Causes and ways to get rid of pathological greed. Greed - a disease or a trait? Manifestation of pathological greed

Most of us do not consider ourselves greedy, but, nevertheless, we barely have time to repay one loan after another, with obvious excitement “hunting” for discounts and sales. You might call it foresight and frugality, but often it is a sign of banal greed. It is often not so easy to recognize this unsightly vice in yourself, but, as you will learn from the article, it is vital.

“Numbers are remembered well not by smart people, but by greedy ones.” A. Vampilov

To begin with, I propose to define the concept of greed, which can be conditionally divided into two components, which are sides of the same coin. The first flaunts with the inscription "Greed", this is when a person experiences an irresistible desire to have more and more.

Perhaps many of us are far from this, but one curious study published back in 1956 is sobering. According to data in the middle of the 19th century. a person was offered 200 goods for consumption, while his wish list included 72 things, of which 16 were simply necessary. In 1956, 32 thousand goods were offered in the USA alone, a person already wanted to have 474 items, and he began to consider 94 necessary. Now, for the sake of interest, estimate how many items you need for life surround you, and how much more do you want to buy for complete happiness? This list will probably be endless. After all, only for one trip to the supermarket, the consumer takes out a cart of "necessary".

Of course, greed is not just a desire for money, things, food, pleasure, thrills, power, information. These aspirations become pathological when they are an end in themselves, and the possession of desired objects does not bring joy and pleasure. An example of already Slavic greed is Tsar Koschey, who, as you know, is “over the gold.”

The other side of this “medal” is called “stinginess”. Like greed, it applies not only to material concepts. Some misers painfully part with money, worry for a long time if they accidentally overpaid too much, and, on the contrary, triumph because of the saved pennies. Even for loved ones, they will choose a gift from discounted goods. Other stingy people consider sleep and rest an unaffordable luxury. Still others, like partisans, hide all the information they have. The stingy under no circumstances wants to part with his own.

Such stinginess has affected many survivors of famine years or shortages. Soviet Union. Remember Petrosyan's famous reprise about the ingenuity of Soviet citizens: “If you still have a film from a sausage, don't throw it away! After all, it can be darned and applied! Thus, balconies and shelving became a haven for precious junk, waiting for its second life.

So, a greedy person either constantly strives for hoarding, or is extremely afraid of waste. However, most people wear a full-fledged medal of greed - they don’t spend theirs, but they just don’t have enough. Why are such character traits formed?

"The heart of the greedy is an ocean thirsting for rain"

Many behavioral disorders usually develop during childhood. Someone survived the hardships, someone lacked the care of relatives, others unconsciously imitate their parents. However, no matter what the soil for greed is, the "fertilizer" on which it grows is always the same - fear, envy, discontent. Usually these components are present in the complex, just in different proportions.

Fear. What is a greedy person afraid of? He is afraid that he will live worse than others, look, earn money, he is afraid that something will not be enough for him. Maybe, in fact, he does not need a new car, a fur coat and a prestigious resort, but such fears drive him to a mirage of happiness and prosperity, contributing to haste, tension and fuss.

Envy. Typical greedy mindset: "He's better than me." The painful fire of envy forces him to chase the endless novelties that appear with his acquaintances.

Discontent. “The phone is unfashionable, there is nothing to wear, the husband does not love enough.” A dissatisfied person feels deprived, and therefore dreams that as soon as a new phone, shoes or husband appears, a blissful state of contentment will come. But the end of his desires does not come, because. the joy of a new acquisition is very short. And all because greed focuses a person's attention on what he does not have.

If you recognize signs of fear, envy and discontent in yourself, learn to see the abundance of the world around you. All the nature around us is an example of generosity, which is why it is so harmonious. Do not invite guests because you are afraid that you will not have enough food for yourself later? There is only one way out - gather friends, treat them generously and feel pride and joy for your nobility. Do not skimp on praise, attention to others.

In no case do not imagine what a reward you will be for this! This is a very effective medicine against stinginess and, according to some experts, generosity strengthens the immune system, promotes rejuvenation and high spirits!

Comments on a topic professor of psychology Yuri Shcherbatykh is the author of the book “The Seven Deadly Sins or the Psychology of Vice”.

EZ: How dangerous is greed?

– Greed harms not only reputation, but also human health. It should be noted that short-term manifestations of this tendency do not pose a threat. Another thing is when a person experiences a painful desire to acquire something for a long time, experiences stinginess, greed. In this case, we are talking about chronic greed, in which there is psychological stress and consequent health problems.

Those organs that are most vulnerable are affected. For some, bouts of greed affect the gastrointestinal tract, for others - for the heart, for others - for the endocrine system. Experts have found that there is an obvious relationship between the tendency to greed and disease. According to their observations, greedy people suffer from skin diseases 5 times more often, from strokes and hypertension - 3 times more often, from heart attacks - 6 times more often, from gastrointestinal diseases - 4 times more often.

EZ: How can you test yourself for greed?

- Actually, what people usually call greed is a combined personality trait, consisting of two relatively independent components - greed (the desire to grab more) and stinginess (the desire not to part with what has already been acquired). The sum of these components is called greed, and there is a greed test that consists of two subscales.

EZ: How to get rid of greed?

- In order to control your natural greed, before buying you need to ask yourself five questions: 1. Why do I want to buy it? 2. What will it give me? 3. Can I afford such a purchase? 4. Can I do without it? 5. When exactly should I buy this item?

Set a goal one day a week to get by with as little as possible: a small portion of food, a minimum of clothing, not using things that you do not need. Gradually reducing the number of things used on such a day, you will find how little a person needs for life! When doing this exercise, tune in to look for only the good in everything, then you will see that very little is needed for happiness.

For a person afflicted with stinginess (one who cannot get full happiness from life, being afraid to spend the money he earns), the method of curing his vice will be the opposite: he must learn to find pleasure in life by spending the money he earns. It makes sense for such a person to allocate a certain amount of money 1-2 times a month for entertainment and receiving positive emotions.

The next step is to mentally “write off” this amount from the balance, assuming that it was stolen or he lost it. After such an exercise, it will be much easier to part with money, fixing attention already on those positive emotions that he received at the same time.

A bouquet of roses costs more than a thousand rubles, and will last a maximum of three days.

Lena, I need new sneakers (boots, trousers).

The old ones are still quite okay, there is nothing to scatter money around!

At the same time, quite often in families experiencing a shortage of funds, the husband considers himself obliged to please his wife and buy an inexpensive mimosa, but still a flower, on March 8, and the wife, at the request of her husband, in the new clothes he needs, tries to save a little. In couples with medium and high incomes, such a psychological problem of one of the partners as greed is very common.

Greed is a specific feature of the human character, which implies the desire to obtain and accumulate some resources (finance, valuables, etc.) and the fear of giving these accumulated resources to another person or people. Do not confuse greed with rational economy. Rational savings include some restrictions on the couple's joint budget for financial investments, such as paying off a mortgage or a car loan.

So, if one of the couples, leading a joint household, offers to cancel trips to cafes and restaurants for some time, going to the cinema in order to pay off the mortgage debt faster is rational savings. And when a woman demands the tenth pair of shoes in 3 months from a man so that the money is spent only on her, or a man wants to buy a new car, just so that his wife does not spend this money on what she needs - this is already an example of greed.

Greed is a psychological problem, and most often its roots grow deep from childhood. In most cases, people need psychological help to get rid of greed or reduce its size. If your other half is prone to pathological greed and this character trait spoils your life together, you may need the help of a psychologist. It is often inconvenient for people to ask friends or relatives for the address of a professional psychologist. In this case, you can look for answers on the net. Fill in a request for the type of consultation with a psychologist and choose the one who seems the most suitable according to the reviews of visitors, you may like it externally or according to professional characteristics. Each person, due to the characteristics of the psyche and character, has his own selection parameters.

If the second half, suffering, as it seems to you, from greed, perceives the question of going to a psychologist with hostility, you can go for a consultation without him or her. The most important thing at the reception of a specialist is to be extremely frank, so that the doctor can draw up the most accurate psychological portrait of a person, and, based on this, give recommendations on possible assistance in this situation. By itself the correspondence diagnosis does not give 100% of a guarantee.

So, for example, one of the reasons for greed is that in childhood the child lived in a very poor family. Often, against the background of children from families with medium and high incomes, the child develops an inferiority complex. Not everyone wants to share with the second half, as it seems to them, the shameful details of their childhood.
Another reason - in childhood there was an example in the form close relative. Children are very quick to pick up adult behaviors that they think will be the best. And if at this moment there is no adult mentor nearby to send the child to another track in time, then the “greedy” behavioral model will firmly gain a foothold in the child’s character, as the most beneficial. A wife or husband may not be aware of Aunt Klava or Uncle Vita, who lived in the neighborhood for many years and set an example for the child of how to be greedy.
And, finally, greed suffers from people who have “burned themselves” with partners already in adulthood.

In general, if the husband of a greedy wife is not a psychologist enough to see the deep reasons for her greed and try to help. When a loving wife is driven to the extreme by her greedy husband, and if he does not change, she is ready to divorce. Perhaps you should try to visit a family psychologist? Some psychological problems can be easily solved with the right approach.

Is pathological greed just a trait, or a mental illness? it is about

and in his life reluctantly sets strict limits on costs in certain cases, for example, a gift to a friend for drrub. and somehow follows them. but everything above just kills him?

If a person has an undeveloped late layer as a result of mutations, poor heredity or various other factors, or is partially lost (physical injury, illness), then, accordingly, all primitive urges are “untied” in him, this is what religion calls “gluttony” This can be traced in old people , late formations of brain cells, they are most susceptible to destruction, therefore, under old age, many fall into insanity, exorbitant appetite, greed, stinginess, hyper sexuality, cruelty, etc. This is also well observed in many Jews, as a result of poor heredity (it’s not for nothing that everyone knows that Jews are greedy and mean, lustful, and it doesn’t even depend on age) it is greed that does not allow Jews to exist in peace, the extraction of money, the desire for high brings them to a manic state, which can eventually make them rich, and give a false impression of some kind of mythical mind. this is also evident from the way they communicate, confused colloquial speech, to a question by a question, or the answer to a question of which is not in the question, or simply there is nothing to talk about, (confused consciousness) that the same is explained by them with an allegedly special mind.

