Re: [xmca] varying definitions of perezhivanie

[Christine Schweighart <schweighartc@gmail.com>]

Dear Haydi,
 Your first two links go to Jack Whitehead's work. I met Jack through his
interpretation of 'living contradiction' - which in the conditions of
educational practice becomes an agonistic problem-structuring around 'how
can I? . For me this 'I' reflects conditions of practice where enquirers
begin in an 'unempowered' reflection - not conditions of activity
theoretical development. It is possible maybe that a journey can arise and
expand from there....

However, despite encountering Jack's work, i did not encounter Vasilyuk
from his writing ar in discussion with him- rather I became interested in
work I found appearing here as I express and  set out in a message to
another who knew of him:

"I was looking on
this database at the topics being worked on in this journal:
http://psyjournals.ru/en/sps/2011/n1/44335.shtml
 Mainly because the website translates into english. I can't recall
exactly how I focused on him in particular , but I went to his web
page and the book title looked interesting, so I found it in a second
hand bookshop. ( It has a dedication -by the author I think) £7.77.
When it came I couldn't believe what I encounterd brought together -
still haven't been able to read  it  'fully', as I want to notice what I
notice (
if you know what I mean - I don't want to 'lose' it).
So I held back and then 'googled' him/the work - unbelievably I found
Jack Whitehead had  been writing about him... That was the order of
encounter. I did not read Jack's page - just enought to wonder if he
grabbed a bit in a form useful to him at the time ( perhaps no harm -
but potentially devastating if it's dissociated from its relations and
future students etc will 'hit into it') - and that is not my interest
[directly]...

 My interest is to work through how he brings 'value' - not to follow
him but to 'imagine' myself how that impacts the dynamics of  -motive
( and therefore all other relations) BUT this is to see if it explains
my difficulty,  and I think  that will be productive."

At that point I set out my question re biography to Andy- and I need to
revisit that.
 Christine


On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>wrote:

> Thanks Andy !  In my view , whom I always consider just as a naive reader
> , a very illuminating synopsis coming out  of a deep understanding of the
> 'activity theory' . The 'scribed' version though so much scrambled
> partially .
>
>
> Your synopsis caused me to google 'fyodor vasilyuk' . Some links came up ,
> three of which of likely interest . Forgive if redundancy is at work !
>
> Haydi
>
>
> http://search.speedbit.com/r.aspx?aff=&p=0&u=http://wzuy1.ask.com/r?t=p&d=synus&s=spd&c=spbt1&app=aoth&l=dir&o=0&sv=0a5c4301&ip=b009f96e&id=E5343A13DFF8F8AE1A1F3A256F485CF8&q=fyodor+vasilyuk&p=1&qs=121&ac=24&g=5a63upz7qBNcw4&en=gs&io=1&b=alg&tp=d&ec=10&pt=%3Cb%3EFyodor+Vasilyuk%3C%2Fb%3E+%281991%29+The+Psychology+of+Experiencing%3A+the+%3Cb%3E...%3C%2Fb%3E&ex=&url=&u=http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/jack/jwVasilyuk220906.htm
>
>
>
>
> http://search.speedbit.com/r.aspx?aff=&p=0&u=http://wzuy1.ask.com/r?t=p&d=synus&s=spd&c=spbt1&app=aoth&l=dir&o=0&sv=0a5c4301&ip=b009f96e&id=E5343A13DFF8F8AE1A1F3A256F485CF8&q=fyodor+vasilyuk&p=1&qs=121&ac=24&g=5a63upz7qBNcw4&en=gs&io=2&b=alg&tp=d&ec=10&pt=As+part+of+my+social+capital+I+use+three+epistemologies+and+I+want+to+%3Cb%3E...%3C%2Fb%3E&ex=&url=&u=http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/jack/jwdoctoralsupport0310.htm
>
>
> http://search.speedbit.com/r.aspx?aff=&p=0&u=http://wzuy1.ask.com/r?t=p&d=synus&s=spd&c=spbt1&app=aoth&l=dir&o=0&sv=0a5c4301&ip=b009f96e&id=E5343A13DFF8F8AE1A1F3A256F485CF8&q=fyodor+vasilyuk&p=1&qs=121&ac=24&g=5a63upz7qBNcw4&en=gs&io=5&b=alg&tp=d&ec=10&pt=Notes+on+perezhivanie&ex=&url=&u=http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/perezhivanie.htm
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, 10 January 2012, 4:01:27
> Subject: Re: [xmca] varying definitions of perezhivanie
>
>
> Michael, Haydi, Christine and others, thank you for drawing my attention
> to Fyodor Vasilyuk. Just read his book and loved it. It's one of those
> books that even though you can follow it as you read, it is not easy to
> recall afterwards. Anyway, here is my synopsis.
>
>
> *The Psychology of Experiencing*. The Resolution of Life’s Critical
> Situations. by Fyodor Vasiluk Progress Publishers 1984.
>
>
> This is a book about living through critical situations in life.
> “Experiencing” is a translation of “/perezhivanie/” and Vasilyuk uses it to
> mean “any process which brings about resolution of a critical
> life-situation, irrespective of how that process is directly felt by the
> individual.” Vasilyuk is an Activity Theorist, and sees experiencing as an
> activity, not just something to which happens to a person, but that
> hitherto Activity Theory had no term for it. So he has appropriated
> Vygotsky’s use of the term as a unit for the development of character. But
> I notice that for Vasilyuk, /perezhivanie /is the whole “working through”
> of the crisis situation, which is elsewhere called “catharsis,” whereas
> what others call the /perezhivanie /he calls the crisis-situation. The
> situation is of course equally subjective and objective, arising in the
> world, as it is experienced by the subject according to the subject’s
> commitments in the
>  world as well as uncontrolled events arising from the objective world.
> Vasilyuk is a superb dialectician. Experiencing is the process in which
> character is formed, but also, it is the process of character itself: both
> process and product.
>
>
> The main part of the book hinges on the idea that the inner world of the
> subject, the active side which cognizes, feels, perceives and acts may be
> either /simple/ or /complex/; the outer world of the subject, the subject’s
> life-world is either /easy/ or /difficult/. It is not so much that there
> are two kinds of inner and outer world, but that any specific crisis is
> derived from one of the four possible conjunctions: simple-easy,
> complex-easy, simple-difficult or complex-difficult. Each possible
> conjunction also contains the others, but one conjunction is dominant in
> the specific case.
>
>
> Vasilyuk calls an activity a “life relation” but so far as I can see the
> word “project” perfectly describes what he has in mind. A simple inner
> world means that the crisis arises from the pursuit of just one activity
> and has no implication for any other project. A complex inner world means
> that the subject is motivated by multiple projects so that changes in the
> progress of one project has implications for other projects (eg they may be
> conflicting, or dependent on one another) and resolving a crisis becomes
> something complex in that sense. An easy outer world means that the crisis
> arises from inner causes, not existential threats to the project or
> blockages having their origin independently of the subject. A difficult
> outer world means that a project in which the subject is committed faces a
> blockage or disaster.
>
>
> Vasilyuk goes through all the possible combinations of strategies that
> subjects resort to to resolve a crisis arising in each of these four
> worlds, and there are all sorts of sub-types, etc. These categories are
> ahistorical so Vasilyuk is able to explore the possibilities by logical
> means rather than abstracting them from empirical data. Of course the
> circumstances which give rise to crises and the strategies available to
> subjects are culturally and historically determined. But analysis of a
> crisis and therapeutical assistance depends first of all in diagnosing the
> kind of crisis the subject is undergoing. So the elaboration of the theory
> is very logical, but one gets the feeling that Vasilyuk has had the benefit
> of the experience of offering assistance to thousands of people going
> through severe crises and that his theory is robust as a diagnostic tool.
>
>
> The four kinds of crisis are (simple-easy) stress, (simple-difficult)
> frustration, (complex-easy) conflict and (complex-difficult) crisis. He
> says that /stress /is a “hedonistic” crisis – the subject is concerned only
> with the here and now and getting more; /frustration /is a “realistic”
> crisis – the subject has to accept the unattainability of the object and
> determine what it is they /really/ need, not just the specific thing which
> has the meaning for them of their object; /conflict /is a "crisis of
> values" – the subject is obliged to revisit the bases for their past
> actions and question their values which have led them into a tragic
> situation; crisis as such is a creative crisis, which obliges the subject
> to transform the meaning of the absent object so as to make the
> psychologically impossible situation possible; this means a life-crisis
> resolved by creating a new life-world, a new self. This is all very complex
> and I can’t do it
>  justice. It will take a lot of study. I like the way he deals with the
> concept of "values" as deep structures, underlying commitments which can be
> brought to light only by a subject's /perezihivanie/.
>
>
> The section on psychotherapy relied on a different categorisation of four
> “levels of awareness.” These are the Unconscious, Experiencing (here in the
> ordinary meaning of the word, more like Undergoing), Reflection, and
> Apprehension. This structure of consciousness or awareness is defined by
> the activity of the Observer and the Observed (a bit like Mead's I and Me).
> Crises may be felt in one (mainly at the given moment) “level” and Vasilyuk
> says that a different therapeutic strategy is required in each case. In the
> case of the Unconscious, it is a /monologue by the therapist /who tells the
> patient what the break in consciousness reveals; in the case of Undergoing
> it is a /monologue by the patient /who gives voice to their experience so
> as to become aware of it, with the empathy of the therapist, can move it
> into Reflection; in Apprehension therapy requires a /dialogue /between the
> therapist and the patience to bring out the nature of the crisis;
>  in Reflection the therapy is an /internal dialogue/ of the patient
> themself through which the crisis can be transformed and resolved
> successfully.
>
>
> Andy
>
>
> Michael Levykh wrote:
>
> > I hope the following paragraph from my 2008 PhD Theses might shed a bit
> more
>
> > light on your discussion:
>
> >
>
> > Vasilyuk (1984) writes in his annotation to Psikhologia Perezhivaniya
>
> > (Psychology of Perezhivaniye), that in order to manage (perezhits)
>
> > "situations of stress, frustration, inner conflict, and life crisis,
> quite
>
> > often a painful inner work has to be done in re-establishing inner
>
> > equilibrium and reconstructing a new meaningful life" (para. 1, my
>
> > translation). For him, even a painful experience in the past can be
>
> > recreated as a positive, pleasurable, meaningful future-oriented
> experience
>
> > of personality. Hence, perezhivaniye is a future-oriented, conscious, and
>
> > individual emotional experience of past events achieved in the
>
> > "here-and-now" through reflection on the individual's struggle within
>
> > himself/herself (e.g., as if struggling between the dual consciousness of
>
> > self and the character he/she portrays) and with the social environment
>
> > (e.g., his/her audience). Although perezhivaniye connotes mostly negative
>
> > (painful) experience of the past, its future-orientedness provides
>
> > possibilities for positive outcomes. Such positive possibilities are also
>
> > reflected in Vygotsky's optimistic views on cultural development in
> general.
>
> >
>
> >  Michael Levykh
>
> >
>
>
>
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