Degradation of personality: "If you look long into the abyss ..."

One day, Friedrich Nietzsche said: "If you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks at you." How does this quote correlate with the theme of "personality degradation"? The fact is that a person who does not engage in self-development, acquires harmful habits and loses his personal qualities due to experiencing stressful factors that are not able to withstand. Having once opted for such a position, a person falls under the influence of destructive factors that begin to dominate the person: bad habits that testify to weaknesses become part and then the norm of life, and then the individual with them represents one whole. If a person is focused on regressive behavior, in this case, human degradation occurs.

General view

The personality consists of several components that, adequately functioning, allow it to develop harmoniously:

• temperament;
• Character;
• Motivation;
• Ability.

If one of them begins to function with deviations, then we can talk about the beginning of such a process as the degradation of the individual. So, the lack of adequate motivation for action develops lethargy, laziness, apathy. Then there is a social atrophy of a person: he refuses to work, is closed because of the lack of friends. This ladder leads the individual down, ensuring degradation. So, the violation of one of the components of the personality leads to the violation of the whole psychological picture.

The causes and types of degradation

The causes of such violations are many factors, and here it is worthwhile to note the most common:

• Drug addiction. Immersing a person in an illusory perception of reality, such factors disorientate the individual, which leads to the loss of adequate motivations. In addition to psychologically harmful effects, a person suffers a health hazard: for example, excessive alcohol consumption disrupts the functioning of neurons in the brain, cirrhosis develops;
• Lack of conditions for harmonious development. Most often for this reason, there is a degradation of young people. Impossibility of self-realization after training, lack of material support at the beginning of independent life leads to depressions and disappointments that motivate young people to do wrong things and create an inadequate worldview;
• Loss of meaning in life. Due to a significant loss of identity, the person is "corroded", and her only important question, which requires an immediate answer: "Why live further?". Under the yoke of a disoriented position a person changes, as a rule, not for the better. This can lead to an attempted suicide;
• Lack of acceptable social relations. A person placed in a social environment that rejects him does not receive the joy of communication, he develops complexes, develops isolation;
• Impossibility of self-realization. Degradation of personality occurs when a person can not find an application for his abilities. Vain and hardworking people are especially prone to this .

The degradation of the personality manifests itself in several forms:

• marasmus;
• schizophrenia;
• neurosis;
• psychosis;
• Hallucinations;
• Suicidal tendencies.

What areas of life are affected by degradation of the individual?

The regressive development of personal qualities entails changes in such spheres of life:

• Morality - there is a distortion or a complete loss of spiritual values, ignoring ethical norms is noted;
• Ability to work - a person refuses to be able-bodied, or really lost this function (for example, because of prolonged alcohol or drug dependence);
• mental activity. If an individual does not read books, does not develop intellectual abilities, then this is one of the signs that the degradation of personality is developing. Accordingly, in the future, absolute incapacity for such a kind of occupation can be achieved.