The Test of color semantic differential – TCSD
Helena Kolarova
TCSD is a test of colors and words. It is a method that pushes the boundaries of “our reality.” The test is proving that even in psychology the content is determining and the form “only follows it.” The quality and true content is by itself also a quality form, whereas even the best quality form lacking the quality content does not last very long. Genetics is the study of how the qualities of living things are passed on in their genes where chemistry dominates. Based on very complex genetic chains we explain physical and mental predispositions that predict our live. But we do not only inherit the physical dispositions or abilities or talent, we also inherit the behavioral patterns exercised in a particular family. It would be very convenient to specify in a material form. If we could find the particular miniature “brain center” we would be able to make it responsible for any human behavior. Even predominantly one-handed descriptive and static view of specialists, which is super ordinate to the opinion and experience of the client (patient), can be very misguiding. It is the high time first of all to take into account an authoritative opinion of the client (patient) – that is the only way how an individual can fight their own problems, those problems that no one or nothing can emulate for them. In this case the specialists have only controlling responsibility.
I remember Ilona. She was a very intelligent woman. She had a husband who she picked according to the model of her mother. Both her father and her mother were respected medical doctors. Her father was tall and very handsome man, chief of doctors in a neurology ward, reputable, admired and loved by his patient. Her mother was a pediatrician, beautiful and inscrutable intellectual, mother of six children. They all lived in South Bohemia, belonged to the elite of the area and made a perfect couple. When Ilona visited me, she was 41 years old, had 3 children and she remarried after her first divorce. Her second husband was a professional dancer, dance academy graduate, who later tried to make living as a computer designer was evidently more attracted by men then women. Ilona was very professional manager; she managed to build a house for her family, provided food for close ones and supported her son during his studies. She took antidepressants, every day she smoked 40 – 60 cigarettes and consumed alcoholic beverages and thought about having a lover. The most stressful thing for her was her husband. He was not a hard working man, very often he was registered at the work office looking for a job. He was dependent on his wife, she supported him, buying him cigarettes and when he crashed her third business car, Ilona almost had a breakdown. If I had not been working with the TCSD I would have had to give up and my work would have been protracted, as usual in the psychotherapeutic care. Ilona admitted only what according to her judgment was “real.” She had discussed her situation with her female friends seeking for their opinion and approved. She was wittily annoting all her answers. In the TCSD we together revealed all her unconscious values, that she referred her fear of changes and most of all her strange adherence to her mother. Her mother had always dissimulated all the problems the family had and Ilona had to go through as a child. The TCSD showed me a mental disorder in Ilona’s father side. Ilona had not been aware of that until in our talk we kept returning to her father. She started talking about his psychopathic behavior at home that her mother tried to keep in secret not only from other people but also from the children. Ilona saw her mother as a beautiful and intelligent mysterious fairy and a role model. Only thanks to the TCSD I was very carefully able to reveal that it was her mother’s intention, which is unfortunately very common picture of rivalry between mothers and their daughters. Her mother knew how much her daughter tried to be like her – as beautiful and as smart as she was and she knew how to make her daughter not to succeed. Although the child cannot fight off. According the TCSD Ilona unconsciously put her mother on a pedestal and she became the best person in the world for her. The TCSD revealed that Ilona had chosen her second husband according her mother’s model – to the certain degree their personalities matched. The unconscious relationship with her mother is truly the only real, chronic and big problem and she is very afraid to do something about it. Her mother is indeed the only person in the whole world she truly wants to be with.
Oedipus and Electra’s complexes are well known to all psychologists. Unfortunately the complicated way of choosing the life partner is much more deep-rooted and it is very difficult to reveal it within ourselves. It affects the men and women brought up in problematic families. I even believe that this problem especially affects the individuals from complete families with strongly entrenched and lasting relationships that prevent them from living their lives in freedom.
General space unconscious (from the human being’s perspective) is the base for genesis of many worlds, including our own world. The fundamental existence of each of us reaches there. C.G.Jung spoke about layers of unconscious that can never be discovered. In fact, we can theoretically presuppose the deep roots of unconscious with proofs of their existence that we are able to gather only in a form of their traces that are formed in our consciousness as a final product we can describe as a form of mental processes or states. Graphically we can imagine our consciousness with its dependency on unconscious as a hyperboloid that structurally rises from a common basement of unconscious universe all the way to the individual and his or her consciousness. Unconscious and structures of consciousness blend into each other, tangle and misses concrete mutual boundaries. It is very obvious that our unconscious (as well as consciousness) far overlaps a human body just because it is impossible to separate and exactly define unconscious of an individual from the collective and complex unconscious, etc. Personal consciousness is inseparable part of collective consciousness and individual unconscious is a part of collective unconscious. Personal has one important characteristic – when it respects unconscious, it sets its direction; the content of consciousness is (besides others) intelligence and will. Unconscious is marked out by great power that can enforce “the intentions of consciousness.” A consciously enforced intention in connection with unconscious is happiness. Everything is perfect, unconscious provides with information and energy and consciousness gives the direction where to go. In case that our personal consciousness reacts against its own experiencing it leads to artificial attempt to separate the consciousness from unconscious, which loses its roots and like any plant without its roots and with cut off nutrients becomes strangely motionless, wither and the ultimate form of its existence is the termination of the living organism.
My friend Jana was a high school graduate. She worked as a governess and had two children – a son and a daughter. Her husband Libor was a professional soldier who spent a lot of time on missions abroad. They both came from divorced families; they both were very intelligent good looking and had good sense of humor. Their marriage lasted 25 years. For Jana Libor was the perfect man. She would have never allowed the possibility that Libor was not the best man in the world. If you saw them together, you could only envy them their perfect relationship, they were like a two peas in a pod even after many years of their marriage. They stuck together so they did not lose control over their children. Most of the time Jana took care of them since Libor was often gone on military missions. Jana was unbelievably skillful she could make a sweater by knitting in two days; she could speak German in six months after she joined a German company. She also took care of Libor’s rottweiler and trained him every day. On top of everything she took care of the household and children without any housekeepers and babysitters. She had been happy in her routine until one day….Libor came back home from a mission and decided to stay at home. It took him long to get adjusted to the different life style. In the Czech Republic he could not find a job that would satisfy him. He started to laze around, gained some weight, did not go anywhere except for very random meetings with his friends from missions. They started to fight and the ideal family life begun to crumble apart. One day Libor showed up at my door very disconsolate asking me for help. Jana had found herself a new man who was ten years younger than Libor and wanted to file for divorce. He desperately wanted her back. Even for me that was a very complicated situation. I knew both of them …but the fact that Libor was in need was prevailing. I met with Jana and tried to find out how serious she was about the divorce. To be honest I had tried to discourage her from her decision and tried to make her put it off at least for one month. Our second meeting almost ended in tragedy. Neither of them respected me (I was just a friend) and each of them insisted on their decision. He wanted her back at any cost and did not want to hear about it. Libor had a gun in his possession. He was the soldier not a loser. He said “the situation can be solved differently” and was about to leave. I do not know how fast it happened. I reached into a drawer for the money I got from Libor saying “Ok, but I have to give you the money back” and forced him to accept it. He was taken aback and that was the perfect time to tell him that our consultation was over anyway and that we had the same way home and asked him to walk me home. We used to walk home like this…..Time has healed all the wounds. Libor has remarried, has a wife and both are going to have a baby soon. Jana’s boyfriend left her soon after divorced her husband. She moved to her home village and bought a flat right across the street from her ex-boyfriend’s house. She used to watch his windows. After he left her he had a fling with another coworker from neighboring office who he left for another one….He sometimes visited Jana to complain about his partners and Jana was keeping her hopes up…. We analyzed her situation through the TCSD. Her routine and fixed adherence in her personal consciousness did not give her many chances to cope with her situation. Maybe now she has found her penchant in cows. She has bought sheets with cow theme as well as plates and mugs and even her pajamas are decorated with cows….probably for her to remember.
Unconscious works exactly as a computer: yes – no, correct – wrong, left – right, it does not know more solutions. It does not accept more convenient or thankworthy truth of others. It does not force us into relationships of dependence and adherence. It is all clear. Consciousness creates it, when we consider pros and cons just because we cannot make a decision – we create many different theories for each problem (the more brains, the more opinions) and thanks to our Consciousness we get into a neurotic and traumatizing dependence on objects and situations. After all it is not easy to chose the right direction in life and be happy. The phenomenon of spreading computers all around the world and its general acceptance by people is a reason that their construction scheme reflects their functional nature of unconscious. Freud’s model of psychoanalytical triangle of id – ego – superego maps out layers of consciousness and unconscious but it does not respect their correct storing. Ego is at the same time part of superego thus the part of collective consciousness and id as a personal unconscious is a part of collective unconscious.
Written record of Mrs. Vladka is very interesting. Her father was an alcoholic and her parents broke up. Her father is sixty years old, living with his fourth partner, who has got three children from her previous relationships and is half of his age. Mrs. Vladka moved with her husband to Canada where her second child was born. Her husband worked in his father’s detergent company and became a drug addict. He had promised her many times to quit with drugs, but he failed. In the end Vladka divorced him and returned back to the Czech Republic where she often visits her mother who has a small flat in a town near by. Vladka’s ex-husband came to visit her asking her to return back to Canada with him. Vladka tried to be wise and accepted his financial help. She is trying to find herself a job. She would like to work in social services. She is registered at the work office. Her fear that her ex husband would kidnap her children and fly them out of the country forces her to accept him in her flat whenever he pleases. Consulting with the TCSD is more than obvious that Vladka is consciously trying to improve some of the situations she gets involved in. On the contrary, her unconscious shows her its dissatisfaction and proves her wrong. At this time she is neither feeling ill nor tired but her general energetic potential is very low and in her record is more than obvious very strange sadness that Vladka is aware of which she admits during the interview when the question is addressed directly. Also in the TCSD is obvious that her harmonic relationship between her and her children is gone and she is worried that they would leave her for their father (especially her youngest daughter). In order to feel happier and energetically stronger according to the TCSD is important that Vladka drives a hard bargain with her ex husband in her flat. Just because she is very hard working she should think over her next professional steps. She should do something with her life in order not to receive any more financial help from her ex husband and feel free. She should take advantage of her unconscious tendencies to establish changes in her life and also the feelings of her children and their ties with their father are according to unconscious absolutely legitimate. At the same time she is counting on her husband for the future and their relationship is much stronger than she consciously admits.
