In the history of the biographical method, an exceptional place is occupied by Charlotte Bühler, an Austrian and American psychologist, researcher and psychotherapist, one of the founders of humanistic psychology. She created an integral theory of the life path, together with her colleagues and students, she discovered a number of empirical patterns in it and significantly enriched the operational apparatus of the biographical method. The history and results of S. Bühler’s biographical research are worthy of special consideration, since they are unique in their scope and influence on genetic personalistics, or biography.

Charlotte Bühler (maiden name Malachowski) was born in 1893 in Berlin. In her youth, she studied at the Universities of Berlin and Munich. In Munich she studied with Karl Bühler and soon became his wife. Under the influence of K. Bühler, she first studied the psychology of thinking, then child and youth psychology. She has conducted serious research in this area and is not without reason considered a major specialist in child development. Under her leadership, methods for accurately monitoring the progress of early development and tests for preschoolers were developed (together with G. Getzer). Her book “The Mental Life of a Young Man” was published many times.

But S. Bühler’s main interest lay in the spirituality of man - it was in this that she saw his unique feature. While still a young romantic girl, she thought about questions of existence and the ideal essence of man. The mystery of a person’s life path excited and, in the end, inspired a grandiose plan - to empirically study the patterns of a person’s life path and the role of a person’s spiritual structure in building his own destiny. The main tool in the implementation of the research project was the biographical method.

The essence of S. Bühler's research is reflected in the title of her book, published by Charlotte Bühler in 1933 in Leipzig. The book, “The Life Path of a Person as a Psychological Problem” (7) was written on the basis of a mass of biographical material collected by psychologists at the Vienna Psychological Institute at the turn of the 20-30s under the leadership of S. Bühler. Viennese psychologists, among them E. Frenkel, E. Brunswik, P. Hofstätter, L. Schenk-Danziger, collected and processed diaries, letters, conducted biographical interviews, analyzed many published biographies and gradually discovered a number of patterns in the life path.

Life analysis was carried out according to three parameters: objective life events, creative achievements (productivity), states of the inner world - experiences typical for a certain age. All this was correlated with the general biological status of the organism at different phases of development, with the so-called life curve (Lebenskurve).

Similar to the phases of organic development and ontogenesis, in research led by S. Bühler, five phases of the life path were outlined. Bühler lays the basis for the periodization of life on a special structure of self-consciousness, which he calls self-determination (Selbstbestimmung). The presence of strictly defined phases of life is one of the patterns found at the Vienna Institute of Psychology. S. Bühler interpreted this and other patterns from the standpoint of her own theory of the life course. The theory itself was formed in the process of empirical biographical research and therefore was not speculative, but well-founded.

A person's life is considered by S. Bühler in the light of its results, as the realization of the inner essence of the personality, its intentional core ("self"). This is a spiritual formation immanent to man. The main force of mental development is the innate desire of a person to fulfill himself. True, bad upbringing can distort or suppress it, then we are dealing with neuroses. As S. Bühler writes, “the self represents the intentionality or purposefulness of the entire personality. This purposefulness is focused on fulfillment(Erfullung) of the best potentials, the fulfillment of human existence" (8, 99).

Fulfillment is achieved as implementation(Verwirklichung) of a person in profession, communication, struggle for ideals. The concept of self-realization is close to the concept of self-actualization by A. Maslow, but S. Bühler distinguishes them. Self-realization is “the result of a life or a phase of life when the values ​​and goals that a person strived for, consciously or unconsciously, received adequate realization” (9, 753). But at the same time, she considers self-realization as a process that at different ages appears either as good health, or as the experience of the end of childhood, or as self-realization (in maturity), or as fulfillment (in old age).

Buhler proves that the fullness of self-realization depends on the individual’s ability to set goals that are most adequate to his inner essence. This ability is self-determination(Selbstbestimmung). The main channel in which self-determination occurs is the “theme of being” (Daseinthema). Self-determination is associated with the intellectual development of an individual, since intelligence gives a person a depth of understanding of his own potentials and aspirations. The clearer a person’s calling is, the clearer his self-determination, the more likely his self-fulfillment. Although it, of course, largely depends on the social environment that promotes or, as is more often the case, hinders the self-realization of the individual.

