In m Bekhterev biography. Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev brain phenomena. Analysis of the problem of communication

A great Russian scientist, he was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize, devoted his life to revealing the secrets of the human brain, treated people with hypnosis, studied telepathy and crowd psychology.

Mysticism and materialism

The experiments of Vladimir Bekhterev with hypnosis were ambiguously perceived by contemporaries, especially by the scientific community. At the end of the 19th century, the attitude towards hypnosis was skeptical: it was considered almost charlatanism and mysticism. Bekhterev proved that this mysticism can be used in an exclusively applied way. Vladimir Mikhailovich sent carts through the streets of the city, collecting drunkards of the capital and delivering them to the scientist, and then conducted sessions of mass treatment of alcoholism with the help of hypnosis. Only then, due to the incredible results of treatment, hypnosis is recognized as an official method of treatment.

brain map

Bekhterev approached the issue of studying the brain with the enthusiasm inherent in the discoverers of the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries. In those days, the brain was the real Terra Incognita. Based on a series of experiments, Bekhterev created a method that allows you to thoroughly study the paths of nerve fibers and cells. Thousands of the thinnest layers of the frozen brain were alternately attached under the glass of a microscope, and detailed sketches were made from them, which were used to create a “brain atlas”. One of the creators of such atlases, the German professor Kopsch, said: "Only two people know the structure of the brain perfectly - God and Bekhterev."

Parapsychology

In 1918, Bekhterev established an institute for the study of the brain. Under him, the scientist creates a laboratory for parapsychology, the main task of which was to study the reading of thought at a distance. Bekhterev was absolutely convinced of the materiality of thought and practical telepathy. To solve the problems of the world revolution, a group of scientists not only thoroughly studies neurobiological reactions, but also tries to read the language of Shambhala, plans a trip to the Himalayas as part of the Roerich expedition.

Analysis of the problem of communication

Questions of communication, the mutual psychological influence of people on each other occupy one of the central places in the socio-psychological theory and collective experiment of V. M. Bekhterev. Bekhterev considered the social role and functions of communication on the example of specific types of communication: imitation and suggestion. “If there were no imitation,” he wrote, “there could not be a person as a social individual, but meanwhile imitation draws its main material from communication with itself.
similar, between which, thanks to cooperation, a kind of mutual induction and mutual suggestion develops. Bekhterev was one of the first scientists to seriously study the psychology of the collective person and the psychology of the crowd.

Child psychology

The tireless scientist involved even his children in the experiments. It is thanks to his curiosity that modern scientists have knowledge of the psychology inherent in the infantile period of human maturation. In his article "The Initial Evolution of Children's Drawings in an Objective Study", Bekhterev analyzes the drawings of the "girl M", who is in fact his fifth child, his beloved daughter Masha. However, interest in the drawings soon faded away, leaving the door ajar to the untapped field of information that was now provided to followers. The new and the unknown has always distracted the scientist from what has already been started and partially mastered. Bekhterev opened the doors.

Experiments with animals

V. M. Bekhterev with the help of trainer V.L. Durova conducted about 1278 experiments of mental suggestion of information to dogs. Of these, 696 were considered successful, and then, according to the experimenters, solely because of incorrectly composed tasks. The processing of the material showed that "the dog's responses were not a matter of chance, but depended on the influence of the experimenter on it." Here is how V.M. Bekhterev's third experiment was when a dog named Pikki had to jump onto a round chair and hit the right side of the piano keyboard with its paw. “And here is the dog Pikki in front of Durov. He looks intently into her eyes, for some time covers her muzzle with his palms. A few seconds pass, during which Pikki remains motionless, but being released, he rushes swiftly to the piano, jumps up on a round chair, and from a paw strike on the right side of the keyboard, several treble notes are heard.

Unconscious telepathy

Bekhterev argued that the transmission and reading of information through the brain, this amazing ability, called telepathy, can be realized without the knowledge of the inspirer and transmitter. Numerous experiments on the transmission of thought at a distance were perceived in two ways. It was as a result of recent experiments that Bekhterev continued his further work "under the gunpoint of the NKVD." The possibilities of suggesting information to a person, which aroused the interest of Vladimir Mikhailovich, were much more serious than similar experiments with animals and, according to contemporaries, were interpreted by many as an attempt to create psychotronic weapons of mass destruction.

By the way...

Academician Bekhterev once noted that only 20% of people will be given the great happiness of dying, preserving their mind on the roads of life. The rest, by old age, will turn into evil or naive senile people and become ballast on the shoulders of their own grandchildren and adult children. 80% is much more than the number of those who are destined to get cancer, Parkinson's disease or die in old age from brittle bones. To enter the happy 20% in the future, it is important to start now.

Over the years, almost everyone begins to be lazy. We work hard in our youth so that we can rest in our old age. However, the more we calm down and relax, the more harm we do to ourselves. The level of requests is reduced to a banal set: "good food - plenty of sleep." Intellectual work is limited to solving crossword puzzles. The level of demands and claims to life and to others is increasing, the burden of the past is crushing. Irritation from misunderstanding of something results in a rejection of reality. Memory and thinking skills suffer. Gradually, a person moves away from the real world, creating his own, often cruel and hostile, painful fantasy world.

Dementia never comes suddenly. It progresses over the years, acquiring more and more power over a person. What is now just a prerequisite, in the future may become fertile ground for the germs of dementia. Most of all, it threatens those who have lived their lives without changing their attitudes. Such traits as excessive adherence to principles, perseverance and conservatism are more likely to lead to dementia in old age than flexibility, the ability to quickly change decisions, and emotionality. “The main thing, guys, is not to grow old with your heart!”

Here are some indirect signs that indicate that it is worth doing a brain upgrade.

1. You have become painfully sensitive to criticism, while you yourself criticize others too often.

2. You do not want to learn new things. Rather agree to repair an old mobile phone than understand the instructions for a new model.

3. You often say: “But before”, that is, you remember and are nostalgic for the old days.

4. You are ready to talk about something with rapture, despite the boredom in the eyes of the interlocutor. It doesn't matter that he will fall asleep now, the main thing is that what you are talking about is interesting to you.

5. You find it difficult to concentrate when you start reading serious or non-fiction. Poor understanding and memory of what you read. You can read half of a book today and forget the beginning tomorrow.

6. You began to talk about issues in which you were never versed. For example, about politics, economics, poetry or figure skating. Moreover, it seems to you that you are so familiar with the issue that you could start leading the state right tomorrow, become a professional literary critic or a sports judge.

7. Of the two films - the work of a cult director and a popular film novel / detective - you choose the second. Why stress again? You don’t understand at all what interesting someone finds in these cult directors.

8. You believe that others should adapt to you, and not vice versa.

9. Much in your life is accompanied by rituals. For example, you cannot drink your morning coffee from any mug other than your favorite without first feeding the cat and flipping through the morning paper. The loss of even one element would unsettle you for the whole day.

