This book situates the work of the Soviet psychologist and neurologist Alexander Luria (1902-1977) in its historical context and explores the 'romantic' approach to scientific writing developed in his case histories. Luria consistently asserted that human consciousness was formed by cultural and historical experience. He described psychology as the ‘science of social history’ and his ideas about subjectivity, cognition and mental health have a history of their own. Lines of mutual influence existed between Luria and his colleagues on the other side of the iron curtain, but Psychologies in Revolution also discusses Luria’s research in relation to Soviet history – from the October Revolution of 1917 through the collectivisation of agriculture and Stalinist purges of the 1930s to the Second World War and, finally, the relative stability of the Brezhnev era – foregrounding the often marginalised people with whom Luria’s clinical work brought him into contact. By historicising science and by focusing on a theoretical approach which itself emphasised the centrality of social and political factors for understanding human subjectivity, the book also seeks to contribute to current debates in the medical humanities.
Author(s): Hannah Proctor
Series: Mental Health In Historical Perspective
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 266
Tags: Russian, Soviet, And East European History
Acknowledgements......Page 6
Note on Transliteration......Page 8
Contents......Page 9
Chapter 1: Introduction......Page 10
The Science of Social History......Page 15
Mapping Soviet Psychic Territories......Page 20
Cracked Monoliths......Page 22
Paths of Development: Methodology and Structure......Page 30
Chapter 2: The Criminal......Page 36
Luria’s Early Career: Kazan 1917–1923......Page 39
Objective Psychoanalysis......Page 44
Murder Cases......Page 53
Other Voices, Other Rooms......Page 60
Truth and Lies......Page 68
Conclusion......Page 77
Chapter 3: The ‘Primitive’......Page 80
Psychology as Social History......Page 84
Revolution as Evolution......Page 90
Luria Contra Gestalt (The Historical vs. the Universal)......Page 97
Language and Thought......Page 104
Revolutionary Assimilation......Page 111
Unveiling ‘Primitive’ Psychology......Page 115
Conclusion......Page 124
Chapter 4: The Child......Page 126
Children of the Revolution......Page 131
The Newborn Baby: From Organic Passivity to Historical Activity......Page 134
Paradoxes of the Vanguard......Page 140
Soviet Toys......Page 144
Language and Organisation......Page 149
Children of the Revolution......Page 156
Conclusion......Page 168
Chapter 5: The Aphasic......Page 173
New Wounded......Page 175
Wartime Work: Adaptation and Restoration......Page 178
A World Shattered and Remade: Between Spontaneity and Consciousness......Page 189
The Writing Cure......Page 195
The Man with a Shattered Brain: The History of a World Wound......Page 201
Monuments as Ruins: Between Modernism and Socialist Realism......Page 210
Conclusion......Page 216
Chapter 6: The Synaesthete......Page 219
Progress/Regress......Page 220
Colliding Forms of Perception......Page 225
Beginnings and Endings......Page 230
Suffering from Reminiscences......Page 237
Conclusion......Page 245
Critical Theory and Romantic Science......Page 247
Index......Page 262
