During the first half of the last century, in the process of revolutionary changes that occurred in the Soviet Union, psychology played an extremely important role in the construction of the new man. During the first decades that followed the great October revolution, the contributions made by the Vygotsky school not only gained importance in the application of scientific methods and techniques in various areas (development of psychological activity, pedagogy, and clinical-brain traumas). ) However, through practical and arduous work, his final goal was the creation of a scientific psychology, based on the foundations of dialectical materialism. It was precisely Vygotsky who proposed the creation of a psychological science, qualitatively different from what was applied at that time in Western countries.
For Vygotsky and his school, complex psychological activity arises from the dialectical relationship between the brain and the social environment, essentially having language as a mediated precursor, for the sophisticated development of higher psychological activity: the most complete point of social transformation.
Through the various stages of historical-social development, human beings play an active role in theproduction of material goods, carrying out, since the Neolithic phase, quantitative and qualitative transformations of the means of production. As a qualitative result of this action on the surrounding world, in an increasingly sophisticated way, and through the formation of internal language, human consciousness appears, becoming the most sophisticated psychological structure of evolution.
According to Vygotsky and his school, these functions arise, in the foreground, as a result of the phylogenetic development of the nervous system, in its adaptation process, first at the biological level, and then, in a qualitative leap, yielding to the social level the predominant role in the development of higher psychological activity.
Following the basic foundations of Marxism, Vygotsky and his followers initiated, in the years that followed the Bolshevik revolution, a methodology for the study of psychological processes, very different from the one practice in the Western world. According to Vygotsky’s thought, these increasingly complex forms of cognitive, emotional, and motor functions, in their dialectical relationship with the environment, would lead to increasingly greater sophistication of the means of production, to greater domination of nature by the human being, and an increasingly vertiginous social development of the productive forces.Â
The contributions of both Vygotsky and his school have had an impact at various levels in the areas of applied psychology. For example, contrary to individualistic and passive theories of pedagogical instruction in the area of basic learning, Vygotsky proposes the concept of multicultural instruction, in which cultural artifacts, which are part of the historical-cultural heritage of the various ethnical groups, are used as psychological mediators, linking external factors and the psychological structure for the formation of new learning.
Another great contribution made by Vygostky was to posit the scientific foundations for the dialectical relation between internal language and human thought both at a phylogenetic and ontogenetic level. Following the stages of development of thought and language, Vygotsky proposed that with the use of cultural tools, and with the assistance of active instruction from the adult, the child increases the ability to advance towards higher areas of learning. Hence, the teacher, contrary to the passive proposal of traditional pedagogy, has a fundamental role in generating a higher level of knowledge through active social interaction with the child. This educational method derived from the historical-cultural theory developed by Vygotsky became the cornerstone of the Soviet teaching system and was implemented in the early 1920s.
It should be noted that this educational method also known worldwide as the “zone of proximal development” is currently used in various educational systems, both in Europe, as well as in Latin American countries.
Furthermore, Vygostky and his school also contributed to the development of rehabilitation techniques and methods in the areas of clinical psychology and neuropsychology. Using history as a stepping stone, we have found data that attests to how LS Vygotsky, AR Luria, and AN Leontiev, also known as the troika (the trident), met and influenced each other. Back in the twenties, Vygostky, motivated to develop the foundations of scientific psychology, began to form work groups with other scholars of similar ideas. In these groups, he developed a close friendship with A.R. Luria and A.N. Leontiev, two young psychologists at the University of Moscow. Together they discovered a series of qualitative methods, from a Marxist perspective, which were then developed at a higher level. On the one hand, Luria applied the principles of the social-historical method to the study of the sophisticated development of the central nervous system, its functioning, and disorders as a result of brain and cerebrovascular trauma. His great contribution led him to be considered worldwide as the father of neuropsychology. On the other hand, AN Leontiev developed a sophisticated theory of social activity and personality formation, which is currently applied to various areas of occupational, clinical, and educational psychology
In conclusion, Lev S. Vygostky’s contributions not only consist of his theoretical proposal to the understanding of concrete man from a dialectical materialist perspective, but also the creation of various scientific areas such as developmental psychology, educational psychology and neuropsychology among others. Furthermore, the heuristic value of his contributions has recently been accepted in the Western hemisphere, in which by consensus, there is recognition of the scientific relevance of clinical and educational methods derived from historical-cultural psychology.
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