Contribution to Postnonclassical Psychopathology

Introduction -- why a new contribution? I remember the time, as a psychology student at the University of Lisbon in the 1980s, several of my professors of Psychiatry told me that it would not be possible to understand psychopathology or to prepare to be a psychiatrist without a good understanding of psychology. Recent advances in molecular biology and biochemistry, including the old discovery of chlorpromazine in the 1950s, have been met with enthusiasm by professionals in psychiatry and even in clinical psychology. Because of this, in last the 20 years, the psychopathological training in academic and professional settings has forgotten psychology.In recent years, I returned to university as a student dedicated part of my time to the study of health sciences (molecular biology and medical biochemistry). Soon, I realized that the enthusiasm for molecular biology, which is popular in many areas of health sciences, in the case of the study of mind and behavior is an illusion (Quintino-Aires, 2014). On the other hand, and in parallel with paths not touched for years, the epistemology of psychology has advanced remarkably. The disclosure of the historical cultural psychology of L.S. Vygotsky, beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union, generated an interest within an extraordinarily heuristic paradigm and accelerated research. Classical psychology was quickly surpassed by non-classical psychology, which was used to build post-non-classical psychology (Zinchenko & Pervichko, 2013). Today, I believe that just as it would not be possible for a doctor to work without knowing physiology and molecular biology nor a surgeon to work without knowing human anatomy, it also does not seem possible that someone working in psychopathology, whether as a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist, could work without a conceptualization of the mental and behavior functioning of their clients that goes beyond the description of symptoms and grouping them into extremely artificial categories to be verified after spending enough time with each client because, in reality, the categories are further apart than the natural history of the disease.Psychopathology is redeemed by concepts such as syndromic analysis, primary and secondary symptoms, minus and plus symptoms, and the understanding of these concepts according to the fascinating reasoning that post-non-classical psychology presented to us as a continuation of the works of Vygotsky, and it seems that is it is mandatory to overcome confusion in the science of mental health.Just observing the difficulties of the adaptation of some humans to simple different behaviors is an extremely reducing form. The recent financial crisis that arose in the United States of America and crossed the Atlantic and settled in Europe has shown in a very clear way that the differences in the skills of adaptation of human beings are beyond simple individual differences.Any psychological paradigm needs a psychopathological system that helps professionals describe and explain the behavioral expressions that deviate from "normal" (whether this term is used with the semantic property of statistical or ideal adaptation). In this work, I seek to present the system that I have been developing since 1998 among the psychologists at the Instituto Vegotsky de Lisboa (Vygotsky Institute of Lisbon), Portugal, to understand psychopathology with regards to the vygotskian approach. It was conceived and designed according to the work of Rita Mendes Leal and her contribution to socio-emotional development theory, A.R. Luria's systemic and dynamic theory of the human brain, the theory of Activity (dyatel'nost) of A.N. Leontev, and the psychopathological German school of E. Kraepelin, presented and disseminated in Portugal in the early twentieth century by Professor Sobral Cid [1]. The integration of these scientists is made separately. First, the paradigm of the Cultural History theory is synthesized in the thesis of Lev Vygotsky. …