Information trauma: phenomenology and psychopathology

Abstract

Actuality. The article is devoted to the topic of informational traumas as a special type of individual or collective psychological traumas, which are caused mainly by informational factors. The problem of informational traumas has been accentuated currently because of the terrorist and hybrid wars, in particular the information war waged by Russian propaganda in recent years.

Article objective: to develop the basic provisions of the information traumas concept, to discover their main manifestations and factors.

As a result of an analytical review of case studies and publications, it was determined that information trauma accompanies all other types and forms of collective traumas and is its obligatory component. The information component is one of the most important factors in the spread of trauma in the population and is a mechanism for transforming it into a collective trauma. Secondary traumatic stress, which occurs when a person is traumatized by trauma that occurs to other people, plays a special role in the spread of information trauma. The human psyche is subjective in nature and very susceptible to the effects of information aggression. The paper considers the main factors of information trauma, namely: the use of total disinformation, artificially distorted information, the creation of "parallel realities", being in a social situation of "double standards", suppression and prohibition of socially important information. Pandemic trauma is considered as a separate type of information trauma. The emotional sphere is most sensitive to information trauma. During collective informational traumas, various emotional states are actualized in the group, among which fear, aggression and social frustration are typical. These emotional states are quite dangerous and cause many problems.

The practical importance of the material is related to the identified means of helping victims of information trauma, which can be done individually and in groups, based on various cognitive-behavioral and rational-emotional techniques using elements of sociodrama and other action methods.