Edition: Psychological Counseling: Textbook
Chapter 1.
The main theoretical problems of practical psychology
§ 1. The problem of the relationship between science and practice in psychology
It is no secret that the problem of relations between science and practice did not arise yesterday and exists not only in psychology. In the context of the objectives of this manual, this problem manifests itself in the relationship between the theoretical and practical aspects of psychological counseling practice. An analysis of various foreign and domestic sources shows that a rather peculiar situation has developed in relation to consulting.Most foreign countries counseling is a profession, a separate occupation, the essence of which is helping people to make choices and actions in accordance with it, mastering ways of behavior that will lead to solving the client's problems.
Therefore, the actual subject of discussion in the aspect highlighted above is, as a rule, the theoretical foundations of a special profession and its varieties.
At the current stage of development of domestic psychological practice, counseling is not a profession, but only part of the functional duties, one of the types of work in the professional activity of a psychologist. Therefore, when discussing counseling here, it is impossible to ignore the questions of the methodological foundations of modern psychology. For these reasons, the method of direct comparison of foreign and domestic experience is incorrect here. At the same time, when discussing a number of issues, the use of materials from foreign sources is quite legitimate, since they discuss issues similar to those that refer to the general understanding of the essence of consulting.
In recent decades, such changes have taken place in Russian psychology, which are associated with the intensive development of practice. Back at the end of the twentieth century, when psychological practice was rapidly gaining its place on the pedestal of psychology, many domestic experts tried to show how they understand the main trends in the development of psychology, its relationship with psychological practice, to determine the ways that, in their opinion, can provide it productive movement forward (Zabrodin Yu.M., 1980, 1984; Psychological service at school ( round table), 1979, 1982).
It is not surprising that the practical psychology of Russia began to actively develop in education, since it is here that there are optimal opportunities for preventing and protecting a developing personality from possible psychological problems, providing timely psychological assistance in solving arising internal difficulties, psychological support in the most important periods for the formation of a personality. her life. In these works, attention was drawn to the need to create a special psychological service in the education system, which was considered as:
- one of the directions of educational and developmental psychology, that is, its theoretical and applied direction;
- psychological support of the entire process of training and education;
- direct work of psychologists at school or other child care institution (Dubrovina I.V., 1991, 1995).
Scientific aspect involves the conduct of scientific research on the problems of methodology and theory of practical psychology ... The difference between such research and academic research lies in the fact that they not only reveal certain psychological mechanisms or patterns, but also determine the psychological conditions for the formation of these mechanisms and patterns in the context of the holistic formation of the personality of a particular child. A researcher performing such research focuses on a practical psychologist as his main customer.
Applied aspect involves the use of psychological knowledge by public education workers. The main actors in this area are educators, teachers, methodologists, didactics who, either independently or in collaboration with psychologists, use and assimilate the latest psychological data in the preparation of curricula and plans, the creation of textbooks, the development of didactic and methodological materials, the construction of training and education programs. ...
Practical aspect services are provided directly by practical psychologists of kindergartens, schools and other educational institutions, whose task is to work with children, groups and classes, educators, teachers, parents to solve certain specific problems ...
Organizational aspect includes the creation of an effective structure of the psychological education service (Dubrovina I.V., 1991, 1995, 2004).
Experience in this area led to the conclusion that the entire content of the work of a practical psychologist in the educational space is an important part of developmental psychology, and the goal of the psychologist-practitioner is the psychological health of the individual (Practical Psychology of Education, 2004, pp. 32–33) ...
In other works of this period, attention was also paid to the problems of the relationship between psychological science and practice.
1. In particular, A. G. Asmolov drew attention to the peculiar position of modern psychology, metaphorically describing it with the formula of old Russian fairy tales: "Go there, I don't know where, find that, I don't know what." In his opinion, the leading science of man in the XXI century has a chance to become practical non-classical psychology growing out of the works of the school of L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontiev and A. R. Luria. As an example, he shows how practical psychology becomes a factor in the design of variable developmental education (Asmolov A.G., 1995, p. 7).
2. Around the same time F. E. Vasilyuk in a number of publications, he notes significant changes in Russian psychology and shows his understanding of the problem of the relationship between science and practice. In particular, he defines psychological practice as the source and crown of psychology, with which any psychological research should begin and end (at least according to the trend, if not in fact). In his opinion, until about the 80s of the twentieth century “... psychology and practice were separated by a border, although it was crossed, but in one direction - from psychology to practice. The relationship between them was determined by the principle of implementation. For psychology, these have always been "foreign policy" relations, for, even by being involved in inner life of this or that practice, having entered its very depths, psychology did not become an ingredient akin to it, that is, it did not become practice, but nevertheless remained a science. This is how an embassy exists in a foreign state, which always retains the status of a part of “its” territory. "
In this work, the author shows the difference between psychological practice and practical psychology, which he sees in the fact that “... the first is“ one's own ”practice for psychology, and the second is“ alien ”. The goals of a psychologist working in a “foreign” social sphere are dictated by the values and tasks of this sphere; the direct practical impact on the object (be it a person, family, collective) is exerted not by a psychologist, but by a doctor, teacher or other specialist; and the responsibility for the results is naturally borne by this other. The psychologist turns out to be alienated from real practice, and this leads to his alienation from his own psychological thinking ”(Vasilyuk F. Ye., 1992, pp. 16-17).
The fact of the transition, to use its own metaphor, to the "two-sided" border, that is, to a fundamentally different relationship between science and practice, became a reality with the emergence of various psychological services... This meant the actual emergence of psychological practice as such, in which the social position of the psychologist fundamentally changed. Here he himself forms the goals and values of his professional activity, carries out the necessary actions, bears responsibility for the results of his work. Naturally, in this position, his attitude towards people, towards himself, towards other specialists also changes sharply. But the main thing, according to the author, is to change the style itself and the type of his professional vision of reality.
In another work of the same period, the same author, actively using metaphors, describes the state of psychology as follows:
“The recent desert between academic fortresses and departmental bastions has become a turbulent sea of psychological practice. There are already deep, pure currents in it, although, of course, the turbid waters of self-confident dilettantism still prevail ... the gap between psychological practice and science began to grow and reached alarming proportions. The most disturbing thing is that this splitting, passing through the body of psychology, does not bother anyone in particular - neither practitioners, nor researchers. Psychological practice and psychological science live a parallel life as two subpersonalities of a dissociated personality: they have no mutual interest, different authorities (I am sure that more than half of the practicing psychologists would find it difficult to name the names of directors of academic institutes, and the directors, in turn, are hardly informed about the “stars ”Psychological practice), different systems education and economic existence in society, non-overlapping circles of communication with Western colleagues ”(Vasilyuk F. Ye., 1996, pp. 25–26).
The way out of this situation, according to the author, can be found in changing the theory on which modern psychological practice can be based. He sees such a basis in psychotechnical theory. Noting the fundamental difference between the traditional and the new approach, the author writes that a methodological revolution is taking place in psychotechnical cognition, which is paradoxical for classical science: the method here unites the participants in the interaction (the subject and the object of cognition - in inadequate old terminology) (Vasilyuk F.E., 1992, p. 20-21; 1996, pp. 32-33).
So, we see that already in the 90s of the twentieth century, a situation developed in Russian psychology in which there are at least two lines, two spaces of professional development of a specialist psychologist:
- practical psychology as an applied branch, that is, such a professional activity that is associated with the application of psychological knowledge to various spheres of human life, activities where they are in demand;
- psychological practice as direct assistance to a person in solving those internal problems that arise from the context of his personal life, and not from the tasks of any social sphere.
In particular, M.R. Bityanova, analyzing the difficulties of interaction between a psychologist and other specialists who have come to school in recent decades, believes that by introducing development-oriented specialists into the school, we initially put them in an objective contradiction with the goals and objectives of the system and with those who owe their duty to implement these goals and objectives (Bityanova M.R., 2004).
Considering this problem in a broader context, it can be noted that in many respects this state of affairs is due to objective reasons, among which it should be emphasized:
- the discrepancy between the principles of philosophy and psychology of humanism, the spirit of the "Law on Education", declarations on the transition from the "school-centric" to "child-centric" approach in education and the practice of their implementation in education;
- the ambiguity of the goals and subject of the Service of Practical Psychology in the MORF system, the specifics of the content of the work of a teacher-psychologist and his competencies;
- lack of coordination of organizational and substantive aspects of interprofessional activities of specialists from educational institutions;
- the discrepancy between the competencies developing in the process of vocational training and the real requirements of practice for specialists of educational institutions;
- the absence or uncertainty of criteria corresponding to the proclaimed humanistic ideals when assessing the activities of specialists.
In the second space of professional development of a specialist-psychologist, he himself forms the goals and values of his professional activity, implements them in professional actions and is responsible for the results of his work. This changes both his attitude towards the people he serves, and his attitude towards himself and the specialists of a different profile participating in the work, and, most importantly, the style itself and the type of his professional vision of reality (Vasilyuk F.E., 1992).
Let us dwell in particular on the problem of the cultural responsibility of a specialist. In the above-mentioned article by F. Ye. Vasilyuk, attention is drawn to the fact that the more psychology develops as a special social practice, the more the culture becomes psychologized. The author notes that at the same time there is a counter process of "culturalization" of psychology. The degree of responsibility of a specialist in psychological practice - it depends on him what a person will look for with his help in his soul (Vasilyuk F.E., 1992).
IV Dubrovina sees this problem in a different context. In particular, she draws attention to the fact that the psychological knowledge that many now have is not yet psychological culture. Psychological culture, in her opinion, is psychological knowledge, impregnated by universal humanistic values. Unfortunately, she says, now in our society in to a greater extent psychological knowledge is in demand than culture. This creates a fertile ground for all kinds of manipulation of people. Methods of managing human behavior and thinking based on knowledge of human psychology are gaining in popularity ("Is everything calm in the Danish kingdom?", 2004).
Summarizing all of the above in the context of the question on purpose and subject professional activity of a psychologist, the following can be formulated:
- the goal and subject of the activity of each psychologist are set by the requirements of the profession and the nature of the chosen direction of work;
- in practical psychology as an applied field of general psychological knowledge, the goal and subject of the psychologist's activity are correlated with the requirements of the social sphere that he serves, whose request he fulfills;
- in psychological practice, the goal and subject of the psychologist's activity are set by the requirements of the profession and professional ethics and are correlated with the characteristics of personal life and the nature of the internal problem of a person who turned to a specialist for help.
§ 2. The main types of work of a psychologist and counseling
Most Russian textbooks and teaching aids describing the professional activity of a psychologist, including main types of work are called:- diagnostics;
- counseling;
- correction;
- education;
- prevention.
Specialty 020400 "Psychology". Qualification - “Psychologist. Psychology teacher ":
- diagnostic and corrective;
- expert and advisory;
- educational and educational;
- research;
- cultural and educational.
- correctional and developmental;
- teaching;
- scientific and methodological;
- socio-pedagogical;
- educational;
- cultural and educational;
- managerial.
In particular, in section IV "Main directions of activity of the Service" of this provision it is written that "... advisory activity is to provide assistance to students, pupils, their parents (legal representatives), pedagogical workers and other participants in the educational process in matters of development, upbringing and training through psychological counseling ”.
