Hasn’t started the playoffs of the world Cup, and several football fans were taken to hospitals – some even in the hands of psychiatrists. Had to call an Ambulance in St. Petersburg and the famous Argentinian Diego Maradona was rooting for his team. When the love of football becomes a threat to mental health, “Dr. Peter” asked the head of the City psychotherapeutic centre Oleksiy Demyanenko.
– Football passion in full swing. They say that while “support” can result in increased blood pressure, pulse, temperature. What happens at the level of the psyche?
– Remember the founder of the theory of stress canadian scientist Hans Selye. He discovered that any event that we experience is the stress factor – no matter it is positive or negative. At the level of physiology, the mechanisms of influence are quite similar – the release of the neurotransmitters adrenaline and noradrenaline (hormones of fear and courage), typical stress damage the mucous membranes of the gastrointestinal tract. At the level of the psyche – extreme excitement, there is the dominant idea – everything else goes into the background.
– Why do people become fans? Lacking in a life of thrills?
– Including. Initially, this kind of human need, and needs may be different. For example, the affiliation, the experience of belonging and involvement in something in common. Why do some play and earn money, while others are experiencing? I’m not a fan, but even I during the game between Russia and Uruguay was worried. The team plays your country, and I love my country. I remember my grandfather watching football. I was afraid that it will be enough for fourth heart attack – he moved his arms and legs like he was on the field. For our brain it makes no difference who we really are, or represent. Is some virtual reality in which man finds himself.
– Who was included in the list of diseases ICD-11 for video and digital gambling. Fans have also addiction or something else?
– Depends on involvement – how this process impacts on the daily functions. Even Paracelsus said: “All is poison, all – medicine; that, and the other defines dose”. We’re not going to think of the people drunk at the party, even though many alcoholics. The question of how they behave in everyday life. Same here. I even slightly regret not having bought a ticket to the world Cup. I would like to come to the stadium and experience the atmosphere and feel might like it. If “sick” is becoming the dominant activity, of course, is the problem. There are fans who follow their team all the cities and villages. In fact, do not live their lives. That is some of their need is met in such a strange way. Agree, it’s hard to do, having a family, a stable job, the fullness of life.
– Is there a medical term for this condition, for example, “the fan syndrome“?
– There is no such term, is a household jargon. It is possible to dream of a syndrome of overvalued ideas, but no more. Important here is not the content but the process. There is some activity that captures me – it is not very productive and has no clear motivation. But it can be as “sick” in football, for example, macramé.
– Who is more inclined to football fanaticism? Often sports fans get absolutely no sports people.
– There is a test used in clinical psychology – Minnesota multidimensional personal questionnaire (MMPI). It shows the personality profile on different parameters – a tendency to depression, fatigue, anxiety, neurotic control hysteria. I suppose that fans are people with peaks on three MMPI scales – impulsivity, rigidity (the inability and the inability of man to change, to respond flexibly to changing situations) and hyperthymia (from the nature of unwarranted elation and high social activity). To feel good, so people need a powerful stimulation – it is a good atmosphere in the stadium during the match.
– Fan and a football fan (obsessed) – one and the same from the point of view of the therapist?
– Fanaticism is close to overvalued ideas. I am not very successful, but belonging to a strong team and influential coterie makes me a successful member of the majority. Fan the same one who is actively interested in, passionate fan. The main thing for me as far as this hobby allows for conditionally normal life.
– Have you had in your practice to deal with the fans? You have had such patients?
– No, but I had to counsel patients with different types of gambling. In these cases, the mechanisms of occurrence of similar disorders. No wonder some of the fans playing the sweepstakes.
– How to treat this disorder?
– First you need to understand that to treat. Not everything requires treatment. If fans after the match was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital, this does not mean that the disorder connected with football. It could be psychosis, which has been exacerbated with stressful factors. If, however, the reason the football, then I’d know for a human this has become so important. Why lose or wygrywac alone, and you’re going through? I always say that someone else hemorrhoids feel impossible. It is important to be able not only to unite but to divide, and to understand where am I and where – they are. But then on the surface it may emerge something deeper – the need that people have tried to udovletvoryat with feelings of belonging to the victories and defeats of others.
– After all, where is the line between the love of the game and painful condition that can bring even to a psychiatric hospital?
Where it affects everyday life. How a person is able to work, to be in a relationship or his whole activity dedicated only to travel from city to city. If the passion for football is one of the activities, even if it seems someone is irrational, then there is nothing to worry about. To rationalize permanently harmful. We must remember that life ends with death is the only guaranteed event and it is very irrational. The man never drank, smoked, went Jogging, then 50 years left on my morning run, slipped, hit her head and well, if he died, and then became disabled. All rational went to pieces in a moment. In the words of Carlos Castaneda: “All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. Is there a way heart? If there is, it is a good path; if not, he’s useless”.
Nadezhda Krylova