It affects family, friends, and coworkers. Anthropologist Dorinne Kondo found that in Japan, Persons seem to be constituted in and through social relations and obligations to others. Selves and society did not seem to be separate entities. Boundaries were blurred. I would contend that this is true in Russia as well.
Relationships define identity.
Western Christians must be aware of this. It has long been recognized that both victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse can lose their memory of the event. Not only do people forget painful memories, but they may subconsciously distort reality when the truth is too hard to bear. 3 Memories can be created during therapies, during hypnosis, and during ordinary conversations in ordinary relationships . When speaking about a past event, we may actually be re-creating that event in our memory.