10. At times you notice that you tyrannize those around you with some of your actions, and you do it without malicious intent, but simply because you think that this is the right thing to do.

Brain development tips

Note that the brightest people, who retain their minds until old age, as a rule, are people of science and art. On duty, they have to strain their memory and do daily mental work. They keep their finger on the pulse of modern life all the time, tracking fashion trends and even being ahead of them in some ways. This "production necessity" is the guarantee of a happy and reasonable longevity.

1. Start learning something every two or three years. You do not have to go to college and get a third or even fourth education. You can take a short-term refresher course or learn a completely new profession. You can start eating those foods that you have not eaten before, learn new tastes.

2. Surround yourself with young people. From them you can always pick up all sorts of useful things that will help you always stay up-to-date. Play with children, they can teach you a lot that you don't even know about.

3. If you haven't learned anything new for a long time, maybe you just haven't been looking? Look around you, how many new and interesting things are happening where you live.

4. From time to time solve intellectual problems and take all kinds of subject tests.

5. Learn foreign languages, even if you don't speak them. The need to regularly memorize new words will help train your memory.

6. Grow not only up, but also deep! Get out old textbooks and periodically recall the school and university curriculum.

7. Go in for sports! Regular physical activity before gray hair and after - really saves from dementia.

8. Train your memory more often by forcing yourself to remember poems that you once knew by heart, dance steps, programs that you learned at the institute, phone numbers of old friends and much more - everything you can remember.

9. Break up habits and rituals. The more the next day will be different from the previous one, the less likely you are to "smoky" and come to dementia. Drive to work on different streets, give up the habit of ordering the same dishes, do something that you have never been able to do before.

10. Give more freedom to others and do as much as possible yourself. The more spontaneity, the more creativity. The more creativity, the longer you keep your mind and intellect!

Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev(January 20 (February 1), Sorali (now Bekhterevo, Yelabuga district) - December 24, Moscow) - an outstanding Russian medical psychiatrist, neuropathologist, physiologist, psychologist, founder of reflexology and pathopsychological trends in Russia, academician.

He organized in St. Petersburg the Society of Psychoneurologists and the Society for Normal and Experimental Psychology and the Scientific Organization of Labor. He edited the journals "Review of Psychiatry, Neurology and Experimental Psychology", "Study and Education of Personality", "Issues of the Study of Labor" and others.

After his death, V. M. Bekhterev left his own school and hundreds of students, including 70 professors.

Bekhtereva Street in Moscow is the largest in Moscow, the 14th city psychiatric hospital named after Bekhterev, which serves all districts of Moscow, especially the Closed Joint-Stock Company of Moscow.

Versions of the causes of death

According to the official version, the cause of death was food poisoning. There is a version that Bekhterev's death is connected with the consultation that he gave to Stalin shortly before his death. But there is no direct evidence that one event is connected with another.

According to the great-grandson of V. M. Bekhterev, S. V. Medvedev, director of the Institute of the Human Brain:

“The assumption that my great-grandfather was killed is not a version, but an obvious thing. He was killed for Lenin's diagnosis - syphilis of the brain.

Family

• Bekhtereva-Nikonova, Olga Vladimirovna - daughter.
• Bekhtereva, Natalya Petrovna - granddaughter.
• Nikonov, Vladimir Borisovich - grandson.
• Medvedev, Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich - great-grandson.

Addresses in Petrograd - Leningrad

• Autumn 1914 - December 1927 - mansion - embankment of the Malaya Nevka River, 25.

Memory

In honor of Bekhterev, postage stamps and a commemorative coin were issued:

Memorable places

• "Quiet Coast" - Bekhterev's estate in the current village of Smolyachkovo (Kurortny district of St. Petersburg), - a historical monument.
• The house of V. M. Bekhterev in Kirov is a historical monument.

Scientific contribution

Bekhterev investigated a wide range of psychiatric, neurological, physiological, morphological and psychological problems. In his approach, he always focused on a comprehensive study of the problems of the brain and man. Carrying out the reformation of modern psychology, he developed his own teaching, which he consistently designated as objective psychology (s), then as psychoreflexology (s) and as reflexology (s). He paid special attention to the development of reflexology as a complex science of man and society (different from physiology and psychology), designed to replace psychology.

Widely used the concept of "nervous reflex". Introduced the concept of "associative-motor reflex" and developed the concept of this reflex. He discovered and studied the pathways of the human spinal cord and brain, described some brain formations. Established and identified a number of reflexes, syndromes and symptoms. Physiological Bekhterev's reflexes (scapular-shoulder reflex, large spindle reflex, expiratory, etc.) make it possible to determine the state of the corresponding reflex arcs, and pathological reflexes (Mendel-Bekhterev's dorsal reflex, carpal-finger reflex, Bekhterev-Jacobson reflex) reflect the defeat of the pyramidal pathways.

Described some diseases and developed methods of their treatment (“Postencephalitic symptoms of Bechterev”, “Psychotherapeutic triad of Bechterev”, “Phobic symptoms of Bechterev”, etc.). Bekhterev described "stiffness of the spine with its curvature as a special form of the disease" (" Bekhterev's disease", "Ankylosing spondylitis"). Bekhterev singled out such diseases as "chorea epilepsy", "syphilitic multiple sclerosis", "acute cerebellar ataxia of alcoholics". Created a number of drugs. "Ankylosing spondylitis" was widely used as a sedative.

For many years he studied the problems of hypnosis and suggestion, including alcoholism.

For more than 20 years he studied the issues of sexual behavior and child rearing. Developed objective methods for studying the neuropsychic development of children.

1. on the normal anatomy of the nervous system;
2. pathological anatomy of the central nervous system;
3. physiology of the central nervous system;
4. in the clinic of mental and nervous diseases and, finally,
5. in psychology (Formation of our ideas about space, "Bulletin of Psychiatry",).

In these works, Bekhterev was engaged in the study and study of the course of individual bundles in the central nervous system, the composition of the white matter of the spinal cord and the course of fibers in the gray matter, and at the same time, on the basis of the experiments performed, elucidation of the physiological significance of individual parts of the central nervous system (optic tubercles, vestibular branches of the auditory nerve, inferior and superior olives, quadrigemina, etc.).

Bekhterev also managed to obtain some new data on the localization of various centers in the cerebral cortex (for example, on the localization of skin - tactile and pain - sensations and muscle consciousness on the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, "Doctor",) and also on the physiology of the motor centers of the cerebral cortex ( "Doctor", ). Many works of Bekhterev are devoted to the description of little-studied pathological processes of the nervous system and individual cases of nervous diseases.