Consciousness is a phenomenon that enables communication between consciousness and unconscious. It gives us the true testimony about our functionality. It always works independently of our own being just like time it enters our personal consciousness. Communication is active connection; it is a way of comity and an instrumental for understanding. Without mental processes and states such as emotions and moods etc. this connection is impossible (with the development of information technology we can expect very big surprises in such systems as a programming language). The basic division into verbal and nonverbal is well known but the TCSD teaches us that there is also intermediate communication between these two types of communication (inside consciousness or unconscious – linear model) and structural communication (vertical model – across the alignment of consciousness and unconscious with a great support of conscience). Look in the structural communication is way more difficult. Its decision point is unconscious. The deeper it gets the more usual value the truth is. These communications have very fundamental significance for example by creating a nation. The same way the cells in our bodies communicate, they exchange information on a different level of our consciousness and unconscious. Its connection with memory is just magical. Every one of us remembers very well our own sins and it is very interesting that we especially remember those sins we did as adults, when we started being responsible for our own actions. Very often we get the impression that many people do not have any conscience. In reality these individuals have a big handicap on the level of their consciousness but their unconscious cannot separate from the conscience. The reason why is because the inseparable concomitant is time that works independently of us and most of the time we do not find out when the conscience of such a person wakes up. Ancient civilizations that lived in harmony with nature followed the divine laws and respected their symbology and created their own human norms and principles of coexistence on the conscious and unconscious basis. Greeks have their Ernie, goddesses which personified conscience, they flew around the sinner chased and very often hunted the victim down to death. Just like we do not forget our sins, they stay forever in the memory of our unconscious. They become verified valid patterns – for both ethic categories and behavioral patterns. Brave men will always attract women and beautiful women will always be a challenge for men. To the classical quaternion, which was represented by justice, bravery, wisdom and moderation, religion added faith, hope and love….these are all the values that will never lose their power and it does not matter that we do not hear about them much. Not only unconscious deals with good and evil but also consciousness is engaged in the process of evaluating these two phenomena. The TCSD completes and validates the pieces of knowledge that are mapped out thanks to psychology, sociology, anthropology, philology, ethnography and other scientific disciplines. Especially mechanisms of unconsciousness validate the dependency and reflection with the place where people live – the place of their souls. The place that people inhabit, energize things all around them and puts them into context for the inhibitors of the place. That happens because the things become part of their lives on the level of personal consciousness and unconscious and that is why the things can explain their behavior and actions.
I live in the South Bohemia, in the region that is famous in Europe predominantly for its phenomena called Doudlebie (the region reaching from the Czech Republic to Austria and Baveria) that is characteristic for its topography of a plateau with moorlands and small basins together with phreatic surface that extends above the natural ground surface. The mentality of the people living in this region is typical for its prudent clumsiness, demureness and lack of a sense of allegory. The newcomers in that area are not very well accepted and that is the reason why not many people move in this area. As a matter of fact more and more people move out from this region. This phenomenon we can relate to the water course in the region. A lot of rivers flow out of this region but not a single one flows in. The original houses are small and bigger farmhouses that are enclosed in the shape of a square fenced out with high walls that do not allow anyone to see in. The inhabitants do not have a good sense of humor but they care very much about their good reputation, good manners and local filiation. The author of a book called “One hundred essays on nature and society – Doudlebie and other phenomena” Mr. Stanislav Komarek adds to this theory, “If we exaggerated the situation and put it into a dimensional caricature we can say that the traditional hog-killing in Doudlebie differs from the one in South Moravia in the simple fact that people in Moravia would quietly buy one more hog to kill and hold the celebration for wide circle of family and friends to show that they can afford it. On the other hand people in Doudlebie would, in the same situation, spread gossips two weeks before the announced hog-killing that the hog had become ill and that the sickness led to his terrible death. This “sick and dead” hog is then quietly killed; the sausages stored in the pantry and then consumed in homeopathic doses.” (Page 9) Very important characteristic of the inhabitants is also self sufficiency. From time immemorial this has been the region of small peasants and craftsmen. In the list of characteristics, typical for the local people of the “Doudlebian Empire,” we cannot forget about their religiousness or maybe rather “parareligious feeling” most often associated with reforming tendencies. It is very odd, unmercantile but still some kind of fanatism. It is not an accident that the origins of people like Hus, Stitny, Chelcicky, Konias and other guardians of ideologies come back to the South Bohemia. The metropolitan town of the South Bohemia, Ceske Budejovice is not only famous for its number of devoted Catholics but also infamous for the number of devoted communists. Most of the heads of the communist party back in 50’s came from this town. Dry and to some extend naive frankness is not rarely connected with desire for knowledge and cognition and Doudlebie is a wonderful example of culture medium for rural thinkers and inventors and only there it can happen that a cottier knows the theory of conic sections “(maybe cottiers in Podkrkonosi would know it too, but I think that there, within the scope of their deliriousness, they would be more likely to see in the hyperbola something pseudo mystically symbolic)” (page 9) The TCSD confirms the contemplations with following analysis. With its help is possible to associate people (or groups of people) with certain regions living not far from each other.
Another example:
Mrs. Empty came to me for an individual session. She was fifty four years old mother of two children. She had great potential to meet her goals. She had always had well paid jobs and she could always provide for her children. She had a true twin (her daughter was allegedly very dominant). She did not feel too well, which was obvious according to the TCSD. She was trying to escape to alternative medicine, Chinese traditional therapists and healers. She was always searching her conscience if she had done the right thing, if she had not hurt anyone. She was always doing everything she could to help the others putting everyone else in the first place, especially her children. She was very intelligent. Every time she talked about her family it was more than obvious that she came from a family dominated by women. Her grandmother’s name was Queen and she owned a small farm place in the South Bohemia. Her husband died soon but she did not mind that much as he had not been a support to her when he was alive anyway. She had to take care of the farm. She was in charge of making decisions and her sisters and daughters worked flat out on the property. Her mother moved to a town when she married Mr. Squelch. She just did not want to stay working on the farm. When Mrs. Empty was single she could not bear with the fact that her name was Squelch. She was even thinking of getting her name changed. But then she got married to Mr. Empty and stayed in the town. Relatively soon after she had her third baby she got divorced and did not spare any effort helping her family and her aunt who was the only one that stayed in the farm. Now she was ill and hopeless. I told her she was a Queen and now she is Empty. However, based on the TCSD we found very interesting characteristic – it took her forever to make a decision. She was very easy to talk her out of things but when she made her mind she always accomplished her goals with great success. She proved me right during our interview. She should have play lottery.
Layers of consciousness and unconscious, their structure, mutual blending and influencing and their communication define the role of a person, a group or even the whole society.
Analyzing the layers of consciousness and unconscious we can predict possibilities and further development of a single person, groups or the change of society.
Research of groups is directed by predefined parameters that are monitored according to the aim of researchers. The TCSD group research can besides the general data of individuals monitor also the pace, stratification and blending of unconscious and conscious structures and every experienced researcher can determine characteristics of the researched group and the direction the group is going, its readiness, possibilities and realization as well as the embedded “roots” that substantiate the present existence and predicts the future of the monitored group.
We can slightly overstate and say that the quantity is as respected as the quality. A while ago I spoke with my colleague psychologist on Benton’s test. We were talking about the evaluation of this test.” They all do it wrong,” he said. “But when they all do it wrong, then I guess it is all right. Would grass turn red, if we all said it’s red? Not at all. At most we can start calling the green color red. But there is always gonna be someone saying that red used to be green. That is how the “secret schools of thought” emerge. The genuine quality also represents good content that goes beyond the limits of a concrete assignment.
In 1994 I elaborated a study called “A treatise on how to choose the right adept for the position of a public transport conductor.” To handle to challenge, first I had to define the specifics of the people who make living by checking tickets in the means of public transport. I did my research in three cities – in Prague, Ostrava and in Ceske Budejovice on a sample of 113 persons (53 persons in Prague, 43 persons in Ostrava and 17 in Ceske Budejovice). The main researching method was the TCSD and as a supporting method I decided to use the questionnaire KN – 5 with its 37 questions. There was not put much stress on intelligence in this test. It was tested with two methods. First was a nonverbal Army – beta method and the second was a verbal VIT method with 40 questions. Every city had its specifics and rules and the conductors were their representatives. In Prague and in Ostrava there was a big problem with alcoholism of the respondents. In the record is stated, “Especially in Prague the applicants revealed the weak points of the system. High level of unconcern in keeping the conductors employed and also very rare controls of their job duties without the necessary moral support from the employer’s side provides with the space that every latent alcoholic needs. Such a person is typically spending too much energy in keeping his or her alcoholism in secret. This occupation is just ideal for those kinds of people. They can easily stop by in a pub and have one beer or two. During that test was found that those people were men, most of them with families and also most of them came from normal primary families except that their parents suffered from psychosomatic illness. They were not at all lazy. They were brought up to revere their jobs. Work saves them from worse social drop off. Intelligence is still on the average or above average level. All of them are either high school or vocational school graduates. Because they drink beer they have only very small sexual appetite and preferred lyrical affection from their partner. They believe in ideal values and have quite high aspirations. They need to be in the middle of things. Their body had changed a lot. Most of all their nerve system was worn out and shows changes that lead in fatigue and feeling ill. It is possible to say that the most conclusive direct connection recorded in our sample was alcohol in connection with occupation, organic handicap of central nervous system (CNS) – with organicity, anxiety and aspirations. Not directly is alcohol dependent on gender of the studied sample, “a joy of life” (alcoholics lack of this characteristic – they do not enjoy both life and themselves to the fullest). There is suggested direct proportion with intelligence and a problematic disease. We perceive organicity as a functional insufficiency of CNS that demonstrates on both, the physical and mental level. This affected organism is trying to simplify its tasks to the realizable standards. This stage is usually accompanied by aging. For example memory lapses that occur during variety of occasions. Organicity is the most efficient and natural protection of organism that protects it from exhaustion. On the other hand, every person affected this way unconsciously and only very purposefully chooses from the inputs that environment has got to offer. We found out that handicapped people prefer ideal values. This happens simply because the ideals are problem free and socially safe. Therefore everyone who follows the ideals and announces that openly in public can be seen by others as an idealist and a weirdo but nobody would think of them as of bush-leaguers. The organicity is a condition that in the end leads to a disease. Except for tendencies to worship ideals are our clients represented organicity directly proportionally with diseases, strong anxiety, alcoholism and their jobs and inversely proportionally with adaptability and “a joy of life”. In our sample of clients we focused on aggressiveness as one of the most important phenomena of all. Aggressiveness is most connected with anxiety, feeling ill, organicity and excessive alcohol consumption. Every group of all three groups of observed clients was interesting and characteristic. Just for making the picture, I am pointing out one excerpt from the study: “....In Ceske Budejovice connect increasing aggressiveness with aging and anxiety, in Prague aggression is related to “the joy of life” and put it in direct perspective with alcohol, in Ostrava people understand aggressiveness in connection with organicity, occupation and relation to ideals. Organicity is in Ceske Budejovice a reflection of genetic terrain (Ceske Budejovice), in Central Bohemia (Prague) organicity is connected with alcohol and “the joy of life” and relation to ideal values. North Moravia (Ostrava) connects organicity with aggressiveness and inadaptability. Alcoholism is in Ceske Budejovice predominantly the reflection of inferior genetic terrain, family atmosphere, low non-verbal intelligence and strong anxiety. In Prague they perceive it in connection with organicity, occupation and inability to adapt in society. In Ostrava it is associated mostly with occupation and aspirations. In C. Budejovice the clients connect work with their siblings and families, in Prague with their occupation and adaptability and in Ostrava with the occupation. While the occupation is for people of Ceske Budejovice determined genetically and also directly influenced by step siblings, for people of Prague it is strongly associated with their relation to alcohol consumption, work and higher aspirations. For people of Ostrava the occupation is directly connected with work, aggressiveness and alcohol consumption. “The joy of life” is in C. Budejovice and in Ostrava somehow misunderstood. In Ceske Budejovice it is only vaguely connected with the family and siblings. In Ostrava people connect it even less with the fact that people should not consume alcoholic beverages, should be responsible and not affected by organicity and aggressiveness. People of Prague perceive “the joy of life” as an inverse proportionality to aggressiveness, alcohol consumption, responsibility and also to organicity. The essential value for their lives is adaptability. Similar situation is repeating when we talk about perceiving a relation to responsibilities: People of Ceske Budejovice associate it predominantly with their marriages, education, both, non-verbal and verbal intelligence and upbringing. People of Ostrava perceive it inversely proportional with aggressiveness and “the joy of life”. People of Prague in this perspective prefer dominating “the joy of life”. For Southbohemias is characteristic a conservative turn and family orientation and in Ostrava the people lack some of the essential “joy of life” and sense of life. The most important thing for the people of Prague is success and good social ranking. The most important thing is not to be satisfied but to be successful. It is about the more profound social atmosphere....” The occupation of conductor in public transport does not belong to the most prestigious ones. People in this position either want only some supplemental income or they are not qualified to do anything else. Their income is dependent on how many dead heads they can catch. This reality, and the disputable evaluation of who the dead head is together with the superior behavior towards the passengers, puts a bad light on them in the eyes of the whole society. From the TCSD is more than obvious that even conductors are representatives of certain location for which the studied characteristics, demonstrated in the 1994, are typical and can be observed even these days: Prague, typical for its aspirations, education and the strongest relation to work, belongs among the five most prestigious European metropolises. After 1989 the government decided that the area had been depleted and the mines were closed down. Consequently a lot of people lost their jobs. During the era of communism, the occupation of the coal-miner was one of the most prestigious. The slogan: “I am the coal-miner, who is more?” was very powerful. In Ostrava was typical weak relation to work and certain gloom for all. For the region of Ceske Budejovice was the priority the support of the family life. That was the most self-fulfilling phenomena together with the conservative attitude to reject everything that does not come from their region. Without the TCSD there would have never been revealed the connection of the weaker genetic foundation with the strong patronage for locals. That consists in big numbers of “step siblings” and is kept in secret because it is all stored in the collective unconscious as taboo.
