Abstract
We try to change meanings not only in psychotherapeutic work, but also in many everyday practices, such as bringing up children, sales promotions, mating, and self-discipline. Using the relational understanding of meaning as a link between the person and the elements of the Life World (J. Nuttin, R. Baumeister, D. Leontiev) this chapter will offer a theory of deliberate meaning-focused interventions. It is important to compare intervention on others’ meanings with interventions on one’s own meaning. Lev Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory says, in particular, that a growing child learns to apply to others the techniques of controlling behavior they have previously applied to him/her; still later, he/she learns to apply these techniques to him/herself. This is the way the techniques of interpersonal control (manipulation, education) are transformed into the techniques of self-control, and learning of imposed meanings is transformed into the self-construction of personal meaning. The description and systematization of elementary meaning relations modification techniques (MRMT) shows that interpersonal MRMT used in education and manipulation do in fact mirror intrapersonal MRMT as tools of volitional self-regulation do in fact mirror interpersonal MRMT used in education and manipulation.
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The chapter was prepared within the framework of a subsidy granted to the HSE by the Government of the Russian Federation for the implementation of the Global Competitiveness Program.
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Leontiev, D. (2016). Practices of Meaning-Changing Interventions: A Comprehensive Matrix. In: Russo-Netzer, P., Schulenberg, S., Batthyany, A. (eds) Clinical Perspectives on Meaning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41397-6_7
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