in time.


It is regulated by the semantic orientational basis of the act (the link between the desire to do something and the unfolding actions), the loss of childish spontaneity.

the emergence of their own activity, instability of will and mood.

deliberation appears, the child begins to be pretentious, capricious


Development of active initiative and
moral responsibility for their desires, knowledge of systems of relationships.
Psychological readiness for school - the formation of the main psychological spheres of a child's life (motivational, moral, strong-willed, mental, personal). Intellectual readiness (mental development of the child, stock of elementary knowledge, development of speech, etc.). Personal readiness (the formation of readiness to accept the social position of a student who has a range of rights and responsibilities; the child's attitude to school, educational activities, to teachers, to himself). Volitional readiness (development of moral and volitional qualities of the individual, qualitative changes in the degree of arbitrariness of mental processes, the ability to obey the rules).


5. Younger school age (7-11 years old))


Stage of "mastery"

the social status of the student (learning situation),

the main motive is to get high marks


The social status of a student: mastering knowledge, developing intellectual and cognitive activity


Educational and cognitive activity.


Experiences and school maladjustment, high self-esteem, a sense of incompetence.

The evaluation problem.


Arbitrariness of attention, a sense of competence, self-awareness, self-esteem, internal plan of action, self-control, reflection.


Intellectually - cognitive:
verbal and logical thinking, theoretical thinking, synthesizing perception, voluntary semantic memory, voluntary attention (become conscious and voluntary), educational motives, adequate self-esteem, generalization of feelings, logic of feelings and the emergence of inner life appear.
The child gradually masters his mental processes.


In the organization of activities and the emotional sphere: younger students are easily distracted, unable to concentrate for a long time, excitable, emotional.


Formation of industriousness and ability to handle tools

labor, which is opposed by the awareness of one's own ineptitude and uselessness,

learning the beginning of life


6 adolescence (11-15 years old)


The stage of communication with peers: intensive physical and physiological development.

Emancipation from adults and grouping.

Conformity, the formation of national and international identity.


The transition from dependent childhood to independent and responsible adulthood.

Mastering norms and relationships between people.


Intimate and personal communication, hypertrophied need for communication with peers.

Professional-personal communication - a combination of communication on personal topics and joint group activities of interest.


A crisis of character and relationships, claims to adulthood, independence, but there are no opportunities for their implementation. provisions - "no longer a child, not yet an adult", mental and social changes against the background of a stormy physiological restructuring, learning difficulties


Sense of adulthood - the adolescent's attitude towards himself as an adult (younger adolescence),

“I-concept” (senior adolescence), striving for adulthood, self-esteem, obedience to the norms of collective life. Formation of interests and motivation for learning.

Formation of volitional behavior, the ability to control your emotional state.

Personal (consumer-motivational)
theoretical reflexive thinking, intellectualization of perception and memory, personal reflection, a male and female view of the world appears. Development of creative abilities,
the ability to perform all types of adult mental work. Ability to operate with hypotheses, solving intellectual problems. Intellectualization of perception and memory. The convergence of imagination with theoretical thinking (the emergence of creative impulses).


Teenagers become awkward, fussy, make a lot of unnecessary movements,

increased fatigue, anxiety, mood swings; hormonal storm, frequent mood swings, imbalance, accentuation of har-ra.


The task of the first integral awareness of oneself and one's place in the world;

negative pole in solving this problem - uncertainty in understanding

own "I" ("diffusion of identity", cognition of systems of relations in various situations.


7. Senior school age (16-17 years old)


the stage of self-determination “the world and me”: the leading place among high school students is occupied by motives associated with self-determination and preparation for an independent life, with further education and self-education.

The beginning of true social and psychological independence in all areas, including: material and financial self-sufficiency, self-service, independence in moral judgments, political views and actions. Awareness of contradictions in life (between the norms of morality, asserted by people and their actions, between ideals and reality, between abilities and capabilities, etc.).


Initial choice of life path Mastering professional knowledge and skills.


Educational and professional activity.

Moral and personal communication.


For the first time, questions of self-determination in the profession arise, questions arise about the meaning and purpose of life, planning a further professional and life path, disappointment in the outlined plans, and in oneself.

Crisis 17 years old: fear of choice, of adult life.


Looking to the future, building life plans and prospects (professional and personal self-determination).

Formation of life plans, worldview, readiness for personal and life self-determination, the acquisition of identity (a sense of adequacy and the person's possession of their own "I", regardless of the situation change).


Cognitive: improvement of mental processes, mental activity becomes more stable and effective, approaching in this respect to the activity of adults,

the rapid development of special abilities, often directly related to the chosen professional field, the development of self-awareness. The questions addressed to oneself in the process of introspection, reflection, are of a worldview nature, becoming an element of personal self-determination.


Romantic impulses are not characteristic, a calm, orderly way of life pleases, they are guided by the assessment of others, rely on authority, in the absence of self-knowledge, are impulsive inconsistent in actions and relationships, there is an interest in communicating with adults.


Self-determination - social, personal, professional, creating a life plan. Knowledge of the professional field of activity.


8.Youth (17 to 20-23 years old)


stage of "Human closeness":

The beginning of the establishment of true socio-psychological independence in all spheres, including material and financial self-sufficiency, self-service, independence in moral judgments, political views and actions. Awareness of contradictions in life (between the norms of morality, asserted by people and their actions, between ideals and reality, between abilities and capabilities, etc.)


Professional studies, mastering professional

labor skills,

labor activity, mastering the norms of relations between people, the situation of choosing a life path.


Labor activity, vocational training. Educational and professional activities


A new life situation, a feeling of incompetence, admission to a university.

youthful maximalism, material independence.


Final self-determination.

Understanding the need for learning. The value of unregulated conditions for the acquisition of knowledge. Willingness and actual ability for various types of learning.


Positive trends in development: striving for knowledge and professionalism, expanding interests in the field of art, a responsible attitude to one's future when choosing a profession, the formation of motives (prestigious motivation, the motive of power, the motive of material wealth and well-being, the motive of creating a prosperous family).

Originality of thinking. Increased intellectual activity.


Student life style; parties, dating, drinking or sports, commitment to study.


Self-determination - social, personal, professional, spiritual and practical. Training, job search, military service.

The challenge of the end of youth and the beginning

maturity - finding a life partner and establishing close friendships,

overcoming feelings of loneliness.


9.Youth (20 to 30 years old)


The stage of human maturity, a period of active professional, social and personal development. Marriage, childbirth and upbringing, development. Building prospects for future life.


Choosing a life partner, creating a family, establishing oneself in the profession, choosing a life path.


Joining the labor collective and mastering the chosen profession, creating a family.


The problem of the meaning of life is a crisis of 30, a reassessment of values, a failure to fulfill a life plan. Difficulties in professional development, self-absorption and avoidance of interpersonal relationships,


Family relationships and a sense of professional competence, skill, fatherhood.


Intensive cognitive development, dominated by the needs of self-esteem and self-actualization, is also characterized by concern for the future well-being of humanity (otherwise indifference and apathy, unwillingness to take care of others, self-absorption by one's own problems), is characterized as “stable conceptual socialization, when stable personality traits are developed”, all mental processes are stabilized, a person becomes stable. Choice of motive: professional, motives of creative achievement, broad social motives - the motive of personal prestige, the motive of maintaining and increasing status, the motive of self-realization, the motive of self-affirmation, material motives.


Optimism and maximum efficiency are characteristic. Creative activity.

Minutes of despair, doubt, uncertainty are short-lived and pass in the stormy stream of life, in the process of mastering more and more new opportunities.


Choosing a life partner, establishing close friendships,

overcoming the feeling of loneliness, creating a family, establishing themselves in the profession, gaining skill.

Maturity (30 from 60 to 70 years)


The peak of professional, intellectual achievements, "akme" is the peak of the sometimes full flowering of the personality, when a person can realize his full potential, achieve the greatest success in all spheres of life. This is the time of fulfillment of one's human destiny - both in professional or social activities, and in terms of the continuity of generations. Age values: love, family, children .. The source of satisfaction at this age is family life, mutual understanding, the success of children, grandchildren.


Full disclosure of their potential in professional activities and family relationships.

Maintaining social status and taking a well-deserved rest.


Professional activities and family relationships.


Doubt about the correctness of the life lived and the significance for loved ones.

Search for a new meaning in life. Loneliness in adulthood, retirement, Productivity - stagnant. The crisis of the 40 meaning of life, aggravation of family relations.


Rethinking life goals,

awareness of responsibility for the content of his life to himself and to other people, productivity. Corrections of the life plan and related changes "I - concept".


Productivity, creative, professional, caring for people), inertia (self-absorption).

Reaching at the maturity of his heyday and the peak of professional productivity, a person stops his development, stops in improving his professional skills, creative potential, etc. Then comes a decline, a gradual decrease in professional productivity: all the best that a person could do in his life is left behind, on the already traveled segment of the path.


Emotional costs increase with age and overload leads to stressful situations and conditions. The transition from the state of maximum activity, vigorous activity (inherent in the "akme" period), to its gradual curtailment, limitation due to the fact that health is undermined, becomes less energy, arises an objective need to give way to new generations with subjective internal unwillingness (does not feel yourself old).


Wrestling

creative forces of a person against inertia and stagnation, raising children. Unleash your potential and be realized.

Late maturity (after 60-70 years)


Life wisdom, based on experience, the emergence of a feeling of old age, biological aging accelerates, cessation of work.


Reorientation of social activity and adaptation to the new life of a pensioner.


Change of leading activity: satisfaction of one significant or essential motive, providing pleasure and entertainment


Retirement, violation of the usual regime and way of life, deterioration in financial situation, death of a spouse and loved ones.

Attitude towards death, despair.


Attitude towards death, rethinking of life, awareness of the value of the content of life.


Physical, biological and mental aging, decreased memory function, narrowing of interests, the focus of attention from the future goes to the past, emotional instability, egocentrism, distrust of people, exactingness, resentment, the need to transfer accumulated experience, the need for life involvement, belief in the immortality of the soul ...


