Articles

Background. The relevance of the work is set by the need to develop new approaches and methods in psychological counseling and psychotherapy. 

Objective. The article presents the results of three research works currently being carried out by the Laboratory of Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy researchers of the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education. These studies aim to investigate various aspects of helping practices: (1) the professional competencies of counselling psychologists, (2) the specifics of the psychology of communication in logopsychotherapy, and (3) existential Self of teenagers in artlogotherapy. 

Results. The first direction emphasizes that there are many models of professional competencies of counselling psychologists and psychotherapists, accepted by various professional communities and schools of psychotherapy. Relying on such models simplifies assessing the development of competencies in students during the learning process and in practitioners with increasing work experience. The authors present the results of developing their theoretical model of the competencies of psychologists-consultants. 

The second direction focuses on the fact that one of the most important competencies that a specialist in the helping professions must possess to be effective in communication is the ability to inspire confidence in his work. A study of the attitudes towards psychotherapeutic influence in the system of the family group logopsychotherapy is presented, which made it possible to identify the main two types of such attitudes: a setting for communication as a way to transfer the information and setting for trust in the methodology and the leader. The study also revealed a typology of attitudes towards the impact of a significant Other on the personality. 

The third research direction is represented by the discussion of a study on the existential self of a client personality in the artlogotherapy. It shows how the art-logo technique “Jewel” by T.A. Popova contributes to understanding by the client the value of his own life. The technique can be used from early adolescence. 

Conclusion. It is stated that the use of integrative methods combining several approaches is a promising direction of psychological counselling.

Background. The analysis of research in the field of professional self-determination of youth, conducted at the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the 1920–2020s, reveals the dynamics of objectives and content of the scientific approaches to the problem in the context of historical and socio-economic development of our country. 

Objective. To identify the changes in the interpretation of the research subject and show the process of expanding the concept of professional self-determination from choosing a profession to becoming a professional during training and real work as well as the psychological readiness for professional self-determination. 

Methods. The study was conducted in line with the comparative historical approach which allowed for establishing changes in the phenomenology of socio-psychological processes in different historical epochs. 

Results. The article highlighted the priority directions of scientific research: from identifying the interests of youth and finding a profession that meets them to teaching labor skills and abilities as a way to increase labor motivation; from focusing on specific professional branches and specialties to finding an educational route in the field of prospective future work. The authors revealed the significant signs of the further transformation of the process of professional self-determination of school graduates under conditions of the post-industrial and digital economy. They are: the increase in the independence of young people when choosing their professional future, the destruction of the tradition of labor dynasties and the loss of value attitude to the chosen profession as a life’s work. 

Conclusion. The analysis made it possible to put forward the assumption that in the conditions of the digital economy, the very structure of the professional self-determination phenomenon is fundamentally changing, being aimed not so much at choosing and mastering a specific profession, but at finding a wide scope of application of one’s inclinations and abilities.

Background. The article reveals the path of scientific development of the laboratory of adolescent psychology. 

Objective. To show how the activities of the laboratory combine with the traditions of the Institute of Experimental Psychology, created by G.I. Chelpanov, with the concepts of O.V. Lishina, A.G. Asmolov and M.G. Yaroshevsky, who stood at the backgrounds of the laboratory, and with the challenges of modern psychology. 

Results. The tradition of studying thinking, perception, personality in the paradigm of development as well as the combination of theoretical work with experiment and reflection comes from G.I. Chelpanov and his school. The study of the role of the adult, motivation and attitudes in the formation of the personality of young people is based on the works of O.V. Lishin and A.G. Asmolov, and the development of the methodology of the historical genetic approach is closely connected with the Yaroshevsky’s concept of the historical psychology of science, his concepts of cognitive style and oppositional circle. In the process of modifying the methodology and tools for studying the socialization and identification of modern youth, the ideas of G.G. Shpet and N.I. Zhinkin were applied. This made it possible to develop the idea of cultural determination and harmonization of two processes — socialization and identification. The features of socialization and identification in a transitive society are revealed, their specificity in multicultural and monocultural spaces is shown. The author analyses the complexities of socialization in a situation of uncertainty and the phenomenology arising from the harmonization of two processes, often with the opposite direction — towards society and towards self-development and individualization. The analysis revealed the new trends in the development of adolescents and youth in the digital society, the basis for classification of the information space and allocation of information fields. Particular attention is drawn to the patterns of information socialization, to the reasons for popularity of social networks and streaming video, and to the connection between the image of the world and the content of a personal page on social networks. The author describes the tendencies of the personal and cognitive development of young people associated with the emergence of virtual and augmented spaces. 

Conclusion. The article highlights the importance of combining traditions and modern approaches and the need to synthesize various scientific schools approaches as well as fundamental and applied research for the fruitful development of the laboratory’s scientific activities.

Background. In modern conditions of digitalization of education and the spread of the digital format of reading, it becomes especially relevant to refer to the scientific heritage of Academician of the Russian Academy of Education G.G. Granik, in particular, to her concept of text comprehension. 