So far, no one knows how to cure errors in DNA.

I had a loved one with such a diagnosis, all attempts to cure him were useless, everything related to new acquisitions or gifts was very painful. Although he had everything in order with money, a stable business, a stable income. What can I say, he became a vegetarian only because he believed that it was an unaffordable luxury to spend money on such a product as meat. .

Greed: how to get rid of vice

What is greed? This is the immoderate passion of a person to take possession and consume some kind of good. Greed is a craving that has arisen on a conscious level and is entrenched in the subconscious as a habit. This is a consequence of the natural human desire for competition and a negative echo of unhealthy competition in the human community.

Greed has a fundamental difference from such human qualities as frugality and frugality. A thrifty person spends available goods economically and can differentiate a useful investment from senseless spending. A greedy person suffers from a pathological reluctance to part with money, even if the acquisition of some items is a vital expense.

What makes a person greedy? It turns out that stinginess and stinginess took root in the distant times of human history, when primitive homo sapiens experienced a clear shortage of resources to meet natural needs. They were forced to compete and fight for a piece of meat. They had to fight to find a place to sleep for themselves. Primitive was forced to compete with fellow tribesmen in order to have the best special female capable of giving birth to healthy offspring. He had to get and protect his goods with the passion of a predator.

Greed can form in a child with the wrong educational strategy. These are situations when caring parents over-indulge their offspring, satisfying his every lust. Or, on the contrary, the child grows up in eternal need, experiences a lack of parental attention and care. When he is forced to share maternal love with numerous brothers and sisters.

Pathological greed incinerates a person from the inside and rewards with unpleasant neurological defects. A greedy person tends to have an accelerated heart rate and rapid breathing. His greed tenses all the muscles of the skeletal muscles. A common problem for people with immoderate greed is horse racing. blood pressure. As a result, such vegetative defects lead to somatic problems - hypertension, cardiopathy, problems in the digestive tract.

Greed completely changes the psychological portrait of a person. Characteristic stingy and greedy people - suspicion and envy. They are wary of the people around them. These are unfriendly and uncompromising persons who rarely have friends and are unhappy in marriage. Greed is a common cause of disagreements and quarrels in the family. Very often it is the stinginess of the spouse that is the reason for the divorce. Greed can turn a person into an outcast, because adequate people do not want to communicate with such a flawed personality.

Often it is greed that is the reason why a person transgresses the line of the law and commits serious crimes. For the sake of personal gain, a greedy individual is able to betray, steal, rob, deceive and kill. Greed is the cause of numerous frauds and scams. Guided by this feeling, people begin to take bribes, become extortionists. As a result, this pathological feeling leads a person to the dock.

Is it possible to eradicate greed in yourself when the desire to become the owner of the world incinerates you? The answer is banal - it is possible and necessary! Man is the creator of his personality and the master of his own destiny. And everyone, even the rapacious miner, is able to overcome his insatiable greed and turn into a generous nature. How to overcome greed? We follow the advice of psychologists.

To get rid of greed, it is necessary to develop a correct understanding of reality. Eliminate destructive perception of reality. Change erroneous and harmful beliefs.

We should recognize that all the material goods that we strive to acquire, retain, increase are temporary assets given for a short period of time. human life. All the wealth of the world is a castle built of sand, which can be destroyed in an instant by an oncoming wave. All the sand grains of the fortress, which we hardly collected, can be carried away irrevocably into the endless ocean in a matter of seconds.

Everything that we have accumulated in life - money, jewelry, stocks and other material goods, will not follow us to the other world. However, we are able to leave a weighty mark in history, consisting of our generous deeds and good deeds.

Every time we are overcome by an attack of greed, we need to stop and think: what will be the price for our indefatigable skidding. Most likely, our thirst to possess something turns into suffering, pain, poverty for others. We should reflect on whether our next acquisition is worth someone's tears, worries, insults.

And these painful experiences of others because of our greed are aimed precisely at us. And can we feel happy and contented when we are hated, despised, wishing us death? It is unlikely that the life of that rich man who has surrounded himself with platinum ingots and vegetates without meeting any human warmth, but feeling only the cold of metal, will hardly develop harmoniously. We remember that you can find harmony with yourself and the world around you only by getting rid of passions.

Greed clouds at once and makes the creature a zombie slave of money. Such a captive person can easily cross the bar and break the law. Overcome by greed, the individual is able to steal, kidnap, deceive, even kill. And there is only one retribution for such atrocities - a prison term. Not always the greedy rich man will be able to negotiate with Themis and bribe the judges. And it is unlikely that somewhere in a prison cell it will be comfortable and pleasant to exist, even if the account in a Swiss bank contains an amount with six zeros.

To overcome our own greed, we must be patient. Greed is a terrible habit that will not leave a yielding soul of its own free will. We act gradually. To begin with, we arrange a ceremony of purification of personal space. We take out the trash from the house, distribute things that are useless for us to needy people, get rid of piles of unnecessary clothes and shoes. How to determine what is necessary belongings and what is useless garbage? We open the wardrobe, review the wardrobe, leaving only those things that we have used over the past year.

We do the same with dishes, appliances, and gadgets. We are unlikely to need five TVs in a two-room apartment. We definitely won't use ten at the same time. mobile phones. And it is unlikely that we will be able to drive twenty cars. Choking toad to give away for free? You can cheat your greed. We give an advertisement for the sale on Internet sites, setting the minimum price for the goods. So we will receive money, and get rid of unnecessary things.

In order to get rid of greed, we should develop mercy in ourselves. Lead a life full of kindness, compassion, love. It is caring for your neighbors, helping the disadvantaged, caring for the poor that brings a sense of satisfaction, allows you to feel like a necessary, useful, worthy person. Acts for the benefit of others improve their own self-esteem, fill with feelings of pride and self-respect.

Therefore, you should choose a specific object for guardianship. It may be a lonely old woman whose pension is not enough for medicine. To overcome greed, we can start patronizing an orphan from orphanage. Or become a sponsor educational institution, always experiencing a shortage of everything.

To stop being greedy, we should learn not only to allocate our material wealth to someone. We need to disinterestedly share with others our moral assets, knowledge, experience, skills and mastery.

We can volunteer to care for a frail disabled person. We can help a volunteer organization free of charge. We can become an employee of a charitable foundation. Those who have knowledge in some narrow specialization are able to help low-income students by tutoring. The realization that you are helping people and sharing your inner wealth with them is a reliable assistant for eradicating greed.

To overcome greed, we must get rid of attachment to the material results of labor. Do not expect that as a result of the next transaction we will break the big jackpot. Do not plan that getting a promotion at work will become a source of high pay. Do not hatch cunning plans that a cunningly conceived deception of the state will help to avoid paying taxes and allow you to increase capital.

Whatever work we do, we must learn to get satisfaction from the very process of activity, and not expect to receive a reward for work. Thus, we will kill two birds with one stone - we will get rid of greed and become a truly happy person who feels in seventh heaven every day.

To eradicate greed, you need to introduce healthy pleasures into your life. Do not spare money for your development, education, leisure. Each person needs to expand their horizons: travel, visit exhibitions and performances, watch movies and engage in their favorite hobby.

Have you long dreamed of going down the slope at a ski resort or scuba diving near coral reefs, but you were sorry for the funds? We step over our greed and get a ticket to the eminent resort. An unusual vacation, new experiences will bring a boost of energy and help you feel like a happy generous person who exudes warmth to those around you.

To get rid of greed, remember the rule: what you sow, you will reap. Regarding money, this axiom also works: the more money you spend, the more material wealth you will receive. Therefore, do not be afraid to invest in promising business projects. Do not deny yourself pleasures, especially save on food and health. It is necessary to pamper yourself and give gifts to loved ones. Therefore, we deliberately increase our spending.

To eradicate greed, you must always remember: the world around you is full of abundance. Reality is generous with blessings and riches. Around there are inexhaustible sources of opportunities and resources. There is enough material wealth for everyone, so you should not take the last from the poor.

Is greed dangerous to health?

Greed is an unsightly vice

“Numbers are remembered well not by smart people, but by greedy ones.” A. Vampilov

The other side of this “medal” is called “stinginess”. Just like greed, it refers not only to material concepts. Some misers painfully part with money, worry for a long time if they accidentally overpaid too much, and, on the contrary, triumph because of the saved pennies. Even for loved ones, they will choose a gift from discounted goods. Other stingy people consider sleep and rest an unaffordable luxury. Still others, like partisans, hide all the information they have. The stingy under no circumstances wants to part with his own.

Such stinginess has affected many who survived the famine years or the deficit of the Soviet Union. Remember Petrosyan's famous reprise about the ingenuity of Soviet citizens: “If you still have a film from a sausage, don't throw it away! After all, it can be darned and applied! Thus, balconies and shelving became a haven for precious junk, waiting for its second life.

So, a greedy person either constantly strives for hoarding, or is extremely afraid of waste. However, most people wear a full-fledged greed medal - they don’t spend theirs, but they just don’t have enough. Why are such character traits formed?

"The heart of the greedy is an ocean thirsting for rain"

Envy. Typical greedy mindset: "He's better than me." The painful fire of envy forces him to chase the endless novelties that appear with his acquaintances.

If you recognize in yourself the signs of fear, envy and discontent - learn to see the abundance of the world around you. All the nature around us is an example of generosity, which is why it is so harmonious. Do not invite guests because you are afraid that you will not have enough food for yourself later? There is only one way out - gather friends, treat them generously and feel pride and joy for your nobility. Do not skimp on praise, attention to others.

Professor of psychology Yuri Shcherbatykh, the author of the book "The Seven Deadly Sins or the Psychology of Vice", comments on the topic.

EZ: How dangerous is greed?

Greed harms not only reputation, but also human health. It should be noted that short-term manifestations of this tendency do not pose a threat. Another thing is when a person experiences a painful desire to acquire something for a long time, experiences stinginess, greed. In this case, we are talking about chronic greed, in which psychological stress occurs and, as a result, health problems.

Those organs that are most vulnerable are affected. In some, bouts of greed affect the gastrointestinal tract, in others - on the heart, in others - on the endocrine system. Experts have found that there is an obvious relationship between the tendency to greed and disease. According to their observations, greedy people suffer from skin diseases 5 times more often, from strokes and hypertension - 3 times more often, from heart attacks - 6 times more often, from gastrointestinal diseases - 4 times more often.

