Person-centered approaches in medicine: Clinical tasks, psychological paradigms, and the postnonclassical perspective

Abstract

This article describes advances in the methodological means suggested by L. S. Vygotsky's cultural-historical concept in association with the theoretical model of person-centered diagnosis and the practical use of the construct for clinical psychology and medicine. To a great extent, these connections arise from the fact that the cultural-historical concept (because of its humanistic nature and epistemological content) is closely related to the person-centered integrative approach. The cultural-historical concept corresponds to the ideals of the postnonclassical model of scientific rationality with a number of "key" features. Above all it manifests its "methodological maturity" in coping with open selfdeveloping systems; being able to cope with such systems is most essential at the modern stage of scientific knowledge. The article gives consideration to the "defining pillars" of the person-centered approach in modern medicine, to the humanistic traditions of the Russian clinical school, and to the high prospects of such mental constructs as the "subjective pattern of disease" and the "social situation of personal development in disease" within the context of personcentered integrative diagnosis. This article discusses the need for implementation of a cross-cultural study of the subjective pattern of disease and its correlation with a particular social situation of personality development under disease conditions. The goals should be the development and substantiation of the model of the person-centered integrative approach, the enhancement of its diagnostic scope, and, subsequently, the improvement of the model of personcentered care in modern psychiatry and medicine. © Lomonosov Moscow State University, 2013 © Russian Psychological Society, 2013.