Without dwelling on the discrepancy that is revealed when comparing the above materials from the normative documents and from the texts of textbooks and teaching aids, let us pay attention to the fact that during training in the specialty 031000 "Pedagogy and Psychology". Qualification - "Educator-psychologist" counseling does not belong to the main professional activities. At the same time, the subject "Psychological counseling" is included in the state educational standard of professional higher education in this specialty as one of the disciplines of the subject training cycle.
Not surprisingly, the same inconsistency is found when trying to determine place, role and main content of the activity for every type of work.
Due to the fact that the focus of our attention is counseling, let us consider how this manifests itself in determining the place, role and main content of this type of professional activity of a psychologist. In the standard of higher professional education in the specialty 020400 "Psychology". Qualification - “Psychologist. Teacher of Psychology ”we will not find such a subject as counseling: it is not included either in the list of general professional disciplines or in the list of subject training disciplines.
It is unbelievable, but it is a fact that in one specialty there is a subject, but there is no type of activity, and in the other - on the contrary. At the same time in the text job responsibilities or job descriptions of a psychologist, wherever he works, we will always find such a kind of professional activity as "organizing and conducting consulting work." Naturally, that is why, in most cases, such an academic discipline is still included in educational plans faculties training psychologists.
We have already noted above that the professional activity of a psychologist can be realized in two directions:
- in practical psychology as an applied branch, that is, in the direction of the application of psychological knowledge to various spheres of human life, activities where they are in demand;
- in psychological practice as direct assistance to a person in solving those internal problems that arise from the context of his personal life, and not from the tasks of any social sphere.
- in the first case, the place and role of counseling are determined, first of all, by the specific requirements of the social sphere in which it is implemented;
- in the second case, the place and role of counseling is determined by a specialist.
In the preparation of textbooks for students of psychology departments, counseling, as a rule, is given a significant place. But defining the place and role of counseling in the future practical work largely depends on the methodological position of the authors of these manuals.
The place and role of counseling in the framework of psychological practice is determined by the professional worldview of the performer and the document that creates the regulatory and legal space for this work (for example, the charter of the institution in which the specialist works). It should be noted here that a psychologist-practitioner bears professional responsibility for the quality and result of his activities not only to his conscience, but also to the professional community to which he belongs. This aspect of psychological practice is usually reflected in professional codes of ethics.
Concluding the discussion of the highlighted issue, let us highlight the idea of the place and role of counseling, which is formulated in the context of our vision of solving the problems of practical psychology in education (Pakhalyan V.E., 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006). Note that the consideration of psychoprophylaxis as a system-forming element of the activity of a practical educational psychologist does not exclude or diminish the importance of other types of work. In the context of such work, they act as structural elements and means of psychoprophylaxis, which changes their focus. In particular, counseling with this understanding, it is aimed at joint interaction with professional educators, parents or children, which makes it possible to clarify certain features of the behavior of a child or a group of children, which, in turn, creates opportunities for timely prevention or overcoming unfavorable trends in the state and dynamics of their psychological health, ensuring psychological well-being in the development of personality.
§ 3. Counseling in modern psychological practice
In the introduction, we emphasized that psychological counseling is one of the most demanded types of work for a practical psychologist and is actively used in all "psychological schools". Considering the history of the emergence of counseling, experts associate its emergence with industrial revolution XIX century and the intensive development of vocational guidance, and, accordingly, vocational counseling. Here, the consultant was viewed as a specialist who helped the client develop the necessary problem-solving skills and correctly understand himself, using psychological methods for this, primarily psychological testing and sound scientific information. In fact, counseling was seen as a "directive orientation", equipping the client with the necessary skills and knowledge. By the middle of the twentieth century, counseling was more often viewed in the context of psychotherapeutic practice.The term "consultation" itself, regardless of the field of activity, is usually used in such meanings as:
- specialist recommendation during a direct meeting with a client;
- help of the teacher to the student before the exam or in the process of mastering the subject;
- an institution in which assistance is provided by specialists in any field of activity (legal consultation, women's consultation, etc.).
Comparing different points of view on the essence of what is designated by the term "psychological counseling", you can find both what brings these views together, and what significantly distinguishes them. Each of the known definitions emphasizes one or another aspect of this type of work, most often it is the following:
- positions and degree of activity of the parties;
- focus, the actual subject and the specifics of working methods.
- counseling as an impact;
- counseling as interaction.
- “The essence of psychological counseling is psychological assistance to psychologically healthy people in coping with various kinds of intra- and interpersonal difficulties in the process of specially organized interaction (conversation)” (Kolpachnikov V.V., 1998, p. 35).
- “... Psychological counseling includes three important aspects:
- the activity of the consultant to resolve his own difficulty through internal psychological change (growth);
- the activities of the consultant to identify and assist in resolving vital tasks (difficulties) that are significant for the person being consulted;
- psychological neoplasms in mental life, changes in attitudes, ways, self-esteem, self-perceptions, the emergence of new experiences, plans, the discovery of new opportunities ”(Psychological counseling of disabled teenagers, 1996, p. 48).
- Ivy A.E., Ivy M.B., Syman-Downing L. write the following: “Counseling occupies a vast territory between interviewing and psychotherapy. At the same time, it is difficult to indicate a clear line between them. The counselor often acts as a therapist, and also conducts interviews, usually working with the norm, he often has to deal with pathology.
Regardless of how you view this diagram, the intersections are very significant. At times, the therapist conducts interviews and, similarly, some interviewers do some psychotherapy.
The therapist and client meet for an interview, counseling session, or psychotherapy, usually voluntarily. But in some cases (closed schools, prisons, clinics) people are specifically referred to a psychologist even without their consent. It is, of course, very difficult to establish mutually acceptable relations in these cases ”(Ivy A. Ye. Et al., 2000, pp. 29–30).
- Yu. E. Aleshina, considering psychological counseling in the context of methods psychological impact, notes the difficulty of accurately identifying it. In her opinion, the specificity of counseling appears in comparison with psychological correction and psychotherapy. She defines psychological counseling as “... direct work with people aimed at solving various kinds of psychological problems associated with difficulties in interpersonal relationships where the main means of influence is a conversation constructed in a certain way ”(Aleshina Yu. E., 1994, p. 5).
- The authors of the "Psychotherapeutic Encyclopedia", published under the editorship of B. D. Karvasarsky, in the article "Psychological counseling" (the subtitle of which is "Professional assistance in finding a solution to a problem situation") note: "Professional counseling can be carried out by psychologists, social workers, teachers or doctors who have undergone special training. Patients can be healthy or sick people presenting problems of existential crisis, interpersonal conflicts, family difficulties or professional choices. In any case, the patient is perceived by the consultant as a capable subject, responsible for solving his problem. This is the main difference between psychological counseling and psychotherapy. Psychological counseling differs from the so-called friendly conversation by the neutral position of the consultant ... ”(Psychotherapeutic Encyclopedia, 1998, pp. 413–414).
- In the textbook "General psychotherapy" by VT Kondrashenko, DI Donskoy, SA Igumnov, psychological counseling is not singled out as a special type of practice, but is considered as a kind of psychotherapy. In particular, psychological counseling in this manual is only discussed when considering the basics of family psychotherapy, where, in the context of analyzing the features of family psychological counseling, it is noted: interaction in the family, in the search for the personal resource of the subjects of consultation and discussion of ways to resolve the situation ... "(Kondrashenko VT, Donskoy DI, Igumnov SA, 1999, p. 457).
- V. Yu. Menovshchikov draws attention: "... counseling from psychotherapy is distinguished by the rejection of the concept of the disease" and to determine the similarities and differences (according to the parameters "subject", "object", "goal") gives a comparative table of the concepts of "psychotherapy", "psychocorrection", "non-medical psychotherapy "," Psychological counseling "(Menovshchikov V. Yu., 1998, pp. 5–7). t
- P. P. Gornostay, S. V. Vaskovskaya, who write: “Counseling is one of the forms of providing a person with professional psychological assistance. ... By the nature of the provision of assistance, counseling is most closely related to psychotherapy. Some of the specialists do not draw clear boundaries between them at all, considering counseling to be a shortened or simplified version of psychotherapy. However, we are of the opinion that counseling has the right to an independent existence as a separate branch of practical psychology, because with its content and technological proximity to other types, it also has its own specificity ... ”(P. Gornostay, S. V. Vaskovskaya, 1995, p. . 9-11).
- M. A. Gulina defines counseling as: “... a learning-oriented process that takes place between two people, when a counselor who is professionally competent in the field of relevant psychological knowledge and skills seeks to contribute to the client using methods appropriate to his (client's) actual needs and within the context of his (client's) general personal programs to learn more about themselves, to learn to connect this knowledge with more clearly perceived and more realistically defined goals so that the client can become a happier and more productive member of his society ”(Gulina M. A., 2000, p. 37).
In the context of the purposes of this manual, the most important is not the general idea of counseling itself, but its vision in the context of the humanistic paradigm. Features of understanding psychological counseling from the standpoint of a person-centered approach are most fully and accurately presented in works translated into Russian K. Rogers“A look at psychotherapy. Becoming a Human ”and“ Counseling and Psychotherapy. The latest approaches in the field of practical work. "
In the latter, he writes: “A great many professionals devote most of their time to conversations with clients, the purpose of which is to induce constructive changes in their mental attitudes ... Such conversations can be called differently. They can be called a simple and succinct term "therapeutic conversations", quite often they are denoted by the term "counseling", ... or such conversations, given their healing effect, can be qualified as psychotherapy ... In our book, these terms will be used more or less interchangeably ... because they all, apparently, refer to the same method, namely a series of direct contacts with an individual, aimed at helping him change his mental attitudes and behavior ”(Rogers K., 2000, p. 9).
Justifying the purpose of his book, K. Rogers emphasizes that, despite its widespread use, counseling as a process has not yet been sufficiently studied. That is why, as a scientist, he does not just assert what he sees in his own experience, but only puts forward the hypothesis that effective counseling is a structured, prescription-free interaction that allows the client to achieve self-awareness so that this gives him the opportunity to take positive steps in the light of his new orientation.
Here he emphasizes that this assumption has a natural consequence: all the methods used should be aimed at creating this prescription-free interaction, which is aimed at self-awareness both in the counseling situation and in other relationships and at developing the client's tendencies towards positive actions on the basis of their own initiative (Rogers K., 2000, p. 25).
You can get acquainted in detail with the logic of reasoning and specific arguments and facts given by different authors by reading their works. It is important to emphasize the following: “The heart of counseling is the“ consultative interaction ”between the client and the counselor, based on the“ client-centered ”therapy” (Kociunas R., 1999, p. 8).
In this regard, let us pay attention to the specifics of the humanistic direction in psychology, to the originality of the person-centered approach, within the framework of which it was formed and is actively being introduced into domestic practice. person-centered counseling... One of the founders of the "psychology of the third force" - the humanistic direction in psychology, A. Maslow, emphasizes that this is a science that has absorbed the achievements of two other psychologies (psychoanalysis and behaviorism) (Maslow A., 1997, p. 18).
Defining the main difference of the new approach, he writes: “This position presupposes our belief that the free will of a person is much more important than its predictability, that we believe in inner strength complex organism, which is a person, we believe that each person seeks to fully actualize their capabilities ... ”(Maslow A., 1997, p. 29).
Very clearly, in a concise and well-structured form, the essence of this approach is presented in one of the textbooks (Ivy A.E. et al., 2000, p. 468; see the illustration on p. 27).