In the first phase of life (up to 16-20 years), as Bühler believed, there is no self-determination. In the second phase (from 16-20 to 25-30 years), a person tries himself in different professions, occupations, makes acquaintances in search of a life partner. These tests already indicate the functioning of self-determination, but it is diffuse in nature. The third phase (25-30 - 45-50 years) occurs when a person finds his calling or just a permanent occupation, sets specific goals and achieves results. He already has a more or less stable position in society, has formed a circle of friends, and has his own family. This is the phase of specification of self-determination, coinciding with the prime years of man. An aging person in the fourth phase (45-50 - 65-70 years) experiences difficulties due to biological withering, retirement, and a reduction in future life time. At the end of this phase, for the majority, the path to self-realization is completed, and self-determination ceases to function. In the fifth phase, the old man drags out a purposeless existence, lives in the past, therefore S. Bühler does not even consider the last stage of life to be the actual path of life. Life ends before death occurs. But it is possible to remain psychologically alive until death. Studying outstanding old people, active and after 90 years, Buhler comes to the idea of ​​types of development and explains them by the relationship between the vital and mental aspirations of a person. There has been an increase in altruistic motives in older people with a predominance of mental needs.

In 1940, like many European scientists, S. Bühler was forced to emigrate to the USA to escape the war. Therefore, she could no longer continue the biographical research begun in Vienna. During the Second World War, the archives of the Vienna Psychological Institute were destroyed, its employees left Austria or died. However, having become an American, S. Buhler did not stop working on the theory of the life course and learned a lot from psychotherapeutic practice. She came to the conclusion about the existence of basal tendencies (needs) of the individual: they are the need for physical and mental well-being, the need for adaptation, creativity, and internal order. These tendencies manifest themselves in different forms depending on age. Each person is dominated by certain tendencies, but it is better when all of them are satisfied in the process of life.

As S. Bühler believed, a neurotic personality suffers from the fact that it cannot understand itself, does not know how to set goals adequate to the “self” and achieve them. The improvement of a person comes through his understanding of his life and the definition of goals. Humanistically oriented psychology helps a person with this.

Charlotte Bühler was one of the founders of humanistic psychology. In 1970, she was elected president of the Association of Humanistic Psychologists. She died in California in 1974.

The first and largest in its theoretical potential formulation of the problem of the life path was noted by
S. Bühler, who made an attempt to integrate biological, psychological and historical life time in a single coordinate system. She outlined three aspects of studying the life path of an individual:

– biological-biographical – study of objective conditions, main life events and behavior in these conditions;

– historical and psychological – study of the history of the formation and change of values, experiences, evolution of the inner world of man;

– psychological and social – study of the history of human creativity, products and results of his activities.

The life path in the concept of S. Bühler is considered as a process consisting of five life cycles (phases of life). Each phase of life is based on the development of target personality structures - self-determination.

The first phase (from birth to 16–20 years) is considered the period preceding self-determination, and is, as it were, taken outside the boundaries of the life path.

The second phase (from 16–20 to 25–30 years) is the period of a person’s testing in different types of activities, his search for a life partner, i.e. his attempt to self-determinate, to predict his future.

The third phase (from 25–30 to 45–50 years) is the period of maturity. During this period, his expectations from life are real, he soberly assesses his capabilities, his self-esteem reflects the results of his life’s journey as a whole, the first results of his life and his achievements.

The fourth phase (from 45–50 to 65–70 years) is the phase of the aging organism. Professional activity is ending or nearing completion. Adult children leave the family and biological decline sets in. The tendency to dreams and memories increases, and the setting of long-term life goals disappears.

The fifth phase (65–70 years before death) is old age. Most people leave their professional activities, the inner world of old people is turned to the past, they think about the future with anxiety, anticipating the approaching end.

Considering the life path as a specific form of human life, S. Buhler saw the main purpose of life in the manifestation of the desire for self-actualization. Self-actualization, in her opinion, serves as the result of a person’s self-realization in various fields of activity, mainly in profession and family life. The life path in this case consists of external and internal events, which are its basic units.

So, to understand the problem of a person’s life path, from the point of view of S. Buhler, the following points become important:

a) the life of a particular person is not random, but natural, it lends itself not only to description, but also to explanation;

b) the main driving force of personality development is a person’s innate desire for the full realization of himself;

c) a person can realize himself only through creativity and creation;

d) self-realization is the result of life’s journey.

The idea of ​​intentionality occupies a central place in the concept of personality and its life path. Intentionality acts as the functional core of the personality, which participates in all its life choices. The content of intentionality consists of the innate goal and value-semantic structures of the personality, which are exteriorized during the course of the individual life path. Intentionality is an innate structure that does not lend itself to and is subject to formation during lifetime. According to S. Buhler, environmental and educational conditions only change the forms of expression of intentionality, without transforming its essence. However, the social environment can distort and suppress the sprouts of intentionality in a child.