Physical strength decreases

the frequency of depression and neurosis increases. Memories, serenity.


Characterized by the formation of the final integral self-image,
your life path as opposed to possible disappointment in life and
growing despair.

2. Characteristics of age-related crises of various periods of development

2.1 Age crises of childhood

The child develops unevenly. There are periods of relatively calm, or stable, and there are so-called critical periods. Crises are discovered empirically, and not in turn, but in a random order: 7, 3, 13, 1, 0. During critical periods, the child changes in a very short time as a whole, in basic personality traits. This is a revolutionary, stormy, impetuous course of events, both in pace and in the meaning of the changes taking place. For critical periods, the following features are characteristic:


    boundaries separating the beginning and end of the crisis from adjacent periods,
    extremely indistinct. The crisis occurs imperceptibly, very difficult to define
    the moment of its coming and ending. A sharp aggravation (culmination) is observed in the middle of the crisis. At this time, the crisis reaches its climax;


    the difficulty of educating children in critical periods at one time
    served as a starting point for their empirical study. Observed
    obstinacy, decline in academic performance and performance, increase
    the number of conflicts with others. The inner life of a child into this
    time is associated with painful experiences;


    negative nature of development. It is noted that during crises, in
    unlike stable periods, it is rather destructive,
    rather than creative work. The child does not gain so much as
    loses from previously acquired. However, the emergence of the new in development certainly means the withering away of the old. Simultaneously in critical
    periods are observed and constructive development processes.
    L. S. Vygotsky called these acquisitions neoplasms.


Neoplasms of critical periods are of a transitional nature, that is, they are not preserved in the form in which, for example, autonomous speech occurs in one-year-old children.

During stable periods, the child accumulates quantitative changes, and not qualitative ones, as during critical ones. These changes accumulate slowly and imperceptibly. The sequence of development is determined by the alternation of stable and critical periods.

Let's take a closer look at the crises of childhood.

The first is newborn crisis (0-2 months). The neonatal crisis was not discovered, but was calculated by the latter and singled out as a special, crisis period in the child's mental development. A symptom of a crisis is weight loss in the first days after birth.

The social situation of the newborn is specific and unique and is determined by two points. On the one hand, this is the child's complete biological helplessness; he is unable to satisfy any vital need without an adult. Thus, the baby is the most social being. On the other hand, with the maximum dependence on adults, the child is still deprived of the basic means of communication in the form of human speech. In the contradiction between maximum sociality and minimum means of communication, the foundation of all child development in infancy is laid.

The main neoplasm is the emergence of the child's individual mental life. New in this period is that, first, life becomes an individual existence, separate from the mother's organism. The second point is that it becomes mental life, because, according to LS Vygotsky, only mental life can be a part of the social life of people around the child.

One year crisis characterized by the development of speech action. Before that, the baby's body was regulated by a biological system associated with biorhythms. Now she came into conflict with the verbal situation based on self-order or orders from adults. Thus, a child at the age of about a year finds himself without a system at all that allows him to reliably orient himself in the world around him: biological rhythms are strongly deformed, and speech rhythms are not formed so much that the child can freely control his behavior.

The crisis is characterized by a general regression of the child's activity, as it were, reverse development. Emotionally manifests itself in affectivity. Emotions are primitive. In this case, various violations are observed:

Violation of all biorhythmic processes (sleep-wakefulness);
violation of the satisfaction of all vital needs (for example
measures, feelings of hunger);

Emotional abnormalities (gloom, tearfulness, resentment).
The crisis is not an acute one.


    keen interest in your image in the mirror;


    the child is puzzled by his appearance, interested in how he
    looks in the eyes of others. Girls show interest in outfits; boys show concern about their performance, for example in
    designing. React to failure.


The crisis of 3 years is an acute one. The child is uncontrollable, falls into a rage. The behavior is almost impossible to correct. The period is difficult for both the adult and the child himself. Symptoms of the crisis by their number are called the seven-star crisis of 3 years:


    negativism is a reaction not to the content of the sentence of adults, but to
    that it comes from adults. The desire to do the opposite, even in spite of
    their own will;


    stubbornness - the child insists on something, not because he wants, but because he demanded it, he is bound by his initial decision;


    obstinacy - it is impersonal, directed against the norms of upbringing, a way of life that took shape up to three years;


    self-will - seeks to do everything himself;


    protest-riot - a child in a state of war and conflict with others;


    a symptom of depreciation is when the child begins
    swear, tease, and call parents names;


    despotism - the child forces the parents to do whatever he requires.
    In relation to younger sisters and brothers, despotism manifests itself as jealousy.
    Seven Years Crisis resembles the crisis of one year - it is a crisis of self-regulation. The child begins to regulate his behavior by rules. Previously docile, he suddenly begins to make claims for attention to himself, the behavior becomes pretentious. On the one hand, a demonstrative naivety appears in his behavior, which is annoying, since it is intuitively perceived by others as insincerity. On the other hand, it seems too grown-up: it presents norms to others.


For a 7-year-old child, the unity of affect and intellect breaks down, and this period is characterized by exaggerated forms of behavior. The child does not control his feelings (he cannot restrain, but he also does not know how to control them). The fact is that, having lost some forms of behavior, he has not yet acquired others.

The crisis is followed by seven years adolescent crisis ... This is a crisis of social development, reminiscent of the crisis of three years ("I myself"), only now it is "I myself" in the social sense. Described in the literature as "age of second umbilical cord cutting", "negative phase of puberty." It is characterized by a drop in academic performance, decreased performance, disharmony in the internal structure of the personality. The human self and the world are more separated than in other periods. The crisis is one of the acute ones. The symptoms of the crisis are as follows:


    decreased productivity in learning activities;


    negativism.


There is a decrease in productivity and ability for educational activity even in the area in which the child is gifted. Regression manifests itself when a creative task is given (for example, an essay). Children are able to perform in the same way as before, only mechanical tasks.

The opening of the mental world takes place, the attention of the adolescent is for the first time drawn to other persons. With the development of thinking comes intense self-perception, self-observation, knowledge of the world of one's own experiences. The world of inner experiences and objective reality are divided. At this age, many teenagers keep diaries.

The second symptom of the crisis is negativism. Sometimes this phase is also called the phase of the second negativism by analogy with the crisis of three years. The child seems to be repelled by the environment, hostile, prone to quarrels, violations of discipline. At the same time, he experiences internal anxiety, discontent, a desire for loneliness, for self-isolation. In boys, negativism manifests itself brighter and more often than in girls, and begins later - at the age of 14-16.

A teenager's behavior during a crisis is not necessarily negative. L. S. Vygotsky writes about three options for behavior:


    negativism is pronounced in all areas of a teenager's life. Moreover
    it either lasts for several weeks, or the teenager falls out of
    family, inaccessible to the persuasion of elders, excitable or, conversely, stupid. it
    difficult and acute course is observed in 20% of adolescents;


    the child is a potential negativist. This manifests itself only in some life situations, mainly as a reaction to the negative influence of the environment (family conflicts, the oppressive effect of the school environment). These children are in the majority, about 60%;


    negative phenomena are not present at all in 20% of children.


Adolescence crisis resembles crises of one year (speech regulation of behavior) and 7 years (normative regulation). At the age of 17, there is a value-semantic self-regulation of behavior. If a person learns to explain and, consequently, regulate his actions, then the need to explain his behavior willy-nilly leads to the subordination of these actions to new legislative schemes. 1

A young man has a philosophical intoxication of consciousness, he turns out to be thrown into doubts, thoughts that interfere with his active active position. Sometimes the state turns into value relativism (the relativity of all values).

In adolescence, a young man has the problem of choosing life values. Youth seeks to form an internal position in relation to itself ("Who am I?", "What should I be?"), In relation to other people, as well as to moral values. It is in his youth that a young man consciously works out his place among the categories of good and evil. "Honor", "dignity", "right", "duty" and other categories that characterize the personality are of great concern to a person in his youth. In his youth, a young man expands the range of good and evil to the utmost limits and tests his mind and his soul in a range from the beautiful, the sublime, the good to the terrible, base, and evil. Youth seeks to feel itself in temptations and ascent, in struggle and overcoming, fall and rebirth- in all that diversity of spiritual life, which is characteristic of the state of mind and heart of man. It is significant for the young man himself and for all mankind if the young man chose for himself the path of spiritual growth and prosperity, and was not seduced by vice and opposition to social virtues. Choosing an inner position is a very difficult spiritual work. A young person who turns to the analysis and comparison of universal values \u200b\u200band his own inclinations and value orientations will have to consciously destroy or accept the historically conditioned norms and values \u200b\u200bthat determined his behavior in childhood and adolescence. In addition, modern ideas of the state, new ideologists and false prophets are stepping on it. He chooses for himself a non-adaptive or adaptive position in life, while he believes that it is the position he has chosen that is the only acceptable for him and, therefore, the only correct one. 1

It is in adolescence that the need for isolation, the desire to protect your unique world from the invasion of outsiders and close people, in order to strengthen the sense of personality through reflection, in order to preserve your individuality, to realize your claims for recognition. Isolation as a means of keeping distance when interacting with others allows a young person to “keep his face” on an emotional and rational level of communication. Identification - isolation in adolescence has its own specificity: a young man is simultaneously "hotter" and "colder" than a person in other age periods. This manifests itself in direct communication with other people, with animals, with nature. Young people dominate at both ends of good and evil, identification and alienation. This is the time of possible reckless love and possible irrepressible hatred. Love- always an identification to the highest degree. Hatred- always extreme alienation. It is in youth that a person plunges into these ambivalent states. It is in youth that a person ascends to the highest potential of humanity and spirituality, but it is at this age that a person can descend to the darkest depths of inhumanity. Youth- the period when a young person continues to reflect on his relationship with his family in search of his place among relatives by blood. It passes, growing out of childhood and anxiously entering the period of adolescence, acquires the possibility of a second birth of a personality. Youth self-deeply develops reflexive abilities. Developed reflection makes it possible for a subtle feeling in one's own experiences, motives, interacting motives and at the same time- cold analysis and correlation of the intimate with the normative. Reflections take a young man out of his inner world and allow him to take a position in this world.