Objective. To analyze and summarize the results of the fundamental and practice-oriented research on the problem of text comprehension, carried out by G.G. Granik and her colleagues during forty years (1980–2020); to present a new empirical study of adolescents’ comprehension of text in the process of reading from paper and from screens. 

Methods. Methods include theoretical analysis and generalization of research results on the problem of text comprehension, carried out in the scientific school of G.G. Granik. 

In order to conduct the empirical study, the authors’ diagnostic toolkit was used, aimed at identifying the level of understanding of factual and conceptual textual information. 

Sample. The total sample consisted of 173 students in grades 7–8 of the secondary schools in the Moscow region. 

Results. It was found that students who read from paper demonstrate better diagnostic results than those who read from screen, however, the differences are statistically insignificant (p > 0.05). This may indicate that modern adolescents are rather quickly becoming better adapted to the digital format and the differences in reading from paper and from screen are gradually being erased. However, the level of understanding of a long and complex text remains quite low: almost half (49.7%) of the students were unable to formulate the main idea of the text, only 30.6% coped well with this task. 

Conclusion. Conceptual ideas about text comprehension, generated in the scientific school of G.G. Granik in relation to traditional paper reading have an undoubted development potential and can be used as the basis for research on digital reading.

Background. The article contains an analysis of L.S. Vygotsky`s autograph for his brother David dated 4th August, 1917. Meaning reconstruction of this autograph not only sheds light on L.S. Vygotsky`s understanding of the art phenomenon during his early (pre-psychological) stage of work, but also helps us to assume his worldview position at this period. 

Objective. Reconstruction of L.S. Vygotsky`s understanding of the phenomenon of art at the period between two revolutions and comparison of this understanding with the concept of art given in his “Psychology of Art”. 

Methods. Elements of source analysis, theoretical analysis of literature devoted to the specified stages of L.S. Vygotsky`s life, analysis of archival documents. 

Results. In his autograph L.S. Vygotsky contrasts two understandings of art: art as a social sign activity for transmitting feelings between individuals (L.N. Tolstoy) and art as a supra-individual spiritual phenomenon, a metaphysical human activity purposed to justify the world (F. Nietzsche). At the time of August 4, 1917, L.S. Vygotsky agrees with Nietzsche`s concept of art as the idea of an instrument for justifying the world is close to him because of his personality and professional crisis. Later, in his “Psychology of Art” L.S. Vygotsky gives the art definition that is closer to the socially oriented definition of L.N. Tolstoy, thus moving away from metaphysics. 

Conclusion. The presented analysis of L.S. Vygotsky’s autograph is important for understanding his moods and thought at the period between two revolutions of 1917. It also reflects the nonlinearity of L.S. Vygotsky`s professional search throughout his life.

Background. Sustainability, stability and progressive development of the country are largely determined by the status of its education system, its lead potential and ability to respond opportunely to the challenges of time, to take into account risks and to solve urgent, most acute problems. In the whole complex of problems of the Russian education one can single out the central one determining all the others — the lack of a strategy for innovative pedagogical education. 

Objective. The author had the purpose to conduct a multidimensional analysis of the factors determining the external and internal prerequisites for the personal and professional development of a teacher in the conditions of an updated pedagogical education. 

Results. The article provides a psychological analysis of possible positive dynamics, strategies of personal and professional development of a teacher based on the continuity of cultural traditions and innovative scientific technologies developed at the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education. It is shown that the accumulated theoretical and empirical material aimed at optimizing the educational process at school and university should be rethought and taken into account at the present stage of society development. The research team has carried out a series of studies that allowed to develop a new methodological — “systemic personality developing” approach, a concept and technology of personal and professional development of a teacher. The research presented in the article is aimed at solving the urgent problem of scientific and empirical substantiation of psychological concepts for development of a teacher ensuring the psychological well-being of students in a crisis period. A comparative analysis of two stages of empirical research (before the crisis and during the crisis) demonstrated that about a quarter of all surveyed teachers are specialists with a high level of personal and professional development, and they are able to create a psychologically favorable educational environment for their students. The number of teachers with a low level of personal and professional development increased significantly during the crisis, which negatively affected the level of anxiety, uncertainty, and fears among their students. 

Conclusion. The study established that it is the teacher who is the main subject providing a psychologically favorable educational environment for students, taking into account fundamental changes and crises in society: socio-cultural, philosophical, economic, political, etc. The obtained evidence base allowed for creation of a new practice of psychological training of future teachers which has been transformed at the target, content (personal, interpersonal, professional), technological, organizational, and strategic levels.

Background. The article raises a fundamental question that remains relevant throughout the entire period of the existence of psychology as a separate science, which claims to be objective and accurate knowledge. It is a question about the status of humanitarian psychology and about the limits of applicability of traditional research methods and criteria of scientific knowledge for understanding the inner world of a person. 

Objective. The author seeks to outline the limits of applicability of deterministic explanation of phenomena, causal logic, criteria of the result repeatability, etc. and to justify the need for developing the other methods and criteria for penetrating the inner world of a human being. 

