Research groups as the foundation for psychological school of V. M. Bekhterev

Abstract

In the context of studying work organization of the leading teams of Russian psychologists, the article provides characteristics of the research groups that worked under the direction of V. M. Bekhterev in the field of psychology. For outlining the institutional framework, composition and results of the activity of such groups, the author carries out the biographical analysis along with the analysis of the products of scientific activity of the scholar and members of his team. It is demonstrated that the psychological direction of the scientific school of V. M. Bekhterev was formed out of the groups led by him at the premises of Kazan State University, Saint Petersburg Military Medical Academy, Neuropsychiatric Institute, and Institute for Brain Research. The novelty of the implemented approach consists in reconstruction of the establishment of reflexology as an independent psychological direction of scientific activity of V. M. Bekhterev from the perspective of socio-psychological theory of the collective. The individual “branches” of research of the team members were a distinct feature of the organization of collective work, which ensured the fulfillment of creative potential of each scholar and contribution to the development of the collective subject of research. The author also notes the united role of the leader. Throughout 40 years, V. M. Bekhterev united dozens of talented researchers. A crucial characteristic of the psychological “scientific school-research group” represented by a number of research teams was the experimental, practical and socially oriented research program for human study. The author indicates the priority of the scientific school of V. M. Bekhterev in the development and implementation of the objective and comprehensive approach towards studying the psychological phenomena. Based on the described peculiarities of organizing scientific activity, the established research base and of psychological personnel determined the formation of the Leningrad School of Soviet Psychology not only in the works of V. N. Myasishchev, N. M. Shchelovanov, A. V. Yarmolenko, M. Y. Basov, B. G. Ananyev, but also many other Russian psychologists.