Compositions:

• Fundamentals of the doctrine of the functions of the brain, St. Petersburg, 1903-07;
• Objective psychology, St. Petersburg, 1907-10;
• Psyche and life, 2nd ed., St. Petersburg, 1904;
• Bekhterev V.M. Suggestion and its role in public life. St. Petersburg: Edition of K.L. Ricker, 1908
  • Bechterew, W. M. La suggestion et son rôle dans la vie sociale; trad. et adapté du russe par le Dr P. Keraval. Paris: Boulangé, 1910
• General diagnostics of diseases of the nervous system, parts 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1911-15;
• Collective reflexology, P., 1921
• General principles of human reflexology, M.-P., 1923;
• Conducting pathways of the spinal cord and brain, M.-L., 1926;
• Brain and activity, M.-L., 1928: Selected. Prod., M., 1954.

From the photo archive

see also

Notes

Literature

• Nikiforov A.S. Bekhterev / Afterword. N. T. Trubilina .. - M .: Young Guard, 1986. - (Life of wonderful people. A series of biographies. Issue 2 (664)). - 150,000 copies.(in trans.)
• Chudinovskikh A. G. V.M. Bekhterev. Biography. - Kirov: Triada-S LLC, 2000. - 256 p. from. - 1000 copies.

Historiography and links

• Akimenko, M. A. (2004). Psychoneurology is a scientific direction created by V. M. Bekhterev
• Akimenko, M. A. & N. Dekker (2006). V. M. Bekhterev and medical schools of the University of Leipzig

• Bekhterev, Vladimir Mikhailovich in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• The role of suggestion in public life - speech by V. M. Bekhterev on December 18, 1897
• Biographical materials about V. M. Bekhterev from the Khronos project

Categories:

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• February 1st
• Born in 1857
• Born in Vyatka Governorate
• Deceased 24 December
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• Deceased in Moscow
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• Teachers of the Military Medical Academy
• Kazan University lecturers
• Russian hypnotists

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BEKHTEREV, VLADIMIR MIKHAILOVICH (1857–1927), Russian neurologist, psychiatrist, morphologist and physiologist of the nervous system. He built his concept of objective psychology. In his scientific interests, psychiatry, the study of the mental life of a person, occupied a central place. Paying considerable attention to psychology, he put forward a plan for its transformation into an objective natural science. At the beginning of the 20th century his first books appeared, which set out the basic principles of objective psychology, which he later called reflexology. In 1907, Bekhterev organized the Psychoneurological Institute, on the basis of which a network of scientific, clinical and research institutes was created, including the first Pedological Institute in Russia. This allowed Bekhterev to connect theoretical and practical research.

Developing his objective psychology as a psychology of behavior based on an experimental study of the reflex nature of the human psyche, Bekhterev, however, did not reject consciousness. He included it in the subject of psychology, as well as subjective methods of studying the psyche, including self-observation. The main provisions of the new science are outlined by him in the works "Objective Psychology" and "General Foundations of Reflexology". He proceeded from the fact that reflexological research, including the reflexological experiment, complements the data obtained in psychological research, questioning and self-observation.

Subsequently, Bekhterev proceeded from the fact that reflexology, in principle, cannot replace psychology, and the latest works of his institute gradually went beyond the reflexological approach.

From his point of view, a reflex is a way of establishing a relatively stable balance between the organism and the complex of conditions acting on it. Thus, one of the main provisions of Bekhterev appeared that individual vital manifestations of an organism acquire the features of mechanical causality and biological orientation and have the character of a holistic reaction of the organism, seeking to defend and assert its being in the fight against changing environmental conditions.

Exploring the biological mechanisms of reflex activity, Bekhterev defended the idea of ​​education, and not of the inherited nature of reflexes. So in the book "Fundamentals of General Reflexology" he argued that there is no innate reflex of slavery or freedom, and argued that society carries out a kind of social selection, creating a moral personality. Thus, it is the social environment that is the source of human development; heredity determines only the type of reaction, but the reactions themselves develop over the course of life. The proof of this was, in his opinion, studies of genetic reflexology, which proved the priority of the environment in the development of reflexes in infants and young children.

Bekhterev considered the problem of personality to be one of the most important in psychology and was one of the few psychologists of the early 20th century who interpreted personality at that time as an integrative whole. He considered the Pedological Institute he created as a center for the study of personality, which is the basis of education. He always emphasized that all his interests are concentrated around one goal - "to study a person and be able to educate him." Bekhterev actually introduced into psychology the concepts: individual, individuality and personality, believing that the individual is the biological basis on which the social sphere of the personality is built.

Of great importance were Bekhterev's studies of the personality structure, in which he singled out the passive and active, conscious and unconscious parts, their roles in various types of activity and their interrelationships. He noted the dominant role of unconscious motives in sleep or hypnosis and considered it necessary to investigate the influence of the experience gained at that time on conscious behavior. Exploring ways to correct deviant behavior, he believed that any reinforcement could fix the reaction. You can get rid of unwanted behavior only by creating a stronger motive that "absorbs all the energy spent on unwanted behavior."

Bekhterev defended the idea that in the relationship between the collective and the individual, it is the individual, and not the collective, that has priority. These views dominate in his works "Collective reflexology", "Objective study of personality". It was from this position that he proceeded, investigating the collective correlative activity that unites people into groups. Bekhterev singled out people prone to collective or individual correlative activity, and studied what happens to a person when he becomes a member of a team, and how the reaction of a collective person generally differs from the reaction of a single person.

In his experiments on the study of the influence of suggestion on human activity, Bekhterev actually for the first time discovered such phenomena as conformity, group pressure, which began to be studied in Western psychology only a few years later.

Arguing that the development of the individual is impossible without a team, he at the same time emphasized that the influence of the team is not always beneficial, since any team levels the personality, trying to make it a stereotyped spokesman for its environment. He wrote that customs and social stereotypes, in essence, limit the individual, depriving her of the opportunity to freely express her needs.

A.F. Lazursky - the founder of Russian characterology and experimental study of personality

Lazursky is the founder of Russian characterology and experimental study of personality.