2.2 Age crises of an adult
In adults, most researchers distinguish three main crises: the crisis of 30 years, the crisis of "midlife" and the crisis of old age. The biggest difficulty in organizing psychological support for adults is to direct a person to work with himself. Quite often, there is a projection of the crisis onto the environment, and in this case a person comes to a consultation with a request that is completely inadequate to the real situation. 1

Crisis 30 years lies in the fact that a person discovers that he can no longer change much in his life, in himself: family, profession, habitual way of life. Having realized oneself at this stage of life, in the period of youth, a person suddenly realizes that, in essence, he is facing the same task - search, self-determination in new circumstances of life, taking into account real possibilities (including limitations that he had not noticed before). This crisis manifests itself in a sense of the need to "do something" and indicates that a person is moving to a new age level - the age of adulthood. The Crisis of Thirty is a conventional name. This state can occur earlier and later, the feeling of a crisis state can occur repeatedly throughout the life path (as in childhood, adolescence, adolescence), since the development process goes in a spiral without stopping.

At this time, men are characterized by a job change or lifestyle change, but their focus on work and career does not change. The most common motive for voluntarily leaving work is dissatisfaction with the job: the production environment, labor intensity, wages, etc. If dissatisfaction with work arises from the desire to achieve a better result, then this only contributes to the improvement of the employee himself.

Experiencing a crisis of thirty years, a person is looking for an opportunity to strengthen his niche in adult life, to confirm his adult status: he wants to have a good job, he strives for security and stability. The person is still confident that the full embodiment of the hopes and aspirations that form the "dream" is possible, and works hard for this.

Midlife crisis - this is the time when people critically analyze and evaluate their lives. Some may be satisfied with themselves, believing that they have reached the peak of their capabilities. For others, analyzing past years can be a painful process. Although normative age factors such as gray hair, an increase in waist size, or menopause, combined with abnormal events such as divorce or loss of a job, can cause stress, the likelihood of a midlife crisis is markedly reduced if any of the predictable influences of age are anticipated or are treated as normal moments in life.

At the beginning of the fifth decade of life (maybe a little earlier or later), a person goes through a period of critical self-assessment and reassessment of what has been achieved in life by this time, analysis of the authenticity of the way of life: moral problems are solved; a person goes through dissatisfaction with marital relations, anxiety about children leaving home and dissatisfaction with the level of career development. The first signs of deterioration in health, loss of beauty and physical shape, alienation in the family and in relationships with matured children appear, and there is a fear that nothing better will work out in life, in career, in love. This psychological phenomenon is called the midlife crisis (a term coined by Levinson). People critically re-evaluate their life, analyze it. Very often, this overestimation leads to the understanding that “life has passed meaninglessly and time has already been lost”. 1

Midlife crisis is associated with the fear of aging and the realization that what has been achieved is sometimes much less than anticipated, and is a short peak period, followed by a gradual decrease in physical strength and mental acuity. An exaggerated preoccupation with one's own existence and relationships with others is inherent in man. The physical signs of aging are becoming more evident and are experienced by the individual as a loss of beauty, attractiveness, physical strength and sexual energy. All this, both at the personal and social level, is assessed negatively. In addition, the person is becoming and growing anxiety that he may be one step behind a new generation, trained according to new standards, energetic, with new ideas and a willingness to agree, at least initially, to significantly lower salaries. ...

At the same time, a person begins to realize that inevitable physiological changes occur with his body against his will. A person admits that he is mortal and that the end will surely come to him, while he will not be able to complete everything that he so passionately desired and aspired to. There is a collapse of hopes associated with an infantile idea of \u200b\u200bhis future life (power, wealth, relationships with others). That is why marriages often break up in middle age.

Some differences were found in the course of the midlife crisis in men and women. It is shown that in women, the stages of the life cycle are more structured not by chronological age, but by the stages of the family cycle - marriage, the birth of children, the abandonment of the parental family by grown-up children.

Thus, during the midlife crisis, the need to find one's own path arises and then increases, but serious obstacles arise along the way. Symptoms associated with a crisis are boredom, change of job and / or partner, noticeable violence, self-destructive thoughts and actions, inconsistency in relationships, depression, anxiety, and increasing obsession. Such symptoms indicate a person's need to significantly change their lives. Individuation is one of the ways out of the crisis. This is a need for development that allows you to achieve the maximum possible completeness of the personality. "The conscious process of isolation, or individuation, is necessary to bring a person to awareness, that is, to raise him above the state of identification with the object."

As long as the initial identification with the external, objective world is preserved, a person feels himself to be detached from subjective reality. Of course, a person always remains a social being, but while maintaining a commitment to external relations with people, he should develop his personality more. The more highly organized a person becomes, the more it enriches relationships with others. “Since a person is not just a separate, isolated being, but by virtue of his very existence is predisposed to social relations, the process of individuation should not lead him to isolation, but, on the contrary, to expand the spectrum of social relations” (ibid.). This is the paradox of individuation. A person meets the interests of society most of all if he becomes an integral person and brings into it his dialectics, which is necessary for the psychological health of any social group. Thus, the pursuit of individuation is not narcissistic; it is the best way to benefit society and support the individuation of others.

The last crisis under consideration isaging and death crisis ... The solution to the common human problem of “living or experiencing old age”, the choice of the aging strategy is not considered narrowly, as a kind of one-step action, it is a prolonged process, perhaps for years, associated with overcoming several crises. 1

In old age (old age), a person has to overcome three sub-crises. The first of them consists in re-evaluating one's own “I” in addition to its professional role, which for many people remains the main one until retirement. The second sub-crisis is associated with the awareness of the fact of deterioration in health and aging of the body, which gives a person the opportunity to develop the necessary indifference in this regard. As a result of the third subcrisis, self-concern disappears in a person, and now he can accept the thought of death without horror (Appendix B).

Now our social structure, as well as philosophy, religion and medicine have almost nothing to offer to alleviate the mental anguish of a dying person. The elderly and the elderly, as a rule, fear not death itself, but the possibility of a purely vegetative existence devoid of any meaning, as well as suffering and torment caused by disease. We can state the presence of two leading attitudes in their attitude towards death: first, the unwillingness to burden their loved ones, and secondly, the desire to avoid excruciating suffering. Therefore, many, being in a similar situation, are experiencing a deep and all-encompassing crisis, affecting simultaneously the biological, emotional, philosophical and spiritual aspects of life.

During this period, it is important to comprehend the socio-psychological mechanisms of human adaptation to the phenomenon of death. We are talking about the system of psychological protection, certain models of symbolic immortality, and about the social approbation of death - the cult of ancestors, memorial rites, funeral and memorial services, and educational programs of a propaedeutic nature, in which the phenomenon of death becomes the topic of reflection and spiritual quest.

The culture of empathy with the death of another person is an integral part of the general culture of both the individual and society as a whole. At the same time, it is quite rightly emphasized that the attitude towards death serves as a standard, an indicator of the moral state of society, its civilization. It is important to create not only the conditions for maintaining normal physiological vitality, but also the preconditions for optimal life activity, to meet the needs of the elderly and the elderly for knowledge, culture, art, literature, often beyond the reach of older generations.

Causes of the onset and development of crises at different age stages

The neonatal crisis is an intermediate period between the intrauterine and extrauterine lifestyle. If there was no adult next to the newborn, then in a few hours this creature would have died. The transition to a new type of functioning is provided only for adults. An adult protects the child from bright light, protects him from the cold, protects him from noise, etc.

From the reaction of concentration on the mother's face at the age of about two and a half months (0; 2.15), an important neoplasm of the neonatal period arises - the revitalization complex. The revitalization complex is an emotionally positive reaction that is accompanied by movements and sounds. Before this, the child's movements were chaotic, uncoordinated. In the complex, movement coordination arises. The revitalization complex is the first act of behavior, the act of singling out an adult. This is the first act of communication. The complex of revitalization is not just a reaction, it is an attempt to influence an adult (N.M.Schelovanov, M.I. Lisina, S.Yu. Meshcheryakov). Craig G. Developmental Psychology. - SPb. Peter, 2007 .-- p. 153

The revitalization complex is the main new formation of the critical period. It marks the end of the newborn and the beginning of a new stage of development - the stage of infancy. Therefore, the emergence of a revitalization complex is a psychological criterion for the end of the neonatal crisis.

First year crisis. By the age of 9 months - the beginning of the crisis of the first year - the child gets on his feet, begins to walk. As D. B. Elkonin Obukhova L.F. Age-related psychology. - M .: Higher education; MGPPU, 2007 .-- p. 268, the main thing in the act of walking is not only that the child's space expands, but also that the child separates himself from the adult. For the first time, there is a fragmentation of a single social situation "we": now it is not the mother who leads the child, but he leads the mother wherever he wants. Walking is the first major neoplasm of infancy, marking a break in the old developmental situation.

The second main neoplasm of this age is the appearance of the first word. The peculiarity of the first words is that they have the character of pointing gestures. Walking and enriching objective actions require speech that would satisfy communication about objects. Speech, like all neoplasms of age, is of a transitional nature. This is an autonomous, situational, emotionally colored speech, understandable only to those close to you. This is speech, specific in its structure, consisting of scraps of words.

The third main neoplasm of infancy is the emergence of manipulative actions with objects. By manipulating with them, the child is still guided by their physical properties. He has yet to master the human ways of acting with the human objects that surround him everywhere. In the meantime, the exit from the old social situation of development is accompanied by negative emotional manifestations of the child, arising in response to the constraint of his physical independence, when the child is fed, regardless of his desire, dressed against his will. This behavior of L.S. Vygotsky, following E. Kretschmer, called hypobulic reactions - protest reactions in which will and affect are not yet differentiated. Rubinshtein S.L. Fundamentals of General Psychology. - SPb: Peter, 2007 .-- p. 318.

