Interconnection of self-concept’s peculiarities and system of attitudes of psychoactive substance abused

Abstract

The paper discusses the basic psychological directions of the “Self”- concept and the system of attitudes of addictions study. The theoretical aspects of the study of mental functioning of the identities of persons suffering from addiction from the standpoint of “Self”- concept and system of attitudes. Addiction of psychoactive substances remains dominant in the structure of other forms of abuses and is one of the most acute problems of modern society. The theoretical generalization of the phenomenon of the “Self” - concept of addicts showed underdevelopment, the unformation of the structures “Self”, the fuzziness of its borders, which substantially actualizes and confirms the needness for its study. More to a large extent, this applies to the study of the phenomenon of the “Self” -concept of addicts in conjunction with studying the system of attitudes as it is precisely in the relationship between the “Self” -concept and the system of relations, for the first time, there is the basis for the development of abuse. The purpose of the study was to study the fpeculiarities of the “Self” -concept and the system of attitudes of a addicted person, as an important resource to overcome the life difficulties of chemically addicts. For the purpose of research, we have used the following methods. For the study of “Self”- concept have been used: the method of diagnosis of interpersonal relationships (interpersonal diagnosis T. Leary), the method of 20 definitions of M. Kuhn and T. McParland "Who am I?". The system of relations was studied using the method of free description and semantic differential Charles Osgood. Statistical methods of data processing the Mann–Whitney U test, the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, the Kendall rank correlation coefficient and cluster analysis. The research sample consisted of 75 patients, of which 75 patients with drug abuse (opium addiction), aged 18-26, and 35 healthy persons, aged 18-27 years without signs of somatic pathology and drug addictions. The findings suggest that unformed, defitsitarnist structures of Self, blurring its boundaries, indicating the involvement of consciousness structures in the pathological process of the formation of addiction and the formation of subject-subject emotional stereotypes towards close women: the mother and the wife/girlfriend who are based on the depreciation mother’s social status and further in exaggerating the negative qualities of a partner. The study of the phenomenon of “Self” - concept of addicts showed that this phenomenon is based on the background of authoritarianism, aggressiveness and, at the same time, the pursuit of social acceptance and acceptance, sacrifice of their own interests, an attempt to help others at their own expense, to be positive for the society. The positive qualities of the “Self” - concept of chemical addicts are of an imaginary nature and are an “external mask” of crowding out the fact of the marginality of addiction. The leading pattern of the “Self” - concept is the emotional-polar type of personality, resulting in a distorted motivational sphere, semantic accents are shifted, and they are largely determined by the relationship with the surrounding world. For the system of attitudes of chemical addicts characterized the atypical formation of subject-subjective emotional stereotypes to close women: the mother, the wife / girlfriend, based on the devaluation of the social status of the mother, having an extension in magnifying negative qualities of the partner in relation to positive qualities, which allows to make an assumption of a devaluation of socially acceptable grounds through the unconscious awareness of the stigmatized attitude of society towards the marginality of their behavior. The study of the relationship between the features of the “Self” -concept and the system of attitudes between addicts made it possible to identify reliable correlations. The relationship between the individual attitudes towards the wife / girlfriend and the content characteristics of the “Self”- concept (“Who am I?”) can be interpreted as traction from addicts before the transfer of guilt to a partner. The interrelation of subjective attitudes correlates with the self-esteem of the subjects and is expressed in reliable connections of average strength with the results of "Who am I?" And “Self” -real. Established strong connection of the meaningful characteristic of the “Self”-concept – “Self”- real with the system of individual attitudes towards the mother and “Perfect” woman can be interpreted as the failure of the model “Perfect” women of addicts, given the weak links between different assessment scales, indicating the desire to find a partner, not similar to either the mother or the “perfect” way that can be interpreted as the deliberate search for a disadvantageous party to justify its addictive behavior.