Butkevich M.A., Chugunov D.N. Features of the Adaptation of Patients with Neurotic Disorders

The article considers current approaches to the definition and classification of psychotherapeutic targets in the context of adaptation characteristics in patients with neurotic disorders. The possibility of psychotherapeutic interpretation of experimental psychological data is described, highlighting the critical indicators and links between them in the correlation of the results obtained with the two-axis classification of psychotherapeutic targets (Katkov A.L.), where the first axis relates to current, specific, and universal targets, and the second to macro-, meta-, and structural-technological features of psychotherapeutic communication, including self-regulation. Relevance is related to the possibility of optimization of psychotherapeutic assistance at the present stage, given the prevalence of neurotic disorders and the accumulated range of psychotherapeutic methods, by identifying systemic factors of degeneration that can be interpreted as psychotherapeutic targets (goals).

The study conducted aims to identify adaptation characteristics in patients with neurotic disorders that can be considered significant priority goals, guiding psychotherapeutic interventions that are relatively more effective and therefore “adaptive capacity” as part of an appropriate approach.

Methods and materials: clinical, clinical-psychological: integrative test of anxiety; questionnaire of depressive states-2; method “Type Attitude to the Disease”; method “Level of Social Frustration”; method “Index of Lifestyle”; coping-test of Lazarus; methods of statistical treatment. A total of 155 primary patients with neurotic disorders (F40–F48) were investigated.

Identified adaptation features include: average level of intensity, difficulties in single-digit assessments, expressed anxiety symptoms, predominance of escape-avoidance strategies, search for social support, regression mechanisms, and mixed type of relations.

Additionally, identified adaptation features include: average level of frustration, difficulties in single-digit assessments, expressed anxiety symptoms, predominance of escape-avoidance strategies, search for social support, regression mechanisms, and mixed sensory-neurotic type of relationship to the disease.

The ability for positive reassessment and reduction of regression can be seen as mechanisms of autogenesis and psychological adaptation.

Key words: psychotherapeutic psychodiagnostics, psychotherapeutic goals, neurotic disorders, adaptation

For citation: Butkevich, M.A., Chugunov, D.N. (2025). Features of the Adaptation of Patients with Neurotic Disorders. New Psychological Research, No. 3, 267–290. DOI: 10.51217/npsyresearch_2025_05_03_13