In his latest works, S. Bühler notes that the intentionality of a person is structured from “basic tendencies” - a person’s innate aspirations to realize certain values ​​and meanings. The convergence of “basic tendencies” is the driving force behind the mental development of the individual, and their individual combination determines the parameters of the life path. The first basic tendency is the desire to satisfy the simplest physiological needs that ensure human physical self-preservation. This tendency is actualized at an early age in the form of needs for food, warmth, comfort, and movement. The second basic tendency is the desire to adapt to the environment. It unfolds in childhood, when the child begins to actively explore the world around him, manipulate and operate objects, and master cultural ways of dealing with things. In fact, the second basic tendency is the need for activity. S. Bühler assessed the described trends as the simplest, corresponding to an adaptive lifestyle. The third basic tendency is the desire for achievement and creative creations. In childhood, it manifests itself in play and creative expansion, and in adulthood it is realized in a transformative lifestyle. The fourth trend is the tendency to integrate and streamline the inner world of the individual. In mature forms, it is observed in the activity of life self-determination and in the systematization of the individual’s life experience.

The result of such development will be the self-realization of the individual.

There are two main aspects to self-realization: procedural and effective. In the procedural aspect, self-realization is the process of objectification of the inner essence of the individual on the scale of life. In the effective aspect, self-realization is the fulfillment, the realization of the personality, which crowns and results in the process of self-realization.

Buhler identifies for each age a unique form of personal self-realization.

		Psychological content	Form of self-fulfillment
		No family, profession, life path	Spontaneity
		Preliminary self-determination, choice of spouse	Maturityindependence
	25-30 to 45-50	Maturity: own family, vocation, setting specific life goals and self-realization	Creativitygenerativity
		An aging person is going through a difficult age of mental crisis. At the end of the period there is no self-determination or setting of life goals	wisdom
	65 to death	The old man loses social connections. Aimless existence, focus on the past, passive anticipation of death, self-completion

bühler fairy tale personality intentionality

The psychological characteristics of life phases are based on age-related characteristics of the functioning of an individual’s self-awareness and reflect the evolution of personal self-determination. S. Bühler does not include the period of life up to adolescence in his periodization at all on the grounds that at this time the individual’s self-awareness is in a “dormant state.” The beginning of life's journey dates back to the moment when the need for self-awareness and self-determination first “awakens” in a person.

Bühler paid particular attention to the third phase of the life path; she said that in people this phase occurs at different ages. The optimal age for entering the third phase is 35-40 years. At this time, a person specifies his life calling and noticeably advances in his chosen field. In this regard, the third phase of the life path was considered by S. Bühler as the culmination of personal self-determination and self-realization. On the contrary, inadequate self-determination at the previous stages provokes creative stagnation, stagnation of personal development and a psychological crisis in this phase.

It also has a special relation to the fifth phase of development. S. Buhler did not include this phase in the structure of the life path for the reason that here, according to her observation, mental life fades away. For this reason, she has no form of self-realization.

Self-realization is preceded by long and intense internal work of the individual, which is aimed at understanding the meaning of life. S. Buhler calls the process of a person’s search and comprehension of the meaning of life self-determination. The product of self-determination is an individual concept of the meaning of life, which guides the individual when building a life path. The individual concept of the meaning of life was defined by S. Bühler in different ways over the years: two terms were used more often than others - “themes of being” and “leading ideas”. In both cases, it was emphasized that they determine the general semantic orientation of the individual life path. An analysis of numerous biographies made it possible to formulate a basic pattern: the deeper and more adequate a person’s understanding of the meaning and purpose of his life, the more successful and productive the process of his self-realization. On the contrary, a person’s distorted understanding of the meaning of his life inevitably leads to life collapse. As S. Bühler writes, a person who does not know his destiny will not become what he can and should become. In her opinion, the meaning of life and life values ​​consolidate the structure of the personality, and their absence is a factor in the disintegration of the personality and the destruction of its mental health.

The main merit of S. Bühler is to raise the question of the general patterns of human development throughout the life course. The idea of ​​cross-cutting patterns permeating the development of personality from birth to death was extremely innovative, since most psychologists were fascinated by the stages of childhood. Its undoubted achievement was an attempt to isolate an elementary structural and functional unit of a person’s life path. As such, S. Bühler postulated a life event - a single change that occurs in the circumstances of a person’s life, intersecting with each other.

