Historical Notes on the Concept of Schizophrenia in Vygotsky's Writings (1930/1934)

Abstract

This article describes the historical evidence of vygotskian theoretical propositions about the concept of schizophrenia, which are commonly presented through studies of its symptoms with the primary intention of theorizing about the structure and functioning of consciousness in its normal development. The search of description data was carried out, in 2020, on several platforms for publishing articles and books in secondary sources, with the descriptors "schizophrenia" and "Vygotsky", as well as recent published and translated writings of the author, in primary sources. The results indicate that the symptoms of schizophrenia result from the disintegration of thought by concepts that, therefore, interfere in a deleterious way in affectivity and awareness of reality; that, in adolescence, the conceptual thought, in its structure, presents the previous overcome; that development is the key to understanding pathological processes, the processes of dissociation of syntheses, of superior units. We conclude that vygotskian contributions on schizophrenia indicate the interdependence of formation and deformation of higher psychological functions, especially in adolescence.