How to Build a Concrete Psychology Today? Retrieving the Vygotskyan Project in Argentina
Nicolás Robles López (University of Buenos Aires) & Tamara Klein (University of Buenos Aires, CONICET).

The aim of this presentation is to show the importance of the project which guided Vygotsky’s work: concrete human psychology. Also, we will present a possible way for the development of cultural-historical psychology in Argentina. For this, we will introduce different interpretations of the periodization of his work where we highlight the importance of drama, roles and personification in different periods of his work. Later, a Vygotsky´s manuscript where he referred to Politzer’s concrete psychology will be analysed. The analysis will be focused on Othello’s drama because it shows how social roles can change the hierarchy of functions. Politzer’s project of creating a new psychology resembled Vygotsky’s project and it was taken in Argentina by Enrique Pichon-Rivière and José Bleger in the ‘60s. The displacement from psychoanalysis towards social psychology done by the Argentinian psychiatrist had some similarities with Vygotsky’s work but with the shortcoming that Bleger, his disciple, rejected the utilization of experimental method. This Argentinian development of concrete psychology was based mainly on group interventions, such as surgical psychoprophylaxis. As a final conclusion, we consider it important to continue Vygotsky’s project and to replicate his experiments in Argentina.

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Tamara Klein,
Tamara Klein teaches “History of Psychology” at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Buenos Aires, and “Family, couple and group psychotherapy” at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Belgrano. She studied Psychology at the University of Buenos Aires, where nowadays she continues her Ph.D studies with a grant from CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council). Her research topic is: “The origins of psychodrama in Argentina (1958-1976)”. Tamara finished her formation as a psychodramatist in the school founded by Eduardo “Tato” Pavlovsky, and has a background in circus arts having begun her training when she was a child and then continued it until she graduated as “Performer in Circus Arts” from the National University of Tres de Febrero. She is member of ORP (Revolution in Psychology Organization), where she provides her knowledge on arts to develop cultural-historical psychology.

Nicolás Robles López,
Nicolás Robles López teaches “Genetic Psychology and Epistemology” at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Buenos Aires. He is also a teacher at a secondary school and at teaching training institutes. Nicolás studied Psychology at the University of Buenos Aires and is finishing the Master of Social Science Research at the Faculty of Social Sciences of thUniversity of Buenos Aires. His research topic is: “Lev Vygotsky’s The Psychology of Art within the Russian Revolution. A crossing between art and Marxism”. He also studied social psychology at the First Private School of Social Psychology where he graduated as “Technician in Social Psychology”. Nicolás is the general director of ORP (Revolution in Psychology Organization), where he deals with the epistemological and ontological foundations of cultural-historical psychology.