Domestic specialists, researchers of the humanistic direction and practice, directly implementing it in their activities (Antsyferova L.I., Bratchenko S.L., Bratus B.S., Gavrilova T.P., Kopyev A., Kuznetsova I.V., Orlov A.B., Florenskaya T.A. and others), emphasize the various aspects of this approach.
In particular, B. S. Bratus This is how he expounds his understanding of the essence of this approach: “The humanistic paradigm considers a person as a being of self-worth and self-justified. The source of development is located in the subject himself, the initial analogy is the analogy of an acorn, a grain. The grain will grow where and how it needs to be in the presence of appropriate soil, moisture, air. A person will grow in the best direction for him in the presence of attention, acceptance, empathy, etc. " (Bratus B.S., 1990, p. 13).
At the same time, another well-known Russian psychologist A.B. form "... In the experimental and practical terms, the struggle of these traditions was expressed in the mutual use of research schemes, technologies, methods and specific facts developed by them, in the inclusion of all this arsenal in each time a special, specific scientific context ..." (Orlov A. B., 1995 , p. 14).
Analyzing the problems of reforming education, he emphasizes: “... a totalitarian and technological socio-oriented approach to the child ( with the values of society - to the child) must finally be replaced by a new, understanding and accepting (psychological) thinking, humanistic, person-centered approach to the child ( with a child - to the values of society) "(Orlov A.B., 1995, p. 113).
Philosophy and psychology of humanism realize themselves in specific approaches, in the work of a practicing psychologist, a consultant. This is most noticeable in the descriptions of the specifics of practical work in the works of K. Rogers (Rogers K., 2001, p. 50).
Summarizing all of the above, we can say that in the arsenal of a modern practical psychologist there are several models of counseling, built on different methodological foundations and having their own unique technology. Comparison of the goals, objectives and methods of modern trends in counseling and our own counseling experience allow us to believe that personality-oriented psychological counseling most fully meets the requirements of today and the essence human-centered(or, if we take the conditions of education, detocentric) paradigms.
The designation of this type of work as "personality-oriented" is associated, first of all, with the fact that this name most accurately expresses the specificity of its application, fixes the main subject of professional attention - personality. Based on the domestic tradition of using this concept, the term “personality-oriented psychological counseling” identifies both a certain level of mental organization, “mental apparatus” and, accordingly, the specific capabilities of a person (“psychological resources”) who turned to a psychologist for help (Bratus B . S., 1988, p. 71).
When defining the name of this type of work as “personality-oriented psychological counseling”, we used those ideas about a person as a person, which correspond to the basic provisions of the humanitarian paradigm. Specifically the following:
“The formation and self-construction of a person in oneself, the very ability and possibility of such self-construction implies the presence of some kind of psychological instrument, an organ that constantly coordinates and directs this unprecedented process that has no analogues in living nature. This organ is the person's personality. Thus, the personality as a specific construction that is not reducible to other dimensions is not self-sufficient, in itself carrying a finite meaning. This meaning is acquired depending on the emerging relations, connections with the essential characteristics of human existence. In other words, the essence of personality and the essence of a person differ from each other in that the first is a method, tool, means of organizing the achievement of the second, which means that the first receives meaning and justification in the second ”(Bratus B. C. 1997, p. 3).
The theoretical foundations presented above are reflected in principles of work that guide the practice in organizing and conducting advisory activities. In modern science, the term "principle" is used, as a rule, in the meanings of "starting position", "guidance to action", "a briefly formulated theory that determines the nature of the activity", etc. For professional activity, it is important to know how general and specific principles counseling. In this case, we are talking about the professional requirements that must be observed when performing this work.
TO general principles, actually general professional requirements, most often include:
- humanity;
- subjectivity;
- realism;
- psychological safety;
- anonymity;
- activity;
- differentiation of personal and professional relationships.
In particular, K. Rogers gives an example of a non-directive counseling program in an American firm that has the following rules to guide the consultant:
“The counselor should listen to the speaker patiently and kindly, while treating him with a little critical attitude.
The consultant should not demonstrate any authority whatsoever.
The counselor should not give advice or make moral comments.
The counselor should not argue with the speaker.
The consultant should speak or ask questions only under certain circumstances:
- to help a person speak up;
- to relieve the speaker of any fears or anxiety that may affect his attitude towards the interlocutor;
- to praise the speaker for accurately conveying his thoughts and feelings;
- to direct the conversation to those items that were overlooked or rejected by the client;
- to discuss unclear points, if necessary ”(Rogers K., 2000, p. 138).
- friendly and non-judgmental attitude towards the client;
- orientation to the norms and values of the client;
- prohibitions to give advice;
- anonymity;
- differentiation of personal and professional relationships;
- the client's involvement in the counseling process (Aleshina Yu. E., 1994, pp. 9–13);
- humanism;
- realism;
- consistency;
- variability (Psychological counseling of disabled teenagers, 1996, p. 11).
- personality activity;
- responsibility of the individual;
- interpretation of psychological problems as psychotechnical in the subject and method;
- the dialogical nature of psychotherapeutic interaction;
- consistency in the activities of a counselor psychologist;
- highlighting the specifics of psychological problems in the client's problematics;
- feedback;
- active mediation of psychological and socio-psychological formations;
- symbolic materialization of social and psychological phenomena;
- organic unity of intellectual and emotional aspects of the psyche;
- activation of humanistic values;
- acceptance or special appropriate emotional attitude of the consultant to the client (Bondarenko A. F., 2000, p. 199).
The experience of consulting work, reflected in a variety of monographs, articles and popular publications, shows that one of the important points that ensure the conditions for productive work is organizational component of the consultation... It includes formal and procedural components... Formal includes regulatory and legal basis, and to the procedural - structural organization the process itself.
The most common basis for the preparation and organization of the counseling process is regulatory framework reflected in various laws, regulations, orders and other documents ("Universal Declaration of Human Rights", "Convention on the Rights of the Child", "Constitution of the Russian Federation", "Law of the Russian Federation On Psychiatric Care and Guarantees of Citizens' Rights in Its Provision", "Law on Education", "Law on consumer rights ", special regulations of a departmental or interdepartmental nature, etc.).
The preparation and organization of psychological counseling are also related to problem solving. structure of the consultation process... We can say that each of the authors of textbooks in one form or another deals with these issues. Some consider them in the context of the analysis of the process itself, highlighting in it a certain sequence, an algorithm for conducting, movement towards the goal. Others refer to them simply as “technical steps”. Still others consider them in the context of the question of the structure of psychological counseling as an “eclectic model” of the stage-by-stage process.
In any case, we are talking about conditionally identifying "points of passage" that are significant for the process, which each specialist determines in accordance with the specifics of professional tasks, which allows him to carry out professional reflection. In this sense, any model of the structure of the process does not reflect all the features and possible situations when consulting. It is important to understand that schemes, models only provide an opportunity for a general understanding of the course of counseling, but not determine its effectiveness.
In the specialized and educational literature, there are many options for understanding the sequence of the course of the counseling process.
An example of such conditional schemes can be the following ideas about the structure of the consultation process itself.
- “... Conventionally, a conversation between a consultant and a client can be divided into four stages: 1) getting to know the client and starting the conversation; 2) questioning the client, formulating and testing advisory hypotheses; 3) corrective action; 4) the end of the conversation ”(Aleshina Yu. E., 1994, p. 19).
- "Technical stages of psychological counseling:
- establishing contact with professional counseling;
- giving the patient the opportunity to speak out;
- providing the patient with emotional support and information about the positive aspects of his problem situation;
- re-formulating the problem with the patient;
- the conclusion of a dynamic contract;
- register formation possible solutions Problems;
- selection of the optimal solution;
- consolidating motivation and planning the implementation of the chosen solution;
- completion of counseling with the granting of the patient the right to reapply ”(Psychotherapeutic Encyclopedia, 1998, pp. 414–415).
- The authors of the manual "Psychological counseling of disabled adolescents", relying on the uniqueness of the content of work with this category of counselors, distinguish 6 stages (blocks): preparation; establishing contact and trusting dialogue; investigation of the situation; goal setting; searching of decisions; summarizing. At the same time, the authors emphasize that "... the identified stages can serve only as one of the bases for the professional reflection of a psychologist" (Psychological counseling of disabled adolescents, 1996, pp. 52-53).
- V. V. Kolpachnikov in his curriculum identifies 4 main stages - the initial stage, the stage of questioning the client, the stage of providing psychological influence, the final stage (Kolpachnikov V.V., 1998, pp. 35–36).
- V. Yu. Menovshchikov connects the stages of the consultation process with the structure of the main method - interview. Trying to show the general and the special among different authors (G. Hambly, R. May, G.S. Abramov), who consider the peculiarities of the psychological counseling process itself, he gives a comparative table that allows him to limit himself to identifying four stages: establishing contact - research and awareness tasks; enumeration of hypotheses; solution; exit from contact (Menovshchikov V. Yu., 1998, pp. 52–55).
- A. F. Bondarenko gives his idea of the stages of psychological assistance in all varieties, including counseling. In particular, he identifies 4 main stages - the initial (the stage of entering the situation of psychological assistance); stage of action and living of the situation of psychological assistance; the stage of entering a new experience; the stage of entering everyday life with an enriched new experience (Bondarenko AF, 2000, pp. 51-53).
- Authors of the manual “Psychological counseling and psychotherapy. Methods, Theories and Techniques: A Practical Guide ”provides an example of a five-step model of counseling, in which the following steps are highlighted:
- mutual understanding / structuring. "Hey!";
- choice of information. Highlighting the problem, identifying the potential capabilities of the client. "What is the problem?";
- desired result. Where does the client want to come? “What do you want to achieve?”;
- working out alternative solutions... “What else can we do about this?”;
- generalization. The transition from learning to action. "Will you do this?" (Ivy A.E. et al., 2000, p. 44).
The organization and conduct of psychological counseling can take place in specific conditions. Here it should be noted situations that require special training, for example, where the client is a person, a child with special conditions of development. When preparing for such a consultation, you need to know exactly what difficulties, barriers objectively await you when meeting with such a client. In particular, when working with disabled children, the following stands out: “When working with disabled children, a psychologist has a very high risk of falling into 'traps' set by his own feelings, motives, not fully conscious understanding of his task” (Psychological counseling of disabled adolescents, 1996, p. 54).
That is why, when discussing the main issues of consulting, one cannot avoid discussing such a topic as the conditions for the effectiveness of this process.
