Male’s Health in the Objective of Stressology – Beyond the Usual

A metaphoric model of human adaptation.

SBA is the basis of adaptation depicted as “a dark column trunk” with three-phase branching because it has genetically programmed relatively rigid boundaries that limit the variability of adaptive possibilities. A variety of colored balls represents the SPA.

Psychosocial adaptation is flexible, dynamic; it has a large selection of freedoms due to psychological defense mechanisms, dissociation. SPA is multidimensional, it tends to develop; according to the emerging challenges becomes more complicated, separates from its basis, gives rise to derived forms that somehow remain dependent on the biological adaptation. One can consider the ever-expanding Universe of our adaptation, in proportion with the expanding spheres of life, communication, and with man’s perception of all things and his “Ego”. Moreover, human adaptation is distinguished by an active volitional conscious process that can get more complex with the change of the environment, with complication of arising assignments and their solutions, and stress-saturation. In the course of evolution, the stereotypes of reactions that arose once in a person based on instinctive reactions to stimuli (adaptation) were replaced by increasingly complex psychic acts. The latter in repetitive situations allowed to change the modes of response, thereby increasing the degrees of freedom of reaction. Therefore the adaptation of man with its active and passive components has to be clearly distinguished from accomodation. The latter is in fact a passive autoplastic process materialized through the system of biological adaptation with its basic mechanism – a three-phase stressogenesis, which restores the balance between the body and the environment as the first level of adaptation, as Freud (1931) and Alexander (1933) wrote in their time.

The GAS, being a psycho-physiological response to a changing environment at the very elementary level – anxiety phase is complex and caused by a unity of mental and physical in man. This phenomenon is already complicated as contains both a mental component – emotion (alarm) and a bodily one (variety of somatovegetational effects). Therefore understanding what is going on with man and in man is possible only through the prism of “correlations of the physiological and the mental, the biological and the social in the nature of man”. Actually we deal with the “intertransition” of the psychosocial into the biological and vice versa. This problem has long been under scientists’ close scrutiny, and its differing interpretations have long been a stage of fierce disputes. Some psychologists and biologists refer to this trend as “psychophysiological parallelism”. Thus, W. Wundt, a German psychologist, physiologist and philosopher, the founder of experimental psychology, as far back as 1874 in one of his most important works in the history of psychology, the book “Principles of Physiological Psychology” thought that physiological research was unable to penetrate into the mystery of the psyche because the psychic processes developed in parallel with the biological and were not determined by the latter. The complexity is primarily in both understanding the concept of the “psychic” and its inaccessibility to direct experiment, direct sensual observation. And a German physiologist E. Du Bois-Reymond in one of his lectures, “On the limits of science” – at the second session of the 45th Congress of German Natural Scientists and Physicians in 1873 suggested that the emergence of psychic phenomena was one of the seven fundamentally unsolvable mysteries of the world. Since then, much has changed.

Emergence of the principle of systemic activity of the nervous system, which replaced the previous three: the principle of reflex (R. Descartes, I. Sechenov, I. Pavlov), the principle of dominant (A. Ukhtomsky), the principle of reflection in understanding the brain activity, resulted in abandoning the notion of the role of the brain as an anatomical organ. For this purpose, it was necessary to abandon monocausalgia to interpret mental and behavioral paradigms. In view of polyetiology, psychic manifestations began to be treated as a consequence of exposure to more than one factor, rather to a sum of factors; and not simply a sum, but as a result of their specific interaction.

Gunthern von Hagens (2009), trying to embrace an individual in a holistic systemic concept on the one hand, describes different levels of the body – physiological, cognitive, emotional and transactional, and on the other hand, he can see man as part of the socio-cultural field. Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy was an Austrian biologist, known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). It is an interdisciplinary practice, which describes systems with interacting components used in biology, cybernetics and other areas. Von Bertalanffy (1973) suggested a concept of hierarchal orders to describe the body of man, wherein the simpler systems (e.g. cells) were integrated into more complex systems (e.g. organs) as elements or subsystems. As to the organs, they were included as elements or subsystems in even more complicated systems, like organisms, which on the next hierarchical level again interacted with the environment forming social systems. This viewpoint brings into the foreground a thesis by V. Ehrenfels (1890) that the whole (in this case, it is a system) is more than the sum of its parts (subsystems). It is all about the Gestalt psychology. The idea of Gestalt has its roots in the theories of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Ernst Mach. The concept of Gestalt was first introduced in contemporary philosophy and psychology by Christian von Ehrenfels in his famous work “Über Gestaltqualitäten (1890). With the increase in the complexity of the system, new qualities appear that have not yet existed at the level of the subsystem; psychosocial adaptation becomes such a quality.

