Biography of significant family relationships

You can recreate the picture of your communication with one of the significant ones with him. It would be even interesting.

Find first and foremost time and place: that for two hours no one interferes with your shared memories and dreams. You will also need two pencils, two notebooks of paper in a cage, 15-20 small sheets from a pocket notebook. Also, be satisfied with insight, sincerity and trust - all those that promote the best mutual understanding. It would be superfluous and a sense of 5

If you do not feel yourself at the height of these requirements, then you can simply, get acquainted with how coped with our task more daring. And you can read at the beginning of chapters 5 and 6. There you will find games in which even children play with pleasure, honing skills of mutual understanding and humor.

Well, and those who have already decided on joint biographical searches, let us recall Vysotsky's verses:

The dates and events and faces are buried in our memory for centuries and the memories, like a well, are deep, try to look - for surethe person-and that - will be unclear.

To see what is true, what is false, can only be an impartial court. Be careful with the past, carefully, do not break the earthen vessel.

So, let each of you two present the past, the present and the future( yes, yes, and the future too!) Of your joint business life, family relations or just friendly communication for a start.

WHAT AND WHEN?

Now try to find together the most important milestones, events in the history and future perspective of your relationship. Such important milestones and events can be any changes in nature and society, in the family and at work, in health, in thoughts and feelings. In short, any change is an event. And, when we say "event", we will always mean a certain concrete change, occurring instantly or quickly enough. If you want to note some long period of life, choose for yourself one thing: the beginning, the end or its culmination.

What are the most important events in your life together?

. .. And they both, without saying a word, almost simultaneously said."A trip to Lleksino."

They, Vadim and Vera, came to the consultation for advice. How can they live further after eleven years of married life: together or apart?(Vadim - 34 years, Vera - 29, the oldest son - 6, younger - 4).Now, at the request of a psychologist, they peered at their past and future.

- March seventy-fifth year, - Vera suggested the second event.

VADIM.No-no! It is not necessary.

FAITH.No, this is very important.- And said: - The beginning of March, the seventy-fifth year.(Subsequently, they will appreciate this event as extremely unpleasant.)

VADIM.So be it. Then, probably, and my departure to Kazakhstan.

FAITH.Of course.(And this event also turned out to be unpleasant for both.)

They were thinking. They looked at each other. Remembered.

FAITH( without much enthusiasm).Wedding.

Vadim nodded.

FAITH Beginning of work after the university, the birth of Denisi, the birth of Petit.

VADIM.My transition to another job in the eightieth year.

FAITH.Yes. And your second move in the eighty-third.

- But why are events only from the past? And in the future you are waiting for something?

FAITH and VADIM( one voice).Divorce.

- And that's it? Long silence.

FAITH.Still, perhaps, parting with my mother.

VADIM.What does the mother have to do with it?

FAITH.... Mom will not survive this. .. And yet - my departure to another job.

VADIM.Yes, your departure. And probably better housing?

FAITH.Of course!(Lively.) And Deniska will go to school!

Shadow of a smile on faces. Easy confusion.

- Did you see anything else?

VADIM and FAITH.The birth of a daughter.

In addition to these events, Vadim and Vera offered others, but they were not unanimous in that they were really important changes in their family life, not just their personal lives.

However, fifteen events, which they named, is quite enough to create a biography of relations, and therefore in the proposed methodology, it is necessary to name exactly 15 events. Less - undesirable, more than twenty - will significantly complicate the subsequent work. Each event is recorded on a separate small notebook in any convenient form, understandable to both.

Then, on each sheet-card, write next to the name of the event its date - the time when it happened, or most likely will happen. Indicate the year, if you can - the month( or the time of year) and even the number. Now put the cards in chronological order. With Vera and Vadim they settled like that.

All events were dated December 1984. Therefore, the first nine have already occurred, and the last six - expectations, hopes, ideas about a joint future. The latter are very contradictory. Our friends are like at the crossroads: "left" - divorce, "right" - improve housing, give birth to a daughter. .. The first page of our book is 1998. So you can already know what happened and what does not. But we will not start running ahead, and together with Vadim and Vera we will stay in December 84th and will continue to reflect on their family chronicle.

WHY?

Let's think now about why these events occurred or will occur. You will have to think about your life together.

Let's start with the most recent event - at number 15. Put it aside, as shown in Fig.2. It has many causes, some of them, perhaps, are hidden among the events that preceded it. Can you, for example, agree with the statement that the event of the 15th will happen because there was an event of the 14th? Or, in other words, that the event of the 14th is one of the reasons for the event of the 15th? Do not hurry with the answer. It remains for us to tell you how it is most convenient to respond together to one question and not to argue with each other.

Fig.2. Will Vera leave for another job because she will part with her mother? And why they will part? The meaning of any event becomes clearer if you understand its causes.30-40 minutes will be needed to unravel the threads of causes and effects.

Please take a piece of paper of such size that they can hide in the palm of your hand. On one side of each sheet put "X", on the back - "O".This will be a label with your "yes" and "no."

Well, now let everyone independently, without expressing their opinion aloud, place his mark on the table( covering it with the palm of his hand) with a dagger or a toe. Do not forget: "X" means that the event of the 14th is one of the reasons for the event of the 15th, "O" - the event of the 14th is not the cause of the event of the 15th.

Vadim and Vera simultaneously withdrew their palms and looked at each other's answers with interest. On the table were two sheets marked with a cross.

And do you think the 13th event is the cause of the 15th? The answers are in your hands.

VADIM.We'll see?. .

And again the labels lay cross-up, both of them agreed that Vera's departure to another job would happen because the daughter was born two years earlier.

The next event is the 12th. Is it the cause of the 15th?

Again, unanimity: yes, improving housing is one of the reasons for Vera's departure to another job.

You probably already guessed that the 12th event will be followed by the 11th, followed by the 10th, 9th, 8th, and so on.up to the first. And with each event it is necessary to decide whether it is one of the reasons for the event of the 15th. Write your answers in a special table, draw it in advance.

