“Children live in the present and look to the future”: a psychotherapist about the dialogue of generations, stereotypes and interpenetration of cultures

The heroes of the new RTD film “Artists of Kabul Street” are young circus performers performing in the capital of Afghanistan. Their arena is the popular circus “Kuli san” (“Kuli” is a flower, “San” is a stone), which, in order to support local children, was organized by a Dane who settled in Kabul.

Artists perform on the streets, in refugee camps. Gradually, there are more and more willing to join the circus family: about fifty people come to auditions.

But even if the child is taken into the troupe, this does not mean that he will come again: parental prohibitions, backed up with beatings, are a weighty counter-argument. So, Fazila, the eighth child in the family, went to the “Kuli-san” with pleasure until they found out about it at home. Father and brother beat Fazil and put extra work on her - ordered to collect even more empty plastic bottles with which the Afghans drown stoves instead of firewood.

Moreover, although the circus does not exist for long, he already had to move to another place - after a rocket attack by unknown persons.

In “Kuli-san”, children and teenagers learn to walk a tightrope, ride a unicycle, juggle. It would seem that all this is harmless occupation. But they also look provocative in the eyes of people who adhere to the traditional way of life.

What is stronger - lingering stereotypes or craving for creativity? How to act to children whose choice is not supported by parents? And how do western and eastern cultures influence each other? This was told in a conversation with RT by a psychotherapist, Chairman of the Association for Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy, Associate Professor Dmitry Kovpak.

- The heroine of our film uses children in circus performances to make it easier for them to cope with stress. Can this kind of therapy help a person if the environment and circumstances of life remain the same?

- We have, in St. Petersburg, a similar project. There they collect hooligans, street children and help them socialize - in fact, this is also therapy with the help of creative expression. Circus is a very understandable environment for children and adolescents; it is a space for edutaiment (there is such an integral term - from education (education) and entertainment (entertainment, play).

In such an environment, everything is absorbed much better than at lectures or at school - adolescents avoid boring, didactic forms.

This is a Scandinavian model, often used in Denmark and Sweden: they noticed that this approach helps children choose a suitable social group for themselves, creatively express themselves through a more comprehensible to them. In addition, it is a multilateral rehabilitation: both physical and psychological - with elements of prevention. A potential candidate for a social risk group or already ready trouble does not, roughly speaking, be an alcoholic, a drug addict or a parasite, but manages to socialize, get used to work without additional pressure, voluntarily and with interest, choosing development rather than decline.

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- In your opinion, is the circus instrument right? Perhaps a more effective therapy for children is, say, communicating with animals?

- There are a number of therapies - including through interaction with animals, using horses or dolphins. This is an example of the need for relationships and contact. The circus approach allows, in addition to rehabilitation, to form social skills necessary for life in society. It includes creative expression, hard work and the ability to achieve goals.

But here the problem of stereotypes of thinking arises - primarily the thinking of those around them. This may be ethnic, religious prohibitions or a set of concepts, which can be defined by the word "domostroy."

- One of the young viewers said: "The circus is our salvation, we are all here as students, waiting for the teacher." However, the parents of the audience and the artists themselves have a negative attitude towards their new hobby. The heroine of our film was beaten so that she did not go to shows: they say, there are boys, entertainment, and the work - the collection of plastic bottles - has not been canceled. Do not adults see their children need help? Why don't they allow themselves to help themselves?

- These are exactly the same stereotypes that adults have. But you need to understand that these are stereotypes that go through many generations: these adults were also children once and were also subjected to strong pressure from their elders. At one time, patterns imposed by previous generations made it impossible for many of them to think independently. And the adult generation demonstrates what psychologist Martin Seligman calls “learned helplessness” (a condition in which a person does not try to improve his well-being, having such an opportunity. - RT ).

More totalitarian oriented societies do not like non-standard forms (for example, this informal Afghan circus), because it contributes to the development of critical thinking. They need the same-mindedness and submission to the established canons of behavior.

- How can children smooth out such contradictions? How to carefully and productively convey their point of view to adults in traditional families, where the word adult is law?