I. M. Sechenov, A. A. Ukhtomsky, P. K. Anokhin, N. A. Bernstein, each from his own position, have made a weighty contribution into the development of living systems. As noted by Yu. Alexandrovsky, by virtue of systemic analysis, “…which is a specific logical and methodological instrument for studying different complex processes, it becomes possible to explain the mechanism of qualitatively new features of the whole (system)…” (2004).

In recent decades, physicists and mathematicians got involved in the study of human, his consciousness, being rather active and productive at that. The theory of information field has led to the creation of a holographic model of the Universe, each point of which contains all information. Psychologists have sounded the alarm about the growing amount of information, the information flow, in which a person lives. However, the human brain does not perceive, nor does it process the information around us. We do not perceive radio waves, TV waves; we do not hear ultrasound nor do we see infrared rays because of the stimulus barrier. According to L. Vygotsky, the psyche is a “sieve that filters the world”. But this process is not passive; the psyche “allows” that we receive exactly what we need “here and now”. It builds its structure on the basis of reflection, pleasure/displeasure, learns to select what corresponds to a person’s interests, value orientation, and only then passes to a new level of adaptation. This level is more complex since it is the basis for own reality in the process of exchange with the environment.

All open systems live by exchanging information and energy with the outside world. But this is not a random exchange, but rather a self-selection based on the principle of correspondence. The interaction occurs where compliance is found as the reason for the selective interaction of a person with the environment that seeks to find in the world “its own that has not yet become its own”. Where there is a correspondence, a meaning is born. So the sense reality is born – people live not in optical spaces, but in fields of meanings. When this “own, that has not yet become its own” finally becomes its own for the system in the course of its interaction with the outside world, it changes the structure of the system itself, complicating it. This complication occurs because each time the system receives from the outside not only what it “wanted” but also what it even “did not think of”. In other words, when a person receives something from the world, he becomes different. As a result, in the inner reality of meanings there is a harmonious fusion of what we consider to be “opposites” – “I” and “Not I”, the subject and the object, the inner and the outer. There is a multi-dimensional human world, containing both subjective and objective dimensions. This is the way of its development or rather self-development.

As Goethe said: – “Everything inside is long ago outside”. Thus a person changes the space by his subjectivity. This is a unified ability of any open complex system to “distort” the space around it in order to select again and again what most of all corresponds to it at present (I. Prigogine, 1986). “The path of man to himself lies through the world”, (V. Frankl, 1990). Indeed, we find ourselves in the world that is proportionate (corresponds) to us, but not in the world that is indifferent to us. A person meets in the world with himself – with his needs and opportunities. He is projected into this world, and from there he receives answers. But this is an active process on the part of man, since before that, having an affective sphere, the principle of pleasure/displeasure, he had built the architecture of his mental apparatus. And his brain through the lens of this apparatus filters the information field from the outside, sorting out the patterns of information corresponding to him – and in no way vice versa. But this process of filtration largely depends on the filter, or the sieve, which is used by this or that individual. And this is again a personal choice as a result of upbringing, imparted moral cultural traditions. If a person has not developed a core, he becomes an easy prey for catchers of human souls.

When he finds himself, the person occupies an active position. If this does not happen, he simply accommodates himself, but does not adapt. Actually he does not live and, according to V. E. Klochko, author of the theory of psychological systems, “a state may come when a person ceases to understand whether he lives his life, or whether his life lives”. That is, you have to be a subject, not an object of your own life. Moreover, life is not only a transition to the future, but also a transformation of its past. A person has always to reconstruct this experience of the past under new tasks. Experience includes, among other things, customs and rituals.

Gradually came the understanding that only a person has two sources of activity: not only needs, but also opportunities. Animals act mainly in the field of their needs. Human is given consciousness first of all to realize his potentials. At the beginning the concept of self-actualization was mentioned. In the light of new approaches, we are talking about self-realization, that is, first of all, about realization of the opportunities that are inherent in each person, transference of human potentials in potencies. Potentials are genetically incorporated programs. By itself the availability of potential does not guarantee that it will necessarily turn into reality. M. Mamardashvili (1997) writes that there is potential as an opportunity, and there is a potency that, unlike a simple possibility, “is an opportunity that simultaneously has the strength to realize it”. And self-development should be seen as a transition of opportunities into reality, and not only as a process conditioned by the satisfaction of basic needs. Behind creativity, for example, there is a “tense opportunity” for a person to create himself and the world.