In the table of Vadim and Vera, there were 15 rows and 15 columns for the number of events. In each cell it was possible to note the answers of both.(This was done by Vadim.) When event 15 was finally compared to event 1, the table began to look like this:

It easily finds all the answers. According to Vadim, Vera will go to another job( 15) because she will divorce( 10), improve housing( 12), give birth to a daughter( 13) and divorce her mother( 14).Faith, of course, sees farther origins: after all, the main role in this event is hers. According to Vera, the change of work will occur as a result of a trip to Aleksino( 1), the March 1975 puzzle( 2), post-university work( 4), the birth of the second son( 7), the transfer of the husband to another job( 8), and finally, because of the expected improvement in housing( 12), the birth of a daughter( 13), parting with her mother( 14).Look: in eight cases, the answers of the spouses were the same( in the cells of the table is "XX" or "00"), and in six cases, different "XO" or "OX"), Consensus is still greater!

So, with the event of the 15th, it seems, sorted out. Now things will go faster. Put aside the leaf with the event of the 14th and together consider which of the preceding( 1-13) events were its causes. As before, answer with the help of labels and do not forget to write down your answers( crosses and toes) in the table, in column 14,

After the entire column( beginning with line 13 and ending with line 1) is filled, proceed with the analysis of the reasons for event 13, then 12, 11, etc. For each new round of causal analysis, you will need less and less time. After all, the 13th event has 12 possible causes before it, the 12th - 11, the 10th - 9. .. and the 2nd - only one.

It took forty minutes until Vadim and Vera from 1989( event 15) reached 1974, in which the very first event from the list occurred. They already, like the real "dominoshniki", gamboled on the table with their hands with their marks, tried to guess in advance whether their answers would coincide or not, and they were increasingly drawn into the unusual occupation at first. Faith flushed, and Vadim cheered up. He carefully recorded all the answers.

While they are drinking tea, they exchange meaningful glances and rest before the final stage of self-examination, listen to what the table can tell us.

TABLE.Reliable, profitable, convenient to store information in my cells. You can find in me the answer to any "why" in your life together. Do you want to know, for example, why you will have a daughter( event 13)?Well, I will answer: because once you had a trip to Aleksino( 1), and a year later was March( 2), and soon a wedding( 3) and, of course, because in two years your housing will improve(12).There are, however, other reasons - my mother's, father's - but I do not like to talk about what there is no agreement. And why suddenly think of divorce( 10)?I'll tell you what: I did not have to leave Vadim for Kazakhstan( 9). ..

It will probably not be for many years, and this fictional monologue "wise lady's experience" will turn into a real live dialogue with a computer that will become your personalsecretary-biographer. Psychologists, along with programmers, are already creating the first versions of such computer programs that help everyone to conduct an interview with himself.

Well, for now Vera and Vadim, having rested, will continue our task.

WHY?

First of all, collect the list of event names in the stack so that there is an event from the top, 1, and from the bottom, the 15th. Now you have to think about the goals of your life together. Set the sheet with event 1 aside( Figure 3).

Fig.3. Why did you need to go to Aleksino? Really for the sake of what happened in early March 1975?And if not for this, then why?. . Even such tricky questions can be overcome if you do not regret another 30-40 minutes for mutual recognition.

Remember, did each of you have any goals that you were striving to achieve with the help of this event? Perhaps it is not( not everything in life happens "for something." But if our question is justified and event 1 did have goals, then was not its purpose event 2? Or maybe event 3? 4? 5?... 15? In the target analysis, as in the causal analysis, the answers are yes or no. Tell them to each other with the help of "X" or "O."

Vadim started preparing for family life with Vera, apparently, back in the days of his trip to Aleksino( 1), then he decided, with the help of this trip, to approach March 1975( 2), and Vera did not look so far in. She did not even suspect about the possible consequencesTherefore, on the second line of the first column of the table, Vadim recorded "X"( his answer) and "O"( Vera's answer), and in all other rows of the same column appeared zeros:

Now it was time to understand the purpose of event 2. Sincegoals are always ahead, then they can be in this case events 3-15. Remember: did event 2 take place in order to reach event 3?

Vadim answered "Yes" and thought, probably: "Of course, even then I dreamed about thatthat Vera should become my wife. "Vera answered "No" to

.In early March 1975 she had not yet looked at Vadim as her future husband.

We will continue. Maybe event 2 happened for event 4?5?b?11. .., 15?Note your answers with X-tails in the second column.

It remains the same way to find targets for events 3,4. .. 14.

Oh, it's hard work - patiently sort out every event, every step of your life, asking "why?" And not always finding the answer. But that's all behind. There were few goals, but the agreement was almost complete. Why did the wedding( 3) take place? To give birth to sons and a daughter( 5, 7, 13), although Vera from the very beginning had a thought and a divorce( 10).The first son was born( 5) to become a brother( 7) and go to school( 11).Another common goal for Vera and Vadim is to improve housing( 12), and to achieve it Vadim had to change jobs twice( 6, 8).All this can easily be read at the bottom of the table.

WHAT IS IMPORTANT?

You can learn now not only any "why" and "why", but also the weight( importance, significance) of each life event. But before you figure it out, try to determine it yourself, "by eye."

Choose from all 15 events the most important for both of you, the one that has influenced or influences the course of your life together.

VADIM and FAITH.A trip to Aleksin

TABLE.What do you! This event is only in seventh place. The most important thing for you is the birth of Denis.

Well, what do you think, which event is the second most important?

VADIM and FAITH.Probably, March seventy-fifth..

TABLE.I still believe that the wedding was more important to you.

FAITH.Yes you? I would call her last.

VADIM.And I, perhaps, would agree.

TABLE.Of course, I have to agree with you. Why should you argue? You better listen to me.

FAITH.And what, I wonder, can you say about divorce?

TABLE.Here's what I tell you: there are things for you and more important. I repeat that the most important events for you - the birth of Denis and the wedding ^

FAITH.Strange. ..

VADIM.But it seems like the truth. Well, and then what?

