Russian Cultural-Historical Clinical Psychology and Its Methodological and Applied Inventions Aimed at Analysis of Individual Case

Abstract

In the Russian cultural-historical psychology (in the clinical psychology, first of all), there was a bunch of studies based on the exploration of individual (singular) case. The article focuses on analysis of those studies and demonstrates principal difference of the approach used in them from other methodologies and approaches to the analysis of individual case. Russian perspective was originally based on the fundamental ideas of Lev S. Vygotsky; nevertheless, they were not sufficiently reflected in the Russian psychology. Examining Vygotsky’s texts, the authors discuss more profound reflection and further development of Vygotsky’s ideas as applied to the analysis of the individual case in the cultural-historical psychology. The article shows the possibilities to elaborate this approach on the basis of concepts by Lev Vygotsky and Mikhail Bakhtin and gives own studies of the authors as an example of such an elaboration. Furthermore, the article argues that the integration of objective cultural-historical psychology and phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialogical psychology would be of significance if developed in the direction of cultural-historical psychology of Vygotsky — Bakhtin. Such an approach allows to address general psychological issues and opens up new opportunities in certain applied studies in the field of cultural-historical psychology.