As far as I know the Prague public transport company is still using the study these days.
The Test of Color Semantic differential –TCSD started to form at the beginning of 1970’s by its main author – Vadim Scepichin.
In psychological diagnostics any psychologist can use for his or her work ether method of questionnaires or projecting techniques. The circumstentiality of the questionnaires is for any psychologist at least debatable because clients have to be willing to talk about themselves. They need to understand the questions and have the patience to answer them all. Projection techniques are more comprehensive when it comes to information than the questionnaires, but their interpretation is very difficult and requires special training in the specific technique plus rich experiments in the field of psychology for every professional. In the Test of Color Semantic differential –TCSD – the comprehensiveness far exceeds both the projection techniques and the questionnaires. The test is very intelligible and simple. It is relatively independent of clients’ abilities to communicate. It is possible to use it with people who have lower level of intelligence, socially maladjusted and with highly defatigable people. It has many advantages – it is not time demanding, it is very addressing and it is used to compare conscious and unconscious attitudes of clients, trans cultural approach and possibility to examine whole group of clients. To evaluate the TCSD test we can use Brandt – Snedecor’s test, G – test or the method of linear discrimination.
The Test of Color Semantic differential –TCSD has four basic versions:
1) The version for pre school age;
2) The version for school age;
3) The criminogenic version;
4) The version for adults.
1) The TCSD version for pre school age we can use as soon as the children can distinguish colors. The big advantage of this group is the big progress the children of this age make. Therefore the test is valid only for a short time.
2) The TCSD version for school age children is very often used by pediatric psychologists.
3) The TCSD version for socio – culture problematic persons – criminogenic version has totally lost its sense. It is far less exemplificative than the version of this test for adults. Basically it is only its shorter version – the TCSD for adults 1st part.
4) The TCSD version for adults is the most comprehensible, the most sophisticated and the most informative of all of the TCSD versions. The 1st part of this test was first introduced at the University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice and then on the 3rd European Psychological Congress in Tampere, Finland. The 2nd part of this version for adults was introduced on the 10th European Psychological Congress in Prague, Czech Republic.
When I worked in a reform school in Sindlovy Dvory there were boys that had variety of many different problems. The reasons why they were admitted to this facility were their socio – pathological phenomena – law trespassing activities such as hooky playing, stealing, sexual torts, bullying, drug experiments, etc. They all suffered from damage of their CNS and mental disorders. In 2004 I diagnosed 18 of the total of 22 boys with anomalous profile of their personality. Even minor inputs caused outrageous response such as aggression and intimidating their environment. Almost all of them had subnormal intellect, low self –esteem and their characters were specific for their excessive submissive behavior and obsequiousness. They were characteristic for their vulgar language and selfishness and in many cases lacking the basic social and hygienic habits. They disliked studying and generally their level of education was on a very poor level in comparison with other children of their age. They lived only for today. They did not plan anything in advance. They could hardly focus on any task and follow any given plan without any strong personal stimuli (such as sex – drugs – money). Their will was very weak and their abilities on a lower level in comparison with their coevals living “outside their world” going to regular schools. The boys knew their weak points and did not even try to compete in the field of education with other children of their age. They could not reach the same level of the children from regular schools. Because their central nervous system was weakened and its functions were limited, they had very specialized talents and abilities such as for example musicality of boys of gipsy origin. Although the life in society requires universality – therefore is better and easier in life to be “the average Joe” – it is important to master the norms and principles of “the common social life”. The comprehensive education is wide enough for people to use their potential selectively in order to live, work and take care of their children and minimalizing all the problems the life brings along. The boys had only limited mental abilities therefore on a lower level. Sometimes their mental abilities were blocked or even missing. That was the origin of their deep feelings of their self-consciousness, anxiety, hyper sensibility and other psycho – social problems. Their need to win recognition was very strong (the feeling of being useful is one of the strongest because it is very closely connected with self-preservation). Taking into account the fact that their interests were not very profound, the verbal group interests were mostly related to sex, drugs, robberies and other socio – pathological things, every role model introduced to them was far beyond their reach. It is well known reality that too many role models can do harm. If there are only a few of them then they can serve the purpose for us, imperfect ones. We can look up to them and mutually support each other in our effort to be like the role models. If we take into account the basic facts together with experience of the children full of beatings, lack of interest, anxiety and fear, there is no wonder that these children prefer aggressive behavior (they all remember their own feelings of respect for aggressiveness) that is typical and well known for them. They prefer these behavioral patterns to education that does not bring for them the immediate effect. But they need the immediate effect of the action as a confirmation of their own existence. They very often drop out of schools; they are not ready for the competitive environment in society and cannot win recognition in the labor market. Therefore they fall for such offers that promise easy and sweet life without making too much effort. Jacob’s mother was an alcoholic, when she left him he was only 3 months old. She was deprived of all parental rights. No one has seen her since then. Jacob had a sister and his biological father remarried after a while. He married a divorcee with two children. Jacob was “a troublemaker”. He did not want to study, refusing to write homework, to read and in the end he kicked her teacher in her leg. That was the last thing that led to his transfer to the reform school where he started from the second grade. Since that time he has been in the institutional care. When I first met him, he was 14 years old and very handsome fair haired squinting boy. Other boys gave him hell just because of his strabismus. In the record of his psychological examination through the use of the TCSD from that time is stated that he is a dynamic personality without any features of anomaly, very creative introvert having his own secrets, with strong faith in life and in ideals. He cannot very well imagine himself as a role model. He does not like loneliness but loves some excitement and is opened to changes but does not look for them. He has got very exceptional sense of following balance in life – he pays attention to single activities and things in life. It all happens unconsciously, with his developed feeling for things. Despite hating his way of living at the moment he thinks of other people and their needs trying to help them. He considers life in the hierarchy of his values to be worse than death. Some of his association answers to colors are worth of admirable values. The fairly blue color represents his clear way in life; the yellow color represents the light above his head, the good feeling. The dark green color represents solid ground bellow his feet and purple represents his resistance and ability to withstand a lot in his life. His strabismus was surgically removed. His parents had another baby and when Jacob comes back from his visit at home he is always hungry. He has never gotten anything for free. He will be eighteen in six months....
People all around the world pay attention to socially dangerous people. All kinds of anti-social behavior are conditional on “the culture medium” in collective unconscious, which evokes and creates it. It is unbelievable how fast this behavior, which fundament is “moving collective unconscious”, spreads. This phenomenon can spread even faster with help of faith or drill. There is also a possibility that from “the culture medium” can arise something totally different from the anti-social behavior and the TCSD can be a very good assistant to reveal it.
