PA View on the Passion to Extreme Strain in Sports Amongst Leaders

FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION OF HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION "NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY "HIGH SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS" Faculty of Social Sciences ANNOTATION final qualifying work - master's thesis on a theme: Psychoanalytical view on the Passion to Extreme Strain in Sports Amongst successful leaders. The fascination with physical overloads is an interesting topic of psychoanalytic research, as sports and competitive games of various nature have existed in human life throughout history. In the modern world, sports and any form of competition are no longer something necessary for survival, as, for example, in ancient times, but continue to play an important role in human life and this applies not only and not so much to health benefits. The spirit of competition gives brightness of feelings in life, increase of motivation, energy, which in turn affect the life of an individual in general and in particular in professional activity. Finally, the choice of such physical activities as marathon, triathlon, at a certain stage of life or career path, refers to the unconscious reaction of the individual to undesirable impulses or unpleasant affects, which triggers the crisis state. Defense is one of the functions of the Ego in the psychoanalytic model, so it can also be applied to the topic of an individual's withdrawal into physical overload as an attempt to relieve tension and protection from stress. The relevance of the chosen topic is due to the following circumstances: 1. In the social space, sport in its various directions is no longer the prerogative of professional athletes, it is practiced by individuals of different professional and social status. 2. In some teams, the use of sports communities has become an element of corporate culture, a mechanism for building group and individual relationships, as well as a way to cope with stress. 3. The existence of such a form of overcoming crisis in personal and professional sphere contributes to the reduction of stress level both in a single individual and in the collective as a whole, where this type of activity is present, to the reduction of neurotic states, as well as to the increase in the efficiency of decision-making and positively affects professional success and achievements. The aim is a psychoanalytic study of the relationship between participation in sports marathons during crises in the leaders of companies. Object - men and women aged 35 years and above, representatives of top management, residents of large cities. Subject - reasons for choosing and the role of sports, namely cyclic sports, as a means of overcoming the midlife crisis and the period of reaching the glass ceiling. Master's thesis consists of an introduction, two chapters, conclusion, bibliography list. The first chapter explores the theoretical aspects of the psychoanalytic understanding of midlife crisis, the glass ceiling phenomenon and the nature of sport activity preoccupation. The main conclusion of the chapter is that the tools of psychoanalysis can be applied in analyzing such social phenomena as midlife crisis, individuals' achievement of the glass ceiling, and their use of heavy physical activity as a means of coping with stress. The second chapter is devoted to the study of psychodynamic aspects of the use of physical overload as a means of coping with crises. The study of this topic allowed to form conclusions not only about the specific psychological characteristics of individuals who choose this way of overcoming crises in the professional and personal sphere, but also to better understand the mechanism of the impact of the crisis on intrapsychic processes and what ways of personal reaction it causes, as well as to assess the effectiveness of the method chosen by respondents to combat changes in life. The total volume of the master's thesis is 83 pages. The work contains 2 spreadsheets, 3 drawings and 2 appendices. The list of used literature is 54 sources.