Part Two
PSYCHOLOGY OF MALE PERSONALITY

Quite often the truth is cruel,

If you live in the imaginary world

Ada Tadevosyan

Painting by Joel Rea.

The man and his interaction with the elements –

the main theme of the Australian artist

The first part of the book highlights modern knowledge about a person, key features and components that determine specificity of his/her SBA basis, on which arise, develop, spread and then fade away various momentary, short- and long-term states – vibrations of the ocean of human life along which like waves fly life collisions, dramas, comedies and tragedies changing the quality of life and reducing it. The SBA is a chip inside of which the psychic world (subjective reality) of man is being formed and only by virtue of interaction and interpenetration of these opposites man lives and develops.

There is a great deal of literature, researches relating to the man’s psychic world. There are even more discussions around this subject. The presence of the Internet has opened up easy access to the accumulated knowledge, to comprehend which is not always easy, even to a professional, because of the complexity of the research subject, its versatility, availability of different approaches to the study, different schools and different theoretical concepts. Multiple reiterations, terminological diversity depending on the chosen approach complicate understanding. We are not inclined to retell them, analyze or all the more to prove or disprove anything.

As required, we will refer to a particular source for the sole purpose to bring a reader to treat many issues of interest in a different way, overcoming the persistence of stereotypes. Offering our vision of this or that problem – we follow our authors’ logic. Perhaps we are mistaken. We are always ready to listen to another point of view and change our own, if the evidences are convincing. But we are going our way to the Temple where a person, both a professional and amateur (to both of them “all that is human is not alien”) will find those anchors, life buoys, sweeps, islands using which, taking hold of which will be able to overcome anxieties of the life ocean easier. On our way we gathered pearls of the foregone generations abundantly scattered in the fields of physiology and neurophysiology, psychology and psychoanalysis, logic and philosophy. Summarizing many years’ professional experience of the psychiatrist (“Psyche”) and the urologist (“Eros”) we weaved the found “pearls” of knowledge into a single necklace “Stressology” and through its lens tried to address the current health problems of men in particular, and medicine in general.

PECULIARITIES OF MALE SENSITIVITY

We view the study of the inner mental world of a man as the most reliable way to explore deep mental processes that affect health, life and healthy longevity. Unfortunately, these issues are ignored in medicine. The chosen approach predetermined the direction of the search for the causes of the early mortality of men in comparison with women. The task turned out difficult since it does not have clear boundaries and limits. It is boundless because, if we collect together the spiritual activity of the mature man, after his release from the bondage of phallic libido, it is necessary to give a picture of the whole set of human culture, in fact, world history of mankind with all its curves. The spiritual life of a man fully coincides with the bulk of overcoming life stressors of humanity and the achievements of human culture, scientific and technological progress. At the same time all negative, destructive, devastating ever created by man also come forward as the result of his activity. At all times of history a man lived on the crest of a wave of stressful life ocean, he was the first who took the blows of fate and was looking for the island of hope and stability. But having found them, he returned again and again to the ocean in search for the new and unknown. It is clear why in many languages the word “Male” and “Man” are identical.

In ancient Egypt, the Male-Man was represented by a single hieroglyph.

In English – Man

In French – homme

In Russian – молодой человек

(when applying to a man)

In the Armenian language there is a peculiarity, which reflects man’s maturation. When born – a boy (tgha), who growing up becomes a “boy-man” (tgha-mard). And this age period is not so much due to the time factor as to the formation of the social role with its main characteristics, realization of both biological and, mainly, social needs. “Tgha – martes dartsel” (became a man) is the most significant praise in the mouths of adults for teens.Tracing man’s development and moving up the biological stairs of fauna in phylo- and ontogenesis, it is clear that the role of social and psychological relations is ever increasing and the influence of genetic and hormonal factors, on the contrary, decreasing. One of the most important concepts of the traditional Chinese world view – “san tsai” – “three matters”, “three gifts”, “three riches”: Heaven, Earth and Man connecting them. In the cycle of its development, Chaos gives rise to two principles of the universe – Heaven and Earth and receives completion in Man. The “Tao Te Ching” states: “One gives birth to two; two produces three; three engenders all the darkness of things”. Man (male), according to the Chinese notions, stands in the center of the universe, he closes and keeps the global flow of life. We do not know as to the whole “global flow of life”, but on the Earth all the good and evil begins and ends with the man and he is in the middle of the stress-saturated ocean of earthly existence. It is man who at all times and everywhere has been in the epicenter of stress-saturated life, at the forefront of the fight against all stressors and constantly enriched the life with ever new and new stress-factors. Having experienced their effects, he, perhaps for this reason, as a defender, “pushed” the woman into the family, home, protecting her and offsprings from the harmful effects of the environment.