- It is hard to say. But children, if they decided on such a form of cooperation as joint work in a circus or in some other form, already show that they are ready to become better. Prove it by their behavior! It’s not the faces that beat each other, but they develop physically and creatively.

Thus, it is more a problem for adults with their stereotyped perception, who look at reality through the filters of their once and for all learned concepts: the child owes me, he must implement my plans and serve my interests. And since there is no item in the learned list of the item about the creative development of a child, you need to deny it and devalue it.

The most difficult thing for a child is to not show aggression in response to such a reaction. The way turns out to be effective, when the child, by consistent actions, proves that he has embarked on the path of development, that this is a conscious choice, and he has firmly decided to stick with it.

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“In societies that keep traditions, there are more and more conflicts between the older and younger generations - the latter pay more attention to social networks than to parental advice. Is it somehow connected with the advent of the Internet, the widespread pluralism of opinions? Or did the conflict of fathers and children existed and will always exist?

- Ivan Turgenev therefore became a classic because he managed to describe a clear model of relations, which remains unchanged, despite all the achievements of modernity. Technologies, after all, do not change the essence of the conflict, they can only give it new forms.

The new generation lives and develops in the new time, the previous generation inevitably becomes obsolete and lags behind life that is not in place, declaring their ossified, dogmatic ideas and patterns. They offer to focus on a proven past, and children live in the present and look to the future.

In this endless conflict, only the entourage can change, but it is theoretically unsolvable: after all, representatives of the new generation will rather quickly take up the position of their opponents and everything will be repeated. This is similar to the situation with a certain old scientific school - it does not leave the loser, it simply leaves. A new scientific school does not come victorious - it takes up the vacant place.

- Do people like the heroine of the film - the Danish woman - go in the right way, who, of course, act out of good intentions, but in fact they are confronting several generations with each other?

- Of course, you need to take into account the most acute moments related to the existing taboos, primarily cultural ones. But it’s impossible to avoid such conflicts. The educator may surrender and leave, may even die during his mission. Or it still remains and works. And it turns out that it is in such people, because the water wears away the stone.

The interpenetration of cultures is inevitable. Japan could not remain a closed island, as the world around them became more dynamic and accessible. In Afghanistan, of course, everything is more complicated: there the achievements of the information civilization are confronted almost with medieval concepts, this is a very sharp transition.

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- As a rule, people of Western culture in the East try to introduce something new, in particular, behavior patterns: the Dane organizes a circus enclave in Afghanistan rather than an Afghan educator, a similar space of Eastern art in Denmark. But do we need such changes? After all, those who accept them will automatically have to abandon one structure in favor of another. In particular, a tightrope woman or a street artist in general in Afghanistan will more likely be perceived as an accessible woman.

- Failure will not occur, there will be a mutual enrichment of cultures. Remember, the Beatles were brought to the United States by Maharishi (the neo-Hindu preacher Maharishi Mahesh Yoga. - RT ), so that he would simply give lectures, and this was, say, a wonder. And now you can do yoga in many fitness centers - there would be time and desire. Yoga is not even the Middle Ages, it is much earlier, but it organically flowed into modern life. Here, if you will, the East defeated the West without firing a shot.

But at this stage nothing stopped. West reworked yoga and made this Eastern practice in the list of active sales. I quite often visit the USA and see how many new mindfulness centers appear in different cities. This is, simply put, a scientific version of meditation, where the practice of awareness is given without esotericism and mysticism. Just presented as a kind of progressive technology.

It turns out that the West reworked its "victorious" Eastern knowledge and put it in its service. In this form, this interpenetration looks harmonious. At the same time, the stereotypes of the “crusades”, that is, the violent imposition of new ideas by force, are still used, although this is also an outdated medieval Western pattern.

This is a bit like the final story of the Matrix, when Neo realizes that he cannot win - and the interaction of cultures is doomed to a collision without a victory. Neo seems to be giving up, but when the agent penetrates him, they merge and give rise to a new world of balance of contradictions, like a particle and an anti-particle. It is worth striving for such a balance: there are no winners and losers, there is a new holistic form.

Watch the film “Artists of Kabul Street” on RTD.