EZ: How can you test yourself for greed?

In fact, what people usually call greed is a combined personality trait, consisting of two relatively independent components - greed (the desire to grab more) and stinginess (the desire not to part with what has already been acquired). The sum of these components is called greed, and there is a greed test that consists of two subscales.

EZ: How to get rid of greed?

To keep your natural greed under control, you need to ask yourself five questions before buying: 1. Why do I want to buy this? 2. What will it give me? 3. Can I afford such a purchase? 4. Can I do without it? 5. When exactly should I buy this item?

Case history: greed

The heart grows cold, the lips tighten into a thin thread, the crazy look repels those around you ... Do you think this is some kind of terrible African infection? Well, you're right about something. This is indeed a disease, but characteristic of many people. And that disease is greed.

The seeds of greed live in many of us, but they germinate more in some and less in others. What is this greed? Every person at least once in his life faced with its manifestation. Also in kindergarten one of her friends was greedy and did not let her wear a new hair clip. Or maybe you yourself zealously defended the right to personal property? Someone says that greed is in the blood of a person. And what, it turns out, nothing can be done about this quality? Maybe not to communicate with a greedy person or still endure his stinginess?

No, greed is a disease that can develop, or it can fade, and it can still flare up with renewed vigor in the absence of prevention. Let's try to bring out the symptoms of this disease.

Stage 1 - manifestations of greed can be seen only in yourself, but not in others.

Imagine that you brought luxurious expensive chocolate with you to work in order to treat yourself to your favorite treat in a moment of intense brain work. What do you do when the thought comes to mind: “Isn’t it time for us to eat?” Do you take out "home-made" and invite colleagues to share the sweetness of the moment with you? Or do you grab your bag of chocolates and sneak into a secluded place where these gluttons won't claim your long-awaited dessert? If you choose the second option, this is not good.

No, it is clear that no one obliges you to share, if not the last, but the most beloved with not very close people. Or maybe, for once, you went broke on a really expensive set and want to stretch the pleasure for as long as possible?

If you are not characterized by all-covering generosity, then your choice is quite reasonable. Your chocolate - your time - your money. If you can’t explain why, but you eat your daily Mars bar when your best girlfriends-colleagues go to the smoking room, there is something to think about. If at the same time you feel awkward, something like shame, everything is not so bad. Do you know how the song says: “Share your smile…”? So you smile and share what you usually regret. Believe me, it's not scary at all, but very pleasant. There are so many problems in life, and if you spend yourself on such a stupidity of this world as greed, only you will be worse off.

Stage 2 - Finding signs in yourself is no longer surprising, but unpleasant in others.

A friend comes running to you with burning eyes and tearfully begs you to lend her a certain amount of money. Moreover, the nth sum ends with more than one zero. Confusion is reflected on your face, tempting images of spending this money and grabbing the hands of a friend, pulling hypothetical purchases from under your nose, float before your eyes. But that's what friends are for, to help each other out at the right time. And you, barely holding back a sigh of disappointment and a word of irritation, reach for your wallet. Do not flatter yourself, it is unlikely that your duty smile managed to hide true feelings from your friend. If she's not of the shameless breed, she won't bother you anymore. But he will draw appropriate conclusions.

If you evaluate yourself objectively, then you understand that you are ... no, not a greedy person, God forbid, but not the most generous person. Just try, when you are asked for something, put yourself in the place of the one asking. What do you need money for - for a hundredth pair of shoes or for expensive medicine? The case in which stinginess is inappropriate is obvious.

If you can somehow figure it out with yourself, then it’s a little more difficult to do it with others. It’s unpleasant, oh, how unpleasant to understand that your loved one spares money on you. Not only can you not wait for a gift from him without a reason, but also about something you get, bought on the basis of "less money, less strength." No matter what men (and women) shout that the person himself is important, that the passion for gifts speaks of self-interest, but any woman is pleased when she is given gifts, yes, expensive gifts. But the main thing is to do it with soul, with love, with feeling. The point is not in gifts as such, but in attention, for which he is just as sorry to spend himself, as for the purchase itself - money. But if the situation with gifts can still be somehow justified by natural male unsentimentality, lack of money or time, but when your lover, walking along the street next to you, suddenly wants to show himself a knight and says: “Now I will buy you flowers! These ones!" - and chooses the smallest, meanest, cheapest bouquet, one can only guess whether he is joking or really considers himself a hero. Of course, circumstances are different, and what sometimes seems to us stinginess and greed may be the result of some unknown obstacles. And, nevertheless, a stingy person sooner or later manifests himself. If you have the strength, you can fight him: rejoice violently when you receive his rare gifts (so that there is an incentive to give more), give him gifts yourself (so that you feel ashamed), in conversations smoothly lead to the thought of how wonderful it is to be generous (by the way, a woman's word can mean a lot to a man), in the end, find him a well-paid job. Otherwise, his second stage of greed runs the risk of smoothly flowing into the third. And you will have nothing left but to console yourself with the thought that he is very, very super-mega economical.

They say about such people - pathologically greedy. When you have little of your own and want someone else's. When it’s scary to turn to them for help, you won’t get anything except humiliation. The more they have, the more they want. They sincerely consider themselves right and are deeply offended if they are called greedy. They live and exist for the sake of accumulation, preservation, multiplication. They convert everything into cash. They protect their own, like a tigress to a tiger cub. They may be rich or they may be poor. But in any case, they are not self-sufficient - they always lack something, they are unhappy in the generally accepted sense of the word. And they are happy when they look at their savings, like anorexics when looking at a decreasing number on the scales. And they are not ashamed. One can only hope that one morning one of these gobseks will wake up and, in some kind of emotional outburst, will think not about himself, but about those around him, will do something pleasant not for himself, but for those close to him, help someone who needs help, instead of thinking: "And who will help me?" Dream, dream, illusion? I would like to believe not.

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What is syllogomania

How to cleanse the lymphatic system?

Why is it important to sleep at night

Who gets up early...

An untidy old man who has turned his apartment into a terrible dump of rubbish and continues to carry rubbish from garbage dumps there every day causes disgust and irritation among neighbors and relatives. How could you stoop to this? Meanwhile, this is not his fault, but a misfortune - a mental disorder called syllogomania.

Answer honestly to yourself the question: are you indecisive, often do self-digging, are you prone to suspiciousness, anxiety? If so, then you are a psychasthenic type person and are also at risk for those who are prone to such disorders.

Experts attribute the excessive accumulation of various things that have served their purpose, or syllogomania (from the Greek Syllogismos - reasoning and mania - madness, passion), to pathologies of drives. It is in the same row, for example, with pathologies of food craving (anorexia, bulimia) or sexual (exhibitionism, erotomania, transvestism).

Syllogomania: symptoms

In general, syllogomania is considered one of the many obsessive-compulsive disorders. Obsessions are obsessions and fears. For example, “prices are constantly rising, soon I won’t be able to buy anything, so I need to stock up for a rainy day.”

And compulsions are constantly repeating actions: driven by an overwhelming fear of the future, a person every day brings home clothes, shoes, household items thrown away by others, which are sure to “be useful soon; I'll fix it and use it or sell it."

However, it does not repair or use anything. At the same time, his apartment may already be littered from floor to ceiling with various things so that only narrow passages remain among them, and it is simply impossible to find what you really need, since there is no system in “warehousing”.

But he considers his behavior normal, rational, values \u200b\u200b"property" very much and takes offense at the remarks of relatives or neighbors: "Do you want to throw everything away? Only with me!”

Such a person is not embarrassed by unsanitary conditions in the house, where a huge amount of dust accumulates. Gradually, he ceases to monitor his appearance - he does not wash, does not wash his clothes. A person suffering from syllogomania is immersed in his own world, he is not interested in what is happening to others. To other people, even relatives, he is often suspicious or negative. As a rule, his intelligence decreases, but in general he is quite sane.

Syllogomania develops gradually, and it usually acquires the most ugly forms in older people. Therefore, it is also called the syndrome of senile squalor, or the syndrome of Diogenes in honor of the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinop. Although he professed everyday minimalism - he lived in a clay barrel-pithos and did not have any property, at the same time he absolutely neglected hygiene standards and public opinion.

However, middle-aged people are also not immune from such a mental disorder. It can manifest itself not only by collecting unnecessary things, but also by an excessive passion for collecting "anything - books, plastic bottles, homeless dogs or cats. A person feels sorry for all the animals, he picks them up on the street and settles them at home, even if he is not able to provide a large horde of smaller brothers with proper food and care.

Syllogomania: causes

Syllogomania has several causes. On the one hand, the causes of syllogomania are associated with age-related organic lesions of the brain - a violation of the functions of certain areas of it, for example, due to atherosclerosis.

On the other hand, there are personality traits. People who are not too emotional, closed, stingy, prudent are prone to pathological hoarding. The impetus for the beginning of collecting trash for them can be a serious illness or death of a loved one, their own health problems.

A vivid example of how syllogomania appears is in Russian classical literature. The character of the book was once a wealthy landowner, had mills and factories, and did business with "wise stinginess." In his hospitable house, guests were greeted by a friendly hostess, two pretty daughters and a son chirped there.

Then he became a widow, one of the grown-up daughters ran away and secretly married a military man, his son joined the army, and the youngest daughter died. And the old man was left alone. Lonely life was the cause of stinginess. Don't remember what it's about? Why, about Plushkin!

The name of this character in the poem "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol is already becoming a household name as a characteristic of a miser who, having good incomes, looks like a beggar and accumulates all sorts of garbage in the house.

By the way, those suffering from syllogomania are in fact far from always poor, although they consider themselves to be such. After their death, significant amounts of money are often found in secluded places among the rubble.

In addition to innate greed, negative life experiences can also serve as the cause of hoarding. Decades of total shortages have fallen to the lot of the older generation, so many grandmothers keep all the children's clothes of their grandchildren, who have long become adults, or buy sugar in bags. After all, they remember how, for example, a box of soap, hidden in the attic, helped to survive in the war hard times. In some cases, the habit of thrift and thrift leads to the development of syllogomania.

Syllogomania: treatment

The Diogenes syndrome worsens gradually, so you should try to stop it at the very beginning. For example, it is not necessary to keep the belongings of the deceased for several years, even if his death has become a tragedy for the family. No matter how the elderly person resists, one should convince him that life goes on, and everything must either be distributed to the needy or thrown away.