Summing up the first stage of the child's development, we can say that from the very beginning there are two interconnected lines of mental development: the line of development of orientation in the meanings of human activity and the line of development of orientation in the ways of human activity. Mastering one line opens up new opportunities for the development of another. There is a clear, mainline, for each age its own line of development. However, the main new formations, leading to the breakdown of the old social situation of development, are formed along a different line, which is not guiding in this period; they appear as if latent.

The crisis is three years old. Elsa Keler Obukhova L.F. Age-related psychology. - M .: Higher education; MGPPU, 2007 .-- p. 283-285highlighted several important symptoms of this crisis.

Negativism. This is a negative reaction associated with the attitude of one person to another person. The child refuses to submit to certain adult demands at all. Negativism should not be confused with disobedience. Disobedience also occurs at an earlier age.

Stubbornness. This is a reaction to your own decision. Stubbornness should not be confused with persistence. Stubbornness lies in the fact that the child insists on his demand, his decision. This is where a person is singled out, and the requirement is put forward that other people reckon with this person.

Obstinacy. Close to negativism and stubbornness, but it has specific features. Obstinacy is more generalized and more impersonal. This is a protest against the order that exists at home.

Self-will. Striving for emancipation from an adult. The child wants to do something himself. This partly resembles the crisis of the first year, but there the child was striving for physical independence. Here we are talking about deeper things - about the independence of intention, design.

Devaluation of adults. S. Buhler described the horror of the family when the mother heard from the child: "fool" Stolyarenko L.D. Fundamentals of Psychology. - Rostov n / a: Phoenix, 2007 .-- p. 635.

Rebellion protest, which manifests itself in frequent quarrels with parents. “All the child’s behavior takes on the features of protest, as if the child is in a state of war with others, in constant conflict with them,” wrote L.S. Vygotsky Vygodsky L.S. Questions of child psychology. - SPb .: Soyuz, 2007 .-- p. 60.

Despotism. In a family with an only child. The child manifests despotic power in relation to everything around him and seeks for this in many ways.

Western European authors highlight negative moments in crisis phenomena: the child leaves, moves away from adults, breaks social ties that previously united him with an adult. L.S. Vygotsky Vygodsky L.S. Questions of child psychology. - SPb .: Soyuz, 2007 .-- p. 85stressed that this interpretation is wrong. The child tries to establish new, higher forms of relationship with others. According to D. B. Elkonin Elkonin D.B. Selected psychological works. - M .: ART-PRESS, 2005 .-- p. 268, the crisis of three years is a crisis of social relations, and any crisis of relations is a crisis of the separation of one's “I”.

The crisis of three years is a breakdown in the relationship that has existed until now between a child and an adult. Towards the end of an early age, a tendency towards independent activity arises, which signifies that adults are no longer closed to the child by the object and the way of acting with it, but as if for the first time reveal themselves to him, act as carriers of models of actions and relationships in the surrounding world. The phenomenon "I myself" means not only the emergence of outwardly noticeable independence, but at the same time the separation of the child from the adult. As a result of this separation, adults appear for the first time in the world of children's life. The world of children's life from a world limited by objects turns into the world of adults.

The restructuring of relations is possible only if there is a separation of the child from the adult. There are clear signs of such a separation, which are manifested in the symptoms of a three-year crisis (negativism, stubbornness, obstinacy, self-will, devaluation of adults).

From the new formations of the crisis of three years, a tendency to independent activity arises, at the same time similar to the activity of an adult, because adults act as models for the child, and the child wants to act like them. The tendency to live a common life with an adult runs throughout childhood; the child, separating from the adult, establishes a deeper relationship with him, emphasized D.B. Elkonin Ibid. S. 269 ..

The crisis of seven years. On the basis of the emergence of personal consciousness, a crisis of seven years arises. The main symptomatology of the crisis: loss of immediacy: the experience of what meaning this action will have for the child himself wedges between desire and action; pretentiousness: the child builds something of himself, hides something (the soul is already closed); the symptom of "bitter candy": the child feels bad, but he tries not to show it; parenting difficulties: the child begins to withdraw and becomes uncontrollable.

These symptoms are based on a generalization of experiences. The child has a new inner life, a life of experiences, which is not directly and directly superimposed on the outer life. But this inner life is not indifferent to the outer one, it affects it. The emergence of this phenomenon is an extremely important fact: now the orientation of behavior will be refracted through the child's personal experiences.

The symptom that cuts through the preschool and primary school ages is the "symptom of loss of immediacy": between the desire to do something and the activity itself, a new moment arises - an orientation in what the child will receive from this or that activity. The symptom of loss of immediacy is an internal orientation in what sense the implementation of the activity can have for the child: satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the place that the child will take in relations with adults or other people. Here, for the first time, an emotional-semantic orientational basis of an act arises. According to the views of D.B. Elkonin there and then, where and when an orientation towards the meaning of an act appears, - there and then the child passes into a new psychological age Elkonin D.B. Selected psychological works. - M .: ART-PRESS, 2005 .-- p. 273.

The crisis requires a transition to a new social situation, requires a new content of relations. The child must enter into a relationship with society as with the totality of people performing obligatory, socially necessary and socially useful activities. In our conditions, the tendency towards it is expressed in the desire to go to school as soon as possible. Often the higher stage of development, which the child reaches by the age of seven, is confused with the problem of the child's readiness for schooling. Observations in the first days of a child's stay at school show that many children are not yet ready to go to school.

The adolescent crisis. The process of formation of neoplasms that distinguish an adolescent from an adult is stretched over time and may occur unevenly, which is why both "childish" and "adult" exist in a teenager. According to L.S. Vygotsky, Sapogova E.E. Psychology of human development. - M .: Art-Press, 2006 .-- p. 235-236in his social situation of development there are 2 tendencies: 1) inhibiting the development of adulthood (being busy with school studies, the absence of other permanent and socially significant responsibilities, material dependence and parental care, etc.); 2) growing up (acceleration, some independence, subjective feeling of adulthood, etc.). This creates a huge variety of individual developmental options in adolescence - from schoolchildren with a childish appearance and interests, to almost adult adolescents who have already joined some aspects of adult life.

Puberty development (covers the time interval from 9-11 to 18 years). Within a relatively short period of about 4 years on average, the child's body undergoes significant changes. This entails two main tasks: 1) the need to reconstruct the bodily image of "I" and the construction of a male or female "generic" identity; 2) a gradual transition to adult genital sexuality, characterized by joint eroticism with a partner and the combination of two complementary drives.

Formation of identity (goes beyond adolescence and covers the time from 13-14 to 20-21 years). Throughout adolescence, a new subjective reality is gradually formed, transforming the individual's ideas about himself and others. The formation of psychosocial identity, which underlies the phenomenon of adolescent self-awareness, includes three main tasks of development: 1) awareness of the temporal extent of one's own "I", which includes the childhood past and determines the projection of oneself into the future; 2) awareness of oneself as different from the internalized parental images; 3) the implementation of a system of elections that ensure the integrity of the individual (mainly we are talking about the choice of profession, sexual polarization and ideological attitudes).

Adolescence opens with a crisis, in which the entire period is often called "critical", "turning point".

For adolescents, neither personality crises, nor the collapse of the "I" -concept, nor a tendency to abandon previously acquired values \u200b\u200band attachments are atypical. They are characterized by the desire to consolidate their identity, characterized by concentration on their "I", the absence of conflicting attitudes and, in general, the rejection of any form of psychological risk. They also retain a strong attachment to their parents and do not strive for excessive independence in their worldview, social and political attitudes.

S.E. Spranger described 3 types of development in adolescence. The first type is characterized by a sharp, stormy, crisis course, when adolescence is experienced as a second birth, as a result of which a new "I" arises. The second type of development is smooth, slow, gradual growth, when a teenager joins adulthood without deep and serious shifts in his own personality. The third type is a developmental process when the adolescent himself actively and consciously forms and educates himself, overcoming by an effort of will internal anxieties and crises. It is typical for people with a high level of self-control and self-discipline.

The main new formations of age, according to E. Spranger, are the discovery of the "I", the emergence of reflection, awareness of one's individuality, as well as the feeling of love. Halperin P.Ya. Introduction to Psychology. M. - Education, 2006. - p. 82-83.

S. Buhler distinguishes mental puberty from bodily (physical), which occurs on average in boys for the period between 14-16 years, in girls - between 13-15 years. With the growth of culture, the period of mental puberty is lengthened in comparison with the period of physical, which is the reason for many difficulties in these years Stolyarenko L.D. Fundamentals of Psychology. - Rostov n / a: Phoenix, 2007 .-- p. 292.

The transformation of an adolescent into a young man is manifested in a change in the basic attitude towards the world around him: the negative phase of life-denial, inherent in the pubertal stage, is followed by a phase of life-affirmation, characteristic of adolescence.

The main features of the negative phase are: increased sensitivity and irritability, anxiety, slight excitability, as well as "physical and mental illness", which find their expression in pugnacity and capriciousness. Teenagers are dissatisfied with themselves, and this dissatisfaction is transferred to the world around them, sometimes leading them to the idea of \u200b\u200bsuicide.

To this is added a number of new internal drives to the secret, forbidden, unusual, to that which goes beyond the usual and orderly everyday life. Disobedience, engaging in prohibited activities have a particularly attractive force at this time. The teenager feels lonely, alien and misunderstood in the life of adults and peers around him. Added to this are disappointments. Common behaviors are "passive melancholy" and "aggressive self-defense." The consequence of all these phenomena is a general decrease in working capacity, isolation from others or an actively hostile attitude towards them and various kinds of asocial actions.

The end of the phase is associated with the completion of bodily maturation. The positive period begins with the fact that new sources of joy open up before the adolescent, to which he was not susceptible until that time: "the experience of nature", the conscious experience of beauty, love.

The crisis of adolescence. Adolescence is characterized by a greater, in comparison with adolescence, differentiation of emotional reactions and ways of expressing emotional states, as well as an increase in self-control and self-regulation. Youthful moods and emotional relationships are more stable and conscious than those of adolescents, and relate to a wider range of social conditions.

