Prof. Joseph Levine, M.D. is an emeritus associate professor in the Division of Psychiatry, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University in Israel. Prof. Levine is a certified psychiatrist with clinical experience in controlled trials of adult psychiatric disorders and in psychotherapy. He was awarded a NRSAD independent investigator grant for the study of Creatine Monohydrate in psychiatric disorders -- mainly Schizophrenia. He resides and treats patients in Tel Aviv and all of central Israel.
Conversation 35: The effect of the directorate of internalized characters on compliance with drug treatment
Hello everyone, in this short conversation we will discuss the effect of the board of internalized characters on compliance with drug treatment.
First, we will mention that in the model we propose for the "self", one must first differentiate between the primary self, which is actually the basic biological nucleus consisting of several innate structures and which is subject to development during life. and the "social self" [consisting of "secondary selves"], which is a structure that develops during a person's exposure to social influence, and consists of internalizations of figures significant to a person, originating either from external groups or from imaginary groups (related, for example, in the form of a story, from a myth, from a movie, etc.) that were having a considerable effect on the person). We will note here that we assume that at birth there are innate patterns for most parts of the self such as the "social self" and its parts that form nuclei for a possible future development of these structures.
The "secondary selves" included in the "social self" include 1] the variety of representations of the "I" that originate from attitudes and feelings towards the self and its representations in different periods of life 2] the representations of internalized figures that often originate from significant figures that the person is exposed to during his life but as mentioned may also be imaginary characters represented in books, films, etc. that have had a considerable influence on man. 3] My representations of the "subculture" [subculture refers to social influences in the milieu [environment] in which the person lives and are not necessarily related to a specific person].
We call the social self metaphorically the "directory of characters" or more specifically the "directory of internalized characters." We note that, as we mentioned before, in this board there is usually a hierarchy in which there are more influential and dominant figures that we metaphorically called "the dictator self or selves" and these set the tone and even impose censorship on what content, attitudes and behaviors cannot be contained in the board of figures. We note that the person as a whole is not aware of the influence of the directorate of visualizations and recognizes the influence as coming from him, from himself and his own will and attitudes.
How, then, do these internalized significant secondary figures influence medication compliance?