Today in the social realm, the coming departure of man from spiritual values, from high ideals and from his personal heart-to-heart communication with the Lord, mental illnesses have increased and flight reactions through sociopathic manifestations have taken on enormous dimensions.
The effort in every way made to remove the young man from moral ideals tends to remove him from harmonious integration in the social space, as the value of love and understanding will constitute his main language of communication after the full and essential background of his proper functioning.
The experience of love towards the neighbour in the social space will be an unattainable and unsuccessful endeavour, if the individual does not first support the reconstruction according to Christ, through which he will acquire the necessary homeostatic balance and the necessary psychic power, through which he will overcome external resistances and practice, with a special inner joy and fulfillment, the work of offering and sincere participation in the pain and joy of his neighbour.
The young man, deprived of ideals, looked for other ways of fulfilling his expectations and many times entered the path of morbidity. It is certain that if we exclude organically mental diseases, among which there is a specific morphological and neurochemical alteration of the brain, which is also the cause of the morbid mental expression, the majority of morbid mental manifestations are a function of the alteration, of which the human soul through distance from God and through significant experiences of depression and anxiety, which become “perpetual tortures of conscience”.
A. The psychoneurotic alteration
As a complex defense mechanism come the psychoneurotic alteration, the result of which is usually disturbed psychosomatic homeostasis and the other extent disturbed social behavior.
Within the developing space of psychoneuroses, the individual loses the sense of the authenticity of his existence and becomes a prisoner of his atypical and persistent mental experiences. He ceases or is no longer able to strive for the transcendence of himself and in parallel ceases to strive for the Absolute. Life is usually considered the only absolute good, and despite the existing, usually depressed mood, the fear of death is overestimated and with anxiety the individual tends diligently to protect his physical health, which becomes identical to his existence, considering that as much as the neurotic reaction is greater, both the transcendental consideration and the existential extension beyond the limits of biological life becomes more difficult.
The feelings of insecurity which occupy the psyche of the neurotic individual introduce existential uncertainty and intensify his fixation within his physical ego and the sadness and anxiety which flow from this fixation.
Every attempt to raise the feeling of self-esteem and by extension liberation from the finite dimension of existential insecurity, if it is not accompanied by the effort of the deep connection of man with the Triune God, turns out to be futile and man ultimately remains helpless in his agony.
On the contrary, through man’s connection with God, he realizes the true dimensions of his being and fully understands the beauty of his existence, he finds that his existence takes on its true dimensions and he exists under his ontological awareness only when he comes into existential relationship with God and his existential dialogue becomes a continuous invocation of God’s goodness and mercy.
Beyond all the treacherous human models, the model of the Crucified Lord becomes the powerful source of attraction for the human being, who, by sitting at the feet of the Cross, realizes the beauty and greatness of his existence and becomes aware of his true destiny. Human models acquire a relative and questionable value when man is found before the eternal divine model. ‘I can perfectly well call Socrates my Master, whereas the one in whom alone I have believed and believe is the Lord Jesus Christ,’ Kirkegaard stressed, making the difference between the human and the divine model evident in his consciousness.
In the state of neurotic reactions, on the basis of the individual’s relations to social space, Horney divided them {a} into those directed towards social space, {b} into those directed against social space, and {c} into those directed away from social space.
These three forms of social reactions of neuroses express the manifest existential anguish of the sufferer, who will either seek protection and refuge in the social space, when pressed under the weight of internal oppositions, or he will either withdraw from society or develop aggressive behaviour towards it, considering the social space to be the cause of his psychological drama, under the influence of recent traumatic external influences or the memorialisation of analogous effects from the past.
All the above forms of social reaction express the magnitude of the existential insecurity of the sufferers, who are sometimes subordinated to their social environment or to special social spaces seeking external coverage, which will alleviate the anxiety of insecurity and the lack of a sense of social responsibility or, on the contrary, they try to get rid of the inner drama of existential insecurity and uncertainty by developing aggressive behaviour and turning the predominant inner problem from the space of the psyche to the social field of antagonistic attitudes and interpersonal confrontations, transposing this inward aggression to the outward, through grief and inner shrinkage to the dominant extension of the boundaries of the ego, in the form of self-defence against the catastrophic experience of existential anxiety and depression.
Removal from the social space in the third sense is a particularly pathological reaction, since it gradually leads the individual into the space of unreal life in which he tries to define his self-sufficiency and self-reliance, but it gradually abolishes the boundaries between the real and the imaginary and resorts to a peculiar mode of psychic life, in which the element of subjectivity and misinterpretation predominates, on which the entirety of his psychic life is suspended, sometimes fully absorbed and sometimes essentially detached from social space.
B.The flight into the space of addictive factors
Removal from the social space, not infrequently, carries the risk of a hysterical, or hysterical reaction of complete and gratifying indifference from society and people, or entry into the particularly morbid space of addictive substances, from which the exit is particularly difficult or, probably under the present prevailing social conditions, largely unattainable. From this last mode of sociopathic reaction, the gradually expanding social plagues of today are steadily crippling the body of society.
It is known that the refuge of man in various factors, which remove him from reality and transport him into a peculiar and unreal atmosphere of tranquility and mental well-being, has been practiced by individuals or social groups since ancient times. Both opium, the use of which was already known to the Sumerians, and alcohol, which was used by the ancient Egyptians, were a refuge for individuals who were possessed by feelings of insecurity, flight from society or depression. Euphoria, the sense of information, globalization, tranquility and the parallel increase in muscular strength by taking opiates are the counterbalance to the unpleasant psychological state of the individual, who seeks liberation from insecurity and social anxiety.
The use of addictive substances has, at times, reached enormous proportions in certain countries, with tragic consequences for individuals and society. In recent years in particular, the use of addictive substances, including ethyl alcohol, has become a painful social phenomenon, especially among young people, making it a major medical, social, legal and economic problem.
Considered from a medical point of view and especially from a neuroscientific perspective, prolonged repeated intake of opiates is found to be not without consequences for humans. Both the use of opiates and of hallucinogenic substances creates a profound alteration in the mental and physical state of addicts and causes irreversible trauma in the social sphere.
Addiction, which develops in individuals who have repeatedly used addictive substances and in particular opioids, is due to their action on the short neural networks of the metacerebellar or cortical system, the diencephalon, the central grey matter of the midbrain and the catecholaminergic system of the hypoglossal space and the medulla oblongata.
The psychological effects of both intake and withdrawal of exogenous opiates are mainly on the emotion of the addicted individuals, given that the majority of synaptic alterations take place mainly in the hippocampus, which is functionally linked to the structuring of emotion and the function of engraving memory representations. It is known that bilateral damage to the hippocampus results in an active disturbance of memory and disturbs the emotional balance of the sufferer.
With the neurochemical and morphological background of the central nervous system disrupted, addicted sufferers experience a gradual withdrawal from social functioning, reducing their activity to seeking and securing the appropriate amount of addictive substance, by means of which, on the one hand, they would prevent the occurrence of withdrawal phenomena and, on the other hand, they would achieve the expected and desired feeling of well-being, under which their moods of depression would be eliminated.
The possibility of returning addicted individuals to levels of competent social behaviour and freeing them from dependence on opiates in particular is a particularly difficult task, on the one hand because of the morphological alterations at the level of neuronal synapses and on the other because of the forthcoming suppression of the processes of neuronal plasticity. However, both the efforts of pharmacological withdrawal from opioids and the possibility of psychotherapeutic intervention can help substantially in the gradual liberation of the individual from opioids and their subsequent reintegration into society.
Existential and social insecurity as flight from reality
Usually the psychological background of individuals who resort to the use of opioids is clearly disturbed, characterised by strong feelings of insecurity and rejection of the self, and not infrequently there are sociopathic elements and attitudes in their personality profile, under which they are prone to the use of opiates, ethyl alcohol, benzodiazepines, indica-canabis, or pseudo-stimulants, persisting in their own right and being transferred many times from one agent to another.
Not infrequently the use of opiates is sometimes a means of escaping reality, for individuals who are suffering from a strong sense of inadequacy and the inability to integrate functionally within the social space, and sometimes a mode of self-destruction equivalent to a prolonged form of suicide. At times, individuals are subject to a deep sense of isolation, sometimes expressed in the form of existential emptiness, sometimes as a lack of prospects and differences, a sense of unfulfillment, a dampening of expectations and a lack of meaning in life.
The advice of the Church in the rehabilitation of addicts.
The Church can play a decisive role in addressing the problem of opiate use and addiction,
On the one hand, it can fill the existential void of man through the Divine personality of the Lord and consequently prevent from a deeper level the tendency of people to resort to the untruthful and condemnatory life of the world of opiates, and on the other hand, it can contribute to the spiritual reconstruction of the addicted individual and open new horizons in his life.
The turning of the individual’s attention to his spiritual perfection, through the experience of God’s will and the release from his passions through God’s grace, will constitute the cornerstone on which the edifice of the addicted individual’s reconstruction and the scale of his gradual upward course will be based.
Despite the great effort and the constant struggle which the individual must make to free himself from dependence on opiates, in which the weakened will and the diminution of his critical faculties due to the use of opiates, combined with the tragic fate of the withdrawal phenomena, are to some extent insurmountable walls, yet the conscious decision to move away from this morbid addiction is already the beginning of a new life.
Not only through dependence on opiates but also for any fall of man, the position of the Church as defined by the Fathers is that the resurrection comes from the decision to rise from the fall.
Through the Church and the sacramental and Eucharistic relationship within her, the individual will evolve from the world of creation-centeredness and his thoughts and experiences will acquire a Christ-centered character. His ego will no longer seek self-justification in a mythical world, nor will it wander in the nihilistic atmosphere of temporality and ontological disenchantment provided by opiates, nor will it pass through the tragic experiences of withdrawal phenomena, where the individual acquires the premortal experience of existential annihilation, but will be fulfilled under the personal life of divine love, which gives the individual the sense of existence and existential fulfillment, dispelling the shadow of death and the insane atmosphere of nihilism and ontological crushing.
Man in the space of the Church acquires the sense of his true existence and, through his passion for truth, he discovers the fullness of communion with the Lord and the deeper value of his being, which is so accurately expressed through Saint Maximus.
The flight of man from conventionality and from human society and the refuge in the space of the fake tranquility of the opiates, through the love of the Lord, will no longer prevent the real character of the flight from the space of his passions and his pathological experiences to enter the space of spiritual experiences through which apathy will be gradually cultivated in him, which is essentially a dynamic process of love and uninterrupted communication with the Lord, in which man moves in a continuous upward progressiona stage in which passions gradually cease to dominate the soul and the individual is no longer bound in the space of freedom in Christ, within which the experience of love and homeostatic peace prevails.
The opiate addict, through the goodness of the Lord, is relieved from the pathological ecstasy provided by the gross occupation of the neurotic synapses by the introduced exogenous opioid, to gradually come to know the true extent of the presence of the Lord in his mind and heart and to be enthralled by the beauty of God’s “unalloyed love” for man, free from all finite and material things and entering into the space of truth and the communion of light.
C The flight by suicide – The responsibility of the family
We find ourselves today in a social space where mental sick deviance in any sense and expression takes on frightening dimensions.
Depression enters the human soul from childhood and dries up the mental flower of youth in the wilderness of despair.
Youth suicide is a tragic phenomenon in Western society.In the twenty years from 1970 to 1990, suicides by all means, especially by hanging, increased significantly among 14-19 year olds.
The splitting of the family unit, either through the divorce of the parents or through the daily disputes, which inevitably lead to the psychological alienation of the parents and the psychological fragmentation of the family, are the main reason for the suicide of young people in 70% of cases, since parental love and peace in the family are the most essential psychological needs of children from infancy to adulthood.
The depressive experience of the parents, which creates the peculiarly depressive atmosphere of the family, as a result of the contrasts existing between them, removes the children from the family and the more sensitive of them, especially at the age of puberty, are directed away from this life.
The pathological psychological dependencies of parents on their children in their attempt to overcompensate for the existing psychological distance between them and to accept or transmit their emotional potential, emotionally alter their children, who are in childhood, where they seek healthy emotional role models in the face of their parents, or in adolescence, where they go through the agony of the process of identification, which they consider to be an essential reason for their flight from life. Children and adolescents are in a state of deep grief, which sometimes takes on the character of emotional despair, given that the parents’ unfortunate mental processes take on enormous dimensions in their mental space, they are driven towards voluntary death, choosing it as the only substantial possibility of relief from the disproportionately heavy emotional burden they carry.
The mental drama of the parents and their emotional disconnection, develops the greatest traumatic surface in the psyche of their children, to the point that the desire for death swells more and more in their deprived moral and spiritual foundations and takes on the impulsive desire of suicide, which becomes a reality as the parents’ emotional burden increases, as their existing moral, social and psychological inhibitions weaken. The concept of suicide sometimes takes on the dimensions of martyrdom, through which parents are called upon to recover, understand and take responsibility for the whole psychological atmosphere of the family.
The painful feeling of lack of love among parents and the tragic realization of the lack of moral and psychological foundations within their consciousness space, the desperate attempts to attract the psychological involvement of their children within their contradictory emotional field, introduces division within the child and adolescent psyche and steadily reduces its psychological resistance.
The anticipation of death in the psychological sense within the family space, between the face of the parents, the deprivation of true love, the lack of peace and stability, anger, contradictions, the constant blame game, steadily increase the traumatic surface of the child and adolescent psyche and frustrate the expectations of happiness and inner fulfillment, which are the essential psychological foundation of the young person.
The need for simplicity and wholeness, within the framework of a genuine and healthy emotional space,where the soul will life the beauty and remembrance of the lilies of the field,remains in the soul of the young man tragically unfulfilled and substitute instead of the disturbing experience of mental complexity and emotional deadlock.
Stavros I. Balogiannis
Professor of Neurology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Director of the A Neurology Clinic of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
We would like to thank the Holy Metropolis of Drama for permission to republish the reports and conclusions of the conference held on 21-23/5/1995