Branches of psychology: Social psychology (interested in the patterns of group behavior and joint activities of people). Educational psychology (studies the psychological problems of training and education). Developmental psychology (studies the patterns of mental development of a personality from birth to old age). Labor psychology (links mental processes and personality traits into a single problematic unit with objects and tools of labor). Engineering psychology (designs the processes of information interaction of technical means and systems with a human operator). Psychology of management (identifies the psychological characteristics of management). Psychology of abnormal phenomena (deals with the study of mental processes, states and properties of objects that cannot be explained in terms of known laws and principles). Psychology of family and marriage (aimed at identifying conditions for the favorable development of intra-family relationships). Psycholinguistics (studies the conditioning of speech and its perception by the structure of the corresponding language). Legal psychology (studies the patterns of mental activity of people in the field of relations governed by law). Political psychology (studies the psychological components political life society). Medical psychology (deals with the psychological aspects of hygiene, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of patients). Psychology of religion (studies the psychological factors of religious consciousness). Environmental psychology (studies psychological aspects human interaction and the environment). Psychodiagnostics (aimed at developing methods for identifying and measuring individual psychological characteristics personality). Psychological practice is associated with the implementation of the following social functions: a) increasing the psyche. culture of people and society as a whole; 6) humanization of social institutions, economics, politics; c) improving the living conditions and activities of people, including technology, tools; d) providing practical assistance to people experiencing psychology. difficulties and problems. Improving the management of the country's economy. The problems of working capacity, safety and labor motivation are investigated. Improving the service sector. The needs of people and their relationships in the process are subject to consideration. Training and education. Here many problems are addressed to psychology: memory, attention, individualization of tasks, giftedness, etc. Health protection and ensuring performance. As you know, it is necessary to treat not a disease, but a person, one and the same disease proceeds in different people in different ways. Treatment requires taking into account the individual and personal characteristics of a person. Trainings have been developed that allow you to relieve stress, reduce the feeling of pain without pharmacological agents, ensure sound sleep, manage your emotions. The relationship of psychology with other sciences. leads to the emergence of a number of "borderline" scientific disciplines: historical, legal, political, social, ethnic, economic, and many others. dr.
The main approaches to the problem of the relationship between training and education.
Particular attention in the modern school is drawn to the problem of the relationship between learning - development - upbringing. Upbringing and learning are a single process aimed at the formation of the individual experience of the subject. In traditional views, education was assigned activities aimed at the formation of a system of scientific knowledge, and education was assigned activities aimed at the formation of personal and moral attitudes. diagrams of the real situation of the formation and development of personality. So, upbringing is the same teaching, but not scientific knowledge, but moral categories, social skills and norms of community, traditions and rituals. The result of such a formative influence should be a socialized person. The upbringing process is subject to all the laws of education. The fundamental methodological basis of the upbringing system remains the concept of L.S. Vygotsky about the "zone of proximal development." Education is, first of all, the formation of an integral and self-sufficient personality. The importance of the individual personal development of each student is undeniable in the development of society. The modern, most civilized views on this issue are realized primarily in the concepts of the humanistic direction. On their basis, in the USA, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, “schools of personal growth” have become widespread, the essence of which is to increase attention to the process of personal formation, the efforts of teachers, programs and methods used are aimed at this. Taking into account the uniqueness of the child's personality, the question of an individual approach to teaching and upbringing is especially important. The individual approach can be considered as a teaching principle that focuses on the individual characteristics of the child and requires the creation of psychological and pedagogical conditions for the development of his unique personality. The problem of individualization is one of the oldest in the psychology of learning. From the point of view of the uniqueness of the personality, the learning system must be adapted to each child. The teacher interacts with only one student. From the point of view of mass education, the training system should be extremely universal. The teacher teaches a group of children at the same time. These two conflicting tasks in real teaching practice enter into a compromise relationship.
Practical psychology brings together all areas of psychology that serve the practice. Its most general purpose is to help people in difficulty.
Practical psychology solves three levels of problems:
1. Research - the study of the patterns of development and formation of personality in order to develop technologies, methods and methods of applying psychological knowledge in various social systems.
2. Applied tasks - the development of special training programs, teaching materials on practical psychology, the creation of draft normative documents for such activities.
3. Practical tasks are determined directly at the place of professional activity of the psychologist-practitioner.
A practicing psychologist conducts psychodiagnostics; conducts psychological counseling - individual and family; carries out psychological correction of an individual, groups (including families), collectives; provides psychological assistance to specific people; conducts psycho-preventive measures; carries out the selection and selection of personnel based on psychodiagnostic data; knows the basics of the psychology of personnel management and assists the management of an organization, institution, company.
There are five areas of activity in which the tasks of a practical psychologist are solved:
Ø psychoprophylaxis, which implies work to prevent maladjustment of the organization's personnel or children in an educational institution, educational activities, creating a favorable psychological climate in the institution, implementing measures to prevent and relieve the psychological overload of people.
Ø psychodiagnostics, the most important goal of which is to obtain psychological information about a person or a group, "specific knowledge about a specific person, obtained on the basis of a generalized scientific theory."
Ø psychological correction, understood as a targeted impact on certain areas of the client's psyche, focused on bringing its indicators in line with the age or other form;
Ø psychological counseling, the purpose of which is to provide a person with the necessary psychological information and create conditions - as a result of communication with a psychologist - to overcome life difficulties and productive existence in specific circumstances;
Ø psychotherapy within the framework of a psychological model, aimed at assisting the client in a productive personality change in cases of serious psychological problems that are not manifestations of psychological diseases.
The listed areas of practical psychology are arranged in order of increasing degree of the psychologist's responsibility for the results of his professional activity and the complication of the complex of means used in the process of work. Differences between the directions can be seen in the degree of standardization of the means used by the psychologist. Psychodiagnostics can be considered the most standardized, psychological counseling and psychotherapy are the least standardized, since they imply room for the psychologist's creativity and a constant search for extraordinary solutions in each case.
In the broadest sense, the tasks of practical psychology are reduced to the following:
Ø learn to understand the essence of mental phenomena and their patterns;
Ø learn to manage them;
Ø to use the knowledge gained in order to increase the efficiency of those branches of practice, at the intersection with which are already formed sciences and branches.
Studying the laws of mental phenomena, psychologists reveal the essence of the process of reflection of the objective world in the human brain, find out how a person's actions are regulated, how mental activity develops and the mental properties of a person are formed. Since the psyche, human consciousness is a reflection of objective reality, the study of psychological laws means, first of all, the establishment of the dependence of mental phenomena on the objective conditions of human life and activity.
But since any activity of people is always naturally conditioned not only by the objective conditions of life and human activity, but also sometimes subjective (attitudes, attitudes of a person, his personal experience, expressed in the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for this activity), then psychology is faced with the task identifying the features of the implementation of activities and its effectiveness, depending on the ratio of objective conditions and subjective moments.
Thus, by establishing the patterns of cognitive processes (sensations, perceptions, thinking, imagination, memory), psychology contributes to the scientific construction of the learning process, creating the possibility of correctly determining the content teaching material necessary for the assimilation of certain knowledge, skills and abilities. Revealing the patterns of personality formation, psychology assists pedagogy in the correct construction of the educational process.
The wide range of tasks that practical psychologists are engaged in makes it necessary, on the one hand, to interconnect psychology with other sciences involved in solving complex problems, and, on the other hand, to identify special branches within the psychological science itself that are engaged in solving psychological problems in a particular area. society.
43. Cultural-historical theory and its place in the development of psychology
Cultural-historical theory- The fundamental theory of the origin and development of higher mental functions was developed by Lev Semenovich Vygotsky. Based on the ideas of comparative psychology, L.S. Vygotsky began his research where comparative psychology stopped in front of insoluble questions for her: she could not explain the phenomenon of human consciousness. Vygotsky's fundamental idea is about the social mediation of human mental activity. The instrument of this mediation is, according to Vygotsky, a sign (word).
Vygotsky outlined the first version of his theoretical generalizations concerning the laws governing the development of the psyche in ontogenesis in his work "Development of the HMF". In this work, a scheme for the formation of human psyche in the process of using signs as a means of regulating mental activity.
In the mechanisms of brain activity, L.S. Vygotsky saw dynamic functional complexes.
"A man in the process of his historical development has risen to the creation of new driving forces of his behavior: in this way, in the process of man's social life, his new needs arose, formed and developed, and the natural needs of man in the process of his historical development have undergone profound changes."
A person has 2 lines of development:
Ø natural;
Ø cultural (historical).
Natural line of development (NPF) is the physical, natural development of a child from the moment of birth.
When communication with the outside world appears, a cultural line of development arises.
NPF - natural: sensations, perception, children's thinking, involuntary memory.
HMF - cultural, social: the result of historical development: abstract thinking, speech, voluntary memory, voluntary attention, imagination.
HMF - complex, intravital mental processes, social in origin. Distinctive features of HMF are their indirect nature and arbitrariness.
The use of a sign, a word as a specifically human mental regulator, rebuilds all higher mental functions of a person. Mechanical memory becomes logical, the associative flow of ideas becomes productive thinking and creative imagination, impulsive actions - by arbitrary actions.
VPFs arose with the help of a sign. The sign is a tool of mental activity. It is a stimulus artificially created by a person, a means for controlling one's own behavior and the behavior of others.
The sign, as a purely cultural means, arose and is used in culture.
The history of the development of mankind is the history of the development of a sign - the more powerful the development of signs in generations, the more developed the HMF.
Signs can be called gestures, speech, notes, painting. The word, like spoken and written speech, is also a sign. The child appropriates for himself everything that has been developed by man (psyche). The history of the development of the child resembles the history of the development of mankind. The appropriation of the psyche goes through an intermediary.
Vygotsky tries to combine natural and historical lines.
Historical study means the application of the category of development to the study of a phenomenon. All contemporary theories interpreted child development from a biologic point of view (the transition from the social to the individual).
HMF are initially possible as a form of cooperation with other people, and later become individual (example: speech is a means of communication between people, but in the course of development it becomes internal and begins to perform an intellectual function).
A person does not have an innate form of behavior in the environment. Its development occurs through the appropriation of historically developed forms and methods of activity. Vygotsky postulated a structural analogy between objective and internal mental activity. The internal plane of consciousness began to be understood in Russian psychology as an actively assimilated external world.
Vygotsky was the first to move from a statement about the importance of the environment for development to the identification of a specific mechanism of influence of the environment, which actually changes the child's psyche, leading to the emergence of higher mental functions specific to a person. Vygotsky considered the internalization of signs as such a mechanism - stimuli-means artificially created by man, designed to control his own and other people's behavior.
Speaking about the existence of natural and higher mental functions, Vygotsky comes to the conclusion that the main difference between them lies in the level of arbitrariness. In other words, unlike natural mental processes that do not lend themselves to regulation by a person, people can consciously control higher mental functions.
Unlike a stimulus-means, which can be invented by the child himself (a stick instead of a thermometer), signs are not invented by children, but acquired by them in communication with adults. Thus, the sign appears first in the external plane, in the plane of communication, and then, passes into the inner plane, the plane of consciousness. Vygotsky wrote that each higher mental function appears on the stage twice: once as external - interpsychic, and the second - as internal - intrapsychic.
At the same time, signs, being a product of social development, bear the imprint of the culture of the society in which the child grows up. Children learn signs in the process of communication and begin to use them to control their inner mental life. Thanks to the interiorization of signs, the sign function of consciousness is formed in children, the formation of such properly human mental processes as logical thinking, will, speech occurs. In other words, the interiorization of signs is the mechanism that forms the psyche of children.
Consciousness must be studied experimentally, therefore, it is necessary to bring together the HMF, the cultural development of behavior, the mastery of one's own processes of behavior.
One of their most important characteristics is mediation, that is, the presence of a means by which they are organized.
For higher mental functions, the presence of an internal means is fundamental. The main path for the emergence of higher mental functions is interiorization (transfer to the inner plane, "rotation") social forms behavior into a system of individual forms. This process is not mechanical.
Higher mental functions arise in the process of cooperation and social communication - and they also develop from primitive roots on the basis of lower ones.
Sociogenesis of higher mental functions is their natural history.
The central moment is the emergence of symbolic activity, the mastery of a verbal sign. It is he who acts as the means that, having become internal, radically transforms mental life. The sign first acts as an external, auxiliary stimulus.
