Reciprocal unconditional-conditional organization of the fundamental emotions and paraadaptive personality reactions

Paraadaptive personality reactions (PPR) are modes of behavior and experience on the borderline of normal psychology and psychopathology. In them the thinking is overdetermined or obsessive. Overdetermined PPR are well illustrated in common proverbs. The people’s wisdom has also knowledge of the obsessive (or “magic”) paraadaptive rituals for prevention of possible misfortunes (such as touching wood, keeping away from a black cat,etc.). One part of the PPR is described in the psychoanalytical literature as defense mechanisms. The analysis of thought dissociation in schizophrenia shows that the reciprocal relations could be considered as a basic principle of functional organization on all levels of nervous and psychic activity. Proceeding from this assumption, the author proposes the conception of a reciprocal neuropsychological unconditional-conditional affect-behavioral system (ABS). It consists of ten subsystems corresponding to the basic emotions. Each subsystem stimulates the personality toward predetermined forms of thinking and behavior. In adequate conditions the reciprocal processes in the ABS are well counterweighted and integrated. In some persons and in situations of greater affective “loading” this reciprocal balance is disorganized, which leads to PPR. In this paper a neuropsychological analysis is made of the overdetermined PPR, reflected in such proverbs as “Not being able to beat the donkey, he beats the packsaddle” and “The thief cries catch the thief.”