TABLE.Then - the birth of Petit, daughter, improvement of housing. And changes in work are more important than your divorce. I'm not talking about March seventy-fifth and the trip to Alexino. You think, such a tragedy - Vadim went to Kazakhstan, and the family must be demolished( in space people fly around the year, but nothing, they live!).Yes, this trip is at your last place in importance. You, I see, prepare for a divorce seriously. And in fact, you want to improve your housing and give birth to your daughter. This and live.

VADIM.I think you know us better than we do. Could you explain how you do it?

FAITH.Really, tell me. We can make mistakes in ourselves, "but how to understand where the truth is, where is the fad?"

TABLE.It's very simple, if you know how to count. Count all your crosses in my first row and the first column. How many it has turned out? Thirteen? Correctly. And in the fifth row and the fifth column how many count? Twenty three. Where more? Fifth. And you say, the trip to Aleksino is more important than the birth of Denis.

FAITH.Something I do not understand!. .

Let's figure it out together.

In this we will help rice.4, which depicts the biography of the relationship between Vadim and Vera. It contains the same information as in the answer table, but in a more visual form. Each event is located in the figure, the higher it is related to other events, the more often it is their cause or effect, the purpose or means, the more woven into the fabric of a joint life.

Fig.4. What is it?

- Two hours of reflection of Vadim and Vera over his life: what and when? Why? What for?

- Memories of the eleven years of life together, expectations and plans for the next five years.

- Causogram( if not to be afraid of special terms), ie, a graphic representation of the structure of causal and target links between events of the common life path. Thin arrows from left to right "->" connect causes with consequences. Arrows from right to left "

Let's take a closer look at event 5( the birth of Deniska).From him stretch threads to many other life changes. It was the cause of events 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, the consequence of events 1, 2 and 3, served as a means of achieving events 7 and 11, and, finally, was itself the goal of event 3. In other words, the birth of Deniska, according to Vadim and Vera, much influenced their lives and depended on a lot. Imagine for a moment that there is no "birth" - how much of the figure is erased, but lost in life.

Let's take another event. Let it be "the beginning of work after the university"( 4).Did it significantly affect the life of Vadim and Vera? Of course, otherwise there would not be one among the fifteen most important. But in comparison with most other events, the transforming power of "starting work", and hence the importance, is much less. Imagine now that event 4 has disappeared from the picture - the overall picture will not fundamentally change1.

Thus, the more causal and targeted links this event has to other events, the more necessary it is, the more it affects the course of life together. And that's exactly what we were talking about when we asked to evaluate our events in importance. Count the number of connections for an event is easy, but it is difficult to understand them in everyday life. How to find time and place, discernment, sincerity and trust to each other, and even a sense of humor in order to together to soberly analyze the past of their relationship, to chart a constructive perspective for them? In my youth, not before that. Who will spend two golden hours of communication with a loved one on a painstaking analysis of the history of this communication. Well, and later, when there is a need to "stop - look back", how not to get confused in the interweaving of all sorts of circumstances, desires, causes, consequences, goals, means?

Methods of biographical analysis, with which you have become acquainted, allow you to comprehend the logic of life changes, to agree personal perspectives, to find intricate, but not casual patterns in the fabric of life together. The ancient Greeks would say: "They are woven of yarn that spun, measure and cut off the goddesses of fate - Clotho, Lachesis and Anthropos."Be it so, but you have to work with these threads yourself."From the manifold events of life, from deeds, feelings and thoughts, he can, - wrote S. Maugham, - weave a pattern - the picture will come out rigorous, intricate, complex or beautiful. .. There is one pattern - the simplest, perfect and beautiful: a man is born, marries, marries, produces children, works for the sake of a piece of bread and dies: but there are other more intricate and amazing patterns, where there is no place for happiness or the pursuit of success - they conceal, perhaps, some kind of alarming beauty".And that the drawings on the endless fabric of life always pleased not only us, but also important people for us, it is worth remembering the three golden rules:

to cherish common memories, appreciate the history of their relationship, however short it might seem;

creatively relate to the years, hours, minutes of communication with each other, to be able to live in the present;

boldly look into the distant future, dream together, have common hopes, plans.

Only then the joint life with friends and relatives will become really bright, valuable and unique.

Vadim and Vera wove their pattern. For some it may not seem the most successful. But their work is not yet complete. We wish them creative success and look at the work of other masters.

BIOGRAPHICAL OPENINGS

Fig.5 we see a graphic depiction of the life together of another married couple, Anna and Alexei, who, after learning about our research, wanted to see the "patterns" of their lives. They are both about 30 years old. Familiar with each other for five years, a year ago they celebrated the wedding. Our newlyweds so anxious to "know themselves", that everyone was not too lazy to write first on the 15 most important events of his personal past, present and future. And only after that they started to work together - they formed the

list of 15 most important events of their family life. This general list could include events from the personal lists of the husband and wife, as well as new events specific to their life together. Then, as Vadim and Vera, Alexei and Anna set up the dates, analyzed the reasons, the goals, and recorded the answers in the table. They did even more. Since the answers did not always coincide( which is quite natural), they analyzed each case of mismatch, discussed the relevant life situation aloud and tried to find a common answer. As a rule, this was possible thanks to the readiness of Alexei and Anna to mutual concessions. Let's try now on the basis of Fig.5 to imagine their common life path.(The figure denotes only those links, in the presence of which both are sure).

# - first noticed by Alex O - first noticed by Anna

O - noticed both, independently About - young people could see each other only together, in the dialogue

Fig.5. For a quarter of a century ahead and five years ago, fearlessly looked Alex and Anna one year after the wedding. They saw the following events: 1 - a meeting in Tbilisi, 2 - finally fell in love, 3 - a roof over your head, 4 - the first quarrel, 5 - a daughter, 6 - a general creative work, 7 - a son, 8 - a house "with a balcony at sea", 9 - cheerful peace, 10 - understanding each other with a half-word, 11 - the first poster, 12 - travel to overseas countries, 13 - brought up children, 14 - invention, 15 - turn of the audience.