The highest mental function in its development goes through two stages. Initially, it exists as a form of interaction between people, and only later - as a completely internal process. This is referred to as the transition from interpsychic to intrapsychic.
At the same time, the process of the formation of a higher mental function will stretch over a decade, originating in verbal communication and ending in a full-fledged symbolic activity. Through communication, a person masters the values of culture. By mastering the signs, a person joins the culture, the main components of his inner world are values (cognitive components of consciousness) and meanings (emotional - motivational components).
Vygotsky argued that mental development does not follow maturation, but is due to the active interaction of the individual with the environment in the zone of his immediate mental development. The Russian psychological school was formed on these foundations.
The driving force behind mental development is learning. Development and learning are different processes. Development is the process of the formation of a person or personality, which is accomplished by the emergence of new qualities at each stage. Learning is an internally necessary moment in the process of the historical characteristics of humanity developed in a child.
He believes that learning should "lead" development, this idea was developed by him in the development of the concept of "zone of proximal development". Communication between a child and an adult is by no means a formal moment in Vygotsky's concept. Moreover, the path through the other turns out to be central in development.
Learning is, in fact, communication organized in a special way. Communication with an adult, mastering the methods of intellectual activity under his guidance, as it were, set the immediate perspective of the child's development: it is called the zone of proximal development, in contrast to the current level of development. Learning that "runs ahead" of development turns out to be effective.
The cultural-historical theory of L. S. Vygotsky gave rise to the largest school in Soviet psychology, from which A. N. Leontiev, A. R. Luria, P. Ya. Galperin, A. V. Zaporozhets, P. I. Zinchenko, D. B. Elkonin et al. Vygotsky's ideas received wide resonance in all sciences that study man, including linguistics, psychiatry, ethnography, and sociology. They defined a whole stage in the development of humanitarian knowledge in Russia and still retain their heuristic potential.
Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory, which showed the role of cultural and social in the development and formation of a person's personality, is widely used by researchers both in Russia and abroad. Both the theory itself and its main provisions are analyzed, depending on the subject of the author's attention.
At present, the appeal to the cultural-historical theory is associated with the analysis of communication processes, with the study of the dialogical nature of a number of cognitive (associated with cognition, processes, with the use of the apparatus of structural-semantic research in psychology.
44. General characteristics of behaviorism (classical behaviorism, non-behaviorism, sociobehaviorism)
Behaviorism(eng. Behavior- behavior) - a direction in the psychology of humans and animals, literally - the science of behavior. This trend in psychology, which determined the appearance of American psychology at the beginning of the 20th century, radically transformed the entire system of ideas about the psyche. His credo was expressed by the formula according to which the subject of psychology is behavior, not consciousness. Since then it was customary to equate the psyche and consciousness (processes that begin and end in consciousness were considered mental), a version arose that, by eliminating consciousness, behaviorism thereby eliminates the psyche. The founder of this trend in psychology was the American psychologist John Watson.
The most important categories of behaviorism are stimulus, which means any impact on the body from the environment, including this, the current situation, reaction and reinforcement, which for a person can also be a verbal or emotional reaction of the people around him. At the same time, subjective experiences are not denied in modern behaviorism, but are placed in a position subordinate to these influences.
In the second half of the 20th century, behaviorism was replaced by cognitive psychology, which has since dominated psychological science. However, many of the ideas of behaviorism are still used in certain areas of psychology and psychotherapy.
The methodology of the behaviorist concept was laid down American psychologist D. Watson (1878-1958) and is reflected in the work of Mir, as seen by the behaviorist (1913). However, the first experimental study of the connection (connection) between stimulus and response, which became the core of the research method of behaviorism, appeared earlier and was carried out by E. Thorndike (1874-1949). Strictly speaking, he did not yet belong to this direction, and developed his experiments, focusing more on functionalism close to behaviorism. But it was precisely the methods and laws that he discovered that became the leading ones in the works of behaviorists, which gives grounds to include Thorndike's concept in the behavioral direction.
As already mentioned, behaviorism made behavior the subject of its research, which is also associated with the new name of psychology (behavior - behavior). In this case, behavior was understood as an objectively observed system of reactions of the organism to external and internal stimuli. This change in the subject of research was explained by the task of making psychology an objective science. This striving was in keeping with the spirit of the times and was the cause of the methodological crisis of psychology, which was already mentioned above. Following functionalism, behaviorists believed that it was necessary to study the integral reactions of the organism as functions aimed at ensuring a process or achieving a certain goal.
Analyzing the development of psychological science, Watson came to the conclusion that there is no direct and objective method for studying the inner content of the psyche, the content of consciousness. Therefore, he put forward the idea of the need to revise the subject of psychology, replacing it with one that will be associated with the human mental sphere and, at the same time, is available for objective observation and experimental research. It was precisely such a subject that was behavior, which, as A. Ben, G. Spencer, I.M. Sechenov and other scientists, is the same component of the psyche as consciousness. Following these theories, Watson argued that behavior is the only object available to study, and therefore psychology must exclude consciousness from its subject, leaving only the study of behavior in it.
Analysis of the structure and genesis of behavior, factors that help and prevent the formation of connections between stimulus and response - these questions have become central to behaviorism. At the same time, the development of behavior (the emergence of all new connections between S and R) was actually identified with the development of the psyche as such.
The idea that the development of behavior is based on the formation of more and more connections between stimuli and reactions, led behaviorists to the conviction that the leading factor in the genesis of the psyche is the social, i.e. environment. This approach, called sociogenetic (as opposed to biogenetic, in which heredity is the leading one), received its most complete embodiment precisely in classical behaviorism. Watson's work showed that there are practically no innate behavioral acts in the psyche, except for a few instinctive movements (sucking, grasping, etc.). On the basis of these few reflexes, the entire content of mental life is built. Thus, the formation of the psyche, the content of consciousness, occurs in the process of a person's life under the influence of that information about stimuli and the most adequate responses to them, which are provided by the environment. At the same time, from all possible reactions, those that contribute to better adaptation, adaptation to the environment are selected and fixed. Thus, adaptation in this school is the main determinant that determines the direction of mental development.
Mental development itself is identified with learning, i.e. with any acquisition of knowledge, skills, skills, not only specially formed, but also emerging spontaneously. From this point of view, learning is a broader concept than learning, since it also includes knowledge purposefully formed during learning. Therefore, experimental research in this school is often based on the analysis of the laws of learning, and the problems of learning and developing learning become leading for scientists.
Proceeding from the fact that learning depends mainly on living conditions, i.e. from the stimuli supplied by the environment, behaviorism rejected the idea of age periodization, arguing that there are no common patterns of development for all children in a given age period. Research conducted by representatives of this school of learning in children also served as proof. of different ages, which showed that with targeted teaching, 2-3-year-old children can not only read, but also write and even type on a typewriter. Consequently, periodization depends on the environment, and what the environment is, such are the patterns of development of a given child.
However, the impossibility of creating age-related periodization did not exclude, from the point of view of behaviorists, the need to create a functional periodization, which would make it possible to deduce the stages of learning, the formation of a certain skill. Thus, the stages of development of play, learning to read or swimming are functional periodization. In the same way, the stages of formation of mental actions, developed by P.Ya. Galperin.
The work of Thorndike and Watson laid the foundation for a large number experiments that study various aspects of behavior formation. These studies have shown that it is impossible to explain the entire mental life on the basis of the scheme 51-? R, it is impossible to completely ignore the internal state of a living being. This led to the modification of classical behaviorism and the emergence of so-called non-behaviorism, in which internal variables already appear, explained in different ways by different scientists (cognitive maps, needs, etc.). These various variables change the reactions of a living creature depending on its state, directing it towards achieving the desired result.
The modification of classical behaviorism was also associated with the fact that social behavior, which also became the subject of research, needed a new method, since it could not be studied in animals. This led to the emergence of social behaviorism, which considered the role of human behavior in society. Analysis of the factors influencing the internalization of the role, the variability of its performance by different people, also proved the inconsistency of the provisions that ignored the motives and expectations of people.
However, the idea of the lifetime nature of the psyche content, the leading role of learning, remained unshakable even in non-behaviorism. Therefore, it is not surprising that the leading scientific theory of this direction in the second half of the XX century. became Skinner's theory of operant behaviorism, which became the basis for many concepts of developmental learning.
Classical behaviorism... Classical behaviorism examines only externally observed behavior and does not distinguish between the behavior of humans and other animals. For classical behaviorism, all mental phenomena are reduced to the reactions of the body, mainly motor: thinking is identified with speech-motor acts, emotions - with changes within the body, consciousness is not fundamentally studied as having no behavioral indicators. The main mechanism of behavior is the connection between stimulus and response (S-> R).
The main method of classical behaviorism is the observation and experimental study of the body's responses to environmental influences in order to identify the correlations between these variables that can be mathematically described.
The main problems (tasks) of classical behaviorism:
Ø Study of behavior. Establishing connections between stimulus and response;
Ø Behavior management (modeling of such stimuli that allow you to get a certain response).
Non-behaviorism- a direction in American psychology that arose in the 30s. XX century
Perceiving the main postulate of behaviorism that the subject of psychology is the objectively observed reactions of the organism to stimuli from the external environment, non-behaviorism supplemented it with the concept of variable intermediate factors that serve as an intermediary link between the effect of stimuli and responsive muscle movements. Following the methodology of operationalism, nonbehaviorism believed that the content of this concept (denoting “unobservable” cognitive and motivational components of behavior) is revealed in laboratory experiments on the basis of features determined through the operations of the researcher.
Non-behaviorism testified to the crisis of "classical" behaviorism, which was unable to explain the integrity and expediency of behavior, its regulation by information about the world around it and its dependence on the needs of the organism. Using the ideas of Gestalt psychology and Freudianism (E. Ch. Tolman), as well as Pavlov's doctrine of higher nervous activity (K.L. ...
E. Tolman introduced intermediate variables - goals, intentions, hypotheses, cognitive maps, etc. As a result, the neobehaviorism scheme took the form: S - V - R, where S is a stimulus, V is intermediate variables, R is a reaction.
Social behaviorism... It was especially active in the 60s. New in relation to behaviorism is the idea that a person can master behavior not by his own trial and error, but by observing the experience of others and the reinforcements accompanying one or another behavior ("learning through observation", "learning without trial") ... This important distinction suggests that behavior becomes cognitive - it contains a cognitive component, including a symbolic one. This mechanism turns out to be the most important in the course of socialization, on its basis the methods of aggressive and cooperative behavior are formed. Observation can not only form new forms of behavior, but also activate the learned, previously not manifested. In this regard, the problem of punishments and prohibitions in upbringing is interpreted in a peculiar way. Punishing a child, an adult demonstrates to him an aggressive form of behavior that finds positive reinforcement - in the form of success in coercion and self-affirmation; and the child, even after obeying, learns a possible form of aggression.