The brain as the main constituent of the higher nervous activity (HNA) fulfills a systemic organization of all its components to form a systemic multi-level response adequate to its capabilities. This manifests its multi-functionality from the standpoint of psychology, psychoanalysis and psychopathology. The brain perceives information from the outside and from within; selects it with subsequent differentiated fixation, using the mechanisms of mirror neurons, eidetism, mechanisms of short-term, operational, long-term memory; chronicizes the effect of the stressor by the inclusion of a psychological mechanism – displacement; forms echo effects, creates flashbacks, dreams, somatic conversions; fills the sphere of the unconscious. This activity is provided by the mechanism of stressogenesis (there is no other) manifested by the GAS.

The first phase of the GAS is the phase of alarm – manifests itself as a non-specific symptom complex in the form of “neuroticism”. It has a bioelectric nature, and therefore a discontinuous (discrete) character; with a prolonged, lingering stress-situation a person enters the permanent stress zone, which is provided by the three-axis second phase of the GAS, which is neurohormonal in nature and manifests itself as psychosomatic symptoms, syndromes and diseases. The latter arise as a consequence of the transition of functional changes to structural in different organs and organ-systems. In the absence of psychotherapeutic and biotherapeutic assistance, permanent stress leads to the consumption of the hormonal limit, loss of some links of the GAS, which is fraught with the development of the third phase of the GAS – the phase of astenization revealed by the burnout syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, various asthenic and asthenic-vegetative states.

The structure of the adaptation model consists of two different levels:

1. The neurophysiological part includes: HNA with the brain in the center, sensorium, mirror neurons, the mechanism of eidetism, memory, endocrine glands, the conductor system, skin, organ systems, body.

2. The psychoanalytic part of the model includes: psychosensory reflection (sensations, feelings, pain), mechanisms of psychological defense, flashbacks, dreams, amnesias, conversions.

The inclusive concept by Hartmann (2002) regards the adaptation as a nonstop ongoing process that has its roots in the biological structure, with many of its manifestations reflecting the constant attempts of “Ego” to balance the internal or inter-systemic tension. According to A. R. Luria, if the initially developing mental activity has a relatively elementary basis while depending upon a “basal” function, it will subsequently become more complicated starting to be realized with involvement of the structurally higher forms of activity. Mental adaptation results from the activity of an open system which, according to L. Bertalanffy is characterized by “a state of mobile equilibrium” in which its structure remains constant. But in contrast to an ordinary equilibrium, this constancy persists in the process of continuous motion of its constituent substance. The mobile equilibrium of open systems is characterized by the principle of equiphility, that is an open system can be preserved and develop not depending on the initial conditions. At the same time, the author emphasizes, “the living systems can be defined as hierarchically organized open systems that preserve themselves or develop in the direction of achieving the state of mobile equilibrium” (L. Bertalanffy, 1969).

The main distinction of psychological adaptation from the biological is in that the latter provides the adaptation of man to the environment, i.e. has the function of an adaptive character when the environment is primary and determines the sphere and the range of man’s activity and behavior. Figuratively we can imagine that man and environment roll along the road of life in the same harness wherein environment is the “wheel horse”. This adaptation assumes a reasonable conformity with regard to the outside realities, therefore in many cases it also includes activities aimed at modifying the environment or its adequate control. It is this process that initiates and triggers the psychological adaptation enabling man to change the environment adapting it to his needs, demands and purposes. And so, already not two horses, but three: “Environment, Man and his Intellect” are tearing along the road of life, among which the anchor is variable.

As a separate, third form of adaptation appears the choice of a new environment, where alloplastic and autoplastic changes are combined. Human as a carrier of consciousness has one more form of adaptation including both the first and the second kinds, but containing a qualitatively new purpose, namely, the search for and choice of a “new” – “the new environment”, which is favorable for human functioning. This constant search for “the new” is very meaningful in human life and adaptation. It is implemented by the functional subsystem of perception and information processing, the so-called “information subsystem” consisting of a number of leading links. One of those is a link providing search and information processing, its storage and usage. For a full-scale work of this subsystem it is necessary that the information items contain elements of novelty and be somewhat indeterminate. It is the presence and search for novelty in information flows that are developed in males but not due to genetic peculiarities of their brain structure but as a consequence of the developing psychosocial adaptation in the world full of stresses.

The activity of this subsystem functioning is directly proportional to the state of the environment in which a person lives at every particular moment in his life. The more crisis-prone the environment, the less active is the search for novelty in information, but the greater the need for experience to overcome the complexities of this environment.

Another important principle of adaptation, according to Hartmann, is change of function. To estimate the adaptive significance of a particular behavior, it is necessary to distinguish the currently existing function of this behavior from the one that existed originally. Behavioral functions often change in the process of adaptation, and, ultimately, behavior can serve a purpose different from the original. The knowledge that functions change helps to avoid the so-called “genetic error”, a simplified assumption that an individual’s current behavior is a direct outcome of the past. This point of view confirms the role of the social environment in changing the genetically engineered program, i.e. “A man himself is able to choose some part of his fate and adjust it himself”. Change in the environment and change in the functions provide the flexibility of mental adaptation, without which a productive full-fledged life is impossible.

