98' 6, page 75

Sirotkina I. E.
Literature and psychology: oncerning humanitarian approach history
(resume)

The article uses the material of the history of psychology and psychiatry to throw into relief the differences between the scientific and the humanistic approaches. In contrast with the Naturwissenschaften, the Geisteswissenschaften overtly addressed the question of human values, and they borrowed epistemological model from history and literature rather than from the natural sciences. At the turn of the century, many Russian psychologists and psychiatrists supported the project of the Geisteswissenschaften. Psychiatrists often conceptualized their patents in terms of literary characters, and psychologists looked for personality types in literature rather than in psychological experiments. The attempts to analyze psychology with the help of literary and historical descriptions revealed both the values shared by psychologists and psychiatrists and their close involvement in the contemporary political life.

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