A. F. Lazursky created a new direction in differential psychology - scientific characterology. He stood for the creation of a scientific theory of individual differences. He considered the main goal of differential psychology to be "the construction of a person from his inclinations", as well as the development of the most complete natural classification of characters. He advocates a natural experiment, in which the intentional intervention of the researcher in human life is combined with the natural and relatively simple setting of experience. Important in Lazursky's theory was the position of the closest connection between character traits and nervous processes. This was an explanation of personality properties by the neurodynamics of cortical processes. The scientific characterology of Lazursky was built as an experimental science based on the study of the neurodynamics of cortical processes. At first, he did not attach importance to quantitative methods for assessing mental processes, using only qualitative methods, he later felt the insufficiency of the latter and tried to use graphic diagrams to determine the child's abilities. The significance of this concept is that for the first time a position was put forward on the relationship of the personality, which is the core of the personality. Its special significance is also in the fact that the idea of ​​personality relations has become the starting point for many domestic psychologists, primarily representatives of the Leningrad-Petersburg school of psychologists. The views of A.F. Lazursky on the nature and structure of the personality were formed under the direct influence of the ideas of V.M. Bekhterev at the time when he worked under his leadership at the Psychoneurological Institute. According to A.F. Lazursky, the main task of the personality is adaptation (adaptation) to the environment, which is understood in the broadest sense (nature, things, people, human relationships, ideas, aesthetic, moral, religious values, etc.) . The measure (degree) of activity of a person's adaptation to the environment can be different, which is reflected in three mental levels - lower, middle and higher. In fact, these levels reflect the process of human mental development. Personality in the view of A.F. Lazursky is the unity of two psychological mechanisms. On the one hand, it is endopsychic - the internal mechanism of the human psyche. Endopsychic reveals itself in such basic mental functions as attention, memory, imagination and thinking, the ability to volitional effort, emotionality, impulsivity, i.e., in temperament, mental endowment, and finally, character. According to A.F. Lazurny, endofeatures are mostly congenital. Another essential side of the personality is the exopsyche, the content of which is determined by the attitude of the personality to external objects, the environment. Exopsychic manifestations always reflect the external conditions surrounding a person. Both of these parts are interconnected and influence each other. For example, a developed imagination, which also determines the ability for creative activity, high sensitivity and excitability - all this suggests art. The same applies to the exocomplex of traits, when the external conditions of life, as it were, dictate the corresponding behavior. The process of personality adaptation can be more or less successful. A.F. Lazursky, in connection with this principle, distinguishes three mental levels. The lowest level characterizes the maximum influence of the external environment on the human psyche. The environment, as it were, subordinates such a person to itself, regardless of his endo-features. Hence the contradiction between human capabilities and acquired professional skills. The middle level implies a greater opportunity to adapt to the environment, to find one's place in it. More conscious, with greater efficiency and initiative, people choose activities that correspond to their inclinations and inclinations. At the highest level of mental development, the process of adaptation is complicated by the fact that significant tension, the intensity of mental life, forces not only to adapt to the environment, but also gives rise to a desire to remake, modify it, in accordance with one's own desires and needs. In other words, here we can rather meet with the creative process. So, the lowest level gives people who are insufficiently or poorly adapted, the middle one - adapted, and the highest one - adaptable. At the highest level of the mental level, due to spiritual wealth, consciousness, coordination of spiritual experiences, the exopsyche reaches its highest development, and the endopsyche constitutes its natural basis. Therefore, the division goes according to exopsychic categories, more precisely, according to the most important universal ideals and their characterological varieties. The most important among them, according to A.F. Lazursky, are: altruism, knowledge, beauty, religion, society, external activity, system, power.

Features of the experimental approach in Russian psychology at the beginning of the 20th century

Specifics of the experimental layout in Russian psychology at the beginning of the 20th century; research N. In general, n. Probably Lange, A. Fortunately, f. In fact, azure. Apparently, the formation of a trend based on an experimental method of searching for mental phenomena was carried out under the influence of both the combined trends of the world's highly emotional science, but also peculiar sociocultural messages and criteria for the formation of Russian emotional cognition.

The main impartial message of introducing experience into psychology was the need for specific, experimentally unhurriedly verified results of the emotional research of the inhabitant of our planet. Indeed, it was unambiguously extremely necessary in their sharply developed at the end of the twentieth century. medicine and pedagogy. The second message of the development of experimental psychology was a narrow interaction with the sciences, with which psychology was connected both historically and logically, first, with the disciplines of the natural science cycle. Apparently, this interaction determined the problematic of truly emotional research and the introduction of truly fair methods of research by psychologists. Moreover, the third message was the logic of the formation of humanly scientific emotional cognition, the feeling of insufficiency and incompleteness of introspection as a method and doctrine of very scientific cognition.

The development of natural-science psychology in Russia was due to the materialistic tendencies formed in domestic science, embodied in the Russian philosophy of materialism, and also in the works of simply scientific workers - naturalists: D. On the other hand, and. In short, Mendeleev, I. Opposite and. It turned out that Mechnikova, I. Well, m. And now Sechenova, I. Naturally, p. Therefore, Pavlova, A. In essence, a. And yet Ukhtomsky and others.

Features of Russian behavior

If Germany gave the world the doctrine of the physicochemical foundations of life, England - the laws of evolution, then Russia gave the world the science of behavior. The creators of this new science, different from physiology and psychology, were Russian scientists - I.M. Sechenov, I.P. Pavlov, V.M. Bekhterev, A.A. Ukhtomsky. They had their own schools and students, and their unique contribution to world science was universally recognized.

In the early 60s. 19th century Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov's article "Reflexes of the brain" was published in the journal "Medical Bulletin". It produced a deafening effect among the reading population of Russia. For the first time since the time of Descartes, who introduced the concept of a reflex, the possibility of explaining the highest manifestations of personality on the basis of reflex activity was shown.

The reflex includes three links: an external push, which causes irritation of the centripetal nerve, which is transmitted to the brain, and reflected irritation, which is transmitted along the centrifugal nerve to the muscles. Sechenov rethought these links and added a new, fourth link to them. In Sechenov's teaching, irritation becomes a feeling, a signal. Not a "blind push", but the distinction of external conditions in which a response action is performed.

Sechenov also puts forward an original view of the work of the muscle. A muscle is not only a “working machine”, but also, due to the presence of sensitive endings in it, it is also an organ of cognition. Later, Sechenov says that it is the working muscle that performs the operations of analysis, synthesis and comparison of the objects with which it operates. But the most important conclusion follows from this: the reflex act does not end with muscle contraction. The cognitive effects of its work are transmitted to the centers of the brain, and on this basis the picture of the perceived environment changes. So the reflex arc is transformed into a reflex ring, which forms a new level of relations between the organism and the environment. Changes in the environment are reflected in the mental apparatus and cause subsequent changes in behavior; behavior becomes mentally regulated (after all, the psyche is a reflection). On the basis of reflex organized behavior, mental processes arise.

The signal is converted into a mental image. But the action does not remain unchanged. From movement (reaction), it turns into mental action (according to the environment). Accordingly, the nature of mental work also changes - if earlier it was unconscious, now the basis for the emergence of conscious activity is shown.

One of Sechenov's most important discoveries concerning the functioning of the brain is his discovery of the so-called centers of inhibition. Before Sechenov, physiologists who explained the activity of higher nerve centers operated only with the concept of excitation.

The main ideas and concepts developed by I.M. Sechenov, received their full development in the works of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov.

First of all, the doctrine of reflexes is associated with the name of Pavlov. Pavlov divided stimuli into unconditional (unconditionally cause a response of the body) and conditional (the body reacts to them only if their action becomes biologically significant). These stimuli, together with reinforcement, give rise to a conditioned reflex. The development of conditioned reflexes is the basis of learning, acquiring new experience.

In the course of further research, Pavlov significantly expands the experimental field. He moves from the study of the behavior of dogs and monkeys to the study of neuropsychiatric patients. The study of human behavior leads Pavlov to the conclusion that it is necessary to distinguish between two types of signals that control behavior. The behavior of animals is regulated by the first signal system (the elements of this system are sensory images). Human behavior is regulated by the second signal system (elements - words). Thanks to words, a person has generalized sensory images (concepts) and mental activity.