At the beginning of its history, Alex and Anna see the meeting in Tbilisi( 1) in the second year of their acquaintance. This event was the starting point in their general biography. It had no goals, but it affected a lot. Two months later, our young man finally fell in love( 2), and two years later the couple had a roof over their head( 3).In their common past, this last event was the most important, so much was expected of him. It seemed necessary to find your home( 8), a happy rest( 9), to come to understanding each other with a half-word( 10).A roof over his head was also needed in order that in the future, in 7 years, the first poster( 11) appeared, and another 20 years later - a long line of viewers( 15).Plans, as we see, are solid. But the first year of life under the general roof ended with the first quarrels( 4).About such people most likely speak: lovely are scolded - only are amused;because these quarrels are not the most significant moments of their life.

After going through the experience of the first meetings, loves, the first quarrels under the first common roof, Alex and Anna see their future for a quarter of a century ahead, with their daughter and son( 5, 7, 13), in the house "with a balcony on the sea"( 8), with general creative work( 6) and business successes of both( 11, 14, 15).They are also awaited by a cheerful peace( 9), understanding each other with a half-word( 10) and, of course, traveling to overseas countries( 12).

The most important in this whole picture of the past, present and future turn out to be a cheerful peace, a house, an understanding from a half-word. It should be noted that, in the family life of the couple, joint professional creativity( 6, 11, 14, 15) looks even more significant than the upcoming birth and upbringing of children( 5, 7, 13).Perhaps this is due to the spring of their relationship, and maybe to us are so busy people that they can give birth and bring up children only free time.

In Fig.5 events are marked with circles of different colors and shapes depending on their origin. By the number of events, Alexei's contribution to family life is somewhat greater: he introduced seven events out of 15, and Anna - five. However, the guiding star in their relationship, the most important event is a fun rest, it was opened by Anna.

Next to it - the roof, the house, the understanding - all the important general biographical discoveries of the pair.

With each such discovery, people create in essence a common life path, make it richer, wider than personal pathways. It is especially interesting that at the same time new perspectives are created in the purely personal life of everyone, the experience accumulated in a new way is rethought. Alex and Anna are examples. So, in his personal list, Alexei marks the "poster" event;it, as it turned out, denotes professional successes of the wife, which are very important for him. He proposes to include the "poster" in the number of events of a joint life. But Anna, thinking about her personal future, did not see this event, and maybe did not attach any importance to it. Now she readily agrees that this is indeed an important event. What does her consent mean? There are two possible answers.

First. If Anna "posters" were not in the future and therefore she "did not see" her, now this prospect has been outlined, something new has appeared on her life's path. In this case, Alexei literally created a new fragment, which does not exist yet "frame" from the future life of Anna.

Another answer follows if Anna was in the future "poster", but she did not attach much importance to her. In this case, Alexei's proposal did not create anything new, but enlarged the existing one, drew Anna's attention to the fact that the "poster" is more important than she thought.

Regardless of which answer is correct, both show that important people for us are able to create whole fragments of our life, they can erase, strengthen, weaken. Under their influence, life's facts change, the accents in the past, present and future are re-arranged in a new way, new human relationships to oneself and to the world arise, and its character changes. Everyone is able to play an important role in the fate of others, creating them or destroying them( "Who are you, my angel is a keeper or an artful tempter. ..")

CONVERSATIONS WITH BIOGRAPH

Two friend-journalist. Stae and Leonid, first met at the editorial office seven years ago. Now that each has crossed the thirty-three-year boundary, they wanted to comprehend the productive years of their cooperation, to agree on creative plans. Learning about the existence of a computer psychological method, created by one of the authors of this article together mathematician Alexei Leonidovich Pajitnov, Stae and Leonid decided to "kill two birds with one stone" - to see their business life and write a computer about the computers.

And here before them is a display screen with a flickering inscription: biographer. The pack pressed the carriage and a new record appeared:

A few WORDS ABOUT THE PROGRAM WITH WHOM YOU WORK

It is called the Biographer

With its help you can distinguish in life the "little things" from the "important", to realize your origins and perspectives.

An analysis of one's own life is a deeply intimate thing.

The creators of the Biographer understand this well.

Therefore, you do not have to report anything that you would not want to tell outsiders.

hope that Biographer will be useful to you. Then came questions about events, dates, reasons,

goals. Everything was almost the same as in our oral conversations with Vadim and Vera, Alexei and Anna. But there unfolded a chronicle of family life, while Staie and Leonid attempted to comprehend the joint business life with the help of the Biographer. There was one more innovation. When asked about the reasons and chains, our friends should have responded not just "yes" - "no", but to clarify "thanks" and "in spite of" what happened to the event or something, what they sought to "achieve" with it,"to avoid".

As if the most accurate secretary, the computer Bio-gram recorded the answers, safely memorized them, unmistakably mapped, and then reported their findings. He helped even create a picture of the joint business life, which we see in Fig.6. Solid lines show positive connections( "thanks", "reach"), dotted lines - negative( "contrary", "avoid").

The first conversation with Leonid( 1) immediately became an important event in the life of Stas. He suggested that he consider it an event( a joint business life - Leonid willingly agreed.) The conversation resulted in several magazine essays on Minsk( 2), Rostov Velikom( 3), who were writing together with the idea of ​​a future book.( 4) She sees them now(5) and colleagues( 6), a creative trip to Siberia( 7), a film based on the book( 8), all of which were unforeseen results of the book, it was created more "because it is impossiblewas different "than for the recognition of readers, colleagues, viewers. However, the distant goal is the anniversary edition( 13) in 15-20 years.

Figure 6. If shifting the cards with events, filling out the answer table and deleting the picture of life will seem too tiring for you, will require excessive volitional efforts,"Biographer" to your personal computer, as did Stae and Leonid. They told the Biographer about the events of their business life:

1 - the first conversation, 2 - an essay on Minsk, 3 - an essay on Rostov Veliky, 4 - a book, 5 - responsesreaders, 6 - recognition of colleagues, 7- a creative trip to Siberia, 8 - a film, 9 - a preview of the first play, 10 - a premiere, 11 - a collection of works, 12 - a theater, 13 - a reissue of the first book, 14 - "Grand Prix", 15 - leaving one of us.