Youth is also characterized by the expansion of the range of personally significant relationships, which are always emotionally colored (moral and ethical feelings, empathy, the need for friendship, cooperation and love, political, religious feelings, etc.). It is also associated with the establishment of internal norms of behavior, and the violation of one's own norms is always associated with the actualization of feelings of guilt. In his youth, the sphere of aesthetic feelings, humor, irony, sarcasm, and strange associations expands noticeably. One of the most important places begins to take the emotional experience of the process of thinking, inner life - the pleasure of "thinking", creativity.

The development of emotionality in adolescence is closely related to the individual personality traits of a person, his self-awareness, self-esteem, etc.

The central psychological neoplasm of adolescence is the formation of a stable self-awareness and a stable image of "I". This is due to the strengthening of personal control, self-government, a new stage in the development of intelligence. The main acquisition of early adolescence is the discovery of his inner world, his emancipation from adults

Age-related shifts in the perception of others equally apply to self-perception, self-awareness. At this time, there is a tendency to emphasize their own individuality, dissimilarity from others. Young men form their own personality model, with the help of which they determine their attitude towards themselves and others.

The discovery of the "I", of his unique inner world is often associated with a number of psychodramatic experiences.

Adolescence is the most important period of development, which is the main identity crisis. It is followed by either the acquisition of "adult identity" or a delay in development - "diffusion of identity".

The interval between adolescence and adulthood, when a young person seeks (through trial and error) to find his place in society,

The severity of this crisis depends both on the degree of resolution of earlier crises (trust, independence, activity, etc.), and on the entire spiritual atmosphere of society.

An unresolved crisis leads to a state of acute diffusion of identity and forms the basis of the special pathology of adolescence. The syndrome of identity pathology, according to E. Erickson, is associated with the following points: regression to the infantile level and the desire to delay the acquisition of adult status as long as possible; vague but persistent state of anxiety; feelings of isolation and emptiness; constant stay in a state of expectation of something that can change your life; fear of personal communication and inability to emotionally affect people of the opposite sex; hostility and contempt for all recognized social roles, including male and female ("unisex"); contempt for everything that is domestic and an irrational preference for everything foreign (according to the principle "it's good where we are not"). In extreme cases, the search for negative identity begins, the desire to "become nothing" as the only way of self-affirmation, sometimes assuming the character of suicidal tendencies. Sapogova E.E. Psychology of human development. - M .: Art-Press, 2006 .-- p. 287-288.

Adolescence has traditionally been considered the age at which the problem of fathers and children unfolds.

Young men strive to be equal with adults and would like to see them as friends and advisers, not mentors. Since there is an intensive development of "adult" roles and forms of social life, they often need adults, so at this time one can observe how often young men and women seek advice and friendship from their elders. At the same time, parents can remain an example, a model of behavior for a long time.

At the same time, in adolescence, there is a growing desire to emancipate, isolate oneself from the influence of the family, and free oneself from dependence. Therefore, the failure or unwillingness of parents to accept the autonomy of their children often leads to conflicts.

In addition, young men often incorrectly reflect on the attitude of adults towards them.

In addition, young men often incorrectly reflect on the attitude of adults towards them. In general, we can say the following: in adolescence, autonomy from adults and the importance of community with peers grow. The general pattern here is this: the worse, the more complicated the relationship with adults is, the more intense the communication with peers will be. But the influence of parents and peers is not always mutually exclusive. The "significance" of parents and peers is fundamentally different in different spheres of youthful activity. They demand maximum autonomy in the sphere of leisure, entertainment, free communication, inner life, consumer orientation. Therefore, psychologists prefer to talk not about a decrease in the influence of parents, but about qualitative changes in youthful communication.

Youth crisis. In youth, life strategies can be varied. One person can immediately determine his life line and professional perspective and stubbornly realize himself in it, another will prefer to try himself in different qualities, outlining different prospects for self-realization, and only after that he will determine the most important positions for himself

Youth as a whole is characterized by a striving for the spiritual, the sublime, the lofty, the extraordinary, but which is not comprehended in a sentimental-romantic way, as in youth, but realistically - as an opportunity to achieve, change, become, "make oneself."

In those cases when the objective conditions of life do not make it possible to reach the necessary "cultural heights", often interpreted as "another (interesting, clean, new) life" (material insecurity, low social and cultural level of parents, household drunkenness, family psychopathization and etc.), the young man is looking for any, even brutal, way to escape from the "inorganic" environment, since age itself presupposes the realization of the presence of the most diverse possibilities of life affirmation - "to make life yourself", according to his own scenario. Often, the desire to change, to become different, to acquire a new quality is expressed in a sharp change in lifestyle, moving, changing jobs, etc., usually understood as a crisis of youth.

The crisis of youth is often associated with the crisis of family relationships. After the first years of marriage, illusions and romantic mood disappear in many young people, dissimilarity of views, conflicting positions and values \u200b\u200bare revealed, negative emotions are more demonstrated, partners often resort to speculation on mutual feelings and manipulation of each other.

The crisis of family relations can be based on aggression in family relationships, a rigidly structured perception of a partner and an unwillingness to take into account many other aspects of his personality (especially those that contradict the prevailing opinion about him). Strong marriages have been shown to be dominated by husbands. But where their power is too great, the stability of the marriage is compromised. In lasting marriages, compatibility is important in terms of secondary, rather than basic, personal characteristics of the spouses. Marital compatibility increases with age.

The period of youth with the birth of children introduces new social roles into a person's life, and directly confronts him with historical time. These are not only already mastered professional roles, the roles of husband and wife, sexual partners, etc., but also the roles of mother and father. Mastering these very roles is largely the specificity of the growing up process.

Very often in youth there are intrapersonal role conflicts.

Middle age crisis. The midlife crisis is the strangest and most terrible time in human mental development. Many people (especially creative ones), not finding the strength in themselves, and not finding a new meaning in life, simply leave it. This period (after adolescence) accounts for the largest number of suicides.

An adult begins to form questions that he is not able to answer, but which sit inside and destroy him. “What is the meaning of my existence !?”, “This is what I wanted !? If so, what's next !? " etc. The notions of life that had developed between twenty and thirty years did not satisfy him. Analyzing the path traveled, his achievements and failures, a person discovers that with an already established and outwardly prosperous life, his personality is imperfect, that a lot of time and effort has been wasted, that he has done little in comparison with what he could have done, etc. In other words, there is a reassessment of values, a critical revision of one's “I”. A person discovers that he can no longer change a lot in his life, in himself: family, profession, habitual way of life. Having self-realized himself during his youth, a person suddenly realizes that, in essence, he is facing the same task - a search, self-determination in new circumstances of life, taking into account real possibilities (including limitations that he had not noticed before). This crisis manifests itself in a sense of the need to "do something" and indicates that a person is moving to a new age level - the age of adulthood. "Crisis of thirty" is the conventional name for this crisis. This state can occur earlier and later, the feeling of a crisis state can occur repeatedly throughout the life path (as in childhood, adolescence, adolescence), since the development process goes in a spiral without stopping.

At this time, men are characterized by divorce, a change in job or a change in lifestyle, the acquisition of expensive things, a frequent change of sexual partners, and there is a clear orientation towards the young age of the latter. He, as it were, begins to get what he could not get at an earlier age, realizes his children's and youthful needs.

For women, during their 30s crisis, the priorities set in early early adulthood usually change. Women focused on marriage and parenting are now increasingly attracted to professional goals. At the same time, those who devoted their energies to work now tend to direct them into the bosom of family and marriage.

Experiencing this crisis moment in his life, a person is looking for an opportunity to strengthen his niche in adult life, to confirm his adult status: he wants to have a good job, he strives for security and stability. The person is still confident that the full embodiment of the hopes and aspirations that form the "dream" is possible, and works hard for this.

Middle of life. At the beginning of the fifth decade of life (maybe a little earlier or later), a person goes through a period of critical self-assessment and reassessment of what has been achieved in life by this time, analysis of the authenticity of the way of life: moral problems are solved; a person goes through dissatisfaction with marital relations, anxiety about children leaving home and dissatisfaction with the level of career development. The first signs of deterioration in health, loss of beauty and physical shape, alienation in the family and in relationships with matured children appear, and there is a fear that nothing better will work out in life, in career, in love.

This psychological phenomenon is called the midlife crisis. People critically re-evaluate their life, analyze it. Very often, this overestimation leads to the understanding that “life has passed meaninglessly and time has already been lost”.

The midlife crisis is associated with the fear of aging and the realization that what has been achieved is sometimes much less than anticipated, and is a short peak period, followed by a gradual decrease in physical strength and mental acuity. An exaggerated preoccupation with one's own existence and relationships with others is inherent in man. The physical signs of aging are becoming more evident and are experienced by the individual as a loss of beauty, attractiveness, physical strength and sexual energy. All this, both at the personal and social level, is assessed negatively. In addition, a person is becoming and growing anxiety that he may be one step behind a new generation, trained in accordance with new standards, energetic, with new ideas and a willingness to agree at first, to significantly lower salaries.

As a result, depressive states, a feeling of fatigue from boring reality, from which a person either hides in dreams or in real attempts to "prove his youth" through love affairs or career takeoff, becomes dominant in the general background of moods. During this period, a person revises his life and asks himself a question, which is sometimes very scary, but always brings relief: "Who am I, apart from my biography and the roles I play?" If he discovers that he lived, forming and strengthening a false "I" - then he discovers the possibility of a second growing up. This crisis is the possibility of redefining and reorienting the personality, a transitional ritual between the continuation of adolescence at the stage of "first adulthood" and the inevitable onset of old age and the proximity of death. Those who consciously go through this crisis feel that their lives have become more meaningful. This period opens up the prospect of finding a new outlook on one's self, which, however, is often associated with very painful sensations.

A crisis begins with pressure from the unconscious. The sense of "I" acquired by a person as a result of socialization, together with the perception formed in him and a set of complexes, along with his defenses of his inner child, begins to creak and gnash in the struggle with the self, which is looking for opportunities for expression. Before realizing the onset of the crisis, a person directs his efforts to overcome, ignore or avoid the impact of deep pressure (for example, with the help of alcohol).

