The Psychology of War: Why Some Adapt While Others Break The material is adapted to the reader. The original article was taken from the LiveJournal blog "Evolution". Part 1.
Part 2. The works of the world-famous Russian scientist Kitaev-Samik, who studied stress under extreme conditions (in war, in space), have now acquired additional relevance. Let me remind you that the most healthy and evolutionarily justified response of the body to stress is constructive adaptation. This means that in the body (the mind is part of the body), in response to stress, changes occur that allow one to live productively under stress, without dying or getting sick and to perform assigned tasks. The conditions of war are severe stress that breaks weak and unprepared people. Kitaib-Samik studied Chechen war soldiers, during and after the war, and created a classification of the most common stress reactions. He divided all soldiers into the following types: 1) Constructively adapted, "old men". These are the best soldiers. They are orderly, disciplined, collected, stable, loyal to the prisoners, caring for the citizens, they are determined to win and survive, they are super effective in battle and capable of united and coordinated, realistic actions. All other types are non-constructive responses to stress and mental breakdowns. 2) "broken" depressive type. These soldiers live in constant terror, which has turned from acute to chronic and has become obsessive melancholy. Their sleep is torn by nightmares, their tone is disturbed, their thinking is confused, they are haunted by constant shame and fear of fear, lack of moral support. Such people do not believe that peace will come, they do not believe that life will ever become the same, and less better. Now I will continue to list the types called kitaib-samik. But note that the stress reactions affect not only those who are on the battlefield, but also anyone who directly or indirectly participates in military events, observes, is involved and whose life depends on them.