The future peak is seen by friends in creating a theater( 12), which will embody their artistic and life principles. The way to the theater is long. The very first stage is the already announced working review of their first play( 9), then the premiere on the capital stage( 10), a collection of their journalism and drama( 11).And to the 55th anniversary of Leonid, friends hope for the Grand Prix of their theater( 14).

There is still a sad event - the departure of one of us( 15).Dotted lines, from him going, disturb, like thoughts about how to delay leaving, to avoid the inevitable.

Stas and Leonid have achievements and recognition in the past, important for themselves and for society plans in the future, the tension of creativity in the present. In the dense business schedule of both, it was not easy to find two hours to talk with the Biographer. But they found in him an interesting interlocutor who has a strong opinion about what and how they live. Moreover, friends wanted to return to such a conversation a few years later, on a new spiral of their business life. As, however, and Vera with Vadim, and Anna with Alexei.

Maybe you and the biographer will be useful?

Do not come near me

Do not move away from me

Be there,

from where I can be seen better

Takayuki Kisoka

IN WAVES OF

RELATIONS We offer to recreate the "lines of relations" with them. To do this:

1. Draw the following picture on a separate sheet of paper. Set the years of your life on the horizontal axis.

2. Remember your relationship with someone important, at least with the one whose name you mentioned most often.

3. Try to portray the history of the relationship with this person. The horizontal axis indicates the years of your life - from birth to today. The vertical axis indicates the degree of psychological intimacy in the relationship:

100 points - you experience a feeling of complete unity with this person, the feeling We, communicate with him as with yourself;

On the score - feeling We are absent, treat the other as an outsider.

In different years of communication, the feeling We can change. Draw a line of these changes - from the dating date to today.

4. Select one more person you are important for. In the same figure draw a line of relations with it.

5. Try to depict this way in a relationship with two or three other companions of your life.

Someone has a history of relations like a stormy sea with waves rising to the sky and breaking into the abyss. The dynamics of the relationship of the other is more like a calm, an endless sea surface, open distances. Rare excitement breaks this constancy.

Why do we say: "emotional unrest", "do not worry", "waves of life", "anxiety"?The Russian language is richer than scientific terminology. In psychological dictionaries there is no term "excitement", psychologists note only anxiety, tension, stress. Meanwhile, the human soul "worries" constantly. And most often the source of unrest is significant for us people: "Loves - does not like? Spit?

Kissing? To the heart of prizhmet?. . "It is these disturbances that do not allow you to keep your course in the sea of ​​life. Or maybe they just push us to the desired shores?

We already know that the history of relations consists of dates, events, their causes and goals. It's her invisible depths. And in immediate experience appear more visible forms that are closer to artistic images than to intellectual constructions. In the history of relations there are sunrises and sunsets, springs and autumn, flowering and wilting, youth and old age. .. All these images grasp first of all changes, changes in relations. Lines of relations are the lines of change.

Let's return to the heroes of the previous chapter - Vadim and Vera, Alexei and Anna. On these examples, we will try to show how in the depths of a joint biography waves of relations arise, the lines of which are visible in your drawings.

Let's start with the history of Vadim and Vera. Look again at the picture of their life together( Figure 4): nine significant events behind, six they see in the future. The connections by which past events are connected with the future are called actual. The more such actual links, the more saturated the current life, the more necessary the future of the baggage of what has been experienced and done, the more brightly the past is shined with expectations and hopes. How strong is this "bridge" connecting the past with the future?

We calculate the actual connections and compare their number with the maximum possible. In this case( between events 9 and. 10), the relative amount of actual bonds will be equal to 15%.And now we will invite Vera and Vadim to make a mental journey into the past and the future and calculate the saturation of the remaining time periods. You can judge how different years are experienced by them from Fig.7. The most intense time, Vadim and Vera consider their past, the history of their relationship is seen by them as a history of distance, loss of an already not very strong sense of We.

They are looking for new footholds, but, looking for a few years ahead, they anticipate alienation. .. and again believe that it will pass. Faith is more fully involved in a joint life: it reveals more legitimate connections, fewer accidents. Her individual saturation schedule is higher than Vadim's line, it seems more reliable to her from the past to the future.

Fig.7. The saturation of life together has changed over the years. The solid line in the figure indicates memories of past years, dotted lines - expectations and plans for the future.

Another picture of the life of Alexei and Anna. Ascending to We see them for many years of communication. True, temporary recessions are encountered here, but in general, the feeling We are growing stronger over the years, the past and the future are sprouting more deeply into each other. It's hard to say which of the two is more involved in communication - so individual graphics are so close.

Thus, a holistic, rather complex picture of the most important events of life together, their causal and target dependencies is manifested in a well-known sense of intimacy with another person. Psychologists are just beginning to explore how this picture is formed, how it changes after life itself or ahead of it, what is its specificity in business, family, friendships? Answers to these questions will give an opportunity to learn how to build and rebuild their relationships with people, make them more durable and durable, lengthen the time of their flowering - in short, be happier with each other. Probably, it was about this that pioneers dreamed of studying the biography of significant relationships.

MEASUREMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CLOSE

In the beginning of the 1970s, the Leningrad postgraduate student Natalia Loginova began the first biographical research of relations with significant others. To her subjects( or rather, to her interlocutors) she suggested depicting the duration of communication with each of the significant persons in the chart table. Relations with a handsome man were represented by a continuous straight line, with an antipathetic - dotted line;if communication was frequent, the line was drawn double, if rare - single( Figure 8).Every straight line started from the day of acquaintance and ended either on the day of parting, or on the present day, if the relationship continued.

Fig.8.This was one of the first methods of studying the biography of significant relationships. And although the short section of the straight line could not contain in itself, of course, the whole history of relations, this technique allowed to know with whom and how long the person communicated during different years of his life.