The driving forces of development are theological principles. According to the teleological principle, a person’s activity is stimulated and directed more by values, meanings and goals than by external cause-and-effect relationships of events.

The life path in her concept is defined as the history of the exteriorization of the internal, genetically predetermined essence of the individual. For this clearly idealistic interpretation, which neglects the social determinants of the life path, the concept was heavily criticized by Russian psychologists S.L. Rubinstein and B.G. Ananyev.

The fact that in Russian psychology, for a long time, primary attention was paid to the study of the mental development of children is quite understandable. On the one hand, the initial stages of life are very important for the future of every person, and therefore understanding all the factors in the development of children helps to take them into account. On the other hand, the socialization of children, the organization of their education and upbringing is the most important social task, and for its effective solution it is necessary to know the age characteristics of children.

At the same time, the lack of due attention to the study of mental development in mature and old age cannot be justified by the arguments presented above. A person at every stage is worthy of the attention of science, including developmental psychology. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in our time more and more works are appearing on the problems of mental development of adults.

Within the framework of this issue, we will briefly reflect some views on the periodization of the mental development of adults and point out the psychological content of the corresponding age periods.

One of the most famous periodizations of human development in world science is the approach of E. Erikson. The content of this periodization was presented earlier.

Also worthy of attention are the views on the mental development of adults by such authors as S. Buhler, R. Gould, D. Levinson, D. Vaillant, V. F. Morgun. Let us briefly present their contents (cited from: Kulagina I.Yu., Kolyutsky V.N. Developmental psychology: the complete life cycle of human development. - M., 2001. P. 139-142).

S. Buhler identified 5 periods:

1. Up to 16-20 years old (the most typical manifestations of life: no family, profession, life path).

2. From 16-20 to 25-30 years (preliminary self-determination, choice of spouse).

3. From 25-30 to 45-50 years (maturity, characterized by having one’s own family, vocation, setting specific life goals, self-realization).

4. From 45-50 to 65-70 years (aging, during which a person experiences a mental crisis, difficulties with self-determination and setting life goals).

5. After 65-70 years (loss of social connections, aimless existence, turning to the past, passive expectation of death).

The given description of the psychological content of various age periods of an adult is controversial. Thus, despite the presence of some general trends in development, it cannot be unequivocally recognized that every person, for example, in adulthood is fully self-realized, and in old age “exists aimlessly.” Chronological age in itself does not determine the psychological content of the life of a particular subject. In this regard, the position of E. Erikson, according to which two poles of development are distinguished: favorable and unfavorable, seems more justified. And the fact that S. Bühler proposes as the psychological content of the last 2 stages quite possibly fits into the idea of ​​unfavorable human development.

American psychologists R. Gould, D. Levinson, D. Vaillant offered their view on the mental development of an adult, according to which the following periods are distinguished.

1. 16-22 years (time of growing up, striving for independence; uncertainty; leaving the parental home).

2. 23-28 years (awareness of oneself as an adult with his rights and responsibilities; formed ideas about his future life, work; meeting a life partner and starting a family).

3. 29-32 years (transitional period, during which some ideas about life are revised; it is possible to experience an age-related crisis).

4. 33-39 years (period of “sturm and stress”: family life for many is losing its charm, all efforts are invested in work, existing results seem insufficient).

5. 40-42 years (age crisis, during which many may have the feeling that life is in vain, youth is leaving).

6. 43-50 years (stable period, attachment to family).

7. After 50 years (the sources of satisfaction are family life and the success of children; questions about the meaning of life and values ​​come first).

V. F. Morgun’s periodization includes 10 stages of an adult’s life:

1. Youth (18-23 years) - the threshold of adulthood, the search for one’s place in society, personal and professional self-determination.

2. Youth (24-30 years old) - development of individuality, awareness of the unreality of youthful dreams; setting specific goals; meeting a life partner, starting a family; specialization in the chosen profession.

3. Transition to prosperity (about 30 years) - experiencing a crisis in the event of dysfunctional self-determination at the previous stages.

4. Heyday (31-40 years) - a period of high performance and impact in the professional and family spheres; the question arises: “What will remain after me?”

5. The transition to maturity (about 40 years) is a crisis during which life values ​​and plans can be seriously revised.

6. Maturity (40-55 years) - the peak period of an individual’s life, the achievement of professional excellence, status in society, the desire to convey social experience.

