Zeigarnik, B. (1972). Experimental Abnormal Psychology
In recent years psychology has considerably expanded and enriched its relations with medical practice, first and foremost with psychiatry. This orientation toward experimental abnormal psychology has been closely tied to the practical tasks of psychiatry: differential diagnosis, establishment of the structure and extent of impairment, and the dynamics of mental disorders as affected by treatment, etc.
Experimental abnormal psychology has been no less important for the theoretical problems of psychology and psychiatry. The study of pathological changes in mental processes helps in dealing with questions about the structure and formation of mental activity. The research findings of abnormal psychology also have important implications for overcoming biologizing tendencies in the interpretation of human psychology.
The present book does not try to provide an exhaustive exposition of all divisions of abnormal psychology. It introduces the reader only to those problems which at the present time seem to be best worked out experimentally: the breakdown of intellectual capacity, thought disorders, the methodology of setting up an experiment in the psychiatric clinic, and certain questions relating to motivational disturbances and psychological growth and decay.
Some rewritten sections from the author's earlier book, "The Pathology of Thinking," have been included.
The present volume is intended for psychology students, for psychologists, and for physicians working in psychiatry.
Research in experimental psychology by the author and her colleagues constitutes the factual basis for the book's theses. This research was carried out in the Laboratory of Experimental Abnormal Psychology of the Moscow Institute of Psychiatry, which for many years has been the core program of the School of Psychology at Moscow State University.
I am sincerely grateful to the staff of the Institute and especially to my colleagues at the Laboratory. I would also like to express my gratitude to the physicians and psychologists at the Gannushkin Psychoneurological Hospital Number 4 for their unceasing assistance.
B. V. Z.
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