This methodical method( circle of communication) today may seem too simple, inaccurate. And the subjects of NA Loginova had only seven people( with each of them she worked for more than one day, gave various assignments on the autobiographical description of the life path, met people who knew the subject well, studied the documents).But the significance of the psychological method consists not only in the fact that with its help immediately unknown facts are obtained, not even in the fact that it is used by other, more successful researchers. Often, the original methodical idea gives impetus to the creation of more precise methods by which facts can finally be obtained. Such a fate awaited NA Loginov's plans. It is always interesting, and sometimes instructive to learn, thanks to which "the idea gives birth to an idea."Let's tell you why, in front of one of us, straight lines, measuring the length of service and frequency of communication, curved and turned into waves of relations, talking about more. It happened so.

1976 The premises of the design bureau of one of the Leningrad plants. Afternoon break. Having taken advantage of a half-hour of free time, we address to one of the employees who happened to meet by chance:

- Hello, Ian. Can not you have twenty minutes to participate in a psychological experiment?

-Yes, with pleasure. Very interesting. And the results I can learn? Then I'm ready.

Yang receives a sheet of millimeter paper with coordinate axes:

horizontal - years of life, vertical - a hundred-point scale of psychological intimacy.

This is not a technique NA Loginova, there were vertical names of significant others. Rather, feeling then than understanding that these people are unequal, we suggested the subjects first to assess their significant proximity( 100 points - I trust him as myself, 0 - he is an outsider to me), and then already denote by straight lines running in paralleleach other at different heights, the duration of communication with this or that person. As a result, I wanted to find out: what are they, the closest relationships - short-lived or long-lasting? This question at that time still had no answer, although psychologists had long been interested in measuring the feeling of psychological intimacy. Before we finish the conversation with Jan, let's look at some distance scales described in the literature.

As a rule, distance scales are constructed empirically, by selecting the most "working" judgments by experts and suggest an egocentric organization of psychological space. The very first of these is the scale of Bogardus' social distance. It reveals the degree of acceptability of another person as a representative of a particular social group, that is, the scale measures the attitude to it as a social type. With minor variations, the method was used to measure the distance associated with racial and regional affiliation, age, gender, profession, religion, to measure the distance between children and parents. The scales have seven divisions corresponding to the distance. Let us cite, for example, one of them, measuring the attitude to one or another nationality:

1. Accepting a close relationship through marriage.

2. Admission to membership in my club as a friend.

3. Acceptance prior to living in my street as a neighbor.

4. Accepting before work on my profession.

5. Acceptance before citizenship in my country.

6. Acceptance in my country only as an Intourist.

7. Would prefer not to see in my country.

To this class can be assigned a distance scale to an individual, used in cultural studies. Thus, the French psychologist A. Mole notes that the concept of "distance to the individual" plays a major role in measuring the degree of motivation of the recipient caused by the message. The scale of the distance to the individual includes seven points and varies from the "immediate and concrete reaction" of the person( the shortest distance) to "no involvement": the case is "on another planet"( maximum distance value).

More interesting for us is the scale of sympathetic distance D. Feldes, designed to measure the willingness to contact a medical professional with a former patient in a psychiatric hospital. It contains 11 judgments expressing this or that degree of proximity of the estimated person( in the order of its reduction):

1. He could be my best friend.

2. I do not distinguish between him and mentally healthy people.

3. I could open my soul to him.

4. I could spend free time with him.

5. I could spend a vacation with him.

6. I could invite him to visit me.

7. I would not discuss with him important issues.

8. I would not trust him to perform important tasks.

9. I would quit if I had to work with him together.

10. I would not let him go to freedom.

11. I would forbid him to have children.

Each statement has five gradations of severity: "perfectly true", "perhaps", "anyway", "not quite right" and "absolutely wrong".

In order to measure psychological distance, along with the scales listed, various graphic techniques are used. Thus, for example, the subject is offered a segment of a straight line, one of the extreme points of which is conditionally placed his ego. He must indicate on the segment a point symbolically measuring the subjective distance from the ego to another person. This task is performed anew for each of the important persons, as a result of which it becomes possible to compare the psychological distances among themselves and to judge about the greater or lesser affinity of each.

Fig.9. To measure psychological intimacy in communication, psychologists suggest different ways. In the egocentric model, other people are located closer or further from Me( a).In the socio-centric model, it is necessary to decide which of the other two I am closer to( b).And it is possible, "not passing to the person", to try to estimate to what extent relations with another person are exhausted by the concept of We( c).

Straight lines can be placed on the plane in different ways( Figure 9a), depending on the researcher's desire. Despite the difference between the graphic scales and the discrete ones described above, the underlying theoretical model of the psychological space remains the same: I act as the organizing and determining center of some field of his sympathies and antipathies towards other people - the so-called egocentric model.

Another way to measure psychological intimacy is that significant others in all possible combinations of two are conditionally placed at the end points of straight segments, and the subject should find and mark the point with his point between them( Figure 96).Then the average value from A to A, from A to A2, from A to A3 is calculated. As a result, all persons of interest to us can be ranked according to the degree of psychological affinity. This technique is essentially a method of paired comparisons and is based on the socio-centric model of psychological space.

Similar graphic techniques are widely used by psychologists in practical work and for all their simplicity are informative. But nevertheless, the psychological essence of the scale used remains unclear.

To understand the nature of psychological affinity and its theoretically justified measurement, the ideas of the original psychologist Boris Fedorovich Porshnev about the phenomena We and They as the initial psychological forms of human communication seem more productive."The subjective side of any real community of people, of any collective," he wrote, "is constituted by this two-sided or two-sided psychological phenomenon, which we have designated by the expression" we and them ": by distinguishing from other communities, collectives, groups of people outside and at the same timein something people are inside each other. "

Two poles - We and They - exist in close unity. Therefore, the decrease We are understood as alienation, distance, an increase in the experience of He( She, They).The severity of these two experiences is a direct indicator of the psychological closeness of the partner.

The ideas of BF Porshnev formed the basis for our constructed scale for measuring the psychological closeness of a significant other( Figure 9c).On this scale there is no I, but there are two extreme points: He( She, They) and We, from whom He is the ultimate expression of remoteness. We are the maximum psychological affinity of the other, which is experienced by the subject as a merger with another:

I do not know where you are or where I am. Those same songs and the same concerns.