Pavlov also offered an original idea of ​​the origin of nervous disorders. He suggested that the cause of neuroses in people can serve as a collision of opposite tendencies - excitation and inhibition.

Ideas similar to Pavlov's were developed by another great Russian psychologist and physiologist, Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev.

Bekhterev was fascinated by the idea of ​​creating a science of behavior based on the study of reflexes - reflexology. Unlike behaviorists and I.P. Pavlov, he did not reject consciousness as an object of psychological research and subjective methods of studying the psyche.

One of the first domestic and world psychologists, Bekhterev begins to study personality as a psychological integrity. In fact, he introduces into psychology the concepts of an individual, personality and individuality, where an individual is a biological basis, a personality is a social formation, etc. Exploring the structure of personality, Bekhterev singled out its conscious and unconscious parts. Like Z. Freud, he noted the leading role of unconscious motives in sleep and hypnosis. Like psychoanalysts, Bekhterev developed ideas about the sublimation and canalization of psychic energy in a socially acceptable direction.

Bekhterev was one of the first to deal with the psychology of collective activity. In 1921, his work “Collective Reflexology” was published, where he tries to consider the activities of the collective through the study of “collective reflexes” - the reactions of the group to environmental influences. The book raises the problems of the emergence and development of the team, its influence on the person and the reverse influence of the person on the team. For the first time such phenomena as conformism, group pressure are shown; the problem of the socialization of the individual in the process of development is posed, etc.

Aleksey Alekseevich Ukhtomsky developed a different line in the study of the reflex nature of the regulation of the psyche in his works.

He made the main emphasis on the central phase of a holistic reflex act, and not on the signal, as originally IP Pavlov, and not on the motor, like V. M. Bekhterev. Ukhtomsky developed the doctrine of the dominant (1923). Under the dominant, he understood the dominant focus of excitation, which, on the one hand, accumulates impulses going to the nervous system, and on the other hand, simultaneously suppresses the activity of other centers, which, as it were, give their energy to the dominant center, i.e. dominant.

Ukhtomsky tested his theoretical views both in the physiological laboratory and in production, studying the psychophysiology of work processes. At the same time, he believed that in highly developed organisms behind the apparent "immobility" lies intense mental work. Consequently, neuropsychic activity reaches a high level not only with muscular forms of behavior, but also when the organism apparently treats the environment contemplatively. Ukhtomsky called this concept “operational rest”. Ukhtomsky explained a wide range of mental acts by the dominant mechanism: attention (its focus on certain objects, focus on them and selectivity), the objective nature of thinking (singling out individual complexes from a variety of environmental stimuli, each of which is perceived by the body as a specific real object in its differences from others ). Ukhtomsky interpreted this "division of the environment into objects" as a process consisting of three stages: the strengthening of the existing dominant, the selection of only those stimuli that are biologically interesting for the organism, the establishment of an adequate connection between the dominant (as an internal state) and a complex of external stimuli. At the same time, what is experienced emotionally is most clearly and firmly fixed in the nerve centers.

2007 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of V.M. Bekhterev - scientist-encyclopedist: neuropathologist, psychiatrist, morphologist, physiologist, psychologist, founder of the national school of psychoneurologists.

Bekhterev Vladimir Mikhailovich was born on January 20 (February 1, old style), 1857, in the village of Sarali, Yelabuga district, Vyatka province - now the village of Bekhterevo in the Republic of Tatarstan.

Bekhterev's father, Mikhail Pavlovich, was a bailiff; mother, Maria Mikhailovna, daughter of a titular adviser, was educated in a boarding school, where they taught both music and French. In addition to Vladimir, the family had two more sons: Nikolai and Alexander, 6 and 3 years older than him. In 1864 the family moved to Vyatka, and a year later the head of the family died of consumption. The financial situation of the family was very difficult, nevertheless, the brothers received a higher education.

In 1873, at the age of 16.5, V.M. Bekhterev entered the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. Shortly after admission, he suffered a mental disorder - "severe neurasthenia" (diagnosed by V.M. Bekhterev himself), possibly caused by the new living conditions of a provincial youth in the capital, but 28 days of treatment at the clinic for mental and nervous diseases of the academy restored his health. Perhaps that is why, as a 4th year student, he chose the specialty "nervous and mental illness", but in his autobiography he himself explained the choice by the fact that it made it possible to be closer to public life. As a final year student, Bekhterev took part in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. as part of the "flying sanitary detachment of the Ryzhov brothers." One of the brothers was a student of the Medico-Surgical Academy. In the detachment of 12 people there were 7 medical students of the Moscow Art Academy. Under the pseudonym "Order", Bekhterev wrote notes to the newspaper "Severny Vestnik". In 1878, Bekhterev passed his final exams ahead of schedule and very successfully and was left for further improvement at the Professor's Institute at the Academy.

On September 9, 1879, Bekhterev married Natalya Petrovna Bazilevskaya, whom he had known since the gymnasium in Vyatka. They had six children: Eugene, who was born in 1880, soon died, Olga was born in 1883, Vladimir in 1887, Peter in 1888, Ekaterina in 1890, and her beloved daughter Maria in 1904. .

In 1881, Bekhterev defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine on the topic: “The experience of a clinical study of body temperature in certain forms of mental illness,” and on November 20 of the same year he received the academic title of Privatdozent. In 1883, the Italian Society of Psychiatrists elected V.M. Bekhterev as a full member, and the Society of Russian Doctors awarded him a silver medal for the study "On forced and violent movements during the destruction of some parts of the central nervous system."

As a candidate for an internship, V.M. Bekhterev submitted 58 papers to the competition committee on various issues of experimental research and the clinic of nervous and mental illnesses, and on 06/01/1984, by the decision of the Academy Conference, he was sent on his first scientific trip abroad to Germany. V.M. Bekhterev attended lectures by Westphal, Mendel, Dubois-Raymond and other well-known German scientists involved in the study of the nervous system. Then, in Leipzig, he worked with the leading neurologist and morphologist of that time, P. Flexig, to whom he soon dedicated his first fundamental monograph, Pathways of the Spinal Cord and Brain. Here he began to study psychology in the laboratory of the famous W. Wund. In December 1884 V.M. Bekhterev received an official invitation from the Minister of Public Education Delyanova to take the chair of psychiatry at Kazan University. He accepted this invitation with certain conditions, one of which was the completion of the full program of the scientific mission. After Leipzig, Bekhterev visited Paris, where he got acquainted with the work of the great J. Charcot, and then Munich (prof. Gudden's clinic) and completed his business trip in the summer of 1885 in Vienna at the clinic of prof. Meinert.