This will help smooth out the pain and make room in life for something new and positive. It is important to remember: the more communication and contacts an elderly person has with other people, the stronger his confidence that he will not be left without the attention and care of loved ones, the less syllogomania will manifest itself.

If, in spite of everything, pathological hoarding has already begun in your house, you should not make scandals or mock your Plushkin. Try to persuade him to collect exactly the collection - not everything, but only something specific.

Discuss this hobby with him, say that you are interested in how the “meeting” is replenished, therefore it is important to ensure good review items. To do this, offer your help with cleaning. Such tricks may not give the desired result - the amount of trash will still grow.

In this case, it is necessary to partially get rid of it secretly from the "collector", because he, as a rule, forgets about what he has and where exactly he lies.

In advanced cases, when the amount of unnecessary things and all sorts of garbage in the house becomes a threat to the health of the collector himself, his household and neighbors, you can not do without the help of doctors. It is difficult to render it, because a syllogomaniac sufferer considers himself absolutely normal and will never admit that he has syllogomania.

And yet it is worth trying to arrange a consultation with a psychotherapist to begin with. A well-structured conversation can help the patient realize that he has a problem, and taking certain medications (antidepressants, anxiolytics, neuroleptics) can reduce the manifestations of syllogomania.

Treatment, unfortunately, does not guarantee complete elimination of this pathology and does not help everyone, especially those who are over 70 years old. But this is the only way out when all other methods of influencing the "collector" have already been used.

Where do the forces and energy go?

Probably, many have had a situation where the forces disappeared somewhere, although you are not particularly heavy and ...

8 comments

Thanks for the informative article! I recently heard the term itself in one of the episodes of the Bones series, began to google and found this article. I have seen this behavior in real life. A friend of my grandmother's friend has such a relative living in Israel. When a relative tried to throw some filth out of his things, he beat her. And I saw one girl like that, her kitchen was so crowded that it was impossible to move around. Now I know what was wrong with her.

About the treatment - nonsense. These people won't talk. My mother, when I threw away some of the rubbish, threw such a tantrum that I ran away. She didn't want to hear about doctors. When they came, she sent them away. It is incurable, alas.

Most likely you are right

Of course, such people should be assisted by specialists. Relatives with their violent methods will not achieve anything, except for aggression, resentment and damaged relationships. The method you describe is like taking the bottle away from an alcoholic in the hope that they will stop being an alcoholic. So far, no one has succeeded. There are certain schemes for working with such people. For example, one of the important psychological points that you, of course, do not know, is that a person should throw away his things himself. There are ways to negotiate that experts know, but you don't. Even if there is a box in front of him that no one has opened for 10 years, and it is clear that there is nothing needed there, he must open it, take things in hand and decide what he will throw away. But in any case, it should be his conscious decision. There are many more important psychological aspects of working with such people and the rules that they follow after working with a psychologist.

When a person generally stops cleaning his home, is this also a pathology? Is there another term?

It is not treated, the exact same drug addiction, not easier. Such people are very angry at others, suspicious and stingy. But for some reason it’s more about those who carry garbage from the garbage dumps home, and the majority! those who do not throw away their own or extremely rarely, BUT! are not removed pathologically. They do not see the mess and, as a rule, they still have dirty cats. I have such a cousin sister, everyone is to blame, the houses are rubbish, dirt and wretchedness, the clothes are old parents who died long ago and do not say anything. Works as an auditor, you can’t tell right away.

I am 39 years old. We recently bought a house and during the move, I was convinced that we had too many unnecessary things. I read several articles about hoarding and the Plushkin syndrome. And I realized that I am. I started throwing away junk, I don’t want to become a senile accumulator by the age of 50. I think that if I share my illness with you, it will be easier for me to defeat it.

I have another extreme, I throw out everything that lies for a long time and what I don’t use for some time.

The core of a person's personality is formed in the process of growing up. During this period, pathological greed is manifested, which interferes with living and building harmonious relationships. The concept is invested in the desire to possess something that other people cannot take away.

Greed as a phenomenon

Greed is the desire to possess certain benefits that no one can encroach on. This is a desire to protect value (it is perceived as the main goal of existence, labor) from the outside world. How stronger feeling, the brighter the defensive reaction is manifested: the person shows aggression or experiences strong fear.

Stinginess, like unwillingness to share, has several manifestations:

a person withdraws into himself (he protects his wealth from any outsider);
the personality is fixated on the accumulation or preservation of this good;
personality changes when it comes to spending or the need to share something, she shows her worst qualities of character.

The essence of stinginess is the desire to get something that the human psyche perceives as a blessing. Something valuable, even if others do not perceive such an object in this way.

The concept of pathological greed

A person develops, from early childhood the main character traits are formed. During this period, the child learns to perceive the world around him. Through parents or close environment, the baby identifies each event, material thing or concept. The concept of value is being formed - this is an object that is valued more than other things. The child not only understands that such a thing should be placed above the rest, but also forms a reaction to the event when the thing is lost.

Parents teach children to part with the good, they set the right priorities: a person receives a reward for work, with which, if necessary, he parted. The pathology associated with greed arises against a background of misperception.

The child does not understand that his reaction is wrong. He cannot change it on his own, because manifestations caused by mental disorders are perceived as something natural. A pathological type of greed is a constant state of a person, which is associated with complex psycho-emotional reactions. It's hard to get rid of him.

Hoarding in a woman

Greed is the desire to possess something without which life seems meaningless. Gradually, such a negative reaction turns into an instinct. A person feels that he must acquire value, otherwise he will not succeed in becoming happy.

He does not think about why such a need arose, because of which the ultimate goal does not justify the means of obtaining it. It is even more difficult for women to learn to understand this condition. Unlike men, they are not used to analyzing what is happening.

A woman wants something that will calm her inner anxiety. The object of desire itself is not so important. She cannot part with the value: psychologically, she got the thing with great difficulty. The girl begins to be greedy from early childhood, if love, care, tenderness materialize.

This happens when parents try to pay off a child: instead of caring and elementary manifestations of love, they shower him with gifts. On a subconscious level, a stable attitude is formed that the girl deserves only this. For this reason, a woman in adulthood tries to get any desired thing, and having gained it, she fiercely defends the value.

Other causes of female greed

A woman seeks to protect her acquired wealth if she grew up in poverty. The complex pushes people to inexplicable acts. The more she can get, the more of this good she needs.

Desires are never realized at their own expense - this is another important aspect of the pathological type of poverty. A woman tries to get benefits from other people as evidence of love or care for her. A lady with a poverty complex saves because she is afraid to again be in the role of a victim, a defenseless girl.

Man's manifestations

In most cases, a man is greedy for money. This is a certain stable character trait that prevents him from succeeding in his chosen business or starting a family. People who are greedy for money form a special attitude in modern society. Such traits are condemned as a conscious choice of a person (pathological greed is a consequence of a mental disorder, over which there is no control).

The main manifestations of greed in an adult male:

wants to get something from the outside (more often in a ready-made, formed form, so that you don’t have to work with value);
wants to present the value received as an asset: only he could deserve it;
trying to fill the inner insufficiency, block it with things.

Due to the peculiarities of the psyche of a man, greed is combined with increased aggression. He does not consider it necessary to make excuses, and wrong attitudes over time acquire plausible reasons, he knows why he strives to constantly receive something.

Along with the accumulation of wealth, the fear that it can be lost increases. Internal tension is growing, the worst qualities of character are manifested: a man does not allow people to approach him, he thinks that everyone wants to use him and defraud him of goods. All his attention is concentrated only on not losing external paraphernalia (it covers internal flaws).

In psychology, greed is associated with the desire to hide, hide flaws and one's own inferiority, so one of its causes is low self-esteem and self-doubt.

Greedy habits

Greedy people are hard to deal with. They can't stop saving for no apparent reason. Greedy people are afraid to get close to others, it seems to them that every stranger is a thief or a traitor.

They also fear that internal problems will become apparent. Often even unpretentious and undemanding women do not get along with greedy people. Over the years, stinginess develops into mania, which is accompanied by severe paranoia.

Against the background of growing consumer demand (a person needs more and more goods), the desire to hide from the rest of the world increases. Greedy people can lead a reclusive life, avoid communication. They lose social adaptation and choose voluntary imprisonment.

Fighting obsession with goods

Fighting greed is very difficult. The more a person lives with such a problem, the more it takes root (personality perceives greed as part of character).

How to get rid of greed:

acknowledge the problem;
conduct a deep psychoanalysis;
use hypnotherapy;
do self-training.

Recognizing the problem is the first step on the road to recovery. Psychologists and psychotherapists will quickly tell you how to overcome greed. Deep psychoanalysis will quickly help. This technique will help to overcome the root cause of the problem. This is an easy way to help get rid of the mental set. Psychoanalysis is carried out on the basis of general symptoms: the general condition of the patient is examined.

Hypnotherapy to get rid of the problem

Hypnotherapy works according to the following principle: a person is put into a trance, mental protection is reduced, work is carried out directly with the subconscious. In such a state of personality, any concept can be suggested. Such an attitude is perceived as a natural correct idea generated by the brain. Hypnotherapy helps to overcome any statement that corrects the behavior of a man or woman.

Conclusion

Greed for money is the desire to possess value. A person cannot and does not want to enjoy it or use it for its intended purpose. For him, the fact that the good belongs to him is more important. The pathological condition develops at any age and affects the behavior or habits of the individual. Children, men and women suffer from greed. Avarice has its accompanying symptoms.

Thriftiness, stinginess, stinginess, greed, greed… We face these phenomena of reality every day. Petty, rapacity and gluttony captured all spheres of life. Doctors send unfortunate patients to useless expensive examinations and prescribe unreasonably expensive potions. Sellers maliciously shortchange their customers, selling them low-quality goods that bite with their price. Bureaucrats-officials impudently extort bribes from entrepreneurs, creating obstacles in their work. Elite lawyers are deliberately dragging out litigation, breaking a huge jackpot for fictitious services. Teachers put spokes in the wheel of poor students, demanding bribes for signing the record book. This list can be continued indefinitely - a horde of thousands of greedy thieves strives to pull the last penny out of the pocket of the poor.