On the way to a midlife crisis, the person has a realistic mindset, he has experienced so much disappointment and heartache that he even avoids showing a grain of his adolescent psychology.

At the same time, a person begins to realize that inevitable physiological changes occur with his body against his will. A person admits that he is mortal and that the end will surely come to him, while he will not be able to complete everything that he so passionately desired and aspired to. There is a collapse of hopes associated with an infantile idea of \u200b\u200bhis future life (power, wealth, relationships with others).

The stress in marriage is clearly felt. Spouses who have tolerated each other for the sake of their children or ignored serious problems in their relationships are often no longer willing to soften their differences. It should also be borne in mind that sexual intimacy by this time is dulled by a habit, a noticeable decrease in physical fitness, the first symptoms of diseases that weaken the body, the onset of menopause, deep anger at a partner and an unclear feeling of something missed in life. The number of divorces among those married for 15 years or more is gradually increasing. That is why, in middle age, the so-called "third wave" of divorce occurs.

The social and psychological difficulties that divorced people face are great. These include overcoming the feelings of collapse that followed a long period of personal spending on another; loss of the usual way of life and the probable loss of friends and relatives who have retained loyalty to a partner who has become a stranger.

Men find it easier to remarry than women, and they sometimes marry women much younger than themselves. Due to social condemnation of marriages in which the wife is older than the husband, women find that the group of age-appropriate and free men is relatively small. In addition, socializing and grooming is especially difficult when there are children in the home. Newly formed families are faced with the problems of mixing children from two or more previous marriages, the distribution of the roles of adoptive parents and the continuing influence of the former spouse. If divorce can be avoided and married life is preserved, the problem of aging remains. The prospect of long-term addiction continues to weigh on, while the “empty family nest” promises newfound freedom.

Stresses on this basis, in their totality, lead to psychological and emotional tension.

Attitudes towards money and wealth are also changing. For many women, economic freedom means material support that they did not receive. For many men, financial situation means endless restrictions. During the midlife crisis, there is a revision in this area as well.

Some differences were found in the course of the midlife crisis in men and women. It is shown that in women, the stages of the life cycle are more structured not by chronological age, but by the stages of the family cycle - marriage, the birth of children, the abandonment of the parental family by grown-up children.

Thus, during the midlife crisis, the need to find one's own path arises and then increases, but serious obstacles arise along the way. Symptoms typical of a crisis are boredom, change of job and / or partner, noticeable violence, self-destructive thoughts and actions, inconsistency in relationships, depression, anxiety and increasing obsession. There are two facts behind these symptoms: the existence of a tremendous inner force exerting very strong pressure from within, and the repetition of previous patterns of behavior that restrain these internal impulses, but at the same time the accompanying anxiety increases. When the old strategies get worse and worse help to contain the growing internal pressure, there is a sharp crisis in self-awareness and self-awareness.

Old age crisis. In old age (old age), a person has to overcome three sub-crises. The first of them consists in re-evaluating one's own “I” in addition to its professional role, which for many people remains the main one until retirement. The second sub-crisis is associated with the awareness of the fact of deterioration in health and aging of the body, which gives a person the opportunity to develop the necessary indifference in this regard. As a result of the third sub-crisis, self-concern disappears in a person, and now he can accept the thought of death without horror.

Undoubtedly, the problem of death is age-specific. Nevertheless, it is for the elderly and the elderly that it does not seem far-fetched, premature, transforming into the problem of natural death. For them, the question of attitude towards death is transferred from the subtext to the context of life itself. The time comes when the intense dialogue between life and death begins to sound distinctly in the space of individual being, the tragedy of temporality is realized.

Nevertheless, aging, fatal diseases and dying are perceived not as integral parts of the life process, but as complete defeat and a painful lack of understanding of the limitations of the ability to control nature. From the point of view of a philosophy of pragmatism that emphasizes the importance of achievement and success, the dying person is the defeated person.

The elderly and the elderly, as a rule, fear not death itself, but the possibility of a purely vegetative existence devoid of any meaning, as well as suffering and torment caused by disease. We can state the presence of two leading attitudes in their attitude to death: first, the unwillingness to burden their loved ones, and secondly, the desire to avoid excruciating suffering. This period is also called "nodular", because, not wanting to burden them with old age and death, many elderly people begin to prepare for death, collect the things accompanying the rite, and save money for a funeral. Therefore, many, being in a similar situation, are experiencing a deep and all-encompassing crisis, affecting simultaneously the biological, emotional, philosophical and spiritual aspects of life. In this regard, it is important to comprehend the socio-psychological mechanisms of human adaptation to the phenomenon of death. We are talking about the system of psychological protection, certain models of symbolic immortality, and about the social approbation of death - the cult of ancestors, memorial rites, funeral and memorial services, and educational programs of a propaedeutic nature, in which the phenomenon of death becomes the topic of reflection and spiritual quest.

The culture of empathy with the death of another person is an integral part of the general culture of both the individual and society as a whole. At the same time, it is quite rightly emphasized that the attitude towards death serves as a standard, an indicator of the moral state of society, its civilization. It is important to create not only the conditions for maintaining normal physiological vitality, but also the preconditions for optimal life activity, to meet the needs of the elderly and the elderly for knowledge, culture, art, literature, often beyond the reach of older generations.

Death crisis. Death from the point of view of psychology is a crisis of individual life, the last critical event in a person's life. Being at the physiological level an irreversible cessation of all vital functions, having an inevitable personal significance for a person, death is also an element of the psychological culture of mankind.

A person's attitudes towards death at a certain stage of historical development are directly related to self-awareness and humanity's understanding of itself. He identifies five stages of changing these attitudes.

The first stage is fixed by the "we will all die" attitude. This is the state of "tamed death", i.e. treating it as a natural inevitability, an everyday phenomenon that must be treated without fear and not perceived as a personal drama. F. Aries designates the second stage with the term "one's own death": it is associated with the idea of \u200b\u200ban individual judgment over the soul of a person who has lived and died. The third stage, which he calls "near and distant death," is characterized by the collapse of the defense mechanisms against inevitability - their wild, untamed natural essence returns to death, like to sex. The fourth stage is "your death", giving rise to a complex of tragic emotions in connection with the death of a loved one. As the bonds between people become closer, the death of a loved one is perceived as more tragic than one's own death. The fifth stage is associated with the fear of death and the very mention of it (repression).

The attitude towards death changed in several directions: 1) the development of individual self-awareness; 2) development of defense mechanisms against the forces of nature; 3) transformation of belief in the afterlife; 4) the transformation of faith into the connection between death and sin, the suffering of Sapogova E.E. Psychology of human development. - M .: Art-Press, 2006 .-- p. 392-394 ..

There are five stages of changing a person's attitude towards their own death. These are the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

The first reaction to a fatal illness is usually: "No, not me, that's not true." This initial denial of death is very similar to the first desperate attempts of a climber to stop his fall, and it is a natural human response to stress. As soon as the patient realizes the reality of what is happening, his denial is replaced by anger or frustration: "Why me, because I still have so much to do?" Sometimes this stage is replaced by a stage of trying to make a deal with yourself and with others and buy additional time for life.

When the meaning of the disease is fully realized, a period of fear or depression sets in. This stage has no analogues among the experiences associated with sudden death, and, apparently, arises only in those situations when the person who has faced death has time to comprehend what is happening. The final stages of the cycle, preceding the onset of clinical death, are the same for both instant and slow death. If dying patients have enough time to cope with their fears and come to terms with the inevitability of death, or receive appropriate help from others, they often begin to experience a state of peace and tranquility.

People who do not face immediate death have more time to get used to the prospect of death. In the last years of their lives, many view their lives in retrospect. Such a review performs the most important functions: a person resolves old conflicts in himself, rethinks his actions, forgives himself for mistakes and even discovers something new in himself. Death opens up the necessary perspective for the aging person, and, paradoxically, dying can be a process of confirming a person's commitment to life.

So, in this work, the features and characteristics of age-related crises were presented: their symptoms, psychological content, dynamics of the course. To overcome age-related crises at different age stages, it is necessary to carry out psychocorrectional work among children and adults.

Psychological crisis - a state in which further functioning of the personality is impossible within the framework of the previous model of behavior, even if it completely suited the given person

Developmental psychology crises:

1 year: associated with a lack of emotional communication for mastery of actions

3 years old: negativism, stubbornness, arbitrariness.

7 years: loss of immediacy. The period of birth of the child's social "I".

11-12 years old: anxiety, instability in decision-making, confusion, irritation, pessimistic views.

17-18 years old: meeting with adulthood - experiences associated with self-determination, finding your place in the world of adults.

25 years: sex-hormonal crisis of adolescence in men. Becoming a man sexually, preparing him for the next crisis of adulthood.

30 years: crisis of 30 years. Subtle, the main purpose of this crisis is to assess their own achievements. A person thinks about how much he has realized himself in accordance with the social attitudes of society, for the most part it concerns career achievements.

35 years: sex hormonal crisis in women. Approximately the same effect as in men at 25 years old.

40 years: middle age crisis. Reassessment of life experience and the chosen path.

