Abstract

Relevance. The current situation of the pandemic and a number of other crisis situations in modern society have shown the insufficient development of the methodology of clinical psychology which for a long time has been focused on the study of various kinds of clinical groups, the creation of single techniques, individual correction and psychotherapy. As it turned out, such a multidisciplinary and mostly naturalistic organization of clinical psychology does not meet the problems that arise in the modern mass information society, in particular in crisis situations. The study shows that cultural-historical clinical psychology meets criteria of multiple challenges.

The objective of the article is to analyze the possibilities for the development of clinical psychology in a crisis situation of a pandemic, to compare the possibilities and ways of both traditional and cultural-historical psychology to respond to the challenges of new social and cultural realities. Our task in this research was to broadly present the main directions of development of clinical psychology with an orientation towards increasing compliance with the requirements of modern culture.

Results. A number of trends in the development of clinical psychology, its progress in the direction of cultural-historical clinical psychology are outlined. The possibilities of a shift from ascertaining studies to anticipatory and project ones are shown. This type of a shift means moving from the study of facts and data correlations to the study of cultural and historical mechanisms of the formation of disorders and psycho-techniques of corrective and preventive influence. The prospects for the move of culturalhistorical psychology in the direction from the receptive study of clinical groups to the control of the formation of patho-psychological phenomena in large social groups and information spaces are outlined.

Conclusions. A new field of methodological and ontological developments is presented with the aim of creating a systematic applied cultural-historical psychology that can actively and in anticipatory manner answer the questions of modern society and culture. The research has shown the possibility of involving this area of psychological science in solving urgent practical problems arising during the pandemic and other crisis situations.