What drives greedy voracious predators? Hypertrophied greed is a trait that has existed since the prehistoric times of the existence of mankind. Greed is a vicious, gluttonous and insatiable old woman who takes possession of a person's mind. Avarice and covetousness govern the human mind, destroy moral laws and push them onto the path of crime. Greed is a pathological sinful passion that creates one aspiration for a person: to seize, hold, increase. About what is greed, what are the causes of greed and stinginess, read on.

Greed: what is the essence of vice
What is greed? This is the immoderate passion of a person to take possession and consume some kind of good. Greed is a craving that has arisen on a conscious level and is entrenched in the subconscious as a habit. This is a consequence of the natural human desire for competition and a negative echo of unhealthy competition in the human community.

In the original understanding of the term, greed is a hypertrophied thirst of a person to become the owner of any benefits. Greed also has a positive beginning, when a person is eager to acquire knowledge, skills, and mastery. However, in most cases, greed is an excessive passion for material wealth, especially for those benefits that a person does not have. This is an obsessive need to gain some kind of advantage and gain an advantage over other people. Greed is a pathological personality trait and a very active trait that forces a person to actively move in order to acquire material wealth.

Greed has many related sinful phenomena: stinginess, greed, greed. However, they all have slight differences. A greedy person seeks to get as much as possible, a stingy person tries to spend as little as possible. A greedy person has both disadvantages. Therefore, it can be argued that the formula for greed is greed plus stinginess.

What is the essence of greed? The main signs of greedy and stingy miser:

the strongest love and reverence for money;

an obsessive desire to appropriate the maximum of earthly goods;

excessive desire to satisfy your desire at any cost;

perseverance and assertiveness in finding the object of desire;

unwillingness to share what is in abundance;

inability to part with unnecessary things;

lack of enjoyment from the use of coveted items;

propensity to receive benefits in any aspects;

senseless hoarding;

intense fear of the future;

irrational fear of losing what you have.

Why Greed Arises: The Origins of Vice
What makes a person greedy? It turns out that stinginess and stinginess took root in the distant times of human history, when primitive homo sapiens experienced a clear shortage of resources to meet natural needs. They were forced to compete and fight for a piece of meat. They had to fight to find a place to sleep for themselves. Primitive man was forced to compete with fellow tribesmen in order to have the best special female capable of giving birth to healthy offspring. He had to get and protect his goods with the passion of a predator.

Therefore, it can be argued that the ground for the formation of greed in a contemporary was laid by his distant ancestors. That is, the germs of greed were sown a long time ago and passed on to the current person at the genetic level. The hypothesis of such unfavorable heredity is confirmed by close observation of the behavior of babies. Young children often do not want to part with their favorite toys, do not want to share them, throw tantrums in order to get a coveted item.

With the advent of commodity-money relations, greed has undergone a number of changes. With the advent of money, the greed and stinginess of a person was aimed at the possession, increase of financial capital. A manic passion for wealth took possession of the minds of ordinary people and began to rule the state. The worldview of the human community has radically undergone. Now the rich, wealthy, authoritative run the show, and mere mortals find themselves on the sidelines of life.

The fact that being rich is good, and being poor is bad, a person absorbs with mother's milk. If a baby grows up in a low-income family, he sees how his parents save, save, save for a rainy day, counting every penny. If the baby is brought up by wealthy gentlemen, then he notices all the flaws of his ancestors in relation to money.
Greed can form in a child with the wrong educational strategy. These are situations when caring parents over-indulge their offspring, satisfying his every lust. Or, on the contrary, the child grows up in eternal need, experiences a lack of parental attention and care. When he is forced to share maternal love with numerous brothers and sisters.

Greed: what leads to an exorbitant thirst for enrichment
Pathological greed incinerates a person from the inside and rewards with unpleasant neurological defects. A greedy person tends to have an accelerated heart rate and rapid breathing. His greed tenses all the muscles of the skeletal muscles. A common problem for people with immoderate greed is blood pressure jumps. As a result, such vegetative defects lead to somatic problems - hypertension, cardiopathy, problems in the digestive tract.
Greed completely changes the psychological portrait of a person. A characteristic feature of stingy and greedy people is suspicion and envy. They are wary of the people around them. These are unfriendly and uncompromising persons who rarely have friends and are unhappy in marriage. Greed is a common cause of disagreements and quarrels in the family. Very often it is the stinginess of the spouse that is the reason for the divorce. Greed can turn a person into an outcast, because adequate people do not want to communicate with such a flawed personality.

Greedy people are distinguished by special sadism, cruelty. They are prone to depraved actions. Greedy people often suffer from obsessive fears. Parting with hard-earned pennies leads them into a state of protracted deep depression. The sudden deterioration of the material situation of greedy people can push them to suicide.
Often it is greed that is the reason why a person transgresses the line of the law and commits serious crimes. For the sake of personal gain, a greedy individual is able to betray, steal, rob, deceive and kill. Greed is the cause of numerous frauds and scams. Guided by this feeling, people begin to take bribes, become extortionists. As a result, this pathological feeling leads a person to the dock.

How to overcome greed: getting rid of vice
Is it possible to eradicate greed in yourself when the desire to become the owner of the world incinerates you? The answer is banal - it is possible and necessary! Man is the creator of his personality and the master of his own destiny. And everyone, even the rapacious miner, is able to overcome his insatiable greed and turn into a generous nature. How to overcome greed? We follow the advice of psychologists.

Step 1
To get rid of greed, it is necessary to develop a correct understanding of reality. Eliminate destructive perception of reality. Change erroneous and harmful beliefs.
We should recognize that all the material goods that we strive to acquire, retain, increase are temporary assets given for a short human life. All the wealth of the world is a castle built of sand, which can be destroyed in an instant by an oncoming wave. All the sand grains of the fortress, which we hardly collected, can be carried away irrevocably into the endless ocean in a matter of seconds.
Everything that we have accumulated in life - money, jewelry, stocks and other material goods, will not follow us to the other world. However, we are able to leave a weighty mark in history, consisting of our generous deeds and good deeds.

Step 2
Every time we are overcome by an attack of greed, we need to stop and think: what will be the price for our indefatigable skidding. Most likely, our thirst to possess something turns into suffering, pain, poverty for others. We should reflect on whether our next acquisition is worth someone's tears, worries, insults.
And these painful experiences of others because of our greed are aimed precisely at us. And can we feel happy and contented when we are hated, despised, wishing us death? It is unlikely that the life of that rich man who has surrounded himself with platinum ingots and vegetates without meeting any human warmth, but feeling only the cold of metal, will hardly develop harmoniously. We remember that you can find harmony with yourself and the world around you only by getting rid of passions.

Step 3
Greed clouds at once and makes the creature a zombie slave of money. Such a captive person can easily cross the bar and break the law. Overcome by greed, the individual is able to steal, kidnap, deceive, even kill. And there is only one retribution for such atrocities - a prison term. Not always the greedy rich man will be able to negotiate with Themis and bribe the judges. And it is unlikely that somewhere in a prison cell it will be comfortable and pleasant to exist, even if the account in a Swiss bank contains an amount with six zeros.

Step 4
To overcome our own greed, we must be patient. Greed is a terrible habit that will not leave a yielding soul of its own free will. We act gradually. To begin with, we arrange a ceremony of purification of personal space. We take out the trash from the house, distribute things that are useless for us to needy people, get rid of piles of unnecessary clothes and shoes. How to determine what is necessary belongings and what is useless garbage? We open the wardrobe, review the wardrobe, leaving only those things that we have used over the past year.
We do the same with dishes, appliances, and gadgets. We are unlikely to need five TVs in a two-room apartment. We definitely won't use ten mobile phones at the same time. And it is unlikely that we will be able to drive twenty cars. Choking toad to give away for free? You can cheat your greed. We give an advertisement for the sale on Internet sites, setting the minimum price for the goods. So we will receive money, and get rid of unnecessary things.

Step 5
In order to get rid of greed, we should develop mercy in ourselves. Lead a life full of kindness, compassion, love. It is caring for your neighbors, helping the disadvantaged, caring for the poor that brings a sense of satisfaction, allows you to feel like a necessary, useful, worthy person. Acts for the benefit of others improve their own self-esteem, fill with feelings of pride and self-respect.

But in such acts it is necessary not to allow an oversight. We need to direct our help to deserving people who really need something. To those we can save. If we give an alcoholic a bottle of vodka from our master's shoulder, then by doing this we will only bring his death closer. If we simply transfer money to some kind of charitable foundation, it is not clear whether it is really working or fictitious, then we will only feel bewilderment, not understanding who we helped and what exactly we helped.
Therefore, you should choose a specific object for guardianship. It may be a lonely old woman whose pension is not enough for medicine. To overcome greed, we can start taking care of an orphan from an orphanage. Or become sponsors of an educational institution that is always in short supply of everything.

Step 6
To stop being greedy, we should learn not only to allocate our material wealth to someone. We need to disinterestedly share with others our moral assets, knowledge, experience, skills and mastery.
We can volunteer to care for a frail disabled person. We can help a volunteer organization free of charge. We can become an employee of a charitable foundation. Those who have knowledge in some narrow specialization are able to help low-income students by tutoring. The realization that you are helping people and sharing your inner wealth with them is a reliable assistant for eradicating greed.

Step 7
To overcome greed, we must get rid of attachment to the material results of labor. Do not expect that as a result of the next transaction we will break the big jackpot. Do not plan that getting a promotion at work will become a source of high pay. Do not hatch cunning plans that a cunningly conceived deception of the state will help to avoid paying taxes and allow you to increase capital.
Whatever work we do, we must learn to get satisfaction from the very process of activity, and not expect to receive a reward for work. Thus, we will kill two birds with one stone - we will get rid of greed and become a truly happy person who feels in seventh heaven every day.

Step 8
To eradicate greed, you need to introduce healthy pleasures into your life. Do not spare money for your development, education, leisure. Each person needs to expand their horizons: travel, visit exhibitions and performances, watch movies and engage in their favorite hobby.
Have you long dreamed of going down the slope at a ski resort or scuba diving near coral reefs, but you were sorry for the funds? We step over our greed and get a ticket to the eminent resort. An unusual vacation, new experiences will bring a boost of energy and help you feel like a happy generous person who exudes warmth to those around you.

