Socio-cultural conditions of the Formation of Russian Pre-Revolutionary Medical (Clinical) Psychology

Relevance. The history of Russian medical (clinical) psychology, especially its pre-revolutionary stage, remains underexplored to this day. n the history of science, three groups of factors are traditionally distinguished as determining the formation and development of any discipline: sociocultural, subjectlogical, and personal. Explicating the features of the sociocultural context – including societal, political, economic, philosophical, and value-based determinants – provides deeper insight into the conditions under which a scientific discipline emerges and, consequently, helps explain its specific character. Relying solely on subject-logical and personal determinants would imply that science developed in a social vacuum – an assumption that is fundamentally flawed, as science is a social institution and an essential part of culture. The sociocultural conditions of the formation of Russian medical psychology remain poorly studied. This article is dedicated to addressing this gap.

Intention: to examine the relationship between the socio-historical, general scientific and socialhumanitarian, general psychological contexts of the formation of Russian pre-revolutionary medical (clinical) psychology and the specific features of this field as a scientific discipline.

Methodology. To achieve this goal, methods of systemic, complex, cultural and historical event analysis were used.

Results and analysis. The study identified and described the institutional, problem-focused, and philosophical-methodological conditions under which Russian medical psychology emerged. It is argued that the political polarization and philosophical debates of the early 20th century had minimal impact on the methodological positions of Russian medical psychologists. The authors support the view that only some of the scholars analyzed (e.g., V.M. Bekhterev, A.A. Krogius) can be considered materialists, and even then only in a methodological–not philosophical-ontological– sense. The study demonstrates that pre-revolutionary Russian medical psychologists diverged in their understanding of the subject matter of psychology. Among them were proponents of both the natural scientific approach (e.g., V.M. Bekhterev, A.A. Krogius) and the empirical approach (e.g., I.A. Sikorsky, A.F. Lazursky).

Conclusion. As a result of studying the socio-cultural contexts of the formation of domestic medical psychology in the pre-revolutionary period, a weak influence of socio-political conditions and a much stronger influence of the philosophy of science were revealed. Despite all the differences in understanding the subject of psychology, the common philosophical basis that united Russian medical psychologists of the period was positivism, since it was within its framework that the importance of empirical methods (observation, experiment) for obtaining truly scientific knowledge was postulated.