The main points of social behaviorism:
Ø mental should be explained in terms of objectively observable behavior;
Ø movements of a person in a group turn into a “meaningful gesture” or symbol. An expressive movement in a person, being addressed to another individual in order to evoke the desired reaction in him, evokes in a latent form the same reaction in the one who produces it;
Ø people interpret or define each other's actions, not just react to them. Their reactions are not triggered by the direct actions of another, but are based on the meaning they attach to such actions. Thus, the interaction (interaction) of people is mediated by the use of symbols, their interpretation. This mediation is equivalent to the inclusion of a process of interpretation (I) between stimulus (S) and response (R), T.e. S -> I -> R;
Ø a person has a personal "I" (self), i.e. can serve as an object for their own actions;
Ø everything that a person is aware of, he designates for himself, i.e. a person interacts with the outside world through the mechanism of forming meanings. It is this mechanism that is included in the interpretation of the actions of others. To interpret the action of another is to determine for oneself that the action has this or that meaning, this or that character;
Ø The formation of meanings is of paramount importance for two reasons:
ü a) to form the meaning of something means to isolate it from the environment, to separate it, to give it meaning or to turn it into an object. Object, i.e. what the individual mentally designates is different from the stimulus. This difference lies in the fact that the object cannot directly affect the individual, since the subject himself constructs his objects;
ü b) the actions of an individual do not simply proceed, but are constructed or constructed. Whatever actions a person takes, he always mentally for himself designates various things that must be taken into account in the course of this action. He must determine what he wants to do and how he should do it; he should note for himself different conditions- those that can be useful for his action, and those that can interfere with his action; he must take into account the requirements, expectations, prohibitions and threats that may arise in each particular situation;
Ø the formation of meanings is a developing communicative process, during which an individual notices an object, evaluates it, gives it meaning and decides to act on the basis of this meaning;
Ø the process of forming meanings always takes place in a social context;
Ø group action takes the form of adaptation to each other of individual lines of behavior. Each individual adjusts his action to the actions of others, finding out what they are doing or what they are going to do, i.e. figuring out the meaning of these acts. This happens through the person's acceptance of the role of another person, or the role of a group ("generalized other"). By assuming such roles, the individual seeks to determine the intention or direction of others. This is how group action takes place in human society;
Ø human society consists of individuals who have a "personal I" (self) and who themselves form values; individual action is its construction, and not just performance, it is carried out by the individual by evaluating and interpreting the situation in which he acts; group or collective action consists of aligning individual actions by interpreting and taking into account each other's actions;
Ø any social change is mediated by acting individuals who interpret the situations they face;
Ø “I” of a person is a product of social interaction with other people. The decisive role in this is played by the child's mastery of the system of symbols and various social roles, which is facilitated, for example, by children's games, and later - by the role of the “generalized other” (ie, the role adopted in a particular social community). The highest stage of human socialization is the formation of a social reflexive "I", reflecting the totality of interindividual interactions and capable of becoming an object for itself. At this stage, external social control "grows" into the personality from the inside and takes the form of internal self-control.
Thus, J. Mead's social behaviorism introduces new explanatory categories into the S -> I -> R scheme, emphasizing the social determination of human behavior: symbols, meanings, interpretations, roles, “generalized other”.
45. Explanatory principles of psychology: the principle of determinism and the principle of development
Explanation principles- the fundamental provisions, prerequisites or concepts, the application of which allows for a meaningful description of the alleged properties and characteristics of the research object and, on the basis of a general scientific method, to construct procedures for obtaining empirical material, its generalization and interpretation.
Taking into account and using the fundamental psychological principles in the construction and explanation of psychic reality are an indispensable condition for the successful activity of a research psychologist. Let's look at the content of the basic explanatory principles of psychology as a science.
The principle of interaction and development. Interaction and development are two inseparable aspects of the mutual influence of objects, which is inevitable due to the space-time structure of the world. Integrity properties, structural diversity, developmental effects, the formation of a new one are explained on the basis of this fundamental principle. The inseparability of interaction and development is manifested in the fact that interaction is possible only as development, and development is "a way of existence of interacting systems associated with the formation of qualitatively new structures due to the developmental effect of interaction." Structures, from this point of view, represent fixed stages in the development of systems.
For psychology, it is important to single out both the very process of interaction and development, and the products of this process - structures that fix information models completed interactions.
The principle of interaction and development was expressed in the fundamental concept of evolution. Evolution is the process of accumulating changes in the structure of interacting objects and increasing their diversity over time. Contrary to the popular point of view, evolutionary theory is not actually biological, it was formed and developed as an interdisciplinary and general scientific one. According to this theory, physical, biological and social systems, biogeocenoses, planetary systems, galaxies and the Universe as a whole evolve.
Development individual organisms(ontogeny) is in a certain relationship with evolution biological species(phylogeny). This correspondence is formulated in the form of a biogenetic law: the ontogeny of any organism is a short and concise repetition (recapitulation) of the phylogenesis of a given species.
The principle of determinism. According to this principle, everything that exists arises, changes and ceases to exist naturally. Determination, or causality, is the genetic connection of phenomena, the generation by the previous (cause) of the subsequent (effect), therefore the principle of determinism is directly related to the principle of interaction, in contrast to other types of patterns that connect phenomena, such as correlations (this type of relationship is manifested in a joint, consistent variations of variables and does not reflect either the source or the direction of the influences that determine the relationship between them).
The causal (causal) relationship is asymmetric - it leads to the generation of something new and, as a process of development, is irreversible. It is the relation of generation, generation between cause and effect, that is the distinguishing feature of the causal relationship, while their sequence in time is only the result of such a relationship. It is important to note that causal relationships can only be established experimentally.
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Subject and tasks of psychological science and practice
1. Subject and tasks of psychology.
2. Comparative characteristics of everyday and psychological knowledge.
3. Specific features of psychology as a natural and social science.
4. Branches of psychology, forms of cooperation of scientific and everyday psychology in real life and activities.
Basic terms: scientific psychology, everyday psychology, human psychology, psyche, consciousness, introspection method, behavior, objective method, activity, unity of consciousness and activity, branches of psychology, psychotherapy.
1. Subject and tasks of psychology
psychology everyday science knowledge
The subject of psychology is the human psyche (diagram 1).
Psychological knowledge is designated by the term "psychology", derived from the Greek words psy ^ che - soul, psyche and logos - knowledge, understanding, study.
In its first, literal meaning, psychology is knowledge about the psyche, the science that studies it.
The psyche is a property of highly organized living matter, a subjective reflection of the objective world, necessary for a person (or an animal) to actively work in it and control their behavior.
The field of the mental in a broad sense is:
1) the reflection by the simplest animals of those individual properties of the environment that are significant for the search for vital substances;
2) conscious representations complex connections natural and social world in which man lives and acts.
Consciousness is higher form psyche, necessary for the organization of social and individual life of people, for their joint labor activity.
In the applied sense, the word “psychology” is also referred to the psychic, “spiritual” life itself, thus highlighting a special reality.
At the same time, if the properties of the psyche, consciousness, mental processes usually characterize a person in general, then the features of psychology - a specific individual.
Psychology manifests itself as a set of typical for a person (or groups of people):
a) ways of behavior;
b) communication;
c) knowledge of the surrounding world;
d) beliefs and preferences;
e) character traits.
For example, emphasizing the differences between people of one age or another, professional, gender, they talk about the psychology of a schoolchild, student, worker and scientist, female psychology, etc.
The general task of psychological science is to study both the psyche of the subject and his psychology. The concept of "psychologist" is the owner of this knowledge. A psychologist is a representative of science, a professional researcher of the laws of the psyche and consciousness, the characteristics of psychology and human behavior. But not all psychological knowledge is necessarily scientific. A practical psychologist is a person who “understands the soul”, who understands people, their actions, experiences.
In a broad sense, every person is actually a psychologist, regardless of profession, although this is more often called true experts in human relations - prominent thinkers, writers, teachers.
V historical development there were two different areas of psychological knowledge - scientific and everyday (everyday) psychology. Scientific psychology emerged relatively recently. Everyday psychological knowledge has always been included in various types of human practice. In order to give a general description of psychology as a special scientific discipline, it is convenient to compare it with everyday psychology, to show their differences and interconnections.
2. Comparison of everyday and scientific psychology. Characterization of psychology as a science
The fundamental conditions for human existence are:
1) a certain conscious representation of the world around him;
2) defining your place in the world.
Practical tasks are the study of representations related to:
a) with certain properties of the psyche,
b) with the ways people behave.
This is necessary for the correct organization of the life of any person and society as a whole.
In the ancient teachings about man, his knowledge was combined with the development of cultural norms of public and private life.
Knowledge of specific psychological laws allowed people to understand each other, to control their own behavior.
The history of culture - philosophical, moral and ethical texts, artistic creation - contains many wonderful examples detailed description individual psychological characteristics, their subtle understanding and analysis (appendix, example 1).
Interest in ancient (Hippocrates, Freud, etc.) descriptions individual characters is understandable even today, because their owners are well recognizable in everyday life, despite the change in historical eras and living conditions. It is significant that everyday knowledge about the character (and temperament) of a person was generalized in the form of a rather strict system, a classification, in the creation of which representatives of various specialties “collaborated” - through the centuries (Appendix, example 2).
A special place in the development of psychology belongs to philosophy. Highlighting the foundations of reality has always been associated with the study of: 1) to whom this world is presented; 2) “knowing oneself”.
Concepts such as “soul”, “consciousness”, “I” were not initially psychological, and their development - from antiquity to the present day - was an understanding of the conditions of cognition in general, that is, philosophy.
The soul as a subject of knowledge, that is, “the science of the soul” arose in the teachings of Aristotle. In the treatise "On the Soul" (Aristotle. Collected works: In 4 volumes. T. 1. - M., 1976.), he systematized the existing ideas, introduced the differences necessary for building a new science, highlighted the main mental processes.
Many philosophers of the past, as well as modern ones, were the authors of:
1) original psychological concepts,
2) descriptions of the laws of mental life - perception, thinking, emotional states.
The philosophical representation of a person is generalized, and the peculiarities of a concrete, individual person do not become the subject of special study in philosophy.
Psychological knowledge is included in many areas of human practice - pedagogy, medicine, artistic creation. Yet these areas are rightly considered “outside” or “pre-scientific”. The emergence of psychology as a special scientific discipline is associated with the formation of its own conceptual apparatus and methodological procedures (Appendix, example 3).
The main difference between scientific psychology and everyday psychology is that if for the latter the field of research activity is practically infinite, then with the advent of a scientific discipline, a sharp narrowing occurs, a limitation fixed in special concepts, terminology, etc.
The scientific psychologist loses to study (not always irrevocably) whole layers of everyday experience, but the imposed restrictions create new advantages. So, in Wundt's work, the exact subject definition of an object difficult to study is associated with the ability to operationally, using simple methodological procedures in a special experimental situation, isolate its elements, reproduce them under given conditions, measure (and, therefore, involve quantitative methods for processing the data obtained). to identify the connections of these elements and, ultimately, to establish the laws to which they obey.
With the definition of the subject and the emergence of special methods of its research, the rest, as well as significant differences in scientific and everyday psychology, are connected: 1) where and in what way psychological knowledge is acquired; 2) in what forms they are saved; 3) thanks to which they are transmitted, reproduced.
The source of everyday psychology is individual experience with all its nuances. It is acquired in a random way, and the psychic knowledge necessary for a person to live is extracted from it, as a rule, intuitively and not systematically.
Scientific psychology is based on experience, which from the very beginning is abstracted from many details, conceptually formulated. The ways and methods of cognition are also excellent - purposeful, systematic, instrumental.
For the scientific psychologist, a good guess becomes a hypothesis that can be tested experimentally. Of course, an experiment is also possible in everyday psychology, and people often resort to this effective means of obtaining the necessary information (not waiting for a suitable occasion, but actively organizing it). However, scientific and psychological experiments are distinguished not only by the greater rigor of their hypotheses, but also by the conditions of their conduct.
