From the author: Is it difficult for you to work “at speed”? Do you feel like your memory is failing you? Do you easily get lost even if you know exactly the correct answer to the question posed? Then this article is for you. I’ll start from afar. I once studied at the conservatory in two departments at once and did it like a loser. Chronic lack of sleep, a potato-colored complexion during sessions and straight A's in my diploma. Despite my academic success, I noted two points with discouragement. Firstly, comparing my level of knowledge with the knowledge of professors who spoke several languages ​​and remembered, it seemed, everything in the world, I understood that my life would not be enough to get closer to their level. Secondly, not all students were so worried about studying, but they grasped the material more easily and handled it much more confidently than I did. In general, it was possible to state that I had not lost my mind and calm down on this. But here inconsistencies arose. For example, I have an excellent memory, and it seemed that I could use it exclusively. But no. What I read disappeared like water into sand, and was remembered with difficulty - slowly, very slowly. In addition, successful study at a difficult university also somewhat contradicted the hypothesis of innate stupidity. Many years later, on the eve of entering MSUPE, I studied Horney and learned something. This was the first information that shed light on the peculiarities of how my brain works. I won’t quote it exactly (ha ha, I don’t care), but the point is this: neurotics who choose the “towards people” strategy are not able to properly master information. Master, master – that’s exactly it. Much more meaningful than “remember.” Let me explain about Horney. By this variant of neurosis, the author meant various typically female reactions and conditions associated with a high level of neuroticism, psychasthenia, depressive personality and codependent behavior patterns. To say the same thing quite simply, then our personality type and current internal alignment directly affects our cognitive processes - sometimes not for the better. Then I got my third higher education, which I coped with much more cheerfully than the first two. But, even having strengthened internally, I continued - and continue to this day - to encounter the same “I don’t remember”, “I don’t know”, “what is this even about”. If, for example, you suddenly ask me what Verdi’s name was, I will first glaze over and say “hm.” And only then – “Giuseppe”. I seem to remember Freud’s name. And then I met many wonderful women with similar problems; I had the opportunity to talk to them and listen to them, and thus there was more material for thought. I looked at them from the outside and saw that they were smart, had an original vision of the world, high emotional intelligence and probably a fairly high IQ. But they all complained about “something wrong with their head” - forgetfulness, the inability to retain information, quickly retrieve and use it. It became obvious: this problem is not my personal one, it affects many in a similar way. That is, we can carefully hypothesize that a certain personality type and the accompanying disorders lead to the following features of the work of our bright minds: - apparent forgetfulness, “can’t keep anything in the head”; - difficulties at the moment of switching from one task to another; - “ladder thinking”: the right decision comes late; - serious difficulties in a situation when something needs to be done quickly (I mean intellectual operations); - a lot of self-distrust, the habit of easily getting confused, embarrassed, silent, even when you know the right one answer; It will not be possible to reduce the above features to a weak and slow, according to Pavlov, nervous system, even if you try. Firstly, we are not talking about rapid exhaustion here - the ability to work long and productively is usually there. Secondly, quasi-problems with normal memory are clearly not from Pavlov’s opera. Thirdly, there are many purely psychological nuances - ingrained beliefs “there is something wrong with me”, colossal.