Andrew grew up without his father. He had two sisters, both of them single mothers, and a brother, who had problems with breaking law and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. When he was eight months old, he suffered from a head injury with consequential blood-poisoning. As a four year old he suffered from another head injury, this time with lasting ill effects. At the age of ten he had to transfer from regular elementary school to a school for children with special needs. From his fourteenth birthday he had been going as an out-patient to the psychiatry ward. And at the age of sixteen he was admitted to the reform school where he was diagnosed with anomalous personality with very odd emotional structure of pessimistic character. The best values for him, in the order of his preference, are: the past time, medicine, silence and then friends and attacking... He has feelings of anxiety connected with pain and friends with aggression (they must have hurt him). We could find senses of illness in his unconscious. Maybe that is the reason for ranking medicine really high in his hierarchy of values. He considers himself to be a child and lonely. He probably has nightmares and is scared of what changes future brings along. Poor little boy, he is so confused. His association with his father is equal to perceptions such as: the death, sex, solitude and the role model – the perfect man. His associations also include boredom, women and work together with pain, anxiety, attacking, me, quarrel, fear, illness, fist fight, sexual intercourse. His attitude towards alcohol is positive. My psychological examination ends with this following prognosis: “The boy’s unconscious is thriving with aggressive tendencies of sexual character and he is trying to suppress them but is powerless. He probably has scary nightmares full of frightening stories. But he does not open his heart to anyone and that is probably the reason why he is afraid of future – the stories can fulfill. At the end of the record is the summary that says, “Strongly anomalous personality with structural and complicated emotions with features of organicity and sexual aggressive tendencies, fearing the future. Just like he would be saying: “I had already gone through all the good in my life.”, and then I recommended sexual – psychiatric examination and rigorous medical supervision. During our interview he admitted to the aggressive dreams and during his session he had together with his mother came up that he once hit her when he had one of his conniption fits and also that he is naturally befriending children excluded from the society. We together visited both the regional sexologist and also the sexuological institution in Prague but just because he had not done anything wrong yet, there was no treatment recommended. We had a connection and I felt that he trusted me. From time to time he came to my office just to have a chat. For other boys he remained to be just an odd weirdo. He needed friends he did not have. One time Andrew befriended homeless people begging at a shopping mall in the downtown area of the city. They accepted him without any problems and he was happier than he had ever been before. He once had friends. He ran away to them. He got smashed out of his mind and mooched money for them and later he banged his head repeatedly against a shop window. He got arrested by the police and they took him to the short-term rehabilitation centre for disorderly alcoholics and when he sobered up the police brought him back to the institution. Later he tried to justify his escape claiming that the homeless people were his friends and that! The devil” was protecting him from getting caught by the police. I told him that there was no need to protect anyone from the police because they should serve and protect and he is a minor while his homeless “friends” were grown ups and could life their lives the way they wanted. I told him that they had no right to let him beg for money for them and then intoxicate him. He took a bath, had something to eat and despite his promise not to run away again, he escaped again to his homeless “friends”. A few days later the police brought him back again from the short-term rehabilitation centre for disorderly alcoholics. He was running towards to me but I told him that he broke his promise he once gave me. He said that he did not run away from me but from the director of the facility. After a while we made a peace and I took him with one another boy for a bicycle ride. On the way back Andrew wanted to go faster and had promised to wait for us in a place we had agreed on. But when we got there he was not there. I was beating myself over his escape. I could not believe I was being such a fool and allowed him to go by himself thinking he would never escape again. So I called the police. When I came back to my office he came running to me. When he reached me he started telling me his story. He said: “I didn’t know where I was. And there was some woman riding a bicycle so I told here that I was from the reform school and that I got lost. Then I asked her to show me the way or I am in a big trouble because Mrs. Psycho (that would be me – short for psychologist) will probably think I escaped again with the bicycle. So the nice woman was just laughing and told me to follow her and took me all the way here.” So we explained everything and I praised him. A pedagogical committee decided that he had too many absent hours because of his escapes he got detention and reprimand. The committee had outvoted me. Before he left for vocational school I invited him to a confectioner's for an ice-cream. When we were done with the ice-cream Andrew asked me for a favor to go and say goodbye to his homeless “friends” to the shopping mall. I gave him twenty minutes to do it then agreed on place of meeting. I told him that I trusted him and he came on time. Studies of big social groups are very important predominantly for the sake of managing human resources. Behind every social group is culture as its managing element. It is the experience that is the key for observed group. It represents its past, present and also the future.
R. Krninska wrote in her monograph Management of human resources in the dimension of the third millennium: “There is an almost unbelievable difference in the hierarchy of associations that appears on the unconscious level of two professional groups – zoo technicians and agronomists. The difference is possible to find thanks to the TCSD. We can assume that many years in professional life of one occupation can play an important role in affecting a human element. Wide open space of nature with its law has to be humbly respected by agronomists and it also strongly influences the order of associations that save ideal relationships and order the way it is desirable according to the TCSD. The zoo technicians working with the mass production technologies with its inhumane characteristics leave marks in their unconscious. They behave as if they were the only ones that make any difference in the death or life question based on their own reason and achieved education. At the same time their activity makes them displaced people living in loneliness that does not fit in the harmonic frame respected by agronomists. Predispositions of different association of notions, that we would have never dared to predict in connection with zoo technicians and agronomists, are here unambiguously and factually supported....” (Page 148)
During my lecturing at the university in Prague in 2005 (15 students of the University of Economics) and at the University of Regional Studies in Ceske Budejovice (6 students) on the topic psychology of commercials I added just for the picture some words to TCSD exemplaring my lecture.
I am stating some of the interesting things of my written commentaries for students:
“Students in Prague consider the most significant identification of themselves with their own role model ...In principle even as adults they feel to be children who have every right to receive love and have fun and for that reason they do not surprisingly need their friend but total strangers for that. Joy, fun and dreams have some selfish taste to it. The global society leaves everyone to their ideals and role models. So then everyone becomes their own set of ideal values. There is still persisting the influence of “the ideal woman” that is connected with the history of the sacred concept of a mother. In Prague the students respect also the ideal concept of a man while in Ceske Budejovice the students absolutely omit. His task is to authoritatively take care of problems related to secure fun. In Prague students put huge stress on communication, communication systems, commercials and it is obvious that the media have lion’s share on forming their personalities. Everything is easy. Just like in a movie. They do not have any idea of who has created the whole concept of the easy and happy life full of love – parents or work. To win and to be the first one with only minimal work effort is possible in Prague. In Ceske Budejovice is no need to be the winner but it is always good to be better, that is for sure. Communication is becoming more and more important in our lives (important for the way of the life in the western hemisphere), aggressive components of a human nature are “not for us”, and we do not identify with such things. “We do not need aggressiveness we can talk ourselves out of everything and negotiate everything using our communication skills.” Bad things happen to everyone else but us. The ideal values are – happy life and dream eventually without any effort. Inspire of this there are some signals of appreciation for performing duties so typical for the town. And here again are obvious signs of desire for changes, the history is reinterpreted and yet there are also some plans for future. This is not valid for students of Ceske Budejovice. Identification with commercial is on a high level with students from Prague. They identify their own freedom with it and it is the symbol of their support. It is the symbol of communication and nice life. It is starting to gain the significance of a tradition and is lacking any aggressive meaning... On top of the list in the hierarchy of values (according to the students from Prague) are phenomena that represent the functions of ideal values such as love, bravery, silence, peace, mood, intimacy, seeing themselves as a support and children. The students from Ceske Budejovice worship the following values – joy, fun, love, solitude, seeing themselves as an ideal. It is interesting that there are no negative values, which would be common for both groups. Fatigue and opinionatedness are the most negative values perceived by the students from Prague. On the other side, the students from Ceske Budejovice see alcohol and the Munich betrayal* and even stronger happenings such as the war in Iraq, Islam and conflict, then also anxiety and a workplace. It is possible to summarize that the level of self confidence of both groups and the self preference before the ideal of man or a woman is quite surprising. It is startling how clear their view of “sweet candy world” is. The dark sides of life are not perceived as much as the bright ones – “they are not for us”. Especially students from Prague feel that everything is possible to manage simply with communication; the hold one’s own attitude is perceived a bad thing. Changes are necessary for happy life. The Southbohemians are not surprisingly supporters of traditional values and take very seriously world events that can threaten their existence. What is very heartwarming is the fact that in spite of not occurring in media or in education, bravery is seen as a highly positive and appreciated characteristic by both questioned groups. It is associated with the ideal man and love (probably the reason why to love him). However, the clear picture of wonderful life and emphasis of dreams signalizes drug, psychotropic and narcotic substances taking. For people from Prague is typical emphasising those dreams that match the life, fun, future, childhood, happiness, etc. It shows evidence of the desire to fulfill an individual enjoyment. In this case we do not need friends. Connection of this pleasant expectation in the future with certain experience with psychotropic substances is obvious. For example anxiety is not evaluated as a negative value. In some cases is even evaluate as a highly positive one that belongs to life (dream euphoria is naturally followed by states of anxiety). It is interesting but dreams are preferred to intimacy, sex and love. Very interesting is also penchant for accepting changes on one side and desire for tranquility, very appreciated communication and willingness to accept support on the other side. People of Ceske Budejovice insist on traditional values but dreaming is also not completely strange to them. Very interesting is the work attitude. Students from Prague see their work attitude as a positive or as a less negative one on a scale while students of Ceske Budejovice see their work attitude as a less negative or absolutely negative one. The superiority is in both cases evaluated as a negative thing. It was expected since it is the national tradition in the Czech Republic while the workstation is perceived positively in Prague and again negatively in Ceske Budejovice. However, there is missing an expressive evaluation of notions such as death, pain, fist fight, etc.! These used to be more disliked. Boredom of the Southbohemians (Ceske Budejovice) was not in either of the cases dispraised. Just because it was about lecture on the topic of psychology of commercials, I put on programme the three providers of telecommunication services that had licenses in our country at that time – Eurotel, T–mobile, Oskar. Students had to specify their attitude towards to them.
“The students from Prague prefer changes. They do not have big problems to accept new things. For them the winner is the one that makes their lives easier for them, the more flexible one (T-mobile won, second place was taken by Oskar and the last one was Eurotel). From the answers of the students of the University of South Bohemia is obvious that the business is done differently in the Southern part of the country. The tradition is very important together with comfort and just to have brains between the ears. Oskar won with its logo. **
The TCSD is an illustrative test for both, individuals and groups. It is able to define typical features and provide enough information that can help to clarify the decision making process, which is significant for past, important for present and directive for future.
The Test of Semantic Color Differential –TCSD as a psycho-sociologic method has its use not only in psychology but also in researching huge sociologic groups of people, when considering enormous financial investments and characterizing parts of population with their consequential resocialization.
We can expect big adventures with the TCSD and its possibilities. Every time when we face a difficult decision what direction to take……. Every time we are exposed to any danger....... Every time we have to risk our professional opinion, our reputation and even our life…..then there is the TCSD. We have never had such a powerful weapon…..I am the soldier on duty……..
Notes:
* Munich Agreement 1938 – was an agreement regarding the Sudetenland Crisis among the major powers of Europe after a conference held in Munich, Germany in 1938 and signed in the early hours of September 30. The Sudetenland was of immense strategic importance to Czechoslovakia, as most of its border defenses were situated there. The purpose of the conference was to discuss the future of Czechoslovakia in the face of territorial demands made by German dictator Adolf Hitler, and it ended up dividing that state between Nazi Germany, Poland and Hungary. Because Czechoslovakia was not invited to the conference, the Munich Agreement is commonly called the Munich Dictate by Czechs and Slovaks. The phrase Munich betrayal is also frequently used because military alliances between Czechoslovakia and France and between France and Britain were not honored. The agreement is considered by many as the quintessential example of appeasement. Because Hitler soon violated the terms of the agreement, it has often been cited in support of the principle that tyrants should never be appeased. (www.wikipedia.org)
** The telecommunication services provider called Oskar used in commercials bright red smiling face logo and an comfortable arm chair. Besides that, Oskar is a male name that is very rare in the Czech Republic, but people seemed to like it.
Bibliography:
Scepichin,V., Scepichinová, G. J., & Kolarova, H., (1992). The Test of color semantic differential – TCSD, the adult version, I.volume, Ceske Budejovice: Vadim.
Komarek, S.(1996). One hundred essays on nature and society – Doudlebie and other phenomena. Prague: Vesmir.
Krninska, R. (2002). Human resources management in the dimension of the third millennium, monograph, Nitra: Slovenska polnohospodarska univerzita.
Kolarova, H. (1994). A treatise on how to choose the right adept for the position of a public transport conductor, Ceske Budejovice.
Research of 50 nurses 1992 – unpublished
Research of 25 healers 1990 – unpublished
Research on board habits of students – 300 persons – 2004 – unpublished
Research of 200 in the long temp unemlpoyed persons - 2007
Research of 100 persons that want to work in the social sector – 2007 - unpublished
Research of 20 children younger than 5 years – 1994 - unpublished
Personal notes and casuistry.
