Notes from a psychologist: what is the impact of an information attack

I wanted to get around this problem.

There are some problems that I deliberately put off for peacetime. In wartime (this metaphor does not belong to me), I work only with those that do not harm the arrival of peacetime. One of these extremely complex problems of Ukrainian life during the war is information attacks.

I won’t go into deep thought on this, and will try to say at least a few words about their impact on the psyche.

An information attack is:

1. Political violence. Information attacks on people’s minds have always been developed in security services, so academic and applied psychology knows little about them. At least about their methodology, axioms and patterns and, as a result, the practical implementation. Accordingly, everyone will say that they know at least something about it. I have concluded that information attacks and attacks on the psyche were actively implemented in the Soviet Union because it was in this terrible ideological viper that enslaved scientists developed the theory of consciousness, and especially the means of its destruction.
2. Destruction of the psyche. The information attack is carried out on the consciousness and destabilizes any human intentions to make conscious decisions and take conscious actions.
3. The real truth is embodied or is being prepared to be embodied. I believe the information attack is always based on real–life decisions, actions, and situations and is reinforced by the fact that it emotionally colours them even more. For example, either to the level of a catastrophe, to the level of sarcasm and rotten humour, or to the level of devaluing someone or something significant. Sometimes, an information attack is aimed at prejudice. It is probably aimed at eliminating someone or something.
4. Emotion paralyses and even destroys the mind because the purpose of an information attack is complete paralysis of thinking and strengthening of the maximum activity of affect.
5. Action on the principle of psychotropic substances. From the simplest (natural, alcohol, drugs) to the most complex (chemical means of destabilizing consciousness and forming a total split and destruction of the psyche).
6. The information attack algorithm is simple – a small description is launched and, to reinforce it, a photo or video of the desired situation. Why must the situation be desired? Because the real situation is described not by its truth, but by the way they want to present it. Therefore, at first, the emotional response increases as quickly as possible. Later on, when it reaches its peak, it is fixed as if stuck. And then, to relieve this tension and relax a little, a person can do anything and make any decision. Therefore, the straightforward goal and result of an information attack are to get a completely impaired person, unable to be aware and think, to implement non–standard solutions that no one would have ever made under other circumstances. Can you see how quickly the Muscovite rubbish is holding pseudo–referendums in the occupied territories? But don’t be fooled if you think that you are not being manipulated in the same way.

And finally, an information attack always leads to a disturbance in a person’s general perception of themselves and the world around them. Mentally, a person will be either euphoric or in agony. He will be controlled by a single desire – to escape the tension that is not his, alien, and that he does not need.

Today, information attacks are most often shared on social media. And the main thing we need to know is that the person who launches it has truthful information about what they are writing about. The question is: what does the information owner want? And why is he releasing the truth? Perhaps he is testing the reaction? On whom does he want to shift responsibility by focusing attention on something? Or, on the contrary, is he looking for “associates” to start actively implementing something terrible?

It is impossible to defend against an information attack. It will enter the mind and turn off the light there. It will light the flickering lights of the unconscious, plunge into a whirlpool of affect and raise the reaction, forcing you into terrible anger and anxiety. An information attack will completely close you off from the world, enslaving you in suffering, and will sign anything that gives you any hope that it will end. Some go there once and never return.

So it doesn’t matter what the purpose of this attack is. The only thing that matters is that the one who launches it should be equated with the one who shot or killed.

So, let’s be careful. The core moment in reading this terrible weapon is not to forget which side of the firing line you are on and always express your position because the informational attack stops when a critical mass of conscious and thinking people stops the mass of intelligent fools, enslaved by their own affect and impotent in overcoming it, or rather, its statements.