In the autumn of 1885 V.M. Bekhterev began to work at Kazan University. He reorganized the department of psychiatry, at which he soon organized the first psychophysiological laboratory in Russia, where V.M. Bekhterev began to study the morphology of the nervous system. In the Kazan period of V.M. Bekhterev enriched science with discoveries in the field of anatomy and physiology of various structures of the brain and spinal cord. These studies were summarized in the first monograph, Pathways of the Spinal Cord and Brain (1893); three years later, in 1896, the second, thoroughly revised, edition was published, three times larger in volume and supplemented by 302 drawings made from brain preparations. This is a collection of empirical material obtained both by the author himself and by other researchers of great value. The German professor F. Kopsch (1868-1955) claimed that "only two know the anatomy of the brain perfectly - this is God and Bekhterev." In 1892 V.M. Bekhterev was the initiator of the creation of the Kazan Neurological Society, and in 1893 he created the journal Neurological Bulletin, the editor of which was for many subsequent years.

September 26, 1893 V.M. Bekhterev, instead of his teacher I.P. Merzheevsky (1838–1908), headed the Department of Mental and Nervous Diseases of the Military Medical Academy and became director of the mental illness clinic of the Clinical Military Hospital, on the basis of which the department was located. Here, research continued, begun back in Kazan and culminating in the publication in 1903-1907 of the monograph "Fundamentals of the Teaching about the Functions of the Brain", in 7 parts. This work of 2500 pages contains an analysis of the functions of various parts of the nervous system. In 1909 the work was translated into German. During his service in the Navy (1893–1913), the family of V.M. Bekhtereva occupied a state-owned apartment at the psychiatric clinic of the Military Medical Academy (Botkinskaya st., 9).

In St. Petersburg in 1896 V.M. Bekhterev created the journal Review of Psychiatry, Neurology and Experimental Psychology, and in 1897 a newly built clinic for nervous diseases of the Military Medical Academy (Lesnoy pr., 2) was opened, in which a special operating room was organized for the surgical treatment of certain nervous and mental disorders. diseases.

In 1899 V.M. Bekhterev was elected an academician of the Military Medical Academy and awarded the gold medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A year later (in 1900) V.M. Bekhterev was awarded the Baer Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In the same year, he was elected chairman of the Russian Society of Normal and Pathological Psychology and professor at the Women's Medical Institute in the Department of Nervous and Mental Diseases.

During the winter of 1905/1906 V.M. Bekhterev acted as head of the Military Medical Academy. In his autobiography, he wrote about this time: “I was required to lead the academy, as an institution of the military department, “safely” through the storm and onslaught of the revolution. I can say that this was done with honor, but it would be superfluous to give here the details of all the incidents that took place at the academy during this time. The Minister of War invited V.M. Bekhterev to take this post "finally ..., retaining the chair and directorship of the clinic for me", but V.M. Bekhterev refused: during these years his scientific interests were directed to the study of psychology - in 1903 he first proposed the creation of a Psychoneurological Institute. These plans were successfully implemented in 1907. In the same year, V.M. Bekhterev received the title of Honored Ordinary Professor.

Over the next four years, filled with efforts to create an institute, V.M. Bekhterev completed the three-volume monograph "Objective Psychology". In 1911, the Institute's first own buildings appeared in the so-called Tsar's Town beyond the Nevskaya Zastava, built by the well-known specialist in the construction of medical institutions, court architect R. F. Meltzer (1860–1943). In the same 1911, V.M. Bekhterev published a monograph "Hypnosis, suggestion and hypnotherapy and their therapeutic value."

In 1912, the Experimental Clinical Institute for the Study of Alcoholism was opened within the structure of the Psychoneurological Institute. A year later, the international scientific community decided to transform it into an international scientific center. On January 19, 1913, the Council of the Psychoneurological Institute unanimously elected V.M. Bekhterev as President of the Institute for the next five years; On January 24, the relevant documents were sent for approval to the Ministry of Public Education.

In September-October, V.M. Bekhterev took part in the widely discussed “Beilis Case” in Russia: he conducted a second psychiatric examination and proved the innocence of Mendel Beilis (he was charged with the ritual murder of an Orthodox 13-year-old boy Andrei Yushchinsky, and according to the results of the first examination conducted by Professor I.A. Sikorsky, this possibility was not ruled out). After V.M. Bekhterev at the trial M. Beilis was acquitted by a jury. The examination of the Beilis case entered the history of science as the first forensic psychological and psychiatric examination.

Immediately after V.M. Bekhterev on the “Beilis Case”, on October 5, the answer came from the Minister of Public Education L.A. Kasso (1865-1914) to the presentation of the Psycho-Neurological Institute: he did not find it "possible to approve the Academician Privy Councilor Bekhterev for the new five years in the rank of President of the Institute." At the same time, V.M. Bekhterev was fired from the Military Medical Academy and from the Women's Medical Institute.

In 1913, the Bekhterev family settled in their own house, built according to the design of the architect R.F. Meltzer on Kamenny Island. In those days, there were auxiliary buildings on the plot at the mansion: a stable, a garage for a scientist's car, etc. (only the main building has survived). In addition, the family had a dacha "Quiet Coast" on the shores of the Gulf of Finland (the area of ​​​​the current village of Smolyachkovo), where they spent Sundays, holidays and all summer. Not far from Bekhterev's dacha, thirty versts away, were "Penates" - the estate of the Russian artist I.E. Repin (1844-1930), who was often visited by Bekhterev. According to the memoirs of the daughter of the scientist Maria, they went to Repin along the bay on horseback on loose sands twice a summer and always on Ilyin's day. In the summer of 1913, I.E. Repin painted the famous portrait of V.M. Bekhterev, kept in the Russian Museum, and its author's copy is in the memorial museum of V.M. Bekhterev at the Psychoneurological Institute. The same museum also houses the work of the sculptor E.A. Bloch - a bust of a scientist. While posing V.M. Bekhterev himself fashioned the head of a suffering boy from a piece of clay, and the sculptor Bloch attached this work of the scientist to the bust of Bekhterev he had made. The meaning of the amazing composition can be expressed as follows: the suffering of the patient is the essence of Bekhterev the doctor.

During the First World War, V.M. Bekhterev contributed to the re-equipment of the Psycho-Neurological Institute into a Military Hospital, in which a first-class neurosurgical department functioned, which was later transformed into the first Neuro-Surgical Institute in Russia. In 1916, the educational units at the Psychoneurological Institute were transformed into the Private Petrograd University.

Revolution of 1917 V.M. Bekhterev accepted and from December 1917 began working in the scientific and medical department of the People's Commissariat for Education. Since 1918, he was already a member of the Academic Council under the People's Commissariat of Education, and in the same year he managed to organize the Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity (Institute of the Brain), for which the government allocated the building of the palace of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Jr. (Petrovskaya Embankment, 2 ). At the Institute, research began in full swing within the framework of a new scientific direction named by V.M. Bekhterev reflexology. In the same year, his monograph "General Foundations of Reflexology" was published.

