RELATIONAL-HISTORICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Relational-Historical Psychology, grounded in the theories of Vygotsky, Luria, Leontiev and Rita Leal, understands human neuropsychological and psychic development as a relational process between the individual and the social environment in which they live, changing it and being changed by it through a dialectical process:
I ⎼ other ⎼ reality
From this perspective, the individual is seen as unique and singular and, at the same time, relational and social. It is understood that the individual cannot be understood without taking into account their personal relationships and bonds, their socio-cultural context and the historical moment in which they live.
To clarify this assumption, Vygotsky (