Equally important role in the process of adaptation plays the automation mechanism, which provides, as opposed to flexibility, the rigidity of mental adaptation. The interrelation and interdependence of the mental and somatic in the course of human evolution and the formation of a healthy “I” (“Ego”) are manifested in a systemic behavior and use of bodily capabilities – the somatic system for adaptation. Integration of somatic systems involved in the operation, with their constant use, is automated; the same happens with mental efforts involved in the action. With the increased training of some action, its intermediate steps disappear from consciousness.

To explain this, E. Kretschmer (1922) proposed a law of “formula abbreviation”: not only motor behavior, but also perception and thinking show automation (a certain similarity to a habit). S. Freud (1905) wrote: “Such processes played out in the preconscious and elusive, with which consciousness is connected, can be called the appropriate term “automatic”. The place of these automatisms in mental topography is the preconscious, rather than the unconscious (“Id”), besides, these automatisms can be distinguished from the automatisms of the unconscious”. We are interested here in the purpose-oriented achievements of these automatisms and their important role in the schematics of the adaptation process. Automation has undoubted economic advantages and stipulates many complex achievements in central psychic domains. It is common knowledge in physiology that generation of automatism reduces metabolic expenditures, accelerates transformation and saves energy.

As Hartmann writes (2002), “we can say, automatisms – like other mental phenomena are also under the control of the external world, and under certain conditions, formula-abbreviated behavior is a better guarantee of mastering reality than new adaptation in each specific occasion”. This manifests the protective role of pre-consciousness automatisms, their stimulus barrier.

Thus, both flexibility and automation (rigidity) are inherent and necessary for the “Ego”. There are three groups of functions that are active in the mental sphere of man: some mental functions assuming a flexible form provide flexibility and plasticity of the psyche, behavior of man and his state of health; other functions assuming the automated form provide lower expenditure of energy resources and time that are often crucial for adaptation, accelerating the conversion of energy; and the third group is comprised of mental functions, which combine the initial two in different proportions.

In a complex human mental sphere thought, imagination, and recollection often become a triggering factor, “stressor of stressors” activating the mechanism of stressogenesis, eliciting the entire range of the vegetosomatic effect inherent to the phases of GAS. As a result mental adaptation becomes more complex, expanded, evolved, reflecting the evolution of the world of man and the evolution of man himself, his knowledge, values, wishes and purpose of life. In the course of evolution there comes about the “central regulating organ”, commonly called “the inner psychic world” that is located between the receptors and the effectors. This inner world (psychic) is built up gradually, by virtue of the so-called existing “stimulus barrier” that enables to perceive and to forward “only a fragment of the initial (stimulus)” reality of the world of man (Freud, 1920).

But man is an amazing creature! He is not content with a life-long adaptation to the actually changing environment, the changing human environment and to his own self. With the development of consciousness an individual, and only he, as shown by many studies, while living his own life, is also permanently forming his own “subjective reality”, his own idea of the world of things, of other people and of his own status. Meanwhile, the latter category is associated with self-rating, varying from an overestimation of oneself, one’s capacities and capabilities, to their underestimation. The result is that the individual adapts not so much to the objective reality but to the so-called “psychic reality” built by himself as an integrative “product”, as a fundamental integrative formation of the perceived outside world, colored by personal experiences and personal estimates. As a result, a “semantic reality” is created, enriched and framed by thoughts, feelings, fantasies, anxieties and suspicions. In forming this reality a sizeable role belongs to the past events, imagination and perspectives, to say nothing of the unconscious predictions forming the guidelines.

The emerging mental reality is not the reality that is mostly identified with the outside world and regarded as “objective reality”. The mental reality, at close scrutiny, is a colored palette of diverse interpretations of the outside world by different people, for each of them “his own reality is the most objective”, the one he is being adapted to. The mental reality is constructed through personal experience enabling perception of current life. E.g., a person gone through a traumatic situation, retains this experience, often perceives this world acting in it at present and in the future in the light of a traumatic reality of the past. It is this person who crosses the threshold of the doctor’s office, having his own idea of the disease, the formulated internal picture of the disease. The mental reality can be regarded as synonymous to the inner and subjective reality. All three terms – mental, inner, and subjective realities are designed to limit the subjective experience of an individual from the world of physical objects. Some theorists attempt to introduce certain corrections to delimit the mental and the inner reality.