Step 9
To get rid of greed, remember the rule: what you sow, you will reap. Regarding money, this axiom also works: the more money you spend, the more material wealth you will receive. Therefore, do not be afraid to invest in promising business projects. Do not deny yourself pleasures, especially save on food and health. It is necessary to pamper yourself and give gifts to loved ones. Therefore, we deliberately increase our spending.

Instead of an afterword
To eradicate greed, you must always remember: the world around you is full of abundance. Reality is generous with blessings and riches. Around there are inexhaustible sources of opportunities and resources. There is enough material wealth for everyone, so you should not take the last from the poor.

"Money will become Caesar" (Thomas Mann)

Living in a squalid shack on the outskirts of Kansas City, Franklin Lawson always behaved like a simple American beggar. The old man lived on alms, which he begged at gas stations and from shops. Franklin's clothes and shoes were donated by various charitable organizations. At the age of 73, Mr. Lawson left this world. The orderlies and police officers who arrived to take the body to the morgue saw a green piece of paper sticking out of a wretched mattress under the deceased. Out of curiosity, they pulled it out - it turned out to be a 100-dollar bill. They ripped open the mattress and gasped: there were sewn dollars in it. Since the tight-fisted grandfather left no heirs, the money went to the municipality fund, and from there - to help the poor. It is possible that the same as Mr. Franklin.

The same case was described by psychiatrists in the early 70s of the last century in Alma-Ata (Almaty), in Kazakhstan, only the mattress was stuffed with paper banknotes starting from Stalin's times, reflecting Khrushchev's monetary reform and ending with Brezhnev's stagnant period.

"Man's desire for possession is the expression of an animal instinct" (Ardrey)

Another striking example: in 1977, when I was just starting to master psychiatry, working as an intern at the Chimkent Psychiatric City Dispensary, I encountered the following case: a 63-year-old woman, left without relatives and friends, had been observed for 20 years in this dispensary due to organic brain damage and pathological hoarding, and according to social indications, she was registered for care in a boarding school, it was necessary to take her from her apartment to a new place of residence. What did we see in the apartment of the "stingy knight" in a skirt? Her two-room apartment, including the kitchen, was crammed from floor to ceiling with old, unnecessary, broken things: radios, sewing machines, refrigerators, washing machines, baby carriages, bicycles, boxes and boxes of various sizes and modifications. It was possible to climb into the apartment only through a narrow tunnel, and through it one could get only to the hostess's rookery (it was difficult to call this a bed). For many years, with maniacal perseverance and constancy, this sick woman collected discarded things from all the surrounding garbage dumps at night and “filled” her apartment with this junk.

“People strive in life not to do what they consider good, but to call as many things as possible their own” (L. N. Tolstoy).

The first studies of the brains of people suffering from Plushkin's syndrome were carried out at the University of California (University of California), which revealed the activity of the "avarice zone", such a zone was found in the frontal lobe of the brain, next to the "zone of conscience". Pathological hoarding, morbid stinginess - these disorders, according to clinical signs, were classified as anxiety-obsessive disorders. But this activity of the brain with Plushkin's syndrome differed from the activity of brain zones, which is observed in the general group of patients with obsessive-anxiety disorders.

Indeed, a little later, American scientists from the University of Iowa (University of Iowia) became that the area is responsible for the tendency of some people to hide completely unnecessary things in reserve, reports BBS News.

Dr. Steven Anderson (Steven Anderson) and colleagues examined 13 people who were distinguished by the habit of accumulating in their homes a lot of unnecessary things, such as broken electrical appliances, old advertising brochures, and did not want to part even with part of their "collection". They developed a similar condition after suffering a brain injury, as a result of which it was the frontal lobe of the brain that suffered.

The researchers compared 13 subjects' computed tomography (CT) scans with CT scans of 73 other traumatic brain injury patients who were not seen stockpiling useless items. All 13 subjects showed damage in the right side of the frontal lobe of the brain. The control group had no such damage.

Anxiety specialist Naomi Fineberg notes that the research data indicates that hiding things may be different than other types of anxiety disorders and may help in finding a treatment for this condition.

However, Professor Paul Salkovskis (Paul Salkovskis) from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London (Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London) that the data obtained does not at all prove that this disorder is caused by brain damage. In his opinion, to help such patients maybe psychotherapy.

Other types of obsessions also belong to anxiety disorders - for example, patients may experience a constant desire to wash their hands, count objects, or, leaving the house, an infinite number of times to check whether all electrical appliances are turned off. (Source: Mednovosti.Ru)

According to my observations, in many cases in patients with "Plushkin's syndrome", according to the classification of the Diagnostic and Statistical Handbook of Mental Disorders in the fourth edition (DSM-IV), the Conscientious type (epileptoids) predominates in the personality structure.

Anecdote in the topic: "Doctor, write me a cure for greed and more, more."

But seriously, there is no cure for greed. If an organic brain lesion is diagnosed, and pathological stinginess is one of the manifestations of this lesion, then the treatment is selected based on the nature of this lesion and symptoms. Let's leave this task to psychiatrists, neuropathologists and neurosurgeons. If we accept the concept of psychosomatics, then, for example, "Plyushkin's syndrome" very often accompanies prostate damage in men.

Socrates was told about a certain person that the journey did not fix him at all. “I willingly believe,” said Socrates, “because he carried himself with him.” “Why should we look for lands illuminated by a different sun? Can an exile escape from himself?!” exclaims Horace.

History knows many ways to deal with all-devouring greed: desert living, mendicant orders, cells, exposing the insatiable and ridiculing the mercenary...

If only the psychological aspect is a manifestation of pathological stinginess, then the work will primarily be aimed at understanding the hidden motives of such behavior:

1. Money as an instrument of power; it happens that a person, far from being greedy by nature, manages and controls his loved ones (wife, children) with the help of this tool, and this gives him great pleasure. For example, a husband-producer with their help controls the behavior of his wife. Outwardly, they are amazingly stingy and give their wife miserable pennies for household expenses. Sometimes, on the contrary, they are generous and dress their wife like a doll. But at the same time, the woman herself has practically no pocket money, and she must ask her husband for any little thing.

That is, in any case, the wife is completely dependent on the man, the head of the family, and she is constantly reproached: since I earn that kind of money, then you could take better care of me and do more at home. There can be a lot of nit-picking, sometimes they are fair, sometimes not, but there is only one conclusion: a woman who considers herself an independent person cannot put up with this state of affairs for a long time. Here's your number one remedy: divorce. Just like the dandruff guillotine. If the "stingy knight" begins to realize and understand his pathological stinginess as a form of behavioral dependence, besides he is afraid of losing his wife, then this problem can be worked on. There is an internal conflict that needs to be resolved. Here, as they say, options are possible.

However, excessive stinginess is just as abnormal and painful as frivolous waste. This is a personality defect, when money replaces everything: the joys of life and human feelings, put an insurmountable barrier between the miser and the people around him.

In The Miserly Knight, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin compares pathological stinginess and hoarding in terms of the strength of mania with the voluptuousness of sadists:

Doctors assure us: there are people

Finding pleasure in killing.

When I put the key in the lock, the same

I feel like I should feel

They, plunging a knife into the victim: nice

And scary together.

Do you know the Midas phenomenon? The god Dionysus endowed the king of the Phrygians with the ability to turn any objects into gold with his touch. So what? And the fact that the gift turned out to be fatal: the food that he took in his hands turned into gold. On this occasion, Ovid wrote in Metamorphoses: “Stricken by this unexpected misfortune, both rich and poor at the same time, he longs to flee his treasures and hates what he was hungry for.”

Clinical observation: Husband Eugene, 58 years old, a big businessman, wife Elena, 40 years old. This was Elena's first marriage, and her husband's second. Eugene gave his sons from his first marriage an apartment. The external impression for people is a generous and caring father. But within the family, Eugene controlled every step, gave out money for everyday expenses only if there were checks, demanding a report for each spent crown. By this, he limited her in everything: in order to go to the hairdresser or consult her daughter with a family doctor, this required special permission from her husband. All attempts to involve her husband in psychological work on his problem were rejected, since Yevgeny did not recognize the problem itself and considered it "fictional". And yet, a cure was found, and a radical one: divorce. Elena left with her daughter to live with her parents and returned to her old job, as her patience with bullying herself was exhausted.

“Ambition, greed, indecision, fear, lust,” writes Montaigne, “do not leave a person with a change of place. They persecute him even in the monastery, even in the refuge of philosophy. Neither the desert, nor even the rocks, nor the sackcloth (rope) get rid of them.

2. Money as a means of suppression. In this version, the one who uses money in this way can be safely called a domestic tyrant. Money can be earned by adult children or a husband, but still they end up in the hands of a tyrant. Tyrants are stingy with pocket money, stingy with kindness, sympathy, or understanding. These manifestations may be completely absent. Suppressed in the monetary sense, family members begin to resist: they are forced to make stash, from this the financial war in the family becomes even more fierce.

Tyrants, tight-fisted in money, make all households walk on a string. Such suppression forces grown-up children to quickly leave the parental home along with the end of school. In tyrannical women, husbands usually slide into alcohol addiction. Moreover, stingy wives are not able to understand that the cause of all family troubles comes from their pathological stinginess.

The truly unselfish never bully the greedy - they just don't know what it is. And self-interest loves to reproach ...

3. Money as a means of saving. "The miser pays twice" - this folk wisdom perfectly puts the malicious misers in their place. An example: a hunt begins with a newspaper advertisement, from which they learn that a certain coupon will have a 10% discount during a giveaway on products or goods that you can do without. However, transport costs are not taken into account. But to those stocks of soap or washing powder, a new batch will be added, bought cheaply in a supermarket located on the other side of the city.

Such petty stinginess drives people crazy, devours human feelings, and where there are no normal human feelings, the family cannot be preserved. If one of the spouses is mean, then the other in this family cannot be happy. Marriages break up precisely because of pathological stinginess. In addition, such a penny economy does not really help to save money in the household.

Stinginess, as a behavioral addiction, distorts emotions, thinking, and also deforms character and personality. Moreover, this process is progressing all the time, the degradation of the personality is deepening, which easily turns family life in hell. All the difficulty psychological help is that the subject in avarice takes the first step in realizing his problem. Without this, pathological stinginess or hoarding is practically not amenable to psychological correction. If this first step is taken, then this dependency should be treated like any other dependency.