M. Tsvetaeva

Such a psychological merger - We - is experienced by a person as trust, openness to influences. According to BF Porshnev, "complete confidence. .. is identical to the identity of both participants in this act or attitude to one" we "... The reverse formulation is also natural;the psychic community( "we") in its ultimate pure case is the field of. .. absolute faith. "Therefore, the pole We psychological intimacy scales can be expressed in words: maximum confidence in communication, equated to intrakommunikatsii, to "communicate with oneself."Such a formulation we used, referring to our subjects with a request to display the direct lines of the duration of communication with people close to each other.

As you remember, one of the subjects was Ian. We expected that he, like everyone we addressed before, draw several parallel straight lines, one above the other, depending on who he feels close to, and whom he is distant. Fifteen minutes passed and Jan returned us a sheet of graph paper with the following figure( Figure 10).

- Did I do the right thing?he asked.

- You did better than right! You invented a new technique!

Fig.10. Is not it true that Ian's relationship with people close to him is similar to successive waves?

Yes, the wave of relations was first seen not by a psychologist, but by his test subject. The image of the waves was so natural that even the experimenter's instructions could not straighten their lines. This methodological discovery was the next step in the study of the biography of significant relationships. She allowed us to get a lot of new interesting information.

CONSTELLATIONS OF SIGNIFICANT

58 people with higher technical education attended the research: 28 men and 30 women aged 22 to 48 years. We asked our interlocutors to remember the people with whom their destiny brought them together, to choose those whose role was most significant, and to write down their names, from the most significant to the least significant. Then on a sheet of paper millimeter each interrogated plotted intricate lines of relations.467 lines were drawn by the study participants. Each analyzed the history of relations on average with eight significant others.

The circle of significant others includes, according to the information received, from three to twenty-two people. It is formed by relatives and friends, whose number is approximately the same( 52 and 48%).But this is a deceptive equality. If we take into account the ongoing relationship with the partner and already completed, then among the continuing relationship, 65% will be relatives and 35% -friends, and among the completed -15% relatives and 85% friends. Consequently, part of the circle of meaningful communication formed by friends is substantially less stable, the relations here are more finite and replaceable in comparison with relatives.

Men are more likely to classify as "significant" men( 65%), and women - women( 56%).But the most important roles in their lives, and those and others, are assigned to women: men to wives and mothers, women to mothers and daughters. The last places are distributed among friends. In general, the main roles are played by: mother and father, then - spouses, children, friends, girlfriends( Table 1).

Unanimous in their attachments of women, Judge for yourself: the distance between the most significant( mother) and the least significant( girlfriend) is 5.6 points. In men, the similar difference between the average importance of the wife and friend is less - 3.8 points, hence, the male priorities are more individualized.

Table 1 Hierarchy of significant others( according to the survey of 58 people)

Probably, women ensure the stability of relationships, men are their variability, and only together make it possible to consolidate the new and update the old - the development of relationships, their creative longevity. And where are its limits? How long have We lived?

To clarify this, we divided all lines of relations into groups, depending on the ranking of the partner in the hierarchy of significant ones. The first group consisted of relationships with the most significant people - the first in the rank of one or the other of the respondents( one could have relations with the mother, the other - with his wife or friend).The second group consisted of relations with people who took second place in the hierarchy, the third - the third, and so on. The tenth group included the least significant partners - those to whom the participants of the study took tenth and further places in their hierarchies.

After that, we calculated the average duration of the different ranks of the relationship. The average age of the relationship with the most significant was 26 years, with the least significant - 13. In general, the relationship between the duration of communication and the importance of the partner is shown in Fig.11. The more significant another person is, the more he has a chance to live with him.

Fig.11. Twenty-six years leave on average to be awarded the most important role in the life of another. And the less the experience of communication, the more likely that you will have worthy rivals - after all, the main role is claimed, perhaps, seventeen more people.

And less important is the faster termination of any relationship. Is not it true that the results inspire optimism - it's nice that the years are working for our We!

The connection of significance with the experience of relations convinces also that the significant other that the longer retains its necessity and indispensability, the more significant the values ​​that it divides and awakens in us. As soon as they are lost, We die.

As the figure shows, the relationship between the significance and duration of the relationship can be represented by a straight line( its equation:( f = 24,9- l, 4z). If the line continues beyond the ten most significant faces, it intersects the horizontal axis at point 17, 8. And this means that already with the 18th most important person, the experience of the relationship is less than a year or is completely zero. In other words: the maximum number of vital relations is 17-18

The above data suggest a memory of the words of the hero of the novel T.Wilder: "A person shouldThere are three male friends older than him, three about his age and three younger, he should have three older female friends, three years old and three younger, these are nine friends I call him Constellation., and never) all these eighteen vacancies are filled in at the same time. . There are still empty places, for some years or all of life there is only one senior or younger friend, or even one. .. Of course, this is a very bizarre theory, do nottake it too literally, but it should not be rejected from the threshold. .. ".Indeed, you should not take it too literally, but the quantitative expression of the constellation surprisingly coincides with our empirical results.

"The stars shine in the blue sky, the waves are whipping in the blue sea," the captious critic laughs, wondering why the constellations suddenly appeared among the waves. But human feelings are so diverse that you can find hundreds of metaphors, each of which will be more natural than the other. And none will reflect these feelings with full completeness. Therefore, waves, constellations, threads, patterns, and much more - everything that seems to be successful will help us express our thoughts about our feelings, the reader. Let's talk about the stars and their reflection in the waves of relations.

The brightest star in the constellation of significant ones often has the name of mother. Of course, dozens of years of communication with my mother - it's wonderful! At first sight it is for everyone the closest and most significant person. But there are still seventeen vacancies. What is more typical: a powerful and short burst of a wave of relations with new significant ones? Or a continuous "lifelong" excitement in dealing with them?

For the answer we will construct average lines of relations with partners of different significance. As shown in Fig.12, the relationship with the most significant people is always accompanied by a feeling of great and eventually increasing affinity. Less significant relationships do not have such a pronounced sense of intimacy, their history is like tides and ebbs. So, both options are typical: a brief surge in less significant relationships, a non-breaking excitement - in the most significant. Such excitement is even welcome: "The wind - with the wave, the husband - with his wife, and I can not be mistreated with whom?"( E. Bachurin).