    Crisis and neonatal period (0 - 2 months) -the most striking and undoubted crisis in the development of the child, because there is a change in the environment, a transition from the uterine environment to the external environment. The birth process is a difficult, turning point in a child's life. Causes of the newborn crisis: - Physiological (when the child is born, the child is physically separated from the mother. He finds himself in completely different conditions: cold, bright light, air, requiring a different type of breathing, the need to change the type of food). Psychological (the psyche of a newborn child is a set of congenital unconditioned reflexes that help a child in the first hours of his life) a newborn has unconditioned reflexes - first of all, breathing and sucking reflexes, protective and orienting reflexes. The child sleeps most of the time. The child has sensitivity: distinguishes between salty, bitter, sweet tastes; reacts to sound stimuli. The child's mental life is the emergence of auditory and visual concentration. Hearing aids - 2-3 weeks. A sharp sound, for example, of a slamming door, causes a cessation of movement, the child plays and becomes silent. Later, at 3-4 weeks, the same reaction occurs to a person's voice. and turns his head towards its source. Newborn, establishes emotional ties with mom. At about 1 month old, the child, seeing his mother, stops his eyes on her face, throws up his arms, quickly moves his legs, makes loud sounds and begins to smile. This violent emotional reaction has been called the "revitalization complex." The complex of revitalization, which includes a truly human feature - a smile, marks the emergence of the first social need - the need for communication. And the formation of a need for communication in a child means that in his mental development he passes from a newborn into infancy itself. Neoplasms: elementary forms of perception and thinking. An active need for knowledge of the surrounding world. The mental development of the child. The revitalization complex appears earlier in those children whose mothers not only satisfy the vital needs of the child (they feed on time, change diapers, etc.), but also communicate and play with him.

    1 year crisis -The transition age between infancy and early childhood is commonly referred to as a 1-year crisis. Like any crisis, it is associated with a surge of independence, the appearance of affective reactions. Affective outbursts in a child usually occur when adults do not understand his desires, his words, his gestures and facial expressions, or understand, but does not do what he wants. Of course, the child was already familiar with the word "no", but in a crisis period it acquires special relevance.

Affective reactions with the next "no" or "no" can reach considerable strength: some children shrill, fall to the floor, hit it with their hands and feet.

Crisis 3 years -Negativism- a negative reaction not to the action itself, which he refuses to perform, but to the demand or request of an adult. The main motive for action is to do the opposite.

The motivation of the child's behavior is changing. At the age of 3, he first becomes able to act contrary to his immediate desire. The behavior of the child is determined not by this desire, but by the relationship with another, adult. The motive of behavior is already outside the situation given to the child. Stubbornness... This is the reaction of a child who insists on something, not because he really wants it, but because he himself told adults about it and demands that his opinion be considered. Obstinacy... It is directed not against a specific adult, but against the entire system of relations that has developed in early childhood, against the norms of upbringing adopted in the family.

The tendency towards independence is clearly manifested: the child wants to do and decide everything himself, protest-rebellion, despotism, jealousy. Depreciation... A 3-year-old child may begin to swear (old rules of behavior are devalued), discard or even break a favorite toy offered at the wrong time (old attachments to things are devalued), etc. The child's attitude towards other people and towards himself changes. He is psychologically separated from close adults.

    Crisis 7 years -The crisis of 7 years arises on the basis of the emergence of personal consciousness.

The main symptoms of the crisis:

1) loss of immediacy. Between desire and action is the experience of what meaning this action will have for the child himself;

2) demeanor; the child builds something of himself, hides something (the soul is already closed);

3) the symptom of "bitter candy": the child feels bad, but he tries not to show it. Difficulties arise in education, the child begins to withdraw and becomes uncontrollable.

These symptoms are based on a generalization of experiences. The child has a new inner life, a life of experiences, which is not directly and directly superimposed on the outer life. But this inner life is not indifferent to the outer one, it affects it.

Building self-esteem.Formation of self-esteem is one of the features of the manifestation of child crisis. Fear of failure... New status, touching adulthood, feeling like a significant figure, as a rule, always appeal to younger students. Change in behavior... But, along with serious changes in the life of a preschooler, which, it would seem, should make him more important, matured, parents can be completely discouraged by the appearance of manners, antics, bickering, whims and other bad qualities in the child's behavior. Where can this come from? attract attention. And he finds them in the already familiar childhood forms of behavior, albeit negative, but more effective. Reassessing your actions... If earlier, any desire was justified by just the word “I want”, now, at the age of seven, the child is increasingly thinking about the meaning of any action or word for himself: “what will happen if I ...”.

Crisis 13 years - belongs to the number of acute.

Crisis symptoms

There is a decrease in productivity and ability to learning activities even in the area in which the child is gifted. Regression manifests itself when a creative task is given (for example, an essay). Children are able to perform in the same way as before, only mechanical tasks. The teenager is now burdened by the concrete, he is beginning to be interested in philosophical questions (problems of the origin of the world, man). Cools down to drawing and begins to love music, the most abstract of the arts. The opening of the mental world takes place, the attention of the adolescent is for the first time drawn to other persons. With the development of thinking comes intense self-perception, self-observation, knowledge of the world of one's own experiences. The world of inner experiences and objective reality are divided. At this age, many teenagers keep diaries. New thinking has an impact on language and speech. The second symptom of the crisis is negativism ... The child seems to be repelled by the environment, hostile, prone to quarrels, violations of discipline. At the same time, he experiences internal anxiety, discontent, a desire for loneliness, for self-isolation.

Crisis 17 years -For those who have been going through the crisis for 17 years, various fears are characteristic. Responsibility to oneself and one's family for the choice, real achievements at this time is already a big burden. Added to this is the fear of a new life, of the possibility of error, of failure when entering a university, among young men - of the army. High anxiety and against this background, pronounced fear can lead to neurotic reactions, such as fever before graduation or entrance exams, headaches, etc. An exacerbation of gastritis, neurodermatitis or other chronic disease may begin.

A sharp change in lifestyle, inclusion in new types of Activities, communication with new people cause significant tension. A new life situation requires adaptation to it. Mainly two factors help to adapt: \u200b\u200bfamily support and self-confidence, a sense of competence.

Striving for the future. Personal stabilization period. At this time, a system of stable outlooks on the world and their place in it - a worldview - is taking shape. Known associated with this youthful maximalism in assessments, passion in defending their point of view. The central neoplasm of the period is self-determination, professional and personal.

Crisis 30 years ... The crisis of thirty years is often called the crisis of the meaning of life. Indeed, the search for the meaning of existence is usually associated with the period of the crisis of thirty years (the boundaries of which can sometimes shift in one direction or the other). This quest, like the entire crisis in general, marks the transition from youth to maturity. At the same time, the problem of the meaning of life arises not only in the crisis period under consideration. Often it appears at the beginning of youth, and sometimes, with personal development, even in adolescence. Quite often, this problem arises in the period of maturity.

Crisis 40 years The crisis of forty years is a period of critical self-assessment: the authenticity of the way of life is analyzed; moral problems are solved; the person experiences dissatisfaction with marital relations, anxiety about children leaving home and dissatisfaction with the level of career development. A person is acutely experiencing dissatisfaction with his life, the discrepancy between life plans and their implementation.

The midlife crisis is also associated with the fear of aging and the realization that sometimes much less has been achieved than anticipated, and is a short peak period followed by a gradual decrease in physical strength and mental acuity. An exaggerated preoccupation with one's own existence and relationships with others is inherent in man. The physical signs of aging are becoming more evident and are experienced by the individual as a loss of beauty, attractiveness, physical strength and sexual energy. All these manifestations, both on a personal and social level, are assessed negatively.

Retirement crisis

For most people, retirement is one of the most significant status changes that occur in late adulthood.

Work provides a person with the structure to plan their daily activities. It determines the circle of regularly met people, the role and function of a person. She contributes to the formation of his identity. Therefore, retirement may be associated with the need for a significant restructuring of the personality and the entire way of life. The end of professional activity is associated not only with the emergence of a large amount of free time. People need to develop ways of coping with difficulties that correspond to their personal system of values, solving the problem of creating their own social reality. The ease with which a person takes on a new role depends on a number of factors: physical health. economic situation, attitudes of others, the need for job satisfaction, etc. Usually, if retirement is associated with drastic changes in a person's life or if his identity is closely related to a professional role, the changes are difficult to bear.

One of the important factors that determine a person's attitude towards retirement is health. A huge number of elderly people, regardless of their own desire, leave work due to health problems.

Healthy people who want to retire are in the best position. People with poor health are in the worst position, regardless of their willingness or unwillingness to retire.

The phenomena of mental development.

Specificity.

In Vygotsky's theory, this concept denotes a transition in age-related development to a new qualitatively specific stage. Age crises are primarily due to the destruction of the usual social developmental situation and the emergence of another, which is more consistent with the new level of psychological development of the child. In external behavior, age-related crises are revealed as disobedience, stubbornness, negativism. In time, they are localized at the boundaries of stable ages and manifest themselves as a crisis of a newborn (up to 1 month), a crisis of one year, 3 years, a crisis of 7 years, a teenage crisis (11-12 years) and a youth crisis.


Psychological Dictionary... THEM. Kondakov. 2000.

Age crises

   AGE CRISES (with.122) (from the Greek krisis - turning point, outcome) is a conventional name for transitions from one age stage to another. In child psychology, empirically noted the unevenness of child development, the presence of special, difficult moments of personality formation. At the same time, many researchers (Z. Freud, A. Gesell, etc.) considered these moments as "developmental diseases", a negative result of the collision of a developing personality with social reality. LS Vygotsky developed an original concept in which he considered age-related development as a dialectical process. The stages of gradual changes in this process alternate with age crises. Mental development is carried out through the change of the so-called stable and critical ages (see: -). Within the framework of a stable age, mental neoplasms mature, which are actualized in an age crisis. Vygotsky described the following crises: the crisis of the newborn - separates the embryonic period of development from infancy; 1 year crisis - separates infancy from early childhood; crisis 3 years - transition to preschool age; crisis of 7 years - a connecting link between preschool and school age; crisis of 13 years - coincides with the transition to adolescence.

At these stages, there is a radical change in the entire "social situation of development" of the child - the emergence of a new type of relationship with adults, a change from one type of leading activity to another. Age crises are natural and necessary stages of a child's development; thus, the concept of "crisis" in this context does not bear a negative connotation. However, crises are often accompanied by manifestations of negative behavioral traits (conflict in communication, etc.). The source of this phenomenon is the contradiction between the increased physical and spiritual capabilities of the child and the previously established types of activity, forms of relationships with others, methods of pedagogical influence. These contradictions often take on an acute form, giving rise to strong emotional experiences, violations of mutual understanding with adults. At school age, within the framework of age crises, children show a drop in academic performance, a weakening of interest in learning, and a general decrease in working capacity. The severity of the course of crises is influenced by the individual characteristics of the child.