The alcoholic justifies himself as follows: "Everyone drinks and I will drink, alcohol does not bother me at all, on the contrary, it helps to relax, get rid of stress." So the miser explains his morbid stinginess thrift, the ability to save, foresight and care for the family.

Greed is the root of all evil. The highest wealth is the absence of greed. Greed dries the soul. Who knows how to be content with little, he is rich. We are poor only in what we covet. We are rich only when we desire nothing. These thoughts were expressed in different time Chaucer, Seneca, Dumas, Goldoni, La Bruyère and others. The authors of all these aphorisms were very rich or frantically striving to get rich ...

4. Money as a guarantee of protection. This is also an illusion. People of such a landmark pay their bills very hard, often the terms of payments turn out to be overdue, as a result, they have to pay interests. In fact, it turns out that there is no guarantee of protection. It is difficult for them to determine what is really necessary, and what can really be done without. They can spend a lot of money on products, making long-term stocks, the products spoil and have to be thrown away. But on the other hand, they save on their health by refusing to be examined, to make visits to specialists and save on recreational activities that help maintain their physical health at a satisfactory level.

“People consider money to be able to do everything, they themselves are able to do everything for money,” Buast writes and ... makes a fortune.

5. Money as an OT movement, not a K movement. Here lies the fundamental difference in the attitude of people to material values. In the results of answers to the question: “What goal do you set in relation to material values?” more than 60 percent of the respondents answered talking about what they do not want (debts, poverty, poverty, etc.) and then there was a listing of “what and how much is missing, what and how much is missing” (movement “FROM” problem to problem and leads, and about 40 percent answered what they would like to achieve in life to have (movement “Toward” the goal leads to it).

People who are prone to stinginess limit themselves in everything, trying to save what they have (there is always not enough money). By this they paralyze their initiative, they live according to the residual principle. And what they have does not bring them a sense of satisfaction. At the same time, money loses its value, even if there is a lot of it. Paradox! Even having material values, such people are unhappy. A classic example of the "OT Movement" from literature is the underground millionaire Koreiko from the immortal work of Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov "The Golden Calf".

“Where there is a lot of money, there is always a ghost roaming. Money is a curse. Millions inherited or in some other non-labor way are just a source of disaster, and even rich philanthropists are unhappy, ”says Fontane and ... becomes a millionaire.

Another hero is Ostap Bender, an internally free, generous, enterprising and purposeful person, he knows exactly his dream and is actively striving for it. He is able to feel the state of happiness, he is able to love. And although the story ends with the scene of the defeat of the Grand Combinator on the Romanian border, where he goes in order to embody his unrealizable myth of Rio de Janeiro. This is an example of "Movement" Toward "the goal."

The vast majority - consciously or unconsciously - wants to achieve material well-being, wants to get rich. Not everyone succeeds, but this is the key reason for the viability of healthy societies, so to speak, Ohm's social law. And the violation of this law by all types of leveling is the cause of the decline of society, which ignores this law.

“Have needs, and therefore satisfy them, for you have the same rights as those of the most noble and the richest people. Do not be afraid to saturate them, but even increase them - this is the current teaching of the world. This is what they see as freedom. And what comes out of this right to increase needs? The rich have solitude and spiritual suicide, while the poor have envy and murder, for they have given rights, but have not yet indicated the means to satisfy their needs” (F. Dostoevsky).

Striving for the good is good, because it is natural. It becomes evil only when it turns into mania, in an effort to walk over corpses. But the latter is possible only in wild and impoverished societies, and not in cultured and rich ones. In cultural societies where there is law and order, predation itself closes the path to wealth.

In the Reiki tradition, there are three levels of initiation, each of which is self-sustaining and does not require receiving the next one. reiki school Kyiv

Sindrom.guru

At least once, each of us has come across elderly people who lead a semi-vagrant lifestyle and collect rubbish in landfills. Such old people give the impression of beggars, people abandoned by their relatives. Few people thought that such a condition is a widespread psychiatric illness and is called the Diogenes syndrome. Let's find out more, what is it?

There are many mental disorders caused by age-related changes. Diogenes syndrome is a pathological condition of the psyche with characteristic features:

Diogenes syndrome is a pathological condition of the psyche

What is a disease?

Diogenes of Sinop is a famous ancient Greek philosopher. Many people remember him for his outrageous lifestyle. In his old age, Diogenes lived in a large earthen jug (in some sources - a barrel), ate food right in the middle of the square (in ancient times - the height of indecency), publicly engaged in masturbation.

The Diogenes syndrome also has a second, less poetic name - the syndrome of senile squalor.

To explain the essence of the disease in a nutshell, it is enough to give an example from Russian literature - Stepan Plyushkin from N. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls". The work did not specifically mention that the character has a mental disorder, but it was precisely for those features that are characteristic of patients with this syndrome that the hero's name became a household name. "Plyushkins" are called people who are pathologically stingy, collecting unnecessary and unnecessary things for them, and sometimes at the same time sloppy. Most often this is said about older people. And for good reason. About 2-3% of the elderly suffer from this disease.

Causes

Presumably, a violation of the frontal lobe of the brain has a great influence on the development and course of the disease. It is responsible for the ability to reason, make decisions, assess conflicts, conscious movements, as well as the ability to write, talk, read.

Traumatic brain injury can lead to such a disease

Risk factors for Diogenes syndrome are:

traumatic brain injury;
severe stress;
alcoholism;
diseases that affect the brain (meningitis, encephalitis, etc.).

The secondary cause of the syndrome is mental disorders. In this case, Plushkin syndrome develops in a person who already has a mental illness (for example, obsessive-compulsive disorder).

Previously, it was believed that the syndrome of senile squalor affects people who have experienced significant financial difficulties throughout their lives or those who were originally characterized by stinginess. But over time, this theory was rejected.

For the most part, patients with Diogenes syndrome are smart, educated people, not always from poor families. But there are some features that are characteristic of such personalities:

Stress can cause this pathology.

bias;
suspiciousness towards others;
emotional lability (instability).

How does the syndrome develop?

The disease can develop gradually. Often the first signs are overlooked. At first, a person simply buys more food or medicine than he needs, neglects the elementary rules of hygiene, often justifying this by saying that he is old and it is difficult or unnecessary for him to leave the house once again.

Gradually, the symptoms increase. The patient brings into the house things that are completely unnecessary in everyday life: boxes, boards, glasses, bottles. Often these things end up in landfills. This is how the pathological hoarding characteristic of the Diogenes syndrome manifests itself. The feeling of shame is completely gone. A person does not take care of himself, his speech and actions. In addition to everything, there are changes in character - such people tend to complete solitude over time, human society oppresses and irritates them.

Symptoms

It is not so easy to formulate specific signs - they will be different in each case. However, psychotherapists have never had difficulty diagnosing this disease. Moreover, often even people who are far from psychiatry can suspect this diagnosis from a familiar old man and turn out to be right.

Indifference is one of the symptoms of the disease

There are some signs that speak of Diogenes syndrome:

syllogomania (passion for pathological hoarding);
desire for isolation;
indifference;
indifference;
slovenliness;
refusal of offered assistance;
spontaneity and groundlessness of decisions;
aggressiveness;
suspicion;
incredulity;
anxiety.

When diagnosing, it is important to evaluate the totality of symptoms. The disease is differentiated from a number of senile degenerative diseases.

Anxiety is one of the symptoms of the disease.

Complications

The patient's condition may worsen due to a neglectful attitude towards oneself. Such people not only forget about the basic requirements of hygiene and sanitation, they often forget to eat or take the necessary medicine. Due to the fact that a person is constantly in a state of mental stress, there is a high risk of developing a physical collapse. It is at this time that psychosomatic diseases can develop or worsen:

pneumonia;
migraine;
gastritis, pancreatitis;
ulcer, ulcerative colitis;
radiculitis;
neuralgia;
hypertonic disease, ischemic disease hearts;
bronchial asthma;
psoriasis, atopic dermatitis;
diabetes;

Diogenes syndrome can lead to diabetes

rheumatoid arthritis;
thyrotoxicosis;
obesity;
in some cases, oncology.

Often it is one of these diseases that causes the death of a patient with Diogenes syndrome.

Treatment

Psychotherapy is rarely used for treatment, since the disease is based on damage to a part of the brain. A session of a psychotherapist will be useful to the relatives of the patient - the specialist will talk about the disease and tell you how to cope with it.

In severe cases, the patient is subject to hospitalization in a special medical institution.

Medical treatment includes:

Medical treatment of the disease

neuroleptics;
less often - tranquilizers.

Patients with severe depression are prescribed antidepressants.

In order to assess the degree of damage to the frontal lobe of the brain and adjust the treatment, magnetic resonance imaging is performed.

Forecasts

Many psychiatrists, studying the Diogenes syndrome, wondered how to get rid of this disease. Unfortunately, today, with Diogenes syndrome, treatment is aimed at slowing down degenerative processes and does not affect existing disorders.

The most important thing is to create safe conditions for patients with Diogenes syndrome.

Relatives and loved ones need to mentally prepare for the fact that the person they once knew has changed a lot and is unlikely to be the same.

The patient needs to be provided with a life, proper sanitary conditions, live communication, and to occupy him with feasible activities. This will help create the most favorable environment for later life.

Is greed dangerous to health?

Greed is an unsightly vice

“Numbers are remembered well not by smart people, but by greedy ones.” A. Vampilov

"The heart of the greedy is an ocean thirsting for rain"

Envy. Typical greedy mindset: "He's better than me." The painful fire of envy forces him to chase the endless novelties that appear with his acquaintances.

Professor of psychology Yuri Shcherbatykh, the author of the book "The Seven Deadly Sins or the Psychology of Vice", comments on the topic.

EZ: How dangerous is greed?

Greed harms not only reputation, but also human health. It should be noted that short-term manifestations of this tendency do not pose a threat. Another thing is when a person experiences a painful desire to acquire something for a long time, experiences stinginess, greed. In this case, we are talking about chronic greed, in which psychological stress occurs and, as a result, health problems.

EZ: How can you test yourself for greed?

EZ: How to get rid of greed?

Diogenes Syndrome

Diogenes syndrome (syndrome of senile squalor, pathological hoarding) is a mental disorder characterized by an extremely neglectful attitude to everyday issues, social isolation, apathy, a tendency to unsystematic collection and accumulation of unnecessary, obsolete things (pathological hoarding), in the absence of a critical attitude towards one's own condition.

