Psychological Research on the Pathology of Activity and Its Significance for the Psychology of Personality

In his book Being and consciousness Bytiye i soznaniye] S. L. Rubinshteyn explained that "an external influence has a particular mental effect only by being refracted through the subject's mental state, through a system of thoughts and feelings formed within him" (45, p. 226). To apply this to particular research on pathology it is necessary to pass from studying disorders of specific functions to studying changes in various forms of the patient's activity, in whose structure are included changes in personality sets and motives.