If there are no conflicts in your life, check if you have a pulse. An inflexible position is sometimes the result of paralysis. S. Jerzy Lec Why do most people fear (or at least avoid) conflicts? Let's find out your attitude towards conflicts: - What do you associate the word “conflict” with? What image does your imagination suggest? What thoughts, feelings, sensations arise when you hear the word “conflict”? The psychological nature of conflict I don’t know how you answered, but 99.9% of people tend to associate conflict with negative phenomena - from quarrels and fights to wars and natural disasters. The absolutely predominant associations are scandals and the negative emotional and nonverbal manifestations that accompany them. During the conflict, its participants experience the same physical reactions as during stress: increased voice timbre and rate of speech, rapid breathing and heartbeat, vegetative manifestations, crying, tremors (shaking) of the hands, etc. Emotional reactions are characterized by a large amount of irritation, anger, resentment, fear, guilt, remorse. In general, associations with the word conflict can be divided into three types of responses: 1. One set of terms will have an unpleasant, negative connotation: war, death, destruction, discord, disorder, aggression, violence, cruelty.2. The second group of terms will have a positive connotation: adventure, opportunity, pleasure, excitement, development.3. The third group of terms will be relatively neutral: tension, competition, reflection, negotiation. Some will answer with terms from two groups or even three. These results usually indicate ambivalence towards the conflict. The ambivalence we feel towards conflict comes from the values ​​espoused by society. Children are usually taught to avoid conflicts in the public interest. Parents call attempts to conflict disobedience and suppress them. Children are taught not to question positions based on beliefs. Beliefs here mean any person’s ideas about the world, about himself, any principles and conclusions on which we base our assessments of events and decision-making. They are called beliefs because these ideas are not absolute truths. We do not check and confirm them, but, nevertheless, they are guidelines in accordance with which we live. Example: “You should always listen to your elders.” Very convenient (for older people!). Most people do not want to understand that, by and large, no one owes them anything. The question that New York psychologist Albert Ellis uses in his practice is as follows: “Where is it written that a person should behave towards you this way and not otherwise?” And in fact, if you think about it, the answer to this question is disconcertingly simple: “Nowhere.” For many people, openly acknowledging a conflict is unacceptable. And almost every person, if possible, tries to avoid it. Actions related to defending our interests are associated with something illegal, wrong and cause a feeling of guilt. Our traditional education system is built on being passive in general, and especially in conflict. We are taught to be “above this,” to endure and remain silent. Conflictlessness is often cultivated by those people who are trying to adapt to any situation, for whom “a bad peace is better than a good quarrel.” Such people are forced to constantly compromise, agree with others, give in, support other people's interests to the detriment of their own. This usually results in external conflict becoming internal. A person, avoiding fighting with others, turns to fighting with himself. Those around you are interested in making you conflict-free, i.e. less dangerous and more predictable. To be able to defend one’s interests – to confront – does not mean to constantly quarrel with someone, it means to be able to resist something. However, our society discourages confrontation so much and suppresses it so much that we oftenWe decide to protest only after waiting for the limit of our own patience, when the level of emotions is already off the charts. And in this regard, conflict is associated with the release of negative feelings (with anger and aggression). In one of his works - “The Nature and Mechanisms of Conflictphobia” - Boris Khasan builds the following logical chain: “Conflict is a choice; choice is always a refusal; giving up oneself: giving up the usual idea of ​​oneself and the world, and this is painful and scary!” For the Chinese, the character corresponding to the word “conflict” consists of two parts, denoting risk and new opportunity. However, hardly anyone remembers this when the possibility of conflict arises. A person is afraid of instability, so most people are afraid to take risks, forgetting that the consequences of risky actions can also be positive. Fear of conflict, as a rule, is fear of one’s feelings. Because conflicts release aggressive energy, we are afraid to face our destructive impulses, especially if we have been taught that anger is bad. If we have not been taught confrontation (and who really needs this?), we get lost in front of it, instead of using energy constructively - to overcome obstacles, to defend our values. Conflict reflexively causes fear in most of us, because it is associated with physical confrontation, pain and danger of being destroyed. But if you never conflict, you do not realize your difference from others, your uniqueness, and you depersonalize yourself. I do not call for conflicts. But conflicts are an integral part of human relationships. They arise due to differences in characters, habits, and contradictions between our needs and the possibilities of satisfying them. Most people believe that they have no less right (if not more!) than others to have the maximum of life's benefits. The consciousness and worldview often contain dissatisfaction with one’s material and official position, a search for someone to blame for this, complaints against those around him, or against people of a different social status, a different ideology, nationality, etc. We get into conflicts because we are