From The History of Soviet Labor Psychology

In our country, labor psychology originated and began to develop only after the Great October Socialist Revolution.     

On The History of Soviet Military Psychology

Military psychology is a branch of psychology, which is in addition included among the military sciences. In it the psychological features of different kinds of military and, above all, of combat activity are studied in relation to social and historical conditions, military technology, personal qualities of the fighting men, and methods of military and political preparation. The general purpose of Soviet military psychology is to discover principles of human mental activity under the conditions of combat and of training for combat, and to use these principles for raising the fighting capacity of the Soviet armed forces.     

Totems and Teachers: Key Figures in the History of Anthropology

Totems and Teachers: Key Figures in the History of Anthropology . Sydel Silverman, eds. New York: AltaMira Press, 2004. 258 pp.     

Soviet Psychology in English: Translations of Books

The English-speaking reader was given an opportunity — apparently not utilized too effectively — to familiarize himself early with the germinal ideas of research on what Pavlov first called the "so-called psychical processes" (Pavlov, I.P., Scientific study of so-called psychical processes of higher animals. Science, 1906, 24, 613-619, published in the U.S.A.; Lancet, 1906, 84,2,911-915, published in Great Britain), and what he later (1923, in Russian) referred to as "higher nervous activity (behavior)." The term "behavior" was used, in parenthesis, by Pavlov himself, and does not represent our interpretation or addition.     

Current Soviet Psychology: A Systematic Review

Scope and Nature of the Present Report: This presentation is based on materials, primarily books, that have become available since the completion of the chapter on "Recent Developments in Soviet Psychology," published in Vol. 15 of the Annual Review of Psychology (Brozek, 1964, pp. 493-594). It is closer to a commentary on Soviet contributions that are of potential interest to American psychologists (a "bibliography with comment") than to a critical appraisal. The latter is the task of topical reviews and monographic presentations.     

A Brief Overview of the History of Estonian Psychology (1632–1940)

Abstract

An overview of the development of the field of psychology in Estonia, beginning with the founding of the university in 1632 and up to 1940.     

Reviews in English of Recent Soviet Psychology: A Bibliography

General Reviews (Arranged Chronologically): Mintz, A. Recent developments in psychology in the USSR. Ann. Rev. Psychol., 1958, 9, 453-504.     

Some Prospective Problems of Soviet Psychology

Soviet psychology meets the fiftieth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution with outstanding achievements. It is sufficient to recall its success in dealing with such fundamental problems as those of the sociohistorical character of the human mind, of activity, and of consciousness. Moreover, new prospects, emanating from the profound changes of recent years, have opened up before psychology. These changes have involved a considerable broadening in the range of problems dealt with, an expansion of its connections with practice, a more intensive development of borderline investigations, and a revision of its methodological arsenal, consisting of the inclusion of mathematical methods and the wide use of electrophysiological and other objective indicators.     

Recent Soviet Conferences on Psychology and Psychophysiology: Topical Summaries

The following conferences, held in 1964 and 1965, were reported in the journals Voprosy psikhologii (V), Zhurnal vysshey nervnoy deyatel'nosti im. I. P. Pavlova (P), and Fiziologicheskiy zhurnal SSSR im. I. M. Sechenova (F).     

Glossary of Terms Frequently Encountered in Soviet Psychology

Numerous terms are used in Soviet psychology, the direct translation of which may be misleading to American psychologists because they are habitually used in a different sense from that familiar to Western psychology. For example, righteous indignation has been vented by Western psychologists over the "Russian preoccupation" with interpreting all behavior in terms of Pavlovian reflexes. To the Russian psychologist, the word refleks is no more a specific term than the word "response" is to an American psychologist. Its use does not imply the classical Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. Since interpreters are not necessarily aware that the cognates are not synonymous, it is worthwhile for any Western psychologist to become aware of the most common and easy sources of terminological confusion. The following is a glossary of terms which are so familiar to the Russian psychologist that he will seldom stop to explain them. Most of them are cognates. Some are synonymous with their usual English translations; many are not.     

On The Fiftieth Anniversary of Soviet Psychology

1. The fiftieth year of Soviet psychology marks the fiftieth year in the struggle to construct a materialist psychological science on the firm foundation of Marxist-Leninist philosophy and on the progressive traditions of prerevolutionary Russian psychology. These fifty years have witnessed the concentrated efforts of Soviet psychologists to work out the basic theoretical problems of psychology, to integrate it vitally into the construction of a new way of life and a new society and into the development of the national economy and culture of our country.     

The 24Th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Tasks of Soviet Psychology

Congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union are central events for Soviet society, for they adopt general lines of attack on the problems Soviet leaders view as centrally important. This brief statement concerning psychology makes very clear the role that psychology is asked to play in such areas as increasing labor productivity and improving the techniques of upbringing for the nation's youth.     

Excavating the Psyche: A Social History of Soviet Psychiatry in Bulgaria

This article investigates how an imported Soviet psychiatric model affected Bulgarians who experienced psychological crisis by examining therapeutic possibilities that were available and foreclosed in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. Bulgarians struggling with psychological disorders in the present day experience polar forms of marginalization: non-recognition on one extreme, and chronic medicalization on the other. Both tendencies can be traced to the Communist-period remodeling of mental healthcare, which outlawed private practice and individual-centered therapy, which reified empirically observable, physiological underpinnings of pathology while suppressing therapies that engaged with the existential context of mental illness. I argue that the reproduction of a Soviet psychiatric model instigated a modernization process but failed to anticipate the idiosyncrasy of economic and social conditions within the country. Furthermore, that this model rejected a therapeutic focus on the individual but developed no effective alternative for identifying and treating subjective characteristics of mental illness. Bulgaria’s history of psychiatry has received little scholarly attention beyond Bulgarian psychiatrists who documented the development of their field. This article presents archival, literary and oral history footholds towards the development of a social history of Bulgarian psychiatry—a perspective that is especially and problematically missing.     

A Word About the Change from Soviet Psychology to Journal of Russian and East European Psychology

With the final disintegration of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the title Soviet Psychology suddenly belonged to history. After considering all the unsatisfactory alternatives, the editors and I have decided to rename it Journal of Russian and East European Psychology.     

The Problem of Child Development In Soviet Psychology

The problem of child development was central in Soviet psychology from the start. Interest in child development arose, on the one hand, in connection with the needs of pedagogical practice, for the reconstruction and improvement of the educational system for the new generation, and, on the other hand, as a result of the theoretical importance of the problem in working out a genetic approach to the study of the human mind [psikhika].     

Subject Index to Soviet Psychology and Psychiatry,Volume II

A municipal consultation center for psychological and pedagogical assistance to parents and educators has been functioning publicly in the city of Komsomol'sk-na-Amur since 1977 (a social laboratory for the study and elimination of the causes of aberrant behavior in children, adolescents, and youth).     

A Brief History of Epigenetics

The term “epigenetics” was originally used to denote the poorly understood processes by which a fertilized zygote developed into a mature, complex organism. With the understanding that all cells of an organism carry the same DNA, and with increased knowledge of mechanisms of gene expression, the definition was changed to focus on ways in which heritable traits can be associated not with changes in nucleotide sequence, but with chemical modifications of DNA, or of the structural and regulatory proteins bound to it. Recent discoveries about the role of these mechanisms in early development may make it desirable to return to the original definition of epigenetics.