Background

Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev was born on January 24, 1857, in Sorali (now Sorali, Tatarstan, Russian Federation), a small village in the forests of Vyatka province between the great bend of the Volga and the foothills of the Ural Mountains. Later, the family moved to Vyatka where his father, a district police officer Mikhail Pavlovich, worked as a clerk. His mother, Maria Mikhailovna, was an educated woman who was determined that her children would receive a proper education. Bekhterev was the youngest of three sons. His father, who suffered from tuberculosis, died when Bekhterev was 9 years old, and the family then suffered from poverty. The mother was forced to rent out some of the rooms in their apartment in order to have some income.

Education

In 1866 Bekhterev entered the gymnasium where he studied for seven years. He was not a prominent pupil, but under his mother's influence, he read voraciously, especially on natural science. When he finished his studies at 16, he was accepted at the Imperial Medical and Surgical Academy in Saint Petersburg, although he had not actually been interested in studying medicine. However, by coincidence, he heard that places were being offered to study at this institution, decided to fill in the required forms, and to his surprise, he was accepted. He graduated when he was twenty-one years old (in 1878), with a degree comparable to Bachelor of Medicine. He remained at the Academy as an assistant to the psychiatrist Jan Lucjan Mierzejewski. In 1881 he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the relationship between somatic functions and mental state.

In 1884 Bekhterev went to Berlin and Paris, as did so many of his generation. He had started out with an interest in neurophysiology, which led him to Flechsig's laboratory in Leipzig. During the winter of 1884-1885, he worked under Flechsig, who was then applying his myelogenetic method to the study of nerve pathways. It was during his time with Flechsig that Bekhterev described the superior vestibular nucleus, which bears his name. Among many subsequent contributions, Bekhterev made the first descriptions of the central tegmental tract, the connections of the inferior olive, the component fibers of the cerebellar peduncles, and the nuclear complexes in the reticular formation of the tegmentum. While abroad, Bekhterev also visited famous scientists such as Meynert, Westphal, and Charcot, and studied under Wundt. Their influence may have led him to branch out from neurophysiology to the field of psychology and eventually to psychiatry, in which he became famous.

Career

When in 1885 Vladimir Bekhterev returned to Russia he had already secured a considerable reputation. Aged only 28 he became Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Kazan, where he established the first laboratory of experimental psychology in Russia. In 1893, having published more than a hundred papers, he became Professor of Psychiatry at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, continuing both neuropathology and neuropsychology studies. As well as his discovery of the superior vestibular nucleus, succeeding Freud’s work he described the central tegmental tract, the connections of the olivary nucleus and cerebellar peduncles. The second edition of his Conduction Paths in the Spinal Cord and Brain 1896 was the most comprehensive anatomical description of the time.

Bekhterev founded the first Russian journal on the nervous disease, Nevrologichesky Vestnik in 1896 and set up the Psychoneurological Institute at the Saint Petersburg State Medical Academy in 1907. Here he furthered his investigation of the relationship between human brain physiology and behavior. In politically troubled times he was forced to resign his Chair in 1913; it was restored following the Russian Revolution of 1917 when he headed the department of psychology and reflexology at the University of Petrograd in Saint Petersburg.

In the Soviet Union, too, Bekhterev’s influence was predominant in the first decade after the Revolution. His General Principles of Human Reflexology went through four editions in Russia, the first in 1917, the last in 1928. "Collective Reflexology," interpreting social behavior in terms of reflexes and association reflexes, appeared in 1921 and was followed by a number of articles on genetic, individual, pathological, industrial, comparative, "zoo-," and other reflexologies. Indeed, for a while, it looked as if reflexology would wholly supplant psychology in the Soviet Union. Beginning with the 1930s, however, reflexology lost ground and finally disappeared in favor of Pavlov’s "higher nervous activity," on the one hand, and an independent reformulation of traditional psychology, on the other. A significant reason for reflexology's decline was what Soviet ideologists call Bekhterev's vulgar-mechanistic interpretation of both society and philosophy.

Bekhterev wrote ceaselessly with extraordinary endurance: he was said to need only five hours of sleep. The result of over 50 years was more than 600 scientific papers and 10 books. His book on reflexology (1921) was translated into German and English. Among his more significant writings are Conduction Paths in the Brain and Spinal Cord (1882) and Objective Psychology (1907). His lasting legacy was on brain morphology, function, conditioned reflexes, and several original clinical papers.

Achievements

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  Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev was an extraordinary neurologist, and excelled also in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, morphology, physiology, and pioneered the studies of mental illness in Russia. He was one of the most productive Russian scientists of his time, publishing around 1700 scientific papers, and founding 12 journals and 50 institutions, including the Russian League Against Epilepsy. Bekhterev also described 19 new forms of diseases - such as ankylosing spondylitis, also known as Bekhterev's disease - and 15 new reflexes.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Suggestion and its Role in Social Life

    (This translation of Suggestion and Its Role in Social Lif...)

    1899
  • Collective Reflexology: The Complete Edition

    (Bekhterev's work grows out of his interest in group psych...)

    1921
  • Collective Reflexology 1994
  • Objektive Psychologie 1913
  • General Principles of Human Reflexology 1932
  • Psyche und Leben 1908

Religion

Bekhterev's religious views were not thoroughly studied. It is known that he saw some cultural importance in the concept of God and was baptized Orthodox but later in his life he remarked that it is better to use a person's energy for the advantage of society than for fruitlessly wasting it in worship.

Politics

During the rule of Tsar Nicholas II, Bekhterev was a courageous social critic. For example, in 1905 at a psychiatric conference in Kyiv, he severely criticized the Tsar's policies on reforms in education and on alcoholism. After the speech, he was arrested for a few hours and warned. In 1913 his professorship was suspended because he persistently supported the students' protest against the rigid regulations in the Military Academy and because of his participation in the Mendel Beilis blood libel trial as an expert witness in favor of the defense.