Results. The statement is discussed that strict adherence to the mentioned criteria makes it possible to study a person only as a “thing”, while everything specifically human escapes research. This explains the difficulties or even the refusal to study such important problems as human freedom, creativity and, in particular, the phenomenon of insight; morality and responsibility, the meaning of life, etc. that cannot be explained by means of causal logic. The author suggests the following assumption: by cutting off everything that does not meet the traditional criteria of scientific character, psychology does not so much preserve as impoverish itself. In his arguments the author relies on the works of the greatest thinkers and scientists V.S. Solovyov, V.V. Zenkovsky, L.M. Lopatin, A.S. Arsenyev, S.L. Rubinstein, P. Teilhard de Chardin. 

Conclusion. In cases where the subject of study opposes the method of study, the science needs a change of point of view on the phenomenon under study and a fundamentally different formulation of the research question. At the same time, previously accumulated knowledge is not devalued, but acquires a different meaning. 

The author sees favorable opportunities for the development of psychology in its rapprochement with philosophy, with comprehending the experience of religious practices and the figurative-metaphorical way of describing phenomena.

Background of the article is set by the need to determine the main topics and formulate new tasks of the current stage of development of the cultural-historical psychology. 

Objective. Generalization of the author’s clinical observations, experimental materials and theoretical assumptions over the last 30 years of research in the field of developmental psychology; an attempt to highlight the key sought-for and reconstruct the field of possibilities in the cultural-historical psychology understood as the psychology of development. 

Results. The article gives a generalization of experimental studies and clinical observations of the situation of mediation and the act of mediation. It is substantiated that mediation is revealed. It is presented as an event of cumulative intermediary action. Intermediary action is appropriate in a situation of discovering and overcoming a hitherto implicit boundary of activity. 

Conclusion. It is demonstrated that intermediary action leads to three outcomes: its result is achieving what is needed; its product is discovering the meaning of the sign as a symbol of the space of action possibilities; its effect is procreating the actors’ subjectivity. Intermediary action is a unit of development.

Background. The anthropogenic pressure on the natural and social environment increases the ecopsychological research. On the eve of the 110th anniversary of the RAO Psychological Institute, it is important to conduct a historical and theoretical analysis of the development of an ecopsychological approach to the development of the psyche, indicating the importance of such prominent scientists of this institution as V.V. Davydov, G.A. Kovalev, A.I. Mirakyan, F.T. Mikhailov, etc. 

Objective. To describe the methodological prerequisites, theoretical constructs and stages ecopsychological approach to the development of the psyche being. 

Methods. Historical and theoretical analysis of the methodological prerequisites, theoretical constructs and stages ecopsychological approach to the development of the psyche being. 

Results. There are three stages in the formation of ecopsychological approach to the development of the psyche. First stage — academic topics “Ecology of childhood” and “Gifted student”. The second stage was devoted to the development of the main theoretical constructs, including the idea of the psyche as a form of being, relationship “individual — environment”, the ecopsychological typology of subject-environmental interactions, and the ecopsychological model of the formation of agency. The third stage — paradigmatic analysis of the definition of the psyche as an object of research within the framework of epistemological, ontological and transcendental paradigms. Four forms of existence are distinguished psyche as an object of study: become, alienated, generated and virtual. 

Conclusion. The obtained results suggest that in the future such an approach will make it possible to study the emergence of not only individual mental phenomena, but also ways of thinking that determine one or another scientific paradigm, not only in psychology, but also in the natural sciences.

Background. The article is devoted to the 110th anniversary of the founding of the Psychological Institute in Moscow. The main topics of discussions on the problems of giftedness at the beginning of the 20th century are considered in the context of modern psychology. 

Objective. The article has its purpose to show the persisting relevance of the conceptual ideas about giftedness formed in the initial period of its scientific study and their development in theoretical and experimental research in the Psychological Institute over the late 20th and early 21st centuries. 

Results. Analysis of the debates on the problems of giftedness at the first Russian psychological congresses and publications by G.I. Chelpanov, P.P. Blonsky, L.S. Vygotsky, V.M. Ekzemplyarsky demonstrates that their statements about the complexity and originality of the manifestations and development of giftedness continue to be the attention focus of psychologists and educators. The development of these ideas can be traced in the differential psychology of B.M. Teplov, in the giftedness concepts of N.S. Leites and A.M. Matyushkin. The research results of the department of psychology of giftedness at PI RAO over the last five years keep expanding the ideas about giftedness proposed by its first researchers: on the integrity and complexity of the mental giftedness phenomenon, on identification and development of gifted children, on developmental education technologies for children with different types of giftedness and methods of their psychological and pedagogical support, on the telic theoretical and practical training of teachers for gifted children. 

Conclusion. The approach to the problem of giftedness, proposed in the works of G.I. Chelpanov and the first researchers of the Psychological Institute, preserved and received its further development, despite persecution of the scientists, obstacles, and prohibitions on their works. The perspectiveness of most of these ideas has been proven in more recent research on ability, giftedness, thinking, and creativity, including work carried out in the 21st century.