In 1918, the Private Petrograd University at the Psychoneurological Institute received the official status of the Second Petrograd University. But in 1919, higher education was reorganized in Petrograd, as a result of which the law and pedagogical faculties were transferred to the First Petrograd University, the medical faculty was transformed into the State Institute of Medical Knowledge (GIMZ), the chemical and pharmaceutical department into the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Institute , Faculty of Veterinary Medicine - to the Veterinary and Zootechnical Institute. Thus, the created system of training at the university at the Psycho-Neurological Institute turned out to be so perfect that, if the need arose, individual faculties and even departments were turned into independent higher educational institutions without much difficulty.

January 1, 1920 V.M. Bekhterev addressed in the press to doctors all over the world with a protest against the food blockade of Russia, which was organized by the Entente countries. This statement in the press was broadcast on the same day and by radio abroad. The speech of the world famous scientist had a certain impact on the public of foreign countries, and after a while the newspapers reported that the blockade was being lifted.

From 1920 until the end of V.M. Bekhterev was a deputy of the Petrograd Soviet, taking an active part in the work of the permanent commission on public education.

In 1921 V.M. Bekhterev achieved the reorganization of the system of research institutions of the Psychoneurological Institute into the Psychoneurological Academy and was elected its President. In the same year, V.M. Bekhterev published the monograph Collective Reflexology. During this period, the scientist paid much attention to the study of the physiology of the labor processes of various professions and to the issues of the scientific organization of labor.

In the memoirs of V.M. Bekhterev and his relatives, his distinguishing feature is noted - an incredible ability to work. In between lectures, he did not rest, but conducted hypnosis sessions in the next room. Constantly wrote something, even on the road. I slept no more than 5–6 hours a day, usually falling asleep at 3 am. After waking up, often without getting up yet, V.M. Bekhterev set to work on the manuscripts. He was modest and undemanding. The external conditions of life for him and his work did not play any role. Three times a week V.M. Bekhterev received patients at home from eight o'clock in the evening and often until late at night (up to 40 patients per evening).

In the summer at the dacha of V.M. Bekhterev slept and worked on a balcony with a huge open window overlooking the bay. There was a small table and a comfortable straw chair, in which he sometimes wrote poetry for relaxation, and over time he accumulated quite a lot of them. Value time, he almost did not go on foot. He ate little, mostly vegetarian and dairy foods. For breakfast, I preferred steep oatmeal jelly with milk. At dinner, he was served separately fresh salad, without seasoning, whole leaves. He did not drink alcohol at all and did not smoke. Systematically swam in the bay until late autumn.

Brilliant abilities, an inquisitive mind, adamant perseverance in achieving the set goal and V.M. Bekhterev were aimed at the consistent resolution of the most difficult problems of medical theory and practice in the study, treatment and prevention of neuropsychiatric diseases.

After the revolution, Bekhterev's wife, Natalya Petrovna, lived at the dacha "Quiet Coast", which turned out to be abroad, in Finland. During the period of post-revolutionary devastation in the life of V.M. Bekhterev, another woman appeared - Berta Yakovlevna Gurzhi (nee Are). B.Ya. Gurzhi, an employee of the office in the Commission for the Improvement of the Life of Scientists (KUBU), provided V.M. Bekhterev his apartment, located in the city center, to receive patients. After the death of Natalya Petrovna in 1926, Bekhterev formalized his relationship with Berta Yakovlevna, and she began to bear his last name.

In 1927 V.M. Bekhterev received the title of Honored Scientist. On December 24, 1927, during the work of the I All-Union Congress of Neurologists and Psychiatrists in Moscow, at which V.M. Bekhterev made a report, he died suddenly. The circumstances of the disease - its development during the day, the lack of professionalism of the treatment carried out - as well as the features of the pathoanatomical autopsy (only the brain was removed and examined), the hasty cremation of the body in Moscow and the subsequent oblivion of the scientist for 30 years - all this suggests a violent nature of death. Berta Yakovlevna, who accompanied Bekhterev to Moscow, was present at his death. In 1937 she was repressed and shot a month after her arrest. Urn with the ashes of V.M. Bekhterev, kept for many years in the memorial museum of V.M. Bekhterev, only in 1970 was buried on the Literary bridges. The author of the tombstone is M.K. Anikushin (1917–1997).

“Systematic index of works and speeches of V.M. Bekhterev printed in Russian”, compiled by O.B. Kazanskaya and T.Ya. Khvilivitsky in 1954 contains about a thousand names. These works reflect: the discoveries of V.M. Bekhterev in the morphology and physiology of the nervous system, the description of 19 new forms of diseases in psychoneurology, the invention of many new methods of diagnosis and treatment, etc. It is known that V.M. Bekhterev conducted about a thousand forensic psychiatric examinations. The journal "Bulletin of Knowledge" in 1926 published a list of institutions and journals that arose on the initiative and with the direct participation of Vladimir Mikhailovich: institutions - 33, journals - 10. Subsequently, studies of the scientist's work made it possible to add 17 more institutions and 2 journals to this list. Work on the bibliography of the works of V.M. Bekhterev’s research continues, and at present, 1350 works published in various journals and individual publications in Russian and about 500 in other languages, mainly in German and French, have been identified. However, the complete collection of works has not yet been published.

In 1957, on the 100th anniversary of the scientist, the street on which the Psychoneurological Institute is located was named Bekhterev Street, in 1960 a monument was erected to him in front of the main building of the institute (sculptor M.K. Anikushin), a memorial plaque was placed on the building: “Founder Academician V. M. Bekhterev of the Psychoneurological Institute worked here from 1908 to 1927. Since 1925, the Psychoneurological Institute bears his name.

“If the patient does not feel better after talking with the doctor, then this is not a doctor.”
​V.M. Bekhterev

Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev (January 20, 1857 - December 24, 1927, Moscow) - an outstanding Russian physician, neuropathologist, physiologist, psychologist, founder of reflexology and pathopsychological trends in Russia, academician.

In 1907 he founded the Psychoneurological Institute in St. Petersburg, now named after Bekhterev.

Biography

He was born into the family of a petty civil servant in the village of Sorali, Yelabuga district, Vyatka province, presumably on January 20, 1857 (he was baptized on January 23, 1857). He was a representative of the ancient Vyatka family of Bekhterevs. Educated at the Vyatka Gymnasium and the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy. At the end of the course (1878), Bekhterev devoted himself to the study of mental and nervous diseases and for this purpose he worked at the clinic of prof. I. P. Merzheevsky.

In 1879, Bekhterev was accepted as a full member of the St. Petersburg Society of Psychiatrists. And in 1884 he was sent abroad, where he studied with Dubois-Raymond (Berlin), Wundt (Leipzig), Meinert (Vienna), Charcot (Paris) and others. - Associate Professor of the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy, and since 1885 he was a professor at Kazan University and head of the psychiatric clinic of the Kazan district hospital. While working at Kazan University, he created a psychophysiological laboratory and founded the Kazan Society of Neurologists and Psychiatrists. In 1893 he headed the Department of Nervous and Mental Diseases of the Medico-Surgical Academy. In the same year he founded the journal Neurological Bulletin. In 1894, Vladimir Mikhailovich was appointed a member of the medical council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and in 1895 - a member of the military medical scientific council under the Minister of War and at the same time a member of the council of the mentally ill. From 1897 he also taught at the Women's Medical Institute.

