Graphomania: why does it arise and how to deal with it?

The graphomaniac in each of his literary opus sees the kiss of God. Complacency, arrogance and extraordinary vanity are the driving forces of his mediocre business. The irrepressible, hypertrophied thirst for fame, unconditional recognition and honors form the basis of his motivation, become the meaning of his entire existence. Thus, the creative component of the mind perishes. Why graphomania arises, how to deal with it - let's try to figure it out.

Graphomania is a pathologically expressed, obsessive desire to write texts, "treatises" and "works", claiming to be published in literary publications.

A-priory, an author with a penchant for literary writing can write about what he is poorly versed in, ambitiously counting on his supposedly exceptionally high literary talents. However, his creative possibilities are largely limited. Often the texts written by a graphomaniac are extremely naive and meaningless.

In the context of the disease, its erotic variety is also considered. - erotomania, observed in psychopathic natures writing on love topics. Separate "advanced" herographers compose such letters in order to arouse and obtain sexual satisfaction.

For the first case, there is a complex of signs related to the topic of diseases. The second one deals with aspects related to the level of literary professionalism of the writer, the degree of social value and usefulness of the writer.In this sense, for several reasons, the line between graphomania and true literary talent is often blurred.

One of the most common causes of the disease, psychologists call hypercompensation of the inferiority complex, which means that its origins must be sought in the personality of the author and the history of his life. Often, the disease arises as a result of delusional or overvalued ideas, identifying themselves with prominent writers.

From a scientific point of view, graphomania often develops in pair or on the basis of more obvious mental illness - schizophrenia, paranoia (parasitic psychopaths), hypomanic conditions and other disorders. The so-called Kandinsky-Clerambo syndrome (the phenomenon of psychic automatism) is also known, in which patients refer to the fact that they are compelled to write by some otherworldly, sacred forces.

The pathological passion for banal and meaningless writing is manifested for various reasons. Often, there is an urgent need for hypercompensation of inferiority complexes, and sometimes the author has some overvalued crazy ideas.

Conditionally distinguish 3 groups of graphomaniacs.

1. They write about anything, ornately and beautifully, with a claim to create highly artistic images. Authors with a good education.
2. They compose famously twisted plots, but in a clumsy language that can, but is difficult to edit.
3. They imitate the creation of works using verbal garbage - typical graphomaniacs.

An uncontrolled need for writing, an indefatigable thirst for recognition leads graphomaniacs to attacks by many publishers with confidence in the publication of their "masterpieces", even at their own expense. At the same time, the opinions of other people regarding such compositions are not of interest to them, since they are sure of the infallibility of “creations”. For obvious reasons, graphomaniacs cannot collect their audience. As a result, their loneliness and illness are exacerbated.

It is likely that among the first graphomaniacs was Roman writer Guy Julius Gigin, corny rewriting other people's myths and affixing his signature to them.

Perhaps the most famous example of graphomania was Joseph Goebbels, who left a “legacy” of 16,000 pages of typewritten text dedicated to the subjective and biased vision of the events of World War II.

The standard of graphomania among the authors of the Pushkin era was considered poet D.I. Khvostov. As an author, he became famous for the pronounced archaic nature of the poetic style and the complete lack of interest in the pressing problems of that time (detachment).

His name, as a transcendent graphomaniac who writes absolutely mediocre and clumsy poems, sounded throughout Russia. The count passionately as he wrote his opuses, published "creations" in thousand copies for his money.

It is characteristic that the count was both a military man and an official, but could not succeed in any field. Finally, having secluded himself in his estate, the count selflessly indulged in versification:

“I’ll break the iambic, I’ll hook the rhyme,

I’ll not exactly divide the verse in half,

That, for the chasing words,

I will cover my thought with thick clouds.

However, muses like to dignify the lyre,

I love to write poetry and print! ”

In its style, Russian graphomania, and, in particular, Tailovskaya, is full of stylistic archaic to give the text special importance and significance. According to the apt expression of V. Kuchelbecker, Khvostov’s creations are presented as “the height of stupidity”.

In the midst of Russian emigration, someone boomed with the glory of a graphomaniac Victor Kolosovskywho also performed in the poetic field.

Today, in the age of digital technology and the computer boom, the problem of graphomania has become global. The phenomenon has become widespread. In many ways, this is due to a drop in the level of humanitarian culture, the level of artistry, and often a low level of literacy.

