The Sovereignty of the Adolescents’ Psychological Space and its Relationship to the Level of Neuroticism and Adolescents’ Perceptions of Their Upbringing by Their Parents

The article presents a new subjective-environmental approach to consider personality as a phenomenon with psychological space. The key concepts in this apprach are personal “psychological space” and “psychological sovereignty” (S.K. Nartova-Bochaver). The condition and integrity of the psychological space and its borders define and reflect the individual's mental health, while its violation can be a manifestation and the cause at the same time of various forms of mental disorders. The study examined the relationship between the psychological space dimensions and adolescents’ level of neuroticism and various kinds of representations on his / her upbringing by the parents (these representations serve as foundation of attitudes to parents, to own self and others and forms the corresponding “object relations”). Representations in the girls (daughters) and boys (sons) of parental attitudes towards them were studied separately. The results indicate that increase in psychological indicators of sovereignty is associated with lower levels of neuroticism, which is true both for the total sovereignty index and for each of its dimensions. The hostile attitude of a parent (both father and mother) to a child (daughter or son) is a substantial factor of his / her psychological sovereignty deprivation. The mother’s attitude contributes significantly more to the sovereignty of psychological space formation in a child.