Helena Kolarova
TCSD is a test of colors and words. It is a method that pushes the boundaries of “our reality.” The test is proving that even in psychology the content is determining and the form “only follows it.” The quality and true content is by itself also a quality form, whereas even the best quality form lacking the quality content does not last very long. Genetics is the study of how the qualities of living things are passed on in their genes where chemistry dominates. Based on very complex genetic chains we explain physical and mental predispositions that predict our live. But we do not only inherit the physical dispositions or abilities or talent, we also inherit the behavioral patterns exercised in a particular family. It would be very convenient to specify in a material form. If we could find the particular miniature “brain center” we would be able to make it responsible for any human behavior. Even predominantly one-handed descriptive and static view of specialists, which is super ordinate to the opinion and experience of the client (patient), can be very misguiding. It is the high time first of all to take into account an authoritative opinion of the client (patient) – that is the only way how an individual can fight their own problems, those problems that no one or nothing can emulate for them. In this case the specialists have only controlling responsibility.
I remember Ilona. She was a very intelligent woman. She had a husband who she picked according to the model of her mother. Both her father and her mother were respected medical doctors. Her father was tall and very handsome man, chief of doctors in a neurology ward, reputable, admired and loved by his patient. Her mother was a pediatrician, beautiful and inscrutable intellectual, mother of six children. They all lived in South Bohemia, belonged to the elite of the area and made a perfect couple. When Ilona visited me, she was 41 years old, had 3 children and she remarried after her first divorce. Her second husband was a professional dancer, dance academy graduate, who later tried to make living as a computer designer was evidently more attracted by men then women. Ilona was very professional manager; she managed to build a house for her family, provided food for close ones and supported her son during his studies. She took antidepressants, every day she smoked 40 – 60 cigarettes and consumed alcoholic beverages and thought about having a lover. The most stressful thing for her was her husband. He was not a hard working man, very often he was registered at the work office looking for a job. He was dependent on his wife, she supported him, buying him cigarettes and when he crashed her third business car, Ilona almost had a breakdown. If I had not been working with the TCSD I would have had to give up and my work would have been protracted, as usual in the psychotherapeutic care. Ilona admitted only what according to her judgment was “real.” She had discussed her situation with her female friends seeking for their opinion and approved. She was wittily annoting all her answers. In the TCSD we together revealed all her unconscious values, that she referred her fear of changes and most of all her strange adherence to her mother. Her mother had always dissimulated all the problems the family had and Ilona had to go through as a child. The TCSD showed me a mental disorder in Ilona’s father side. Ilona had not been aware of that until in our talk we kept returning to her father. She started talking about his psychopathic behavior at home that her mother tried to keep in secret not only from other people but also from the children. Ilona saw her mother as a beautiful and intelligent mysterious fairy and a role model. Only thanks to the TCSD I was very carefully able to reveal that it was her mother’s intention, which is unfortunately very common picture of rivalry between mothers and their daughters. Her mother knew how much her daughter tried to be like her – as beautiful and as smart as she was and she knew how to make her daughter not to succeed. Although the child cannot fight off. According the TCSD Ilona unconsciously put her mother on a pedestal and she became the best person in the world for her. The TCSD revealed that Ilona had chosen her second husband according her mother’s model – to the certain degree their personalities matched. The unconscious relationship with her mother is truly the only real, chronic and big problem and she is very afraid to do something about it. Her mother is indeed the only person in the whole world she truly wants to be with.
Oedipus and Electra’s complexes are well known to all psychologists. Unfortunately the complicated way of choosing the life partner is much more deep-rooted and it is very difficult to reveal it within ourselves. It affects the men and women brought up in problematic families. I even believe that this problem especially affects the individuals from complete families with strongly entrenched and lasting relationships that prevent them from living their lives in freedom.
General space unconscious (from the human being’s perspective) is the base for genesis of many worlds, including our own world. The fundamental existence of each of us reaches there. C.G.Jung spoke about layers of unconscious that can never be discovered. In fact, we can theoretically presuppose the deep roots of unconscious with proofs of their existence that we are able to gather only in a form of their traces that are formed in our consciousness as a final product we can describe as a form of mental processes or states. Graphically we can imagine our consciousness with its dependency on unconscious as a hyperboloid that structurally rises from a common basement of unconscious universe all the way to the individual and his or her consciousness. Unconscious and structures of consciousness blend into each other, tangle and misses concrete mutual boundaries. It is very obvious that our unconscious (as well as consciousness) far overlaps a human body just because it is impossible to separate and exactly define unconscious of an individual from the collective and complex unconscious, etc. Personal consciousness is inseparable part of collective consciousness and individual unconscious is a part of collective unconscious. Personal has one important characteristic – when it respects unconscious, it sets its direction; the content of consciousness is (besides others) intelligence and will. Unconscious is marked out by great power that can enforce “the intentions of consciousness.” A consciously enforced intention in connection with unconscious is happiness. Everything is perfect, unconscious provides with information and energy and consciousness gives the direction where to go. In case that our personal consciousness reacts against its own experiencing it leads to artificial attempt to separate the consciousness from unconscious, which loses its roots and like any plant without its roots and with cut off nutrients becomes strangely motionless, wither and the ultimate form of its existence is the termination of the living organism.
My friend Jana was a high school graduate. She worked as a governess and had two children – a son and a daughter. Her husband Libor was a professional soldier who spent a lot of time on missions abroad. They both came from divorced families; they both were very intelligent good looking and had good sense of humor. Their marriage lasted 25 years. For Jana Libor was the perfect man. She would have never allowed the possibility that Libor was not the best man in the world. If you saw them together, you could only envy them their perfect relationship, they were like a two peas in a pod even after many years of their marriage. They stuck together so they did not lose control over their children. Most of the time Jana took care of them since Libor was often gone on military missions. Jana was unbelievably skillful she could make a sweater by knitting in two days; she could speak German in six months after she joined a German company. She also took care of Libor’s rottweiler and trained him every day. On top of everything she took care of the household and children without any housekeepers and babysitters. She had been happy in her routine until one day….Libor came back home from a mission and decided to stay at home. It took him long to get adjusted to the different life style. In the Czech Republic he could not find a job that would satisfy him. He started to laze around, gained some weight, did not go anywhere except for very random meetings with his friends from missions. They started to fight and the ideal family life begun to crumble apart. One day Libor showed up at my door very disconsolate asking me for help. Jana had found herself a new man who was ten years younger than Libor and wanted to file for divorce. He desperately wanted her back. Even for me that was a very complicated situation. I knew both of them …but the fact that Libor was in need was prevailing. I met with Jana and tried to find out how serious she was about the divorce. To be honest I had tried to discourage her from her decision and tried to make her put it off at least for one month. Our second meeting almost ended in tragedy. Neither of them respected me (I was just a friend) and each of them insisted on their decision. He wanted her back at any cost and did not want to hear about it. Libor had a gun in his possession. He was the soldier not a loser. He said “the situation can be solved differently” and was about to leave. I do not know how fast it happened. I reached into a drawer for the money I got from Libor saying “Ok, but I have to give you the money back” and forced him to accept it. He was taken aback and that was the perfect time to tell him that our consultation was over anyway and that we had the same way home and asked him to walk me home. We used to walk home like this…..Time has healed all the wounds. Libor has remarried, has a wife and both are going to have a baby soon. Jana’s boyfriend left her soon after divorced her husband. She moved to her home village and bought a flat right across the street from her ex-boyfriend’s house. She used to watch his windows. After he left her he had a fling with another coworker from neighboring office who he left for another one….He sometimes visited Jana to complain about his partners and Jana was keeping her hopes up…. We analyzed her situation through the TCSD. Her routine and fixed adherence in her personal consciousness did not give her many chances to cope with her situation. Maybe now she has found her penchant in cows. She has bought sheets with cow theme as well as plates and mugs and even her pajamas are decorated with cows….probably for her to remember.
Unconscious works exactly as a computer: yes – no, correct – wrong, left – right, it does not know more solutions. It does not accept more convenient or thankworthy truth of others. It does not force us into relationships of dependence and adherence. It is all clear. Consciousness creates it, when we consider pros and cons just because we cannot make a decision – we create many different theories for each problem (the more brains, the more opinions) and thanks to our Consciousness we get into a neurotic and traumatizing dependence on objects and situations. After all it is not easy to chose the right direction in life and be happy. The phenomenon of spreading computers all around the world and its general acceptance by people is a reason that their construction scheme reflects their functional nature of unconscious. Freud’s model of psychoanalytical triangle of id – ego – superego maps out layers of consciousness and unconscious but it does not respect their correct storing. Ego is at the same time part of superego thus the part of collective consciousness and id as a personal unconscious is a part of collective unconscious.
Written record of Mrs. Vladka is very interesting. Her father was an alcoholic and her parents broke up. Her father is sixty years old, living with his fourth partner, who has got three children from her previous relationships and is half of his age. Mrs. Vladka moved with her husband to Canada where her second child was born. Her husband worked in his father’s detergent company and became a drug addict. He had promised her many times to quit with drugs, but he failed. In the end Vladka divorced him and returned back to the Czech Republic where she often visits her mother who has a small flat in a town near by. Vladka’s ex-husband came to visit her asking her to return back to Canada with him. Vladka tried to be wise and accepted his financial help. She is trying to find herself a job. She would like to work in social services. She is registered at the work office. Her fear that her ex husband would kidnap her children and fly them out of the country forces her to accept him in her flat whenever he pleases. Consulting with the TCSD is more than obvious that Vladka is consciously trying to improve some of the situations she gets involved in. On the contrary, her unconscious shows her its dissatisfaction and proves her wrong. At this time she is neither feeling ill nor tired but her general energetic potential is very low and in her record is more than obvious very strange sadness that Vladka is aware of which she admits during the interview when the question is addressed directly. Also in the TCSD is obvious that her harmonic relationship between her and her children is gone and she is worried that they would leave her for their father (especially her youngest daughter). In order to feel happier and energetically stronger according to the TCSD is important that Vladka drives a hard bargain with her ex husband in her flat. Just because she is very hard working she should think over her next professional steps. She should do something with her life in order not to receive any more financial help from her ex husband and feel free. She should take advantage of her unconscious tendencies to establish changes in her life and also the feelings of her children and their ties with their father are according to unconscious absolutely legitimate. At the same time she is counting on her husband for the future and their relationship is much stronger than she consciously admits.