Views

In 1913 Bekhterev's professorship was suspended because of his participation in the Mendel Beilis blood libel trial as an expert witness in favor of the defense. Bekhterev testified at the trial and was aggressively cross-examined by the prosecutor and the judges. In his testimony, he showed wide anatomical and pathological knowledge when he analyzed the form of wounds and causes of death of the victim. Bekhterev emphasized that the scientist and psychiatrist should be very strict to limit his interpretation and conclusions to his professional framework. As such he rejected all the pathological and psychiatric speculations about the murderer's religion and nationality. He also claimed that in the scientific psychiatric literature there is no material about religious killing, and from the pathological material, there was no possibility of drawing any conclusions about the character of the killer or his identity. During his long and difficult cross-examination, he maintained his objectivity and emphasized again and again that from the available evidence it was impossible to conclude that this was a religious ritual murder. His expert opinion appeared in local and national newspapers and was highly influential in favor of the accused. In his autobiography, Bekhterev reported the case of a patient who told him that a fanatic religious militia unit planned to locate the famous anarchist Kropotkin who was staying abroad and to assassinate him. Bekhterev described his dilemma as a physician: he was obliged to medical secrecy and confidentiality, but on the other hand, as a liberal and humanist, it was very difficult for him to remain silent about a plot to commit the political assassination. He decided to deliver a warning message to Kropotkin, through a friend of his who was traveling to Paris. Later Bekhterev met Kropotkin, who thanked him for saving his life.

Both Bekhterev and Pavlov preceded American behaviorists, notably J. B. Watson, in the formulation of principles of objective psychology. These principles centered, in each case, on the objectification of psychology’s age-old main explanatory principle of association. Pavlov effected this objectification through pairing neutral sensory stimuli with feeding and thereby producing salivation in response to the stimuli. Bekhterev brought it about through the pairing of such stimuli with electric shock and a consequent withdrawal in response to them. Pavlov preceded Bekhterev by one year, 1903 versus 1904, in the enunciation of objective principles and by four years, 1904 versus 1908, in the laboratory demonstration of the operation of what Pavlov called "conditioned reflexes" and Bekhterev "association reflexes." Watson’s behaviorism, as first promulgated in 1913 in the article "Psychology as a Behaviorist Views It," gave no evidence that he was cognizant of the Russians’ prior work and views. However, after having read the German and French translations that appeared in 1913 of Bekhterev's "Objective Psychology" and also some of Pavlov's articles (Pavlov’s first book in the field appeared only in 1923), Watson incorporated the Russians' empirical findings into his system; indeed, he based his system on what they had started. His 1915 address as president of the American Psychological Association was entitled "The Place of the Conditioned Reflex in Psychology" (1916). Although Watson used Pavlov’s term "conditioned reflex," the experiments he reported had been performed according to Bekhterev’s shock technique; and his general systematic theories were also much closer to those of Bekhterev.

Early American behaviorism may thus be said to have been influenced considerably more by Bekhterev than by Pavlov. Bekhterev’s influence may also be seen in two articles appearing in the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method: one by F. L. Wells (1916), "Von Bechterew and Übertragung" (Freud's "transference") and another by H. C. Brown (1916), "Language and the Association Reflex," which suggested, respectively, the interpretation of psychoanalysis and of verbal learning and behavior in Bekhterevian terms. Later, however, when Pavlov’s research became more widely known in this country, and particularly when his two books were translated into English in 1927 and 1928, the Bekhterev influence was overshadowed. For not only were the quantity and variety of empirical findings on conditioned or association reflexes several times greater in the Pavlov than in the Bekhterev laboratories, but Pavlov’s theoretical integration of the findings was much more consistent and systematic than that of Bekhterev. Indeed, Bekhterev himself came to use Pavlov’s interpretation, even as Pavlov later introduced Bekhterev’s methods into his laboratories.

Membership

Vladimir Bekhterev was a member of the Italian Society of Psychiatry and the Russian Society of Normal and Pathological Psychology.

• Italian Society of Psychiatry , Italy

• Russian Society of Normal and Pathological Psychology , Russia

Personality

Bekhterev was a modest and undemanding man that disliked social life. Following the ten fateful days in 1917 that 'shook the world,' Bekhterev, like Pavlov, was left alone; he kept his peace and adapted, although he was an honest and sincere person of integrity who usually said exactly what he thought.

Interests

• philosophy

Connections

Bekhterev married twice and had six children with his first wife Natalya Bazilevskaya. While Bazilevskaya was living abroad after the Russian revolution, Bekhterev met the much younger Bertha Yakovlevna Gurzhi (maiden name Arä). After his first wife died in 1926, he married Gurdzhi at the age of 70.

Father:

Mikhail Pavlovich Bekhterev

Mother:

Maria Mikhailovna Bekhtereva

late wife:

Natalya Petrovna Bazilevskaya

Son:

Evgeniy Vladimirovich Bekhterev

Daughter:

Olga Vladimirovna Bekhtereva

Son:

Vladimir Vladimirovich Bekhterev

Son:

Pyotr Vladimirovich Bekhterev

Daughter:

Ekaterina Vladimirovna Bekhtereva

Daughter:

Maria Vladimirovna Bekhtereva

Wife:

Bertha Yakovlevna Arä

colleague:

Ivan Pavlov

Doctoral advisor:

Wilhelm Wundt

mentor:

Jan Lucjan Mierzejewski

Acquaintance:

Jean-Martin Charcot

Schoolmate :

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

References

• History of Psychology: A Cultural Perspective
  2014
• Bekhterev
  1986
• Bekhterev: The Life and Scientific Activity
  2007