For example, the crisis of 3 years, when a previously obedient child can suddenly become uncontrollable, and the crisis of adolescence, dangerous by unexpected forms of protest against real or imaginary pressure from adults, have a bright negative connotation.

The negative manifestations of age crises are not inevitable. Flexible change of educational influences, taking into account the changes taking place with the child will significantly soften the course of age crises.


Popular psychological encyclopedia. - M .: Eksmo... S.S. Stepanov. 2005.

See what "age crises" are in other dictionaries:

    Age Crises - a theoretical concept denoting the transition in age development to a new qualitatively specific stage. According to L.S. Vygotsky, age crises are primarily due to the destruction of the usual social situation of development and ... ... Psychological Dictionary

    AGE CRISES - AGE CRISES. The development of the human personality is not a uniformly running process, but in certain periods is interrupted by rapid shifts, each of which initiates a new phase of the life cycle; it is customary to call these shifts ... ... Great medical encyclopedia

    AGE CRISES - - ontological characteristics of human mental development. In Vygotsky's theory, this concept denotes a transition in age-related development to a new qualitatively specific stage. V. to. Are caused, first of all, by the destruction of the habitual ... ...

    AGE CRISES - English. age crises; German Lebensalterkrisen. Transitional stages from one age period to another, accompanied by abrupt changes and negative phenomena in the behavior of the individual due to difficulties in adapting to new age roles. ... ... Encyclopedia of Sociology

    - (English age crises) is a conventional name for the transitional stages of age development that take place between stable (lytic) periods (see Age, Periodization of mental development). K. in. are considered in concepts recognized ... Great psychological encyclopedia

    AGE CRISES - special, relatively short (up to a year) periods of ontogenesis, characterized by dramatic psychological changes. Unlike crises of a neurotic or traumatic nature, age-related crises are normative ... ... Dictionary of career guidance and psychological support

    AGE CRISES - - special, relatively short (up to a year) periods, characterized by sharp psychological changes. K.V. are a normal process necessary for the formation of a young person's personality. K.V. may occur during the transition from ... ... Terminological Dictionary of Juvenile Studies

    Age crises - (from the Greek. crisis, turning point, outcome) is a conventional name for transitions from one age stage to another. In child psychology, empirically noted the unevenness of child development, the presence of special, difficult moments of formation ... ... Pedagogical terminological dictionary

    AGE CRISES - (from the Greek. krisis, turning point, outcome), a conventional name for transitions from one age stage to another. In children. psychology empirically noted the unevenness of children. development, the presence of special, difficult moments of personality formation. When ... ... Russian Pedagogical Encyclopedia

    age crises - special, relatively short periods of ontogenesis, characterized by abrupt psychological changes. 8 psychosocial crises have been identified. Depending on the passage of crisis periods, a person's attitude to ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy

An age crisis is a transitional stage between the ages of a person, characterized by a change in leading activity and social situation of development. Crisis periods are an integral stage of growing up. Each person goes through several such stages in his life.

Crisis literally translates as “road separation”. In Chinese, it is written in two characters, one for "danger" and the other for "opportunity." In my opinion, this is the most concise and accurate interpretation. It is during crises, including age-related crises, that an active or its “scrapping” occurs with an unsuccessful outcome of the period.

The term "age crisis" was coined by the Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky. Each age has certain norms that psychologists are guided by. They help track the normalcy of human development. These same norms of intellectual, emotional, psychophysical and personal development are called the tasks of age development. The period of the crisis is the period of the fulfillment of these tasks, of intensive psychophysiological changes.

Each person goes through age crises, but the form of expression, intensity and duration vary depending on the socio-economic situation of the person, conditions of development, individual and personal characteristics.

Despite this, there are still two points of view on the normality / non-normality of age crises:

  • Some psychologists (Freud, Vygotsky, Erickson) consider such transitions to be an integral part of development.
  • Other researchers (Rubinstein, Zaporozhets) consider them as a variant of the individual.

Major crises

In psychology, it is customary to distinguish such age crises:

  • (from the moment of birth to a month);
  • (11-12 years old);
  • (45-55 years old);

The crisis of the newborn, three years and adolescence are referred to as major crises. They account for the restructuring of relations between the child and society. The rest of the crises are small. They are less visible externally and are characterized by an increase in independence and skills. However, at the time of any crisis, children are distinguished by negativism, disobedience, and stubbornness.

As we can see, there are 4 crises per adult life:

  • The crisis of youth is accompanied by the formation and self-affirmation of a person in the main spheres of life, relationships (work, family, love, friendship).
  • At the stage of the crisis of maturity, a person analyzes his successes, the compliance of plans and achievements. For the next ten years, he fixes or changes the result.
  • The midlife crisis is accompanied by an awareness of a decline in strength, beauty, health, and an increase in distance with grown-up children. Often, a person is seized by depression, a feeling of fatigue from routine, sadness from the thought that nothing will be better.
  • Late maturity is accompanied by the stabilization of the previous state, a gradual withdrawal from social and work activities.
  • At the stage of early old age, a person comprehends his life and either recognizes it as unique and inimitable, or understands that it was wasted.
  • At the stage of old age, a person rethinks his professional "I", resigns himself to the inevitable deterioration of health and aging of the body, gets rid of self-concern. This is the stage of actively accepting the natural ending of life.

It should be noted that crises of children (the first six) have been studied much more than crises of adulthood, middle age and old age. The latter are often considered in the nature of the individual course, although they are also largely due to age-related changes.

Crisis phases

L. S. Vygotsky identified 3 phases of the crisis: pre-critical, critical, post-critical.

  1. The pre-critical phase is characterized by a contradiction that has arisen and is realized by the person himself between the prevailing external conditions and his attitude to these conditions. A person begins to see the image of a more attractive future for him, but he does not yet see the real ways of implementing this scenario.
  2. At the critical stage, the maximum tension in the contradiction arises, it reaches its peak. First, a person tries to repeat the most general ideas about the seen ideal. For example, adolescents easily adopt the habit of smoking or cursing, thinking that this makes them part of an adult, so desired and new, opened up in the future world. Later, the external and internal barriers that stand in the way to other components of the new world are realized. If it is more or less easy to get rid of the external, then the awareness of the lack of internal resources pushes the development of a new one (in the example with adolescents - choosing a profession, part-time work). In conclusion, the person compares how much he managed to get closer to the ideal he saw.
  3. In the post-critical phase, the contradiction is resolved, the personality builds new harmonious relations with the world. If the results of the previous reflection suit, then the personality finally translates the imaginary into the real, the other into his own.

Features of overcoming the crisis

No one can save a person from going through a crisis. It is up to the person to overcome all difficulties and find a new balance. But the crisis process can be controlled and directed. This is the help from the outside - to teach a person to manage his own crisis, to see and use opportunities, skilfully avoiding dangers (and others).

A crisis is always a choice. A person understands what kind of task he faces, what exactly he cannot do with the usual means, but he still has to choose new tools. Each crisis prompts a person to search for identity.

Of particular interest in the framework of personal development is E. Erickson's theory of age crises, although the stages differ from those mentioned earlier. The author identified the following stages of age transitions and choices:

  • First year of life. The child's future trust / distrust in the whole world depends on how satisfied the child is.
  • The first experience of self-service. If the parents help the child, are logical and consistent in control, then the child develops autonomy. If the parents show unstable or excessive control, then the child develops fears about control over their bodies and feelings of shame.
  • Self-affirmation of the child (3-6 years old). If the child's independence is supported, then he grows proactive. Otherwise - submissive and with a pronounced sense of guilt.
  • School age. The child either develops a taste for activity (work), or loses interest in his own future, feels a sense of inferiority in relation to his own status and the means available to him.
  • Teenage identity. His further professional and personal life depends on the success of the adolescent's assimilation of roles and the choice of a reference group.
  • The crisis of adulthood is accompanied by a search for intimacy with one person. If a person cannot successfully solve the problem of combining work and family, then he is isolated and closed on himself.
  • The midlife crisis is based on the problem of procreation and preservation. A special interest is awakening in the upbringing of the whole new generation and their children. A person is productive and active in all spheres of life, otherwise interpersonal relations gradually deteriorate.
  • An old age crisis, the resolution of which depends on the assessment of the distance traveled. If a person can bring all aspects of his life into one whole, then he will live his old age with dignity. If it is not possible to add a whole picture, then the person experiences fear of death and the inability to start all over again.

This is not the only concept and classification of age crises. There are many more, but all authors agree on one thing:

  • the crisis impedes movement and development;
  • at the same time, he creates opportunities and encourages the disclosure of the inner potential of the individual.

Each crisis ends with the formation of a specific neoplasm. Unsuccessful passage of the crisis is fraught with getting stuck at some stage, the development of a distorted neoplasm and (or) a compensatory mechanism.

In a crisis, the destruction of the old way of life and the acquisition of a new one occurs only through revolution. That is why crises always turn over. Thus, at the time of the crisis and after its passage, changes occur in the consciousness and activity of a person, in relations with the world.

Psychologist help

When overcoming the crisis, the help of a psychologist is often needed. Psychological assistance is always individual in nature. That is, a specific case is analyzed, there can be no general advice.

As a rule, psychocorrection is prescribed for children and consultations for adolescents and adults. In addition to conversations with children, art therapy and fairy tale therapy are used. Group psychotherapy is sometimes provided to adolescents. Adults are shown trainings, older people - group psychotherapy. In some cases, at every age, family counseling is possible.

It is more difficult to endure the crisis, and therefore more often need support, people:

  • with and elements of infantilism in behavior;
  • not independent in making decisions;
  • characterized by an external locus of control (blame for the failures of the environment);
  • with the perception of the crisis as a dead-end situation interrupting life, and not as an opportunity for growth.

It is important to perceive the crisis as a difficult, but surmountable situation, requiring great responsibility and ensuring personal development if it is successfully passed. The goal of overcoming a crisis is to learn to accept a new self from a position.