We all know the symbol of ancient Chinese mythology and natural philosophy Yin-Yang (“Tai Chi”, the Great Ultimate) – the symbol of the creative unity of opposites in the Universe. It was depicted as a circle, the image of infinity, divided by a wavy line in two halves – dark and light. Two points – light against a dark background and dark against a light one, symmetrically located inside the circle, indicate that each of the two great forces of the Universe bears in itself the germ of the opposite beginning. Dark and bright fields, denoting the corresponding Yin and Yang are symmetric, but this symmetry is not static. It assumes constant movement in a circle – when one of the two beginnings reaches its peak, it is already ready to retreat. Yang, having reached its peak of development, retreats in front of Yin, which, having reached its peak, retreats in front of Jan.

Yang symbolizes a male beginning personifying the white, light with an emphasis on the external confirmation of male’s activity and his role in life. Current data confirm that boys are more influenced by the environment and girls – by inherited factors. Male beginning Yang is in close, indivisible connection with the Yin – the female beginning symbolizing the black, with an emphasis on the inner. This symbol is universal. Human life is a circle closed to the body-personal boundaries that define the basic paradigms of human existence. Human life is a circle, closed to the body-personal boundaries, which define the basic paradigms of human existence.

Men’s mythological images:

1. “Shield and Spear” – the symbol of the male, as well as the sign of the planet Mars and the god of the same name;

2. Heracles – the ideal of male power. 3. Apollo – the ideal of male beauty.

At all times, the image of the man came forward as a heroic character, as an object for depicting in the visual arts, and imitation. Since ancient times, the symbol of the planet Mars, named after the ancient Roman God of War, has been used to refer to a male; genetics also uses this symbol.

There are two areas in human cognition, which require sensitive attitude and careful logos penetration into these spheres. One area – biological component – is the human body, and no matter how much we would like to dissociate ourselves from Freud, the essential part of human is the sexual sphere. Understanding what is happening in it affects the foundations of self-image, especially in men, and often, with different points of view, causes strong opposition, aggression. This area is functionally highly variable and is thoroughly protected by the EGO. Mystery covers this area. Its “nakedness” hidden from the external world, developing in one direction or another, in many ways forms the character, value orientations and hence the behavior and lifestyle of men, on the one hand; and on the other hand, it creates a variety of symptom complexes, internal imbalance and health disorders, affecting the life span.

The second area – man’s psycho-social component – is his emotional sphere with a feeling of belief as a core. It is less variable and fits into a few basic specific confessions. But it is even more sensitive and vulnerable to whatever other point of view, provoking intolerance, aggression and violence, on the one hand, the sufferings, suicides, health disorders on the other hand.

It would be simpler and faster to finish the book not saying anything or not going into special details, just referring or appealing to the already accepted postulates. But we have chosen a compromise option: in the most debated “painful” moments of the narrative we present our position by large strokes as information for consideration or doubt in a personal presentation of the problem, giving readers the right to make a choice.

Such an approach meets our motivation and the main purpose of writing this book. Considering complex, difficult, and sometimes mysterious and incomprehensible situations and collisions faced by virtually every man, we refer not only to the existing stock of knowledge, look into the fount of wisdom of ancient civilizations, but also share many years of practical experience. The obtained information and knowledge will undoubtedly help the reader overcome the “pitfalls” and bends, takeoffs or bogs encountered in the river called Life.

The psychoanalytical approach is used in psychology to substantiate psychodynamics, namely, when the basic problems of adult behavior are derived from real events and childhood experiences. Results are presented as symbolic conclusions of the kind of five stages of psychosexual development of the individual, the Oedipus complex or Electra complex, which are based on what Freud called “envy of the phallus”.

According to Freud, repressed sexual desires of man, his libido ultimately underlie all his actions and all his problems. Not only Freud’s opponents but also his disciples and followers often criticized psychoanalysis for this pansexuality. Until now, debates do not cease around the so-called Freud’s psychohydraulic model of sexuality, according to which individual’s energy (libido) is realized, depending on the type of culture of the society in which he exists.

The amount of this energy is fixed and limited, so everyone is forced to choose between his own sexual activity and certain kinds of activities accepted in a given society. It is in this that Freud saw an inherent conflict between sexuality and culture. Sexual repression creates neuroses in the individual, and its free manifestation is the decline of culture.