Sensory deprivation

The concept of deprivation is very often found in various psychological literature of our time. If you consider yourself an educated and erudite person, then you just need to understand what it is.

Deprivation in psychology is understood as a special mental state, during which a person lacks the satisfaction of his needs. Translated from English, this term refers to the loss of something or the deprivation of the possibility of a normal functioning of the need sphere.

Deprivation and its types

There are several main types of this mental state:

1. Absolute. It implies the impossibility of satisfying basic needs through lack of access to necessary resources and material goods: food, shelter, warmth, clothing, etc.
2. Relative. It manifests itself in the form of a sense of injustice due to the fact that the result does not at all coincide with the efforts expended on it.

The same categories can also characterize the signs of deprivation. At first glance, it seems that the relative form of this mental state is nothing less than frustration, but this is not entirely true. A significant difference in the definition of these other categories is that frustration implies the deprivation of some good that a person already had before, while deprivation occurs as a response to the lack of what the person has never had before.

Causes of deprivation

All possible causes of this feeling are divided into several forms:

• motor;
• sensory;
• maternal;
• social.

Deprivation in the family

If we consider the above reasons, then the problems in the family are related to maternal and social deprivation. During infancy and childhood, the child feels an acute need for maternal love and affection, but not always available to him ways to meet this need in full. Children living in orphanages or orphanages, as a rule, are deprived of the necessary care from adults, which is the reason for the emergence of such a mental condition as deprivation. In a full family with his mother and father, the child also does not always get enough attention. The consequences of deprivation are much later, when due to a violation in meeting the needs, the motivational and volitional sphere and the psyche of the child begin to suffer.

Conditions of deprivation

To conduct research on this problem, scientists use specially designed instruments and apparatuses. Since the beginning of the 20th century, many experiments have been conducted to study the human response to sensory deprivation. They showed that most of the subjects even refused to participate in the experiment, even for a great reward, after three days of interruption in a small enclosed and specially equipped room.

In this room, all the sounds from outside were smoothed out by the monotonous noise of the air conditioner, the hands of the subject were inserted into special clutches that block tactile perception. Darkened glasses let through only a weak beam of light, which minimized the possibility of obtaining information through visual channels.

All these experiments were necessary to test the effect of deprivation of feelings on a person. In general, a person's reaction to this kind of restrictions can be very different. Some people, by virtue of their religious beliefs, resort to them voluntarily. An example of deprivation can be social isolation from hermits, sectarians or monks. According to Western teachings, it leads to inner enlightenment and unity with higher powers.