The history of greed - to the origins of the causes of pathological hoarding

The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (404–323 BC, one of the founders of the Cynic school) was extremely unpretentious in everyday life and arranged for himself a dwelling in a clay barrel at the temple. The philosopher did not need property at all: he professed asceticism and sought human communication. Thus, "Diogenes' syndrome" is not a completely correct name, and a number of researchers suggest using other options: senile disorder, Plyushkin's syndrome (a character from Gogol's novel "Dead Souls"), social decay, senile squalor syndrome.

Old misers: clinical manifestations of the Diogenes syndrome

Where do Plyushkins or the causes of Diogenes syndrome come from

The passion for pathological hoarding, most often observed in Diogenes syndrome, is called syllogomania. The extreme case, to which this term is usually applied, is the littering of the entire dwelling with a wide variety of things, in fact, rubbish. A sign of pathology in the collection and storage of old things is unsystematic storage and disuse.

Treatment of hoarding syndrome

1. Guide to psychiatry in 2 volumes, edited by Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences A. S. Tiganov, Moscow, "Medicine", 1999.

Greed: how to get rid of vice

What makes a person greedy? It turns out that stinginess and stinginess took root in the distant times of human history, when primitive homo sapiens experienced a clear shortage of resources to meet natural needs. They were forced to compete and fight for a piece of meat. They had to fight to find a place to sleep for themselves. Primitive man was forced to compete with fellow tribesmen in order to have the best special female capable of giving birth to healthy offspring. He had to get and protect his goods with the passion of a predator.

Pathological greed incinerates a person from the inside and rewards with unpleasant neurological defects. A greedy person tends to have an accelerated heart rate and rapid breathing. His greed tenses all the muscles of the skeletal muscles. A common problem for people with immoderate greed is blood pressure jumps. As a result, such vegetative defects lead to somatic problems - hypertension, cardiopathy, problems in the digestive tract.

Greed completely changes the psychological portrait of a person. A characteristic feature of stingy and greedy people is suspicion and envy. They are wary of the people around them. These are unfriendly and uncompromising persons who rarely have friends and are unhappy in marriage. Greed is a common cause of disagreements and quarrels in the family. Very often it is the stinginess of the spouse that is the reason for the divorce. Greed can turn a person into an outcast, because adequate people do not want to communicate with such a flawed personality.

To get rid of greed, it is necessary to develop a correct understanding of reality. Eliminate destructive perception of reality. Change erroneous and harmful beliefs.

We should recognize that all the material goods that we strive to acquire, retain, increase are temporary assets given for a short human life. All the wealth of the world is a castle built of sand, which can be destroyed in an instant by an oncoming wave. All the sand grains of the fortress, which we hardly collected, can be carried away irrevocably into the endless ocean in a matter of seconds.

We do the same with dishes, appliances, and gadgets. We are unlikely to need five TVs in a two-room apartment. We definitely won't use ten mobile phones at the same time. And it is unlikely that we will be able to drive twenty cars. Choking toad to give away for free? You can cheat your greed. We give an advertisement for the sale on Internet sites, setting the minimum price for the goods. So we will receive money, and get rid of unnecessary things.

Therefore, you should choose a specific object for guardianship. It may be a lonely old woman whose pension is not enough for medicine. To overcome greed, we can start taking care of an orphan from an orphanage. Or become sponsors of an educational institution that is always in short supply of everything.

To stop being greedy, we should learn not only to allocate our material wealth to someone. We need to disinterestedly share with others our moral assets, knowledge, experience, skills and mastery.

Plushkin complex

They say that "stinginess is the capital of a fool." What can we say about stinginess and greed then? According to American scientists, special areas of the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex are responsible for the passion for collecting. Recent studies by University of Iowa professor Stephen Andersen have shown that, due to damage to the frontal lobes, people who previously did not have a passion for collecting, after a traumatic brain injury, encephalitis or surgical operation on the frontal lobes of the brain, they began to engage in "collecting" useless rubbish, and pathological greed became the main feature of their character.

This seemingly not yet elderly man, although he retired at the age of 55 due to many years of work as a neuropsychiatrist, has always been distinguished by his love for women and the collection of medical literature. For the first reason, he was legally married three times, and for the second, he often remained "penny in his pocket" after acquiring another tome from second-hand booksellers.

"Bookish extravagance", adjacent to a certain household stinginess, has always led to family conflicts and subsequent breaks. marital relations. Our hero also had another old hobby - riding a racing bike. Until the age of 56, he drove it around the capital and the region, escaping from the next clarifications family relations. Until I hit a car. A severe craniocerebral injury followed with a fracture of the base of the skull. Then there was a long treatment and no less long recovery.

It would seem that medicine has performed a miracle - there are no visible consequences of a traumatic brain injury, but there are not too visible, but very noticeable, and, moreover, growing consequences. Passion for collecting book medical rarities quickly replaced the passion for collecting all sorts of junk in flea markets and even in landfills. Yes, and the owner himself became sloppy, neglected, although in public transport, before sitting down, he carefully spread a newspaper so as not to “get dirty and pick up some kind of infection.”

His wife endured his eccentricities for less than a year. The last straw that overflowed the cup of her patience was the incident that occurred between her husband and his daughter from her first marriage. She was passing through Moscow, heading to Cheboksary, where, according to the quota, she was supposed to have a hip joint implantation. The woman did not have enough money, but her father categorically did not want to part with a single penny. Only at the insistence of his wife, he gave his daughter from the family budget "whole" 5 thousand (!) Rubles. And then from morning to evening he only talked about his own generosity. And also that it is the children who are obliged to financially provide for their elderly parents, and not vice versa.

Of course, the worst thing is if the prudence inherent in a person earlier, or even more so greed, becomes pathological. At the same time, it often coexists with stinginess and the growing degradation of the individual. A striking example of this is the famous character N.V. Gogol from his immortal poem "Dead Souls" - Plyushkin. The name, or rather, this surname has become a household name so much that modern psychologists have named it one of the psychological complexes.

Recall: the collector and keeper of junk, the stingy old landowner Stepan Plyushkin “walked every day along the street of his village, looked under the walkways, under the crossbars and everything that came across to him: an old sole, a woman’s rag, an iron nail, a clay shard, - everything dragged it to him and put it in the pile that Chichikov noticed in the corner of the room.

Alas, little has changed in people since the time of Gogol, and Plyushkins can be found in almost any of the big city houses. Old men and women (and sometimes even younger people) drag home various garbage, resisting with all their might the attempts of their families to get rid of this rubbish. A similar category of people is struck by pathological greed. Experts regard it already as a mental disorder, which affects mainly the elderly. They are prone to "collecting", to the accumulation of obsolete things no one needs. They are usually indifferent to their appearance and order in own apartment, extremely slovenly and devoid of shame. But, trembling over their "treasures", they resist any attempt to clean up their room, suspecting that they might be robbed. They are suspicious, often come into conflict with relatives, friends and neighbors. And, of course, “you can’t beg for snow” from such people.

N.V. Gogol does not write what preceded the degradation of the personality of the landowner Plyushkin. He mentions only that “there was a time when he was only a frugal owner. He was married and a family man, and a neighbor stopped by to dine with him, listen to and learn from him housekeeping and wise stinginess ... ". Modern psychologists believe that pathological greed can be inherent in people with anxiety-dependent, sadistic and asocial personality structure. High level anxiety (from which the habit of saving for a rainy day grows), and a desire to increase self-esteem (“with money I am above others!”), sadism (“I can afford it, but you can’t”; or - “ask me well, humiliate ”) are all manifestations of a person’s psychological ill health. Such a person has no interaction with himself, he is gnawed by fear of life and of other people. He sees in everything only the dark side of life, and for him everything is displaced - it seems to him that everyone around him is greedy. In some people, the pathological passion for hoarding takes the form of an almost addictive addiction to money. And therefore they show intolerance towards those who do not know how to save and "do not understand why this should be done."

Alas, no medicines have been invented for pathological greed. But if life can make a simply greedy person think that “something is wrong” with him, this can be his first step towards self-correction. If such a person does not have a family, it would be nice for him to start helping people around him with something (and not necessarily immediately with money).

The family Plyushkin, having broken himself, just needs to start inviting guests more often. Especially on any more or less significant holidays. Or, if he has children, do not interfere with their friendship with other children, invite these children to his house more often, seat them at a common table with their children and give them at least small gifts. In general, you need to start taking some first steps. And at the same time, do not forget to critically look at yourself through the eyes of an objective third-party observer!

Well, those suffering from pathological greed already need not only qualified psychological correction, but often appropriate medication.

“Numbers are remembered well not by smart people, but by greedy ones.” A. Vampilov

"The heart of the greedy is an ocean thirsting for rain"

EZ: How dangerous is greed?

EZ: How can you test yourself for greed?

EZ: How to get rid of greed?

Is pathological greed just a trait, or a mental illness? it is about

Greed: how to get rid of vice

Is greed dangerous to health?

Greed is an unsightly vice

“Numbers are remembered well not by smart people, but by greedy ones.” A. Vampilov

"The heart of the greedy is an ocean thirsting for rain"

EZ: How dangerous is greed?

EZ: How can you test yourself for greed?

EZ: How to get rid of greed?

Case history: greed

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Discussion 128

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8 comments

Greed as a phenomenon

The concept of pathological greed

Hoarding in a woman

Other causes of female greed

Man's manifestations

Greedy habits

Fighting obsession with goods

Hypnotherapy to get rid of the problem

Conclusion

Sindrom.guru

Sindrom.guru

What is a disease?

Causes

How does the syndrome develop?

Symptoms

Complications

Treatment

Forecasts

Is greed dangerous to health?

Greed is an unsightly vice

“Numbers are remembered well not by smart people, but by greedy ones.” A. Vampilov

"The heart of the greedy is an ocean thirsting for rain"

EZ: How dangerous is greed?

EZ: How can you test yourself for greed?

EZ: How to get rid of greed?

Diogenes Syndrome

The history of greed - to the origins of the causes of pathological hoarding

Old misers: clinical manifestations of the Diogenes syndrome

Where do Plyushkins or the causes of Diogenes syndrome come from

Treatment of hoarding syndrome

Greed: how to get rid of vice

Plushkin complex