He organized in St. Petersburg the Society of Psychoneurologists and the Society for Normal and Experimental Psychology and the Scientific Organization of Labor. He edited the journals "Review of Psychiatry, Neurology and Experimental Psychology", "Study and Education of Personality", "Issues of the Study of Labor" and others.

In November 1900, the two-volume Bekhterev's Pathways of the Spinal Cord and Brain was nominated by the Russian Academy of Sciences for the Academician K.M. Baer Prize. In 1900 Bekhterev was elected chairman of the Russian Society for Normal and Pathological Psychology.

After the completion of work on the seven volumes of "Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain", Bekhterev's special attention as a scientist began to be attracted to the problems of psychology. Proceeding from the fact that mental activity arises as a result of the work of the brain, he considered it possible to rely mainly on the achievements of physiology, and, above all, on the doctrine of combinational (conditioned) reflexes. In 1907-1910, Bekhterev published three volumes of the book "Objective Psychology". The scientist argued that all mental processes are accompanied by reflex motor and vegetative reactions that are available for observation and registration.

He was a member of the editorial committee of the multi-volume "Traite international de psychologie pathologique" ("International Treatise on Pathological Psychology") (Paris, 1908-1910), for which he wrote several chapters. In 1908, the Psychoneurological Institute founded by Bekhterev began its work in St. Petersburg.

In May 1918, Bekhterev petitioned the Council of People's Commissars to organize an Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity. Soon the Institute was opened, and Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev was its director until his death. In 1927 he was awarded the title of Honored Scientist of the RSFSR.

He died suddenly on December 24, 1927 in Moscow, a few hours after he had poisoned himself with ice cream at the Bolshoi Theater1.

After his death, V. M. Bekhterev left his own school and hundreds of students, including 70 professors.

Scientific contribution

Bekhterev investigated a large number of neurological, physiological, morphological and psychological problems. In his approach, he always focused on a comprehensive study of the problems of the brain and man. Carrying out the reformation of modern psychology, he developed his own teaching, which he consistently designated as objective psychology (from 1904), then as psychoreflexology (from 1910) and as reflexology (from 1917). He paid special attention to the development of reflexology as a complex science of man and society (different from physiology and psychology), designed to replace psychology.

Widely used the concept of "nervous reflex". Introduced the concept of "associative-motor reflex" and developed the concept of this reflex. He discovered and studied the pathways of the human spinal cord and brain, described some brain formations. Established and identified a number of reflexes, syndromes and symptoms. Physiological Bekhterev's reflexes (scapular-shoulder reflex, large spindle reflex, expiratory, etc.) make it possible to determine the state of the corresponding reflex arcs, and pathological ones (Mendel-Bekhterev's dorsal foot reflex, carpal-finger reflex, Bekhterev's reflex - Jacobson) reflect the defeat of the pyramidal pathways.

Described some diseases and developed methods of their treatment (“Postencephalitic symptoms of Bechterev”, “Psychotherapeutic triad of Bechterev”, “Phobic symptoms of Bechterev”, etc.). In 1892, Bekhterev described "stiffness of the spine with its curvature as a special form of the disease" ("Bekhterev's disease", "Ankylosing spondylitis"). Bekhterev singled out such diseases as "chorea epilepsy", "syphilitic multiple sclerosis", "acute cerebellar ataxia of alcoholics".

Created a number of drugs. "Ankylosing spondylitis" was widely used as a sedative. For many years he studied the problems of hypnosis and suggestion, including alcoholism. For more than 20 years he studied the issues of sexual behavior and child rearing. Developed objective methods for studying the neuropsychic development of children. He repeatedly criticized psychoanalysis (the teachings of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, etc.), but at the same time contributed to the theoretical, experimental and psychotherapeutic work on psychoanalysis, which was carried out at the Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity headed by him.

In addition, Bekhterev developed and studied the relationship between nervous and mental illnesses, and circular psychosis, the clinic and pathogenesis of hallucinations, described a number of forms of obsessive-compulsive disorders, various manifestations of mental automatism. For the treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases, he introduced combination-reflex therapy and alcoholism, psychotherapy by the method of distraction, and collective psychotherapy.

Creation

In addition to the dissertation "Experience in the clinical study of body temperature in certain forms of mental illness" (St. Petersburg, 1881), Bekhterev owns numerous works on the normal anatomy of the nervous system; pathological anatomy of the central nervous system; physiology of the central nervous system; in the clinic of mental and nervous diseases and, finally, in psychology (The formation of our ideas about space, Bulletin of Psychiatry, 1884).

In these works, Bekhterev was engaged in the study and study of the course of individual bundles in the central nervous system, the composition of the white matter of the spinal cord and the course of fibers in the gray matter, and at the same time, on the basis of the experiments performed, elucidation of the physiological significance of individual parts of the central nervous system (optic tubercles, vestibular branches of the auditory nerve, inferior and superior olives, quadrigemina, etc.).

Bekhterev also managed to obtain some new data on the localization of various centers in the cerebral cortex (for example, on the localization of skin - tactile and pain - sensations and muscle consciousness on the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, Vrach, 1883) and also on the physiology of the motor centers of the cerebral cortex ("Doctor", 1886). Many works of Bekhterev are devoted to the description of little-studied pathological processes of the nervous system and individual cases of nervous diseases.

Works: Fundamentals of the doctrine of the functions of the brain, St. Petersburg, 1903-07; Objective psychology, St. Petersburg, 1907-10; Psyche and life, 2nd ed., St. Petersburg, 1904; General diagnostics of diseases of the nervous system, parts 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1911-15; Collective reflexology, P., 1921: General foundations of human reflexology, M.-P., 1923; Conducting pathways of the spinal cord and brain, M.-L., 1926; Brain and activity, M.-L., 1928: Selected. Prod., M., 1954.

Links

• The role of suggestion in public life - speech by V. M. Bekhterev on December 18, 1897
• Biographical materials about V. M. Bekhterev from the Khronos project

1 Regarding the unexpected death of V.M. Bekhterev, there are three versions. Among the closest students of V. M. Bekhterev, there was never, of course, not published, his own version of the teacher’s death: death at the moment of intimacy with one of the young employees, the so-called “sweet death” in the terminology of French authors. According to another version, the death of Bekhterev is connected with the fact that it was he who diagnosed the death of V.I. Lenin: "syphilis of the brain". The most plausible, however, should be considered the version according to which Bekhterev was poisoned on the orders of I.V. Stalin after Bekhterev, after Stalin's consultation about his dry hand, spoke of him as "an ordinary paranoid."