Consciousness is a phenomenon that enables communication between consciousness and unconscious. It gives us the true testimony about our functionality. It always works independently of our own being just like time it enters our personal consciousness. Communication is active connection; it is a way of comity and an instrumental for understanding. Without mental processes and states such as emotions and moods etc. this connection is impossible (with the development of information technology we can expect very big surprises in such systems as a programming language). The basic division into verbal and nonverbal is well known but the TCSD teaches us that there is also intermediate communication between these two types of communication (inside consciousness or unconscious – linear model) and structural communication (vertical model – across the alignment of consciousness and unconscious with a great support of conscience). Look in the structural communication is way more difficult. Its decision point is unconscious. The deeper it gets the more usual value the truth is. These communications have very fundamental significance for example by creating a nation. The same way the cells in our bodies communicate, they exchange information on a different level of our consciousness and unconscious. Its connection with memory is just magical. Every one of us remembers very well our own sins and it is very interesting that we especially remember those sins we did as adults, when we started being responsible for our own actions. Very often we get the impression that many people do not have any conscience. In reality these individuals have a big handicap on the level of their consciousness but their unconscious cannot separate from the conscience. The reason why is because the inseparable concomitant is time that works independently of us and most of the time we do not find out when the conscience of such a person wakes up. Ancient civilizations that lived in harmony with nature followed the divine laws and respected their symbology and created their own human norms and principles of coexistence on the conscious and unconscious basis. Greeks have their Ernie, goddesses which personified conscience, they flew around the sinner chased and very often hunted the victim down to death. Just like we do not forget our sins, they stay forever in the memory of our unconscious. They become verified valid patterns – for both ethic categories and behavioral patterns. Brave men will always attract women and beautiful women will always be a challenge for men. To the classical quaternion, which was represented by justice, bravery, wisdom and moderation, religion added faith, hope and love….these are all the values that will never lose their power and it does not matter that we do not hear about them much. Not only unconscious deals with good and evil but also consciousness is engaged in the process of evaluating these two phenomena. The TCSD completes and validates the pieces of knowledge that are mapped out thanks to psychology, sociology, anthropology, philology, ethnography and other scientific disciplines. Especially mechanisms of unconsciousness validate the dependency and reflection with the place where people live – the place of their souls. The place that people inhabit, energize things all around them and puts them into context for the inhibitors of the place. That happens because the things become part of their lives on the level of personal consciousness and unconscious and that is why the things can explain their behavior and actions.
I live in the South Bohemia, in the region that is famous in Europe predominantly for its phenomena called Doudlebie (the region reaching from the Czech Republic to Austria and Baveria) that is characteristic for its topography of a plateau with moorlands and small basins together with phreatic surface that extends above the natural ground surface. The mentality of the people living in this region is typical for its prudent clumsiness, demureness and lack of a sense of allegory. The newcomers in that area are not very well accepted and that is the reason why not many people move in this area. As a matter of fact more and more people move out from this region. This phenomenon we can relate to the water course in the region. A lot of rivers flow out of this region but not a single one flows in. The original houses are small and bigger farmhouses that are enclosed in the shape of a square fenced out with high walls that do not allow anyone to see in. The inhabitants do not have a good sense of humor but they care very much about their good reputation, good manners and local filiation. The author of a book called “One hundred essays on nature and society – Doudlebie and other phenomena” Mr. Stanislav Komarek adds to this theory, “If we exaggerated the situation and put it into a dimensional caricature we can say that the traditional hog-killing in Doudlebie differs from the one in South Moravia in the simple fact that people in Moravia would quietly buy one more hog to kill and hold the celebration for wide circle of family and friends to show that they can afford it. On the other hand people in Doudlebie would, in the same situation, spread gossips two weeks before the announced hog-killing that the hog had become ill and that the sickness led to his terrible death. This “sick and dead” hog is then quietly killed; the sausages stored in the pantry and then consumed in homeopathic doses.” (Page 9) Very important characteristic of the inhabitants is also self sufficiency. From time immemorial this has been the region of small peasants and craftsmen. In the list of characteristics, typical for the local people of the “Doudlebian Empire,” we cannot forget about their religiousness or maybe rather “parareligious feeling” most often associated with reforming tendencies. It is very odd, unmercantile but still some kind of fanatism. It is not an accident that the origins of people like Hus, Stitny, Chelcicky, Konias and other guardians of ideologies come back to the South Bohemia. The metropolitan town of the South Bohemia, Ceske Budejovice is not only famous for its number of devoted Catholics but also infamous for the number of devoted communists. Most of the heads of the communist party back in 50’s came from this town. Dry and to some extend naive frankness is not rarely connected with desire for knowledge and cognition and Doudlebie is a wonderful example of culture medium for rural thinkers and inventors and only there it can happen that a cottier knows the theory of conic sections “(maybe cottiers in Podkrkonosi would know it too, but I think that there, within the scope of their deliriousness, they would be more likely to see in the hyperbola something pseudo mystically symbolic)” (page 9) The TCSD confirms the contemplations with following analysis. With its help is possible to associate people (or groups of people) with certain regions living not far from each other.
Another example:
Mrs. Empty came to me for an individual session. She was fifty four years old mother of two children. She had great potential to meet her goals. She had always had well paid jobs and she could always provide for her children. She had a true twin (her daughter was allegedly very dominant). She did not feel too well, which was obvious according to the TCSD. She was trying to escape to alternative medicine, Chinese traditional therapists and healers. She was always searching her conscience if she had done the right thing, if she had not hurt anyone. She was always doing everything she could to help the others putting everyone else in the first place, especially her children. She was very intelligent. Every time she talked about her family it was more than obvious that she came from a family dominated by women. Her grandmother’s name was Queen and she owned a small farm place in the South Bohemia. Her husband died soon but she did not mind that much as he had not been a support to her when he was alive anyway. She had to take care of the farm. She was in charge of making decisions and her sisters and daughters worked flat out on the property. Her mother moved to a town when she married Mr. Squelch. She just did not want to stay working on the farm. When Mrs. Empty was single she could not bear with the fact that her name was Squelch. She was even thinking of getting her name changed. But then she got married to Mr. Empty and stayed in the town. Relatively soon after she had her third baby she got divorced and did not spare any effort helping her family and her aunt who was the only one that stayed in the farm. Now she was ill and hopeless. I told her she was a Queen and now she is Empty. However, based on the TCSD we found very interesting characteristic – it took her forever to make a decision. She was very easy to talk her out of things but when she made her mind she always accomplished her goals with great success. She proved me right during our interview. She should have play lottery.
Layers of consciousness and unconscious, their structure, mutual blending and influencing and their communication define the role of a person, a group or even the whole society.
Analyzing the layers of consciousness and unconscious we can predict possibilities and further development of a single person, groups or the change of society.
Research of groups is directed by predefined parameters that are monitored according to the aim of researchers. The TCSD group research can besides the general data of individuals monitor also the pace, stratification and blending of unconscious and conscious structures and every experienced researcher can determine characteristics of the researched group and the direction the group is going, its readiness, possibilities and realization as well as the embedded “roots” that substantiate the present existence and predicts the future of the monitored group.
We can slightly overstate and say that the quantity is as respected as the quality. A while ago I spoke with my colleague psychologist on Benton’s test. We were talking about the evaluation of this test.” They all do it wrong,” he said. “But when they all do it wrong, then I guess it is all right. Would grass turn red, if we all said it’s red? Not at all. At most we can start calling the green color red. But there is always gonna be someone saying that red used to be green. That is how the “secret schools of thought” emerge. The genuine quality also represents good content that goes beyond the limits of a concrete assignment.
In 1994 I elaborated a study called “A treatise on how to choose the right adept for the position of a public transport conductor.” To handle to challenge, first I had to define the specifics of the people who make living by checking tickets in the means of public transport. I did my research in three cities – in Prague, Ostrava and in Ceske Budejovice on a sample of 113 persons (53 persons in Prague, 43 persons in Ostrava and 17 in Ceske Budejovice). The main researching method was the TCSD and as a supporting method I decided to use the questionnaire KN – 5 with its 37 questions. There was not put much stress on intelligence in this test. It was tested with two methods. First was a nonverbal Army – beta method and the second was a verbal VIT method with 40 questions. Every city had its specifics and rules and the conductors were their representatives. In Prague and in Ostrava there was a big problem with alcoholism of the respondents. In the record is stated, “Especially in Prague the applicants revealed the weak points of the system. High level of unconcern in keeping the conductors employed and also very rare controls of their job duties without the necessary moral support from the employer’s side provides with the space that every latent alcoholic needs. Such a person is typically spending too much energy in keeping his or her alcoholism in secret. This occupation is just ideal for those kinds of people. They can easily stop by in a pub and have one beer or two. During that test was found that those people were men, most of them with families and also most of them came from normal primary families except that their parents suffered from psychosomatic illness. They were not at all lazy. They were brought up to revere their jobs. Work saves them from worse social drop off. Intelligence is still on the average or above average level. All of them are either high school or vocational school graduates. Because they drink beer they have only very small sexual appetite and preferred lyrical affection from their partner. They believe in ideal values and have quite high aspirations. They need to be in the middle of things. Their body had changed a lot. Most of all their nerve system was worn out and shows changes that lead in fatigue and feeling ill. It is possible to say that the most conclusive direct connection recorded in our sample was alcohol in connection with occupation, organic handicap of central nervous system (CNS) – with organicity, anxiety and aspirations. Not directly is alcohol dependent on gender of the studied sample, “a joy of life” (alcoholics lack of this characteristic – they do not enjoy both life and themselves to the fullest). There is suggested direct proportion with intelligence and a problematic disease. We perceive organicity as a functional insufficiency of CNS that demonstrates on both, the physical and mental level. This affected organism is trying to simplify its tasks to the realizable standards. This stage is usually accompanied by aging. For example memory lapses that occur during variety of occasions. Organicity is the most efficient and natural protection of organism that protects it from exhaustion. On the other hand, every person affected this way unconsciously and only very purposefully chooses from the inputs that environment has got to offer. We found out that handicapped people prefer ideal values. This happens simply because the ideals are problem free and socially safe. Therefore everyone who follows the ideals and announces that openly in public can be seen by others as an idealist and a weirdo but nobody would think of them as of bush-leaguers. The organicity is a condition that in the end leads to a disease. Except for tendencies to worship ideals are our clients represented organicity directly proportionally with diseases, strong anxiety, alcoholism and their jobs and inversely proportionally with adaptability and “a joy of life”. In our sample of clients we focused on aggressiveness as one of the most important phenomena of all. Aggressiveness is most connected with anxiety, feeling ill, organicity and excessive alcohol consumption. Every group of all three groups of observed clients was interesting and characteristic. Just for making the picture, I am pointing out one excerpt from the study: “....In Ceske Budejovice connect increasing aggressiveness with aging and anxiety, in Prague aggression is related to “the joy of life” and put it in direct perspective with alcohol, in Ostrava people understand aggressiveness in connection with organicity, occupation and relation to ideals. Organicity is in Ceske Budejovice a reflection of genetic terrain (Ceske Budejovice), in Central Bohemia (Prague) organicity is connected with alcohol and “the joy of life” and relation to ideal values. North Moravia (Ostrava) connects organicity with aggressiveness and inadaptability. Alcoholism is in Ceske Budejovice predominantly the reflection of inferior genetic terrain, family atmosphere, low non-verbal intelligence and strong anxiety. In Prague they perceive it in connection with organicity, occupation and inability to adapt in society. In Ostrava it is associated mostly with occupation and aspirations. In C. Budejovice the clients connect work with their siblings and families, in Prague with their occupation and adaptability and in Ostrava with the occupation. While the occupation is for people of Ceske Budejovice determined genetically and also directly influenced by step siblings, for people of Prague it is strongly associated with their relation to alcohol consumption, work and higher aspirations. For people of Ostrava the occupation is directly connected with work, aggressiveness and alcohol consumption. “The joy of life” is in C. Budejovice and in Ostrava somehow misunderstood. In Ceske Budejovice it is only vaguely connected with the family and siblings. In Ostrava people connect it even less with the fact that people should not consume alcoholic beverages, should be responsible and not affected by organicity and aggressiveness. People of Prague perceive “the joy of life” as an inverse proportionality to aggressiveness, alcohol consumption, responsibility and also to organicity. The essential value for their lives is adaptability. Similar situation is repeating when we talk about perceiving a relation to responsibilities: People of Ceske Budejovice associate it predominantly with their marriages, education, both, non-verbal and verbal intelligence and upbringing. People of Ostrava perceive it inversely proportional with aggressiveness and “the joy of life”. People of Prague in this perspective prefer dominating “the joy of life”. For Southbohemias is characteristic a conservative turn and family orientation and in Ostrava the people lack some of the essential “joy of life” and sense of life. The most important thing for the people of Prague is success and good social ranking. The most important thing is not to be satisfied but to be successful. It is about the more profound social atmosphere....” The occupation of conductor in public transport does not belong to the most prestigious ones. People in this position either want only some supplemental income or they are not qualified to do anything else. Their income is dependent on how many dead heads they can catch. This reality, and the disputable evaluation of who the dead head is together with the superior behavior towards the passengers, puts a bad light on them in the eyes of the whole society. From the TCSD is more than obvious that even conductors are representatives of certain location for which the studied characteristics, demonstrated in the 1994, are typical and can be observed even these days: Prague, typical for its aspirations, education and the strongest relation to work, belongs among the five most prestigious European metropolises. After 1989 the government decided that the area had been depleted and the mines were closed down. Consequently a lot of people lost their jobs. During the era of communism, the occupation of the coal-miner was one of the most prestigious. The slogan: “I am the coal-miner, who is more?” was very powerful. In Ostrava was typical weak relation to work and certain gloom for all. For the region of Ceske Budejovice was the priority the support of the family life. That was the most self-fulfilling phenomena together with the conservative attitude to reject everything that does not come from their region. Without the TCSD there would have never been revealed the connection of the weaker genetic foundation with the strong patronage for locals. That consists in big numbers of “step siblings” and is kept in secret because it is all stored in the collective unconscious as taboo.