In modern psychology, these conditions are often remote from life concreteness and can even distort it. The results of experiments also differ: scientists often have to abandon their own everyday ideas, “not believing their eyes”.
It should be noted that in the first scientific descriptions of mental phenomena, researchers drew on their own personal experience. However, the main value of these descriptions lies not only in their insight and detail, but in the fact that they turned out to be successful generalized schemes for setting research problems (Appendix, example 4).
The vast experience of everyday psychology is preserved and exists in accordance with the types of practice from which it is received and which it reveals. It can be ordered in traditions and rites, folk wisdom, aphorisms, but the grounds for such systematization remain specific, situational. If situational conclusions contradict one another (for example, there is hardly a proverb that cannot be matched with another one that is inverse in meaning), then worldly wisdom does not bother, it does not need to strive for uniformity.
Scientific psychology systematizes knowledge in the form of logically consistent propositions, axioms and hypotheses. Knowledge is purposefully accumulated, serves as the basis for expanding and deepening the found patterns, and this happens precisely due to the presence of a special, subject language.
Shouldn't be understood precise definition the subject of scientific psychology as a limitation of its research opportunities... On the contrary, scientific psychology is actively intruding into everyday experience, rightly claiming a new assimilation of well-known factual material. Therefore, constant demands to precisely use the existing conceptual apparatus (and only it) are natural, this protects the experience from being "clogged" by everyday associations.
Ordinary psychological knowledge seems to be readily available. The advice of experienced people, the refined aphorisms of thinkers contain clots of everyday experience. However, it is not easy to use this experience: ordinary knowledge does not record the real conditions in which it was obtained, and these conditions are precisely the decisive ones when trying to use what is known by another person in a new situation. That is why so often the mistakes of fathers are repeated by their children. One's own experience, commensurate with one's capabilities and specific conditions, has to be experienced and accumulated anew.
The experience of scientific psychology is a different matter. Although it is not as extensive as the everyday one, it contains information about the conditions necessary and sufficient for the reproduction of certain phenomena. The knowledge gained is ordered in scientific theories and transmitted through the assimilation of generalized, logically related provisions, which serve as the basis for the advancement of new hypotheses. Through the development of an experimental approach scientific experience contains facts inaccessible to everyday psychology.
Scientific psychology is a system of theoretical (conceptual), methodological and experimental means of cognition and research of mental phenomena.
Compared with everyday (pre-scientific) psychology, it represents a transition from an unlimited and heterogeneous description of these phenomena to their precise objective definition, to the possibility of methodological registration, experimental establishment of causal relationships and patterns, ensuring the continuity of their results. “Psychology is both a very old and still very young science,” wrote one of the founders of Soviet psychology S.L. Rubinstein (1889-1960). - It has a 1000-year past behind it, and, nevertheless, it is still in the future. Its existence as an independent scientific discipline is counted only for decades, but its main problematics has occupied its philosophical thought as long as philosophy has existed. The years of experimental research were preceded by centuries of philosophical reflection, on the one hand, and millennia of practical knowledge of human psychology, on the other ”. Following Rubinstein, the formation and development of psychological science can be represented as a pyramid - a symbol of forward, progressive movement: millennia of practical experience, centuries of philosophical reflection, decades of experimental science.
3. Specific features of psychology as a natural and social science
In the period of the emergence of psychological science, its striving to stand side by side with physics, chemistry, and biology is understandable. At the same time, it is clear that the science of human psychology is also humanitarian and social.
Any natural science also has its everyday analogue: each person can be a “naive” physicist, biologist, geologist, etc. However, most of these sciences regard the previous common ideas as superficial and incorrect.
The relationship between scientific psychology and everyday psychology is different. And in special studies, and especially in practical work, psychology seeks to take into account a person's real ideas about the world and about himself, any means of understanding mental life and controlling behavior. In order to understand the specifics of scientific psychology, let us turn to the history of the formation of its subject. But first of all, let us note the fundamental feature of psychology - not only natural, but also humanitarian science.
A person, his mental, conscious life is here at the same time a subject (as in other sciences) and an object of cognition. Hence it follows that a certain knowledge of the laws established by science has already been given to the object under study in its inner experience, representation - “on itself”.
In the philosophy of modern times, at the time of the rapid development of experimental sciences, the following condition for their construction was formulated. The objects of research should not have an “inner”, that is, their “soul”, otherwise they will not be subject to law-based study. In fact, would physics be possible if, say, an atom had the ability to reflect its own states? No, it would be a different science - psychology. Reflection of oneself not only enters into the definition of the objects that she examines, but is in fact a given, an integral condition of their existence.
The first scientific psychologists - Wundt and his students - understood this fact as a special advantage of the new experimental science. They specially developed in their subjects (who were often themselves) the ability to realize, reflect on their own sensations, ideas, feelings. Hence, the subject of study was directly perceived mental states, and the method used was called introspection. Imagine the situation of an introspective experiment and ask yourself: what states does the environment evoke in you, what do you see, hear, touch? If in response you name the table at which you are sitting, the light of the sun and the noise of cars outside the window, and, finally, the brochure lying in front of you, then, according to Wundt, your perception will not be direct. Ordinary and familiar, it is always mediated by objective experience, and this experience (the sun, tables, machines, etc.) is studied by other sciences, but not psychology. The psychology of consciousness is not interested in objects and phenomena, but precisely in the sensations that are caused by them: you need to be able to, as it were, “cut off” the “layer” of object meanings from the perceived one and move on to color, sound, and smell. Now it is clear what a convenient experimental device a metronome would be for these purposes, because its beats evoke immediate, “pure” sensations. The main properties of consciousness were studied in laboratory conditions, far from life's reality, and specially trained subjects were similar to those artificial models and drugs that were created specifically for research in physics, chemistry, and biology. As a method of obtaining experimental data, the method of introspection met the scientific requirements of its time, but later it was subjected to sharp, fundamental criticism (for details on the method of introspection and its criticism, see: Gippenreiter Yu.B. Introduction to general psychology. - M., 1988. - S. 34-47).
The traditional advantage of the science of human psychology, as the possibility of direct penetration into the studied subject, now seems questionable. Decisive in criticizing the method of introspection was the indication that the source of the initial data and the method of their preliminary analysis are completely subjective.
The search for methods alternative to introspection was successful precisely in those areas where the subject's ability to reflect could not be relied upon in principle. So, in the study of animal behavior, the analysis of some mental disorders, in the study of bodily, physiological mechanisms of the psyche, methods arose that were called objective, that is, independent of the studied subject and his specially developed abilities.
Understanding the objective method in psychology has at least two different rationales.
I. The first of them was defined in opposition to the introspective method: if “subjective” is “internal” (here the subject's internal experience), then “objective” is “external”, that is, accessible to observation from the outside.
Thus, the specific scientific rules of objective research were formulated by the American psychologist J. Watson (1878-1958). The phenomenon under study should be, firstly, easily reproducible under the same conditions and, secondly, fixable independently of the subject, using instruments.
Any outwardly observed activity of a subject (human or animal), that is, the sequence of his behavioral manifestations (reactions), responding to his various external influences (stimuli), is adequate to these requirements. “Human behavior from birth to death” - this is how Watson defined the subject of psychology, which was called “behaviorism” (from the English. Behavioyr - behavior), considering its task to understand the laws of real human behavior and control it. In relation to the psychology of consciousness, he was consistent to the end: if consciousness does not correspond to the rules of the objective method, then for science it simply does not exist.
II. Another understanding of objective psychological analysis refers to those real, natural and social connections, relationships that, regardless of their special reflection, determine the conscious ideas of people. Introspective psychology is limited because consciousness appears in it as if “by itself”, as an inexplicable, “pure” activity of the subject, although objectively it is included in the practical activity of specific people and is conditioned by its laws.
The words of K. Marx and F. Engels are well known: “It is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines consciousness. Consciousness could never be something other than conscious being, and the being of people is the real process of their life ”(K. Marx, F. Engels Works, 2nd ed. T. 3. P. 24). The concept of being, of socio-historical practice is fundamental for the Marxist analysis of consciousness, for modern psychology in general. The real life process of people, the wealth and variety of those relations in which they enter in the process of material production, determine the nature of their conscious ideas. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that a person's consciousness of his being is not an abstract end in itself. These or those conscious representations, like the means of material production - the instruments of labor, are necessary to ensure the life process, and therefore they themselves are included in the system of its objective conditions. Hence, being and consciousness are interdependent. It is clear that the real involvement of conscious ideas in practice, human activity and will be a measure of their objectivity.
In sociology, ethnography, psychology, psychiatry, vivid factual evidence of the objectivity of conscious representations was discovered, due to their connection with stable forms of human practice (Appendix, example 7).
Thus, in traditional psychology, consciousness and behavior were fundamentally separated, they seemed to diverge along two poles in their extreme manifestations, impoverishing reality. Consciousness was considered only as a reflection of mental states, and behavior (namely behavior, not practice, activity) - only as a set of externally observed reactions. On the contrary, modern, including Marxist, psychology seeks to investigate mental, conscious phenomena as included in the real activity of people in all the fullness and diversity of its causal connections. The principle of the unity of consciousness and activity (put forward by S.L. Rubinstein in 1934) - this name was given in Russian psychology to the main methodological basis of the new research path. It should be admitted that the formation of psychological science on this basis is a difficult task, the solution of which is far from complete.
What are the specific consequences of an objective study of the psyche (consciousness) for understanding the specifics of its results? Let's note two of them. First, in any scientific experimental study, the content and assessment of the results obtained depend on the theoretical presentation of the subject under study. It is characteristic of psychology that a change in such ideas can radically change the scientific facts themselves. Therefore, the modern researcher strives to ensure that the theoretical model of the object of study adequately represents the actual conditions of its existence (Appendix, example 7).
Secondly, since the object of psychological study “has the right” to its own, “unplanned” mental (conscious) activity, its research becomes a kind of dialogue. Indeed, the experimenter studies the subject, having a certain theoretical model and selecting the appropriate methodological techniques, but the subject can also study the experimenter, evaluate his techniques and build his own models. Researchers resort to the most sophisticated tricks to make the subjects "naive", but the subjects do not tire of showing enviable discernment. It is no coincidence that they say that a test aimed at measuring intelligence makes it possible to assess, first of all, the intelligence of its creator.
Psychologists are often faced with the fact that, despite the detailed scientific substantiation of the research results, the subject's own opinion about them remains unchanged. Apparently, in this case, a person's conscious (albeit incorrect) idea of himself becomes one of the conditions of his real life, a means of solving important life problems. Then an interesting question, characteristic only of psychology, arises - what is considered a reliable psychological fact: the explanation of the phenomenon that the experimenter proposed and proved, or the idea of it that the subject stably retains (Appendix, example 8)?
Now we understand why scientific psychology does not reject (and cannot reject) everyday psychological knowledge, but interacts with it. After all, a researcher-experimenter and a subject, a psychotherapist and his patient - this is the scientific and everyday in psychology, in the joint work of which is carried out both the study of the mental properties and mental characteristics of a person, and the creation (or restoration) of means for his full conscious life.
The unity of these tasks is the specificity of scientific psychology.
