Structural Psychology

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study begins with the statement that European psychology is undergoing schism and crisis. Proceeding from the principle of the primacy of the whole over its parts, structural psychology (Gestalt psychology) 1 has attempted to overcome the dualism of the “subjective psychology of experiencing” and the “objective psychology of behavior.” Being and consciousness, behavior and experience conform to universal structural patterns. Vygotsky sees the inherent (“genetic”) defect of structural psychology in its tendency to ignore the social nature of the human psyche. A “Marxist reform of psychology” ought to consist in the reinterpretation of the concept of structure, in the research into (i) the origin and “synthesis” of structures in general and (ii) the “social factor” defining the structure of a human personality in particular.