As far as I know the Prague public transport company is still using the study these days.
The Test of Color Semantic differential –TCSD started to form at the beginning of 1970’s by its main author – Vadim Scepichin.
In psychological diagnostics any psychologist can use for his or her work ether method of questionnaires or projecting techniques. The circumstentiality of the questionnaires is for any psychologist at least debatable because clients have to be willing to talk about themselves. They need to understand the questions and have the patience to answer them all. Projection techniques are more comprehensive when it comes to information than the questionnaires, but their interpretation is very difficult and requires special training in the specific technique plus rich experiments in the field of psychology for every professional. In the Test of Color Semantic differential –TCSD – the comprehensiveness far exceeds both the projection techniques and the questionnaires. The test is very intelligible and simple. It is relatively independent of clients’ abilities to communicate. It is possible to use it with people who have lower level of intelligence, socially maladjusted and with highly defatigable people. It has many advantages – it is not time demanding, it is very addressing and it is used to compare conscious and unconscious attitudes of clients, trans cultural approach and possibility to examine whole group of clients. To evaluate the TCSD test we can use Brandt – Snedecor’s test, G – test or the method of linear discrimination.
The Test of Color Semantic differential –TCSD has four basic versions:
1) The version for pre school age;
2) The version for school age;
3) The criminogenic version;
4) The version for adults.
1) The TCSD version for pre school age we can use as soon as the children can distinguish colors. The big advantage of this group is the big progress the children of this age make. Therefore the test is valid only for a short time.
2) The TCSD version for school age children is very often used by pediatric psychologists.
3) The TCSD version for socio – culture problematic persons – criminogenic version has totally lost its sense. It is far less exemplificative than the version of this test for adults. Basically it is only its shorter version – the TCSD for adults 1st part.
4) The TCSD version for adults is the most comprehensible, the most sophisticated and the most informative of all of the TCSD versions. The 1st part of this test was first introduced at the University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice and then on the 3rd European Psychological Congress in Tampere, Finland. The 2nd part of this version for adults was introduced on the 10th European Psychological Congress in Prague, Czech Republic.
When I worked in a reform school in Sindlovy Dvory there were boys that had variety of many different problems. The reasons why they were admitted to this facility were their socio – pathological phenomena – law trespassing activities such as hooky playing, stealing, sexual torts, bullying, drug experiments, etc. They all suffered from damage of their CNS and mental disorders. In 2004 I diagnosed 18 of the total of 22 boys with anomalous profile of their personality. Even minor inputs caused outrageous response such as aggression and intimidating their environment. Almost all of them had subnormal intellect, low self –esteem and their characters were specific for their excessive submissive behavior and obsequiousness. They were characteristic for their vulgar language and selfishness and in many cases lacking the basic social and hygienic habits. They disliked studying and generally their level of education was on a very poor level in comparison with other children of their age. They lived only for today. They did not plan anything in advance. They could hardly focus on any task and follow any given plan without any strong personal stimuli (such as sex – drugs – money). Their will was very weak and their abilities on a lower level in comparison with their coevals living “outside their world” going to regular schools. The boys knew their weak points and did not even try to compete in the field of education with other children of their age. They could not reach the same level of the children from regular schools. Because their central nervous system was weakened and its functions were limited, they had very specialized talents and abilities such as for example musicality of boys of gipsy origin. Although the life in society requires universality – therefore is better and easier in life to be “the average Joe” – it is important to master the norms and principles of “the common social life”. The comprehensive education is wide enough for people to use their potential selectively in order to live, work and take care of their children and minimalizing all the problems the life brings along. The boys had only limited mental abilities therefore on a lower level. Sometimes their mental abilities were blocked or even missing. That was the origin of their deep feelings of their self-consciousness, anxiety, hyper sensibility and other psycho – social problems. Their need to win recognition was very strong (the feeling of being useful is one of the strongest because it is very closely connected with self-preservation). Taking into account the fact that their interests were not very profound, the verbal group interests were mostly related to sex, drugs, robberies and other socio – pathological things, every role model introduced to them was far beyond their reach. It is well known reality that too many role models can do harm. If there are only a few of them then they can serve the purpose for us, imperfect ones. We can look up to them and mutually support each other in our effort to be like the role models. If we take into account the basic facts together with experience of the children full of beatings, lack of interest, anxiety and fear, there is no wonder that these children prefer aggressive behavior (they all remember their own feelings of respect for aggressiveness) that is typical and well known for them. They prefer these behavioral patterns to education that does not bring for them the immediate effect. But they need the immediate effect of the action as a confirmation of their own existence. They very often drop out of schools; they are not ready for the competitive environment in society and cannot win recognition in the labor market. Therefore they fall for such offers that promise easy and sweet life without making too much effort. Jacob’s mother was an alcoholic, when she left him he was only 3 months old. She was deprived of all parental rights. No one has seen her since then. Jacob had a sister and his biological father remarried after a while. He married a divorcee with two children. Jacob was “a troublemaker”. He did not want to study, refusing to write homework, to read and in the end he kicked her teacher in her leg. That was the last thing that led to his transfer to the reform school where he started from the second grade. Since that time he has been in the institutional care. When I first met him, he was 14 years old and very handsome fair haired squinting boy. Other boys gave him hell just because of his strabismus. In the record of his psychological examination through the use of the TCSD from that time is stated that he is a dynamic personality without any features of anomaly, very creative introvert having his own secrets, with strong faith in life and in ideals. He cannot very well imagine himself as a role model. He does not like loneliness but loves some excitement and is opened to changes but does not look for them. He has got very exceptional sense of following balance in life – he pays attention to single activities and things in life. It all happens unconsciously, with his developed feeling for things. Despite hating his way of living at the moment he thinks of other people and their needs trying to help them. He considers life in the hierarchy of his values to be worse than death. Some of his association answers to colors are worth of admirable values. The fairly blue color represents his clear way in life; the yellow color represents the light above his head, the good feeling. The dark green color represents solid ground bellow his feet and purple represents his resistance and ability to withstand a lot in his life. His strabismus was surgically removed. His parents had another baby and when Jacob comes back from his visit at home he is always hungry. He has never gotten anything for free. He will be eighteen in six months....
People all around the world pay attention to socially dangerous people. All kinds of anti-social behavior are conditional on “the culture medium” in collective unconscious, which evokes and creates it. It is unbelievable how fast this behavior, which fundament is “moving collective unconscious”, spreads. This phenomenon can spread even faster with help of faith or drill. There is also a possibility that from “the culture medium” can arise something totally different from the anti-social behavior and the TCSD can be a very good assistant to reveal it.
