To Turn Psychology “into a Science of the Living Human Beeing...”: On the Psychotechnical Character of Research of the A.N. Leontiev school of the 1940s.

This paper analyzes select 1940s works of A.N. Leontiev’s school of psychological thought in light of the methodological principles of psychotechnical cognition which F.Ye. Vasilyuk formulated on the basis of L.S. Vygotsky’s ideas about practice as a constructive principle of psychological science. The paper refutes the assertion that Soviet-era cultural and activity psychology had no psychological practice in its own right, and demonstrates that such practice did really exist, had a distinctly activity-oriented nature, and contributed to the advancement of the activity theory. It was the practice of movement recovery which the team of psychologists, put together by A.N. Leontiev, practiced at the military hospital in Kourovka, fusing “psychotherapy”, research, and education into an inseparable whole. We observe that unity in Z.M. Istomina’s 1948 research, discussed in this paper in light of the eight general principles of psychotechnical cognition identified by F.Ye. Vasilyuk. Revisiting the Leontiev school’s heritage is relevant in the context of the ongoing conceptual revolution in psychology, for many methodological principles and provisions of activity psychology were ahead of their time.

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