Kassandra Complex

According to Greek mythology , Cassandra was the daughter of Priam , king of Troy . Struck by her beauty, Apollo awarded her the gift of prophecy, but when Cassandra rejected him, Apollo cast a curse on her that no one believed in her divination. All that remained of Cassandra was knowledge of the future, she could not change the course of events or convince others that she was telling the truth. So, Cassandra predicted the fall of Troy, but no one believed her. The girl also insisted that you should not introduce a wooden horse into the city, sent as a gift to the Trojans. She claimed that armed Greeks were hiding in him, but her words were again left unattended ^[2] .

The term has been known since 1949 , when the French philosopher Gaston Bashlyar introduced it to indicate the idea that the future could be known in advance in the book “Applied Rationalism” ^[3] .

In Psychology

In psychology, it is used by some experts in relation to people experiencing physical and emotional suffering as a result of impaired interpersonal perception and who are not trusted when they try to share the reason for their suffering with others.

The influential British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein in 1963 proposed the image of Cassandra as a representation of the moral consciousness of a person, intended as a warning. The moral consciousness in her image “predicts the onset of the disease and warns that punishment will follow and anger will rise.” Cassandra’s need to point out moral violations and their social consequences is motivated by what M. Klein calls the “destructive influence of the cruel Super-Ego ”, which is represented in the Greek myth by the god Apollo, the lord and torturer of Cassandra. Using this metaphor, M. Klein emphasizes the moral nature of some predictions, which seeks to arouse in others "a rejection of the belief that they think is true and expresses a universal tendency to deny, where denial is a powerful defense against punishing anxiety and guilt" ^[4] .

In 1988, Laurie Layton Schapira, a specialist in analytical psychology, studied the Cassandra complex using two analyzers as an example. Based on clinical experience, she described 3 components of the complex:

1. Violation of the relationship with the archetype of Apollo;
2. Emotional and physical suffering, including hysteria ;
3. Disbelief in analyzers when trying to express these feelings to others ^{[5] [6]} .

In 1989 English. Jean Shinoda Bolen , a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California , published an essay on the god Apollo ^[7] , in which she described in detail the psychological type of “Cassandra the woman”, unsuccessful in her relationship with “Apollo the man”. According to J. Sh. Bohlen, a Cassandra woman may display “hysterical” subtext and may not be trusted when she tries to share what she knows ^[7] . According to J. S. Bohlen, the archetypes of Kassandra and Apollo do not have a gender specificity. She suggests that a woman (or a man) suffering from the Cassandra complex may become more hysterical and irrational as a result of a dysfunctional relationship with the Apollo archetype and may not be trusted in describing these relationships.

In politics

The term "Cassandra effect" has become widespread and is quite common in the field of political decision-making. ^[8] The problem is that it is more difficult to use intelligence information in a timely and adequate manner than to obtain it. Making the right decision based on the data obtained is not always easy, since all information is social in nature and embodies the mood of society , namely, its various classes and circles. In addition to the prevailing moods in society, a subjective view of the situation and the interests pursued by statesmen can serve as an obstacle to the correct interpretation of information. In this regard, cases of making decisions in world politics that contradict the final intelligence data are quite common ^[9] . The next reason for ignoring the information provided is the psychological factor of antipathy to information that is negative in nature. Often, government officials react very painfully to information of this kind, as a result of which informants themselves suffer. For example, L. I. Brezhnev and, according to the testimony of G. von Faber-du-For , Germany’s attaché in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , A. Hitler were distinguished by this feature. Another reason for the rejection of information is the preference for data received from the close environment. Authorities believe that such information is much more reliable than that provided by the official intelligence service. So, Jimmy Carter preferred to trust the information provided by SAWAK (Iranian intelligence) than the CIA ; B. N. Yeltsin preferred the information received from his "close" persons, however, soon, by his own admission, he realized the extent of their inaccuracy ^[10] .

Japanese military plans for the United States were also known to President Franklin Roosevelt and the American leadership, but they categorically refused to believe in their authenticity, based on the fact that Japan was more likely to attack the USSR, and the data obtained was misinformation from the Japanese authorities in order to divert the attention of the Soviet leadership .

In business

In entrepreneurship, the Kassandra complex is also quite common ^[11] . For example, Polaroid ignored the 1997 report on the rapid adoption of digital technology by young people; instead, the competitive intelligence units were almost dissolved. By 2000, the company's products no longer compete with digital photography, and in October 2001, the company began its first bankruptcy procedure.

Other examples.

As an example of the Cassandra complex in medicine, one can cite the attitude of relatives of patients with Asperger syndrome who are not believed that their family member has this disorder, despite the fact that they ask for help ^[12] .

Martha Mitchell Effect - a phenomenon in which specialists of the psychiatric service do not believe their patients, taking their stories about the persecution, abduction and others as delusional and a symptom of a mental disorder . The term is named after the wife of the US Attorney General J. Mitchell, who learned about the illegal activities of the close associates of the US President, which later led to the Watergate scandal , but her information was mistaken for mental illness.

A.N. Sagaidak. The archetype of Cassandra as the basis of the victim complex in female psychology (Russian) . Date of treatment January 3, 2014.