7. Crisis (50-55 years) - awareness of age-related changes in the body, adaptation to them, setting new life goals.

8. Old age (55-75 years) - continued creative activity; transfer of accumulated experience; communication.

9. Senile age (75-90 years) - psychological restructuring; grandparent functions; feasible activities.

10. Longevity (over 90 years) - adaptation to a new situation; use of rich life experience.

Each of the classifications available in developmental psychology has its own limitations. They reflect only certain trends in the mental development of a person at various age stages. But each person, strictly speaking, has his own life periods, time intervals, the content of which is largely determined by the life position, values, and worldview of the individual himself. But knowing that similar developmental tasks are solved by the majority at a certain age can be important for each person to understand the life situation.

Rice. 2.2.

The Austrian and later American psychologist S. Bühler became famous, among other things, for the development and use of test methods that were as close as possible to natural conditions, and for her close attention to children. She also made a great contribution to the study of adolescent psychology.

L. S. Vygotsky defined her theory as bio-psychological, since she explains the psychological characteristics of a teenager primarily by biological factors.

Her understanding of the features of this period is based, first of all, on the idea of ​​it as a period of puberty, which emphasizes the biological nature of these features. Fundamentally in this regard, the emergence of a new need, which S. Bühler calls the “need for addition.”

“Whereas the lowest living beings reproduce by simple cell division, at higher levels, sexual differentiation and the sexual desire associated with it arise... To carry out reproduction, each sex needs to be supplemented by another sex. From this biological fact we derive the basic concept for our task - the need for supplementation. (Erganzungsdedurfniss)...

Now we understand the biological meaning of the phenomena, accompanying puberty: external and internal stimulation, which accompanies maturation, should bring the individual out of a state of self-satisfaction and tranquility and encourage him to search for and become closer to a being of the other sex. When applied to the human personality, this means:. phenomena, accompanying maturation, should, to ensure connection with a being of a different sex, create a need for complement in a person, they should make him excitable, those seeking, dissatisfied in his isolation, his “I” must be opened to meet the “you”. This is the biological meaning of puberty."

L. S. Vygotsky, analyzing the theory of S. Buhler, sees its merit in the fact that she does not consider mental processes in puberty as a simple parallel to the process of puberty, but shows their complex relationship and mutual influence. Nevertheless, as a drawback of S. Bühler’s theory, he notes the predominance of the biological factor of puberty. In this regard, L. S. Vygotsky seems doubtful

The construct “need for addition”, which also has biological foundations, is central to her theory. Referring to E. Spranger’s witty remark that this idea is suitable only for describing the psychology of girls, L. S. Vygotsky adds on his own that “in essence, this theory is based on a particular feature of the psychology of a girl of a certain social group, elevated to an explanatory principle.” .

III. Bühler was the first to identify and describe three phases of the transition period: physical puberty, the negative stage and the positive stage.

The first phase - physical puberty - occurs in girls in the range of 13-15 years, in boys - 14-16 years. It is directly related to the onset of a new stage in puberty. However, according to III. Buhler, mental symptoms indicating the onset of adolescence appear in most cases much earlier, already at 11-12 years of age. Children become pugnacious; losing interest in children's games, they are not yet able to join the games of older teenagers; Having lost their childhood obedience to authority, they do not know how to integrate into other systems of relationships. This first phase is considered by S. Bühler as a prelude to the two main phases that follow it.

The negative stage begins during mental pre-puberty and manifests itself in many negative manifestations: experiences of physical and mental illness, whims, lethargy, anxiety, etc.

The positive stage unfolds gradually, which can be judged by the fact that the bright sides of life, new sources of joy begin to open up to the teenager: in experiences of the beauty of nature, the spiritualizing power of art, the benefits and greatness of science, and, finally, love.

The positive and negative stages are not separated by a sharp and impassable boundary: both have light and shadow sides - the point is the predominance of one or the other.

The description of the phases of adolescence identified by S. Bühler is still used in the context of theoretical analysis of the problem, and especially when it is necessary to give pedagogical recommendations.

In those same years (20-30s of the 20th century), a direction was developing that, along with the biological, paid great attention to the process of socialization. When analyzing adolescence in theories of this direction, the emphasis is not on the processes of biological maturation (puberty), but on the process of entering society, on the cultural and social factors that determine this process. The most famous representatives of this direction are U. Stern and E. Sprapger.

• Buhler Sh. What is puberty // Psychology of a teenager: a reader / comp. Yu. I. Frolov. M.: Russian Pedagogical Agency, 1997. pp. 10-11.