Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in the Context of Neurosciences and a New Clinical Practice

Abstract

On human mental activity, the cellular orientation by R. Virchow is no longer so heuristic. The cell (neuron) is not the unit of mental life, but human activity. Plasticity depends not only on genetics, proteins, information in the DNA inside neuron or other cells, but it depends also on the object-oriented activity performed by the individuals in ontogenesis. More and more information from neuroscience and molecular biology and molecular genetics, helps to build our understanding on human mind and behavior. Advances in science pushed us to rethink our clinical practice. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical and activity theory seems consistent in the integration of neurosciences with psychological science, is the fact that is a monistic approach. We illustrate our idea with a clinical case of a man diagnosed by psychiatry with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The neuropsychological education program includes the methodology of neuropsychological rehabilitation proposed by A. R. Luria and mental human developmental (step-by-step) theory of P. Galperin. The prevalence of OCD is high, and remission rates are extremely low (at 15 years, 60% continue to show the symptoms). The results with the clinical case presented here, as well as in several hundred other clinical cases are encouraging. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical and activity theory seems to be a good proposal for a new clinical practice in clinical psychology and psychiatry. This article is an invitation to other colleagues to experiment the same methodology, in other clinical centers and even in other countries, in the sense that we study the possibility of this being an efficient and effective response that we intend to have available to our clients.