On which step in the hierarchy of significant is that first lucky person, the relationship with which does not fade, with which one wants to "toil"?What is the maximum number of people with whom we are becoming stronger and stronger? And who, at last, is that first "unlucky", who is destined to distance himself over time? This is also possible to learn the results of the study.

It turned out that the first six most significant relationships are characterized by an increase in the psychological affinity of another person over the years, the seventh and eighth most important people remain at the same distance, and starting from the ninth, the tendency toward distance predominates. In a word, the people with whom you communicate constantly keep a very intense competition for 7-8 of the most important roles in your life. Many, alas, have secondary roles, albeit necessary. Do not be offended, everyone participates in this competition. In someone's life you are the most important, and in the life of others - an extras. But you need to keep away very carefully, because the "ninth" and "tenth" were not so long ago close to you. By offending them today, you burn memory, burn years of life together, in which the best minutes, hours, days are burned. .. Therefore, even moving away from each other, it is better to be guided by a wise German proverb: "Take an example from a sundial: keep an accountonly happy days. "

Fig.12. Over the years, the main characters are getting closer, and it seems that being in their role is nice and easy. But is it always easy to ascend to We?

So, the most important people for you are at the same time the oldest, the closest, the most approaching. And yet it is strange - in different years they may be different people, but at each moment the elements of communication have quite definite boundaries: there are only two dozen vacancies for the performance of significant roles in the life of each of us, only 7-8 of them are intended for the mainheroes, and only one of them is destined to be the most important, the only one. Well, at least here the borders are erased( "I do not know where you are and where I am")? !Alas, even with the closest people, the psychological distance is usually not equal to zero. This conclusion leads to an analysis of the lines of maximum psychological intimacy.

The line of maximum psychological affinity of L in human relationships with other people consists of the sections of relationship lines closest to 100 points( Figure 13).This line is quite stable in its relation to 100 points and indicates that the minimum distance on which the people closest to humans were and are located. According to it, it is not difficult to calculate the average for different years of life indicator of maximum psychological affinity:

where 1 - the value of the L line in each i-year life;

l - number of years lived.

It can be assumed that the indicator of maximum psychological affinity measures some individual property, relatively stable and inherent in a person throughout the life journey1.This is a kind of watershed between the I and the Others. In men it is wider than in women:

Fig.13. Line L - is the history of relations with the main characters( and more often - the heroines) of different years of your life. As you can see, Gleb, a 37-year-old Leningrad engineer, has many friends, but the closest people were: mother-friend-mother-wife.

, the average of the maximum psychological proximity of L is 80 and 94 points, respectively( the differences are reliable at p & lt; 0.001, i.e., if you believe in mathematical statistics, an exception to this "rule" is possible in one case out of a thousand).Consequently, women consider themselves more open in their relations with the "only ones", are more inclined to give up the Self in favor of We. In their pursuit of We, they are again unanimous than men( the spread of L values ​​in women is 14, for men - 27 points).Is not it possible to explain this by a well-known fact: women among themselves can open up so much that they start talking out loud about what men do not even think about coming to a head.

The differences are manifested in the other. With age, an increase in intimacy with other people was noted by 57% of women and only 25% of men, an increase in the distance in the relationship was noted by 50% of men and only 7% of women. Some men showed different dynamics of relationships with people of different sex: they perceived relations with women as closer and more unstable than with men.

Consequently, women enter into relations with others at shorter and more stable distances. These psychological distances are also manifested in behavior. Thus, Estonian psychologists have experimentally discovered that in the communication of men with each other, the physical distance is greater than in the communication of women. In men, the distance depends on the sex of the experimenter, but does not depend on women. So:

Dear men, loved ones do not encroach upon your freedom- you are just very close to them, even closer than they are to you.

Dear women! Men's feelings for "the most-most" are more restrained than yours, and in spaces where there is no you, only he is.

Let's see now who is most often found on the borders of the I, ie, from whose relationship the line L. is composed. Relatives and friends can be found here: for men 52 and 48% respectively, for women - 58 and 42%.Do you think that men and women should be equally divided? No. The closest relationships are established primarily with women( in men - 63%, in women - 60%).

In many cases, the line of maximum psychological affinity is entirely represented by relationships with female relatives and girlfriends. These results are in tune with the conclusions about that.that women occupy the highest places among significant in both women and men.

It's time to finally admit that the line of maximum psychological affinity is indicated by the letter L, because this is a line of love - relations with the closest people, the only ones and irreplaceable. In the opinion of our respondents( recall their age: 22-48 years), each of them for his life met two or four people, who in those or other years he loved more than others. The fact that the number of the deepest attachments is limited is known from the analysis of the phenomenon of friendship in the history of human culture.

Let's use some information that became available to the modern reader thanks to the most interesting historical and psychological "excavations" conducted by IS Kon. Thus, describing the friendship of the Scythians, the ancient Greek writer Lukian noted: "It is allowed to make friends with at most three;if someone has a lot of friends, then it is for us - all the same that is available to all depraved woman. .. ".This same number three ruled the friendly relations of individual African nationalities. In the cases mentioned, it was true, of course, about male friendship, while our data dealt with any meaningful relationship. Despite these differences, we can still say that in the constellation of significant there are three special vacancies - they are open to those we love. At different times and among different peoples, traditionally, friends, teachers, and relatives acted as lovers. The chroniclers of the relationship were men, and for them the closest in spirit - the most significant - for a long time there were also men.

Among those we interviewed, only one turned out to be a "monogamous" - only with his mother he felt himself to be alone with himself throughout his life. In others, the mother eventually gave way to the closest person: women - to her husband or children, men - to a friend, wife, children. But at a difficult time, when the wave of another love rolled down, the soul warmed up at my mother - she was again the closest.

Reflecting on the line of love, we noted that this wonderful feeling is more familiar to women;with the years their loved ones become, as a rule, closer, and probably, therefore, more often they love women than men. As you know, in the halo of love a person grows faster and lives longer. One of the essential