Andrew grew up without his father. He had two sisters, both of them single mothers, and a brother, who had problems with breaking law and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. When he was eight months old, he suffered from a head injury with consequential blood-poisoning. As a four year old he suffered from another head injury, this time with lasting ill effects. At the age of ten he had to transfer from regular elementary school to a school for children with special needs. From his fourteenth birthday he had been going as an out-patient to the psychiatry ward. And at the age of sixteen he was admitted to the reform school where he was diagnosed with anomalous personality with very odd emotional structure of pessimistic character. The best values for him, in the order of his preference, are: the past time, medicine, silence and then friends and attacking... He has feelings of anxiety connected with pain and friends with aggression (they must have hurt him). We could find senses of illness in his unconscious. Maybe that is the reason for ranking medicine really high in his hierarchy of values. He considers himself to be a child and lonely. He probably has nightmares and is scared of what changes future brings along. Poor little boy, he is so confused. His association with his father is equal to perceptions such as: the death, sex, solitude and the role model – the perfect man. His associations also include boredom, women and work together with pain, anxiety, attacking, me, quarrel, fear, illness, fist fight, sexual intercourse. His attitude towards alcohol is positive. My psychological examination ends with this following prognosis: “The boy’s unconscious is thriving with aggressive tendencies of sexual character and he is trying to suppress them but is powerless. He probably has scary nightmares full of frightening stories. But he does not open his heart to anyone and that is probably the reason why he is afraid of future – the stories can fulfill. At the end of the record is the summary that says, “Strongly anomalous personality with structural and complicated emotions with features of organicity and sexual aggressive tendencies, fearing the future. Just like he would be saying: “I had already gone through all the good in my life.”, and then I recommended sexual – psychiatric examination and rigorous medical supervision. During our interview he admitted to the aggressive dreams and during his session he had together with his mother came up that he once hit her when he had one of his conniption fits and also that he is naturally befriending children excluded from the society. We together visited both the regional sexologist and also the sexuological institution in Prague but just because he had not done anything wrong yet, there was no treatment recommended. We had a connection and I felt that he trusted me. From time to time he came to my office just to have a chat. For other boys he remained to be just an odd weirdo. He needed friends he did not have. One time Andrew befriended homeless people begging at a shopping mall in the downtown area of the city. They accepted him without any problems and he was happier than he had ever been before. He once had friends. He ran away to them. He got smashed out of his mind and mooched money for them and later he banged his head repeatedly against a shop window. He got arrested by the police and they took him to the short-term rehabilitation centre for disorderly alcoholics and when he sobered up the police brought him back to the institution. Later he tried to justify his escape claiming that the homeless people were his friends and that! The devil” was protecting him from getting caught by the police. I told him that there was no need to protect anyone from the police because they should serve and protect and he is a minor while his homeless “friends” were grown ups and could life their lives the way they wanted. I told him that they had no right to let him beg for money for them and then intoxicate him. He took a bath, had something to eat and despite his promise not to run away again, he escaped again to his homeless “friends”. A few days later the police brought him back again from the short-term rehabilitation centre for disorderly alcoholics. He was running towards to me but I told him that he broke his promise he once gave me. He said that he did not run away from me but from the director of the facility. After a while we made a peace and I took him with one another boy for a bicycle ride. On the way back Andrew wanted to go faster and had promised to wait for us in a place we had agreed on. But when we got there he was not there. I was beating myself over his escape. I could not believe I was being such a fool and allowed him to go by himself thinking he would never escape again. So I called the police. When I came back to my office he came running to me. When he reached me he started telling me his story. He said: “I didn’t know where I was. And there was some woman riding a bicycle so I told here that I was from the reform school and that I got lost. Then I asked her to show me the way or I am in a big trouble because Mrs. Psycho (that would be me – short for psychologist) will probably think I escaped again with the bicycle. So the nice woman was just laughing and told me to follow her and took me all the way here.” So we explained everything and I praised him. A pedagogical committee decided that he had too many absent hours because of his escapes he got detention and reprimand. The committee had outvoted me. Before he left for vocational school I invited him to a confectioner's for an ice-cream. When we were done with the ice-cream Andrew asked me for a favor to go and say goodbye to his homeless “friends” to the shopping mall. I gave him twenty minutes to do it then agreed on place of meeting. I told him that I trusted him and he came on time. Studies of big social groups are very important predominantly for the sake of managing human resources. Behind every social group is culture as its managing element. It is the experience that is the key for observed group. It represents its past, present and also the future.
R. Krninska wrote in her monograph Management of human resources in the dimension of the third millennium: “There is an almost unbelievable difference in the hierarchy of associations that appears on the unconscious level of two professional groups – zoo technicians and agronomists. The difference is possible to find thanks to the TCSD. We can assume that many years in professional life of one occupation can play an important role in affecting a human element. Wide open space of nature with its law has to be humbly respected by agronomists and it also strongly influences the order of associations that save ideal relationships and order the way it is desirable according to the TCSD. The zoo technicians working with the mass production technologies with its inhumane characteristics leave marks in their unconscious. They behave as if they were the only ones that make any difference in the death or life question based on their own reason and achieved education. At the same time their activity makes them displaced people living in loneliness that does not fit in the harmonic frame respected by agronomists. Predispositions of different association of notions, that we would have never dared to predict in connection with zoo technicians and agronomists, are here unambiguously and factually supported....” (Page 148)
During my lecturing at the university in Prague in 2005 (15 students of the University of Economics) and at the University of Regional Studies in Ceske Budejovice (6 students) on the topic psychology of commercials I added just for the picture some words to TCSD exemplaring my lecture.
I am stating some of the interesting things of my written commentaries for students:
“Students in Prague consider the most significant identification of themselves with their own role model ...In principle even as adults they feel to be children who have every right to receive love and have fun and for that reason they do not surprisingly need their friend but total strangers for that. Joy, fun and dreams have some selfish taste to it. The global society leaves everyone to their ideals and role models. So then everyone becomes their own set of ideal values. There is still persisting the influence of “the ideal woman” that is connected with the history of the sacred concept of a mother. In Prague the students respect also the ideal concept of a man while in Ceske Budejovice the students absolutely omit. His task is to authoritatively take care of problems related to secure fun. In Prague students put huge stress on communication, communication systems, commercials and it is obvious that the media have lion’s share on forming their personalities. Everything is easy. Just like in a movie. They do not have any idea of who has created the whole concept of the easy and happy life full of love – parents or work. To win and to be the first one with only minimal work effort is possible in Prague. In Ceske Budejovice is no need to be the winner but it is always good to be better, that is for sure. Communication is becoming more and more important in our lives (important for the way of the life in the western hemisphere), aggressive components of a human nature are “not for us”, and we do not identify with such things. “We do not need aggressiveness we can talk ourselves out of everything and negotiate everything using our communication skills.” Bad things happen to everyone else but us. The ideal values are – happy life and dream eventually without any effort. Inspire of this there are some signals of appreciation for performing duties so typical for the town. And here again are obvious signs of desire for changes, the history is reinterpreted and yet there are also some plans for future. This is not valid for students of Ceske Budejovice. Identification with commercial is on a high level with students from Prague. They identify their own freedom with it and it is the symbol of their support. It is the symbol of communication and nice life. It is starting to gain the significance of a tradition and is lacking any aggressive meaning... On top of the list in the hierarchy of values (according to the students from Prague) are phenomena that represent the functions of ideal values such as love, bravery, silence, peace, mood, intimacy, seeing themselves as a support and children. The students from Ceske Budejovice worship the following values – joy, fun, love, solitude, seeing themselves as an ideal. It is interesting that there are no negative values, which would be common for both groups. Fatigue and opinionatedness are the most negative values perceived by the students from Prague. On the other side, the students from Ceske Budejovice see alcohol and the Munich betrayal* and even stronger happenings such as the war in Iraq, Islam and conflict, then also anxiety and a workplace. It is possible to summarize that the level of self confidence of both groups and the self preference before the ideal of man or a woman is quite surprising. It is startling how clear their view of “sweet candy world” is. The dark sides of life are not perceived as much as the bright ones – “they are not for us”. Especially students from Prague feel that everything is possible to manage simply with communication; the hold one’s own attitude is perceived a bad thing. Changes are necessary for happy life. The Southbohemians are not surprisingly supporters of traditional values and take very seriously world events that can threaten their existence. What is very heartwarming is the fact that in spite of not occurring in media or in education, bravery is seen as a highly positive and appreciated characteristic by both questioned groups. It is associated with the ideal man and love (probably the reason why to love him). However, the clear picture of wonderful life and emphasis of dreams signalizes drug, psychotropic and narcotic substances taking. For people from Prague is typical emphasising those dreams that match the life, fun, future, childhood, happiness, etc. It shows evidence of the desire to fulfill an individual enjoyment. In this case we do not need friends. Connection of this pleasant expectation in the future with certain experience with psychotropic substances is obvious. For example anxiety is not evaluated as a negative value. In some cases is even evaluate as a highly positive one that belongs to life (dream euphoria is naturally followed by states of anxiety). It is interesting but dreams are preferred to intimacy, sex and love. Very interesting is also penchant for accepting changes on one side and desire for tranquility, very appreciated communication and willingness to accept support on the other side. People of Ceske Budejovice insist on traditional values but dreaming is also not completely strange to them. Very interesting is the work attitude. Students from Prague see their work attitude as a positive or as a less negative one on a scale while students of Ceske Budejovice see their work attitude as a less negative or absolutely negative one. The superiority is in both cases evaluated as a negative thing. It was expected since it is the national tradition in the Czech Republic while the workstation is perceived positively in Prague and again negatively in Ceske Budejovice. However, there is missing an expressive evaluation of notions such as death, pain, fist fight, etc.! These used to be more disliked. Boredom of the Southbohemians (Ceske Budejovice) was not in either of the cases dispraised. Just because it was about lecture on the topic of psychology of commercials, I put on programme the three providers of telecommunication services that had licenses in our country at that time – Eurotel, T–mobile, Oskar. Students had to specify their attitude towards to them.
“The students from Prague prefer changes. They do not have big problems to accept new things. For them the winner is the one that makes their lives easier for them, the more flexible one (T-mobile won, second place was taken by Oskar and the last one was Eurotel). From the answers of the students of the University of South Bohemia is obvious that the business is done differently in the Southern part of the country. The tradition is very important together with comfort and just to have brains between the ears. Oskar won with its logo. **
The TCSD is an illustrative test for both, individuals and groups. It is able to define typical features and provide enough information that can help to clarify the decision making process, which is significant for past, important for present and directive for future.
The Test of Semantic Color Differential –TCSD as a psycho-sociologic method has its use not only in psychology but also in researching huge sociologic groups of people, when considering enormous financial investments and characterizing parts of population with their consequential resocialization.
We can expect big adventures with the TCSD and its possibilities. Every time when we face a difficult decision what direction to take……. Every time we are exposed to any danger....... Every time we have to risk our professional opinion, our reputation and even our life…..then there is the TCSD. We have never had such a powerful weapon…..I am the soldier on duty……..
Notes:
* Munich Agreement 1938 – was an agreement regarding the Sudetenland Crisis among the major powers of Europe after a conference held in Munich, Germany in 1938 and signed in the early hours of September 30. The Sudetenland was of immense strategic importance to Czechoslovakia, as most of its border defenses were situated there. The purpose of the conference was to discuss the future of Czechoslovakia in the face of territorial demands made by German dictator Adolf Hitler, and it ended up dividing that state between Nazi Germany, Poland and Hungary. Because Czechoslovakia was not invited to the conference, the Munich Agreement is commonly called the Munich Dictate by Czechs and Slovaks. The phrase Munich betrayal is also frequently used because military alliances between Czechoslovakia and France and between France and Britain were not honored. The agreement is considered by many as the quintessential example of appeasement. Because Hitler soon violated the terms of the agreement, it has often been cited in support of the principle that tyrants should never be appeased. (www.wikipedia.org)
** The telecommunication services provider called Oskar used in commercials bright red smiling face logo and an comfortable arm chair. Besides that, Oskar is a male name that is very rare in the Czech Republic, but people seemed to like it.
Bibliography:
Scepichin,V., Scepichinová, G. J., & Kolarova, H., (1992). The Test of color semantic differential – TCSD, the adult version, I.volume, Ceske Budejovice: Vadim.
Komarek, S.(1996). One hundred essays on nature and society – Doudlebie and other phenomena. Prague: Vesmir.
Krninska, R. (2002). Human resources management in the dimension of the third millennium, monograph, Nitra: Slovenska polnohospodarska univerzita.
Kolarova, H. (1994). A treatise on how to choose the right adept for the position of a public transport conductor, Ceske Budejovice.
Research of 50 nurses 1992 – unpublished
Research of 25 healers 1990 – unpublished
Research on board habits of students – 300 persons – 2004 – unpublished
Research of 200 in the long temp unemlpoyed persons - 2007
Research of 100 persons that want to work in the social sector – 2007 - unpublished
Research of 20 children younger than 5 years – 1994 - unpublished
Personal notes and casuistry.