Not only the study of a person's ideas about the world and about himself, but the development and correction of these ideas should help a person in difficult life situations - this is its humanitarian aspect.
It is natural that specific areas of psychology arose in its relationship with various types of social practice. As an applied science, psychology is highly ramified and diversified.
4. Branches of psychology. Forms of cooperation between scientific and everyday psychology
The connection between scientific psychology and practice is characterized by the accuracy of the formulation of applied problems and methods of their solution. As a rule, such tasks were generated by difficulties arising outside the psychological fields, and their elimination went beyond the competence of the relevant specialists. Note also that applied industries could appear independently (including in time) from the formation of general psychological science (Appendix, example 9).
Branches of psychology can be distinguished according to several criteria:
by spheres of activity (in particular, professional), that is, by what a person does: engineering, teaching, etc .;
according to who exactly this activity is performing, is its subject and at the same time the object of psychological analysis: a person of a certain age (child and developmental psychology), a group of people (social psychology), a representative of a particular nationality (ethnopsychology), a psychiatrist's patient (pathopsychology );
on specific scientific problems: the relationship of mental disorders with brain damage (neuropsychology), mental and physiological processes (psychophysiology).
In the real work of a psychologist, scientific fields interact widely. For example, a psychologist in production must have knowledge of both engineering psychology (or labor psychology) and social. The psychological side of school work belongs simultaneously to the spheres of developmental and educational psychology. The development of practical proposals, neuropsychology - first of all, the problem of rehabilitation of patients with brain damage in a particular professional activity - requires knowledge of the psychology of labor.
It is clear that a practicing psychologist is not just an everyday psychologist. Of course, he does not always have ready-made samples for solving problems and must study, creatively use everyday experience, and yet for him this experience is conceptually formalized, and the problems are quite clearly divided into solvable and unsolvable ones. The relative autonomy of applied industries from their general psychological foundations allows them to establish their own practical ties with other sciences - sociology, biology, physiology, medicine.
Forms of the relationship between scientific and everyday psychology. A typical example is a psychotherapy session. The therapist cannot create and convey to the patient new ways of mastering his affective past, resolving internal conflicts. The patient builds these methods only himself, but the therapist helps with the same way as the doctor at the birth of a child. He clarifies the conditions for the discovery, tries to explain its laws. The results of such cooperation are, on the one hand, a full-fledged life of a healthy person, on the other, the development of the central section of psychological science - the study of personality.
Successful cases of self-therapy, self-reflection and overcoming severe mental illnesses are possible, when scientific and everyday psychologists seem to be combined in one person (Appendix, example 10).
Often, various therapeutic techniques are based on everyday empirical rules for controlling behavior and only then are they expressed in theoretical terms (Appendix, example 11).
Interesting influences scientific concepts and concepts on the everyday ideas of people about their mental life. The means of such a representation were, in particular, some concepts of psychoanalysis (affective "complex", "archetype", "internal censorship", etc.), the terms proposed to describe the emotional sphere ("stress"), personality defense mechanisms ("compensation" , “Substitution”, “rationalization”, “repression”). Once in colloquial speech, these terms receive content that is not always related to their original meaning, but they turn out to be effective means comprehension and even discovery (construction) by a person of his own individual means. It should be noted that a scientific psychologist sometimes professionally must become an everyday psychologist. Preparation to work with some methods of personality diagnostics, learning the correct and complete interpretation of the results takes about two to three years. Practice of conducting psychological experiments is sometimes a subtle art that requires skill and intuition.
Finally, there are psychological tests where the line between scientific and everyday psychology is difficult to establish. Thus, business communication guides provide specific practical advice on adequate social behavior, interaction with other people who make contacts successful. On the one hand, these are a kind of “textbooks” of everyday psychology, on the other, a systematic list of results that provide material for scientific research.
Thus, the position of psychic science is determined by its two oppositely directed tendencies. The first of them is the desire to become a natural science discipline, the second is to take the place of everyday psychology. Both of these goals are fundamentally unattainable, but each of them generates specific tasks.
On the one hand, in comparison with everyday psychology, scientific is a special discipline that has a conceptual and methodological apparatus for studying the mental life of a person, the laws of its organization and development. The accuracy and regularity of recording the experience gained, the possibility of strict verification and directed reproduction bring it closer to the natural sciences.
On the other hand, psychological science has features associated with the specifics of the object of study - its ability to internally reflect its states. Ordinary ideas of a person about himself, being the means and results of solving real life problems, can be stable and exist regardless of their scientific explanations. The humanitarian aspect of psychology lies not only in the study, but also in the practice of creating these ideas as a way to overcome conflict situations, comprehension and productive development of life experience. Scientific and everyday psychology, while maintaining fundamental differences, enter into the necessary mutual connections. Psychological science, the development of which can be followed by S.L. Rubinstein to represent in the form of a pyramid, is strong in its base. Everyday comprehension of various psychological reality does not disappear with the advent of special science, but, on the contrary, is a constant source of its vitality. At the same time, scientific achievements are actively penetrating everyday life, offering new, effective methods of its laws, education and personal development.
Scientific psychology as a whole is an attempt to comprehend, regularly comprehend, reproduce and improve the existing and constantly developing experience of the mental life of a modern person.
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Family relations as the fundamental principle of human development and socialization of the individual. Child personality development in scientific psychology. The situational and metaphorical nature of everyday knowledge. The influence of family factors of scientific and everyday psychology on the development of the child.
term paper, added 04/24/2011
Subject and tasks of psychology. Features of everyday psychology. Formation of the nervous system. Stages of development of psychological science. Basic concepts of consciousness from the point of view of gestalt psychology. Properties of the human somatic nervous system.
Psychology as a natural and humanitarian scientific discipline. Forms of cooperation between psychological science and practice. Approaches to understanding the subject of psychology in modern science. Comparative characteristics of everyday and scientific psychology. The place of psychology in the system of human sciences. Features of scientific and psychological knowledge. Man as a subject and object of knowledge. Psychology as a complex system of developing sciences related to the main types human activity... General and special branches of psychology. The main categories of psychological science. Correlation of the concepts of psyche, consciousness, unconsciousness. The structure of the psyche.
Topic 2. Formation of the subject of psychological science.
Historical approach to understanding the subject of psychology. The concept of the soul in ancient philosophy. The soul as a special entity. Consciousness as a subject psychological research... Introspection method, its possibilities and limitations. Formation of experimental psychology. Behavior as a subject of psychology in behaviorism, non-behaviorism. Unconscious mental phenomena. Psychoanalysis, its importance for scientific psychology. A holistic approach to understanding the psyche, the emergence of gestalt psychology. Humanistic approach, its essence and main ideas. The development of ideas about the subject in domestic science (in the works of I. M. Sechenov, I. P. Pavlov, V. M. Bekhterev, L. S. Vygotsky, L. S. Rubinstein, A. N. Leontiev). Basic principles of Russian psychological science.
Topic 3. Research methodology and system of methods of psychology.
Methodology and method of scientific research. The use of subjective and objective methods in psychology. Stages of psychological research. The difference between the terms method and technique. Methods of organizing scientific psychological research: the longitudinal method and the method of transverse means. An empirical study in psychology. Observation, its cognitive role. Experiment is the main method of modern psychology. Experiment types: natural and laboratory. Poll, questionnaire, interview, conversation. Methods for measuring mental processes. Method for analyzing products of activity. Test and optimal conditions for its use.
Topic 4. The origin and development of the psyche in phylogenesis.
The psyche and its differences from other properties of matter. Features of mental reflection, signal nature of reflection. A. N. Leont'ev's hypothesis about the origin of the psyche and the stages of mental reflection. The stage of the elementary sensory psyche. Stage of the perceptual psyche. Intelligence stage. Some types of intellectual behavior in animals. The role of physical activity in the development of the psyche and behavior of animals. The adaptive meaning of the psyche of animals. Dependence of mental functions on the structure of the nervous system.
The transition to human consciousness due to the emergence of joint activities and speech. Human consciousness as the highest form of mental reflection, highlighting the stable properties of objective reality. Language and Consciousness. Language as a means of transferring social and historical experience. The cultural and historical essence of man as the main factor in the formation of "higher mental functions" (L. S. Vygotsky), the basis of education and training.
Topic 5. Development of the human psyche in ontogenesis.
The driving forces of the development of the psyche in ontogenesis. The role of social and biological factors in development. Cultural-historical theory of L. S. Vygotsky. Higher and natural mental functions. Higher mental functions as the main direction of development of the psyche in human ontogenesis, their structure, properties and nature. Interiorization as a mechanism for the formation of higher mental functions. The development of self-awareness and its role in building a picture of the world. Staging and heterochronism in the development of the human psyche. The importance of crises in personality development.
Topic 6. Sensations.
Feelings as a form of reflection. The origin of sensations. Types of sensations. The meaning of sensations in human life. Basic properties of sensations. Sensitivity concept. Psychophysical law. Interaction of sensations. Adaptation and sensitization of the senses. Methods for measuring sensations.
Topic 7. Perception.
Perception and its basic properties. The difference between perception and sensation. The process of building a perceptual image. Movement and its role in various types of perception. The concept of a sensory standard. Sensory deprivation phenomena. The problem of innate and acquired in the development of perception. The main experimental situations of the study of this problem: the study of the perception of newborns, animals raised and reared in artificial conditions, persons with vision pathology. Characteristics of the image of perception. Mechanisms of the formation of the visual image of perception: perception of form, size, volume and distance, perception of direction, movement.
Illusions of perception.
Topic 8. Attention.
Attention and its functions in cognitive and objective-practical human activity. Types of attention and their comparative characteristics. Dependence of attention on the importance of the object and the organization of activities. Attention management capabilities. The problem of post-voluntary attention and personality activity.
Properties of attention: stability, concentration, distribution, switching, volume.
Investigation of attention as a selection of material based on its physical and semantic characteristics. Attention is a “minimized” (P. Ya. Galperin) mental action of control.
Topic 9. Memory.
General concept of memory. The role of memory in cognition and practical human activity. Types of memory and criteria for its classification. Memory processes: memorization, preservation, reproduction, forgetting. G. Ebbinghaus about forgetting. Research of voluntary and involuntary memorization. Memorization as learning, its dependence on meaningfulness, the number of repetitions, the distribution of material in time, and attitude towards it. Involuntary memorization material, incompleteness of actions with it. The effect of proactive and retroactive inhibition on memorization. Reminiscence. Individual features of memory. Memory development. Methods for studying memory.
Topic 10. Imagination.
Types of figurative phenomena studied in psychology. The main functions of the image. Types of active imagination: recreational and creative. Passive imagination. The emergence and development of the image. Forms of synthesis of representations: agglutination, hyperbolization, schematization, typification. Imagination and personality development. Imagination and creativity.
Topic 11. Thinking.
Thinking as the highest form of cognitive activity. The social nature of human thinking. Thinking and problem situation. Psychological analysis of understanding. Thinking and sensory cognition. Thinking and speaking.
Types and forms of thinking. Types of thinking and criteria for their classification. Visual-effective, visual-figurative, verbal-logical thinking. Logical forms of abstract thinking: concept, judgment, inference. Thought operations (processes): comparison, analysis, synthesis, classification, abstraction, concretization.
Psychological analysis of the concept. Concept and word. Development of concepts in the learning process. Practical and theoretical thinking. Emotional regulation of mental activity. Formation of mental actions. Development of thinking in ontogenesis.