“But not every individual

Strives to be published,

But not everyone knows for sure

What is the alphabet. "

Meanwhile, accusation of graphomania is thoughtlessly, without an appropriate careful analysis of the text and creative activity of the author, who claims to be a writer of Olympus, and his personal qualities, should not be. The graphomania stage, honing your pen, naturally goes through many novice writers.

So, before becoming a famous writer, Mikhail Zoshchenko mastered 15 professions, and progressed towards his success gradually.

The boundaries of productive and unproductive creativity are very blurred. Writing can be a way of expressing, overcoming, replacing, or making up for the missing. A painfully born text can save a person from pain and despair, help rethink mistakes and experiences. And while being talented.

The lack of professionalism of the texts and the mass of flaws do not mean a lack of literary ability. They need knowledge, experience and perseverance. Ignoring this, a simplified approach to the craft of writing, a certain psychological character set are prerequisites for the development of graphomania.

Often graphomania develops on the basis of inner loneliness. Pouring his innermost thoughts onto all suffering paper, the graphoman experiences a sense of relief, reducing the level of communication deficit. Gradually, a period of substitution begins, when in the process of “creativity” the need to write replaces the painful experiences of loneliness.

The main causes of graphomania include:

• attempts to compensate for inferiority complexes;
• the presence of delusions of various kinds, such as sacred motives for writing “from above”;
• the presence of overvalued ideas;
• manifestations of schizophrenia or paranoia (often in parasitic psychopaths);
• constituent element of manic or hypomanic states;
• element on the background of mental automatism syndrome;
• triggering the compensation mechanism of intense feelings of loneliness and alienation.

Distinguish graphomaniac possible for a number of signs.

1. The graphomaniac’s serious, painful attitude to his “masterpieces” is unjustifiably when the slightest criticism or humor about his works is categorically not accepted.
2. Extremely strong desire to publish his opus. Publicity is an indispensable condition for the work of a graphomaniac.
3. The dominant theme of the works is about yourself. As a rule, the author does not have the knowledge, impressions and experience to write on other topics. Moreover, descriptions of oneself of a beloved contain unconsciously laid out beautiful, but, as a rule, positively distorted places - there are no attempts at objective exposition.
4. The graphoman is demonstrative, he is the most devoted judge of his “work” (self-worship). Often represents a hysterical type of character. Self-promotion always and everywhere!
5. The habit of teaching and, as a rule, in a mentor tone. Mentoring in the nature of graphomania.
6. A graphomancer never exposes written text to alterations or corrections, even partial ones. It looks blasphemous to him.
7. The real, hard work of the mind is alien to the graphomaniac. Perseverance and hard work is not about him.
8. Lack of creative crises due to lack of real creativity.
9. High self-esteem and lack of understanding of humor.

As a rule, graphomaniac texts have a number of distinctive features:

• the presence of only external signs of verbal art that do not lead to the birth of real, creative artistic meanings;
• an abundance of small, excessive details that clog the texture;
• frequent repeatability, often inappropriate, of a number of epithets to words;
• abuse of speech cliches and stereotypical expressions without their creative, logical understanding;
• excessive use of different ways of highlighting words and sentences (fonts, italics, obesity, uppercase and lowercase letters), to highlight their overvalued thoughts;
• the inconsistency of the plots and actions of the characters that do not correspond to their figurative structure and fabric of presentation;
• borrowing images, plagiarism;
• incoherence of presentation, violation of style and syntax.

With a mild form of the disease, it is useful to simply return the person to full communication, which helps to overcome the barriers of loneliness. It is advisable to stimulate him to search for other hobbies or work on which the sick person could concentrate.

In cases of resistant forms of the disease, medications are used (psychotropics and antipsychotics) and psychotherapy sessions.

In this context, cognitive-behavioral therapy has proven to be quite effective. There is evidence that the results of family psychotherapy show good results in correcting behavior if the graphomaniac has a family.

In the absence of a pronounced reason for the development of graphomania, symbol-drama techniques are also used, which can effectively work out the patient's internal experiences in figurative representations.

A person suffering from graphomania does not differ in antisocial behavior, since the disease is relatively calm. In its light form, it is quite surmountable.

Without timely treatment, the disease progresses, leading to the complete social isolation of the "writer", as the author is completely immersed in his innermost opuses.

Constant refusals when trying to publish masterpieces often give rise to outbursts of aggressive behavior, worsening his already plight.

With its neglected, long-running forms, graphomania can be considered as a sign of more serious mental illness (schizophrenia, paranoia, and others). therefore the patient’s appeal to the therapist is clearly shown.