different. We have different attitudes towards the world, towards ourselves, towards the states that we experience, therefore clashes of different opinions, different approaches, different feelings and characters are inevitable. The more diverse the world becomes, the more conflicting interests we face. Any person views the world from his own point of view (“from his own bell tower”). Personal perception often leads to a distortion of reality. Sometimes negotiators do not understand each other at all. Misunderstanding strengthens prejudice and leads to reactions of rejection, which, in turn, lead to similar reactions on the other side. Long-term relationships between people are possible only when a compromise is found between their aspirations. Rarely does anyone give up their interests voluntarily, more often there is a struggle: almost everyone consciously or subconsciously tries to shift the line of compromise in their favor. Finding a constructive way out of the conflict means being enriched with the knowledge that other people want to live differently, not like you, and learn to accept the point of view of others, learn to negotiate. Just as two warring states sooner or later sit down at the negotiating table and agree on borders and relationships, so with people any conflict ends when they meet and discuss how they will continue to live together. Or how they will separate. By avoiding conflicts, we avoid relationships. “He who does not know how to growl will never find his pack” (E. Estes). Sometimes “a conflict is like a thunderstorm, after which the air becomes cleaner,” and relationships are closer. A conflict occurs when the old method no longer works and it is necessary new solution. Thus, it helps us reach a new stage of development, including the development of interpersonal relationships. As long as there is no conflict, obstacles, as long as everything in life happens the sameAs has always happened, we remain immobile and even degrade. An obstacle pushes us out of everyday life and forces us to change. Thanks to conflicts, we get to know ourselves better, discover new resources in ourselves and get to know other people better. It is easy to accept another person if he supports our point of view. But the situation is completely different if he holds different views, if he is different, not like us. Conflict allows us to open up the inner world of another, different from ours, to accept the other’s right to a different point of view, to a different position, and to include it in our world. According to the American psychologist B. Wool, “life is a process of resolving an infinite number of conflicts. Man cannot avoid them. He can only decide whether to participate in making decisions or leave it to others.” This means that there is no point in being afraid of conflicts; you need to learn to deal with them, solve them competently, discussing not positions, but interests, which often exclude each other only at first glance. Conclusion: The question is not to prevent or avoid conflict, but is to prevent conflict behavior associated with destructive, violent ways of resolving contradictions and help participants find a mutually acceptable solution. Conflict (confront!) to your health, but do it according to the rules, do not forget what the “Parable of Anger” teaches us. Once upon a time there was a boy with a bad character. One day his father gave him a bag of nails and told him to drive a nail into the garden fence every time he lost his temper or quarreled with someone. On the first day, the boy hammered 37 nails into the fence. In the following weeks, he learned to control himself, and the number of nails hammered into the fence decreased day by day - he discovered that it was easier to control himself than to hammer nails! Finally, a day came during which the boy did not hammer a single nail into the fence. Joyful, he went to his father and told him that he had not hammered a single nail that day! Then his father told him to take a nail out of the fence every day when he did not lose patience or quarrel with anyone. Days passed and finally the boy was able to tell his father that he had taken out all the nails from the fence. Then the father led the boy to the fence and said to him: “My son, you behaved well, but look how many holes there are now in the fence.” The hedge is no longer what it used to be. When you quarrel with someone and say something bad, you leave a wound just like these. You can put a knife in a person, and you can take it out, but there is always a wound. No matter how many times you apologize, the wound remains. A verbal wound hurts just as much as a physical one. Regardless of the result of resolving the contradiction, try not to destroy the relationship. How to do this? Follow the twelve rules of behavior in conflict situations: 1. Let your partner “let off steam.” If he is irritated and aggressive, then you need to help him reduce internal tension. Until this happens, it is difficult or impossible to come to an agreement with him. During its “explosion” you should behave calmly, confidently, but not arrogantly. He is a suffering man no matter who he is. If a person is aggressive, it means he is filled with negative emotions. In a good mood, people do not attack each other. The best technique at these moments is to imagine that there is a shell around you through which the arrows of aggression do not pass. You are isolated, as if in a protective cocoon. With a little imagination, this technique works.2. Ask him to calmly justify his claims. Say that you will only consider facts and objective evidence. People tend to confuse facts and emotions. Therefore, brush aside emotions with questions: “Is what you are saying related to facts or opinion, guesswork?”.3. Don't give him negative assessments, but talk about your feelings. Do not say: “You are deceiving me,” it sounds better: “I feel deceived.” Don't say: “You are a rude person,” rather say: “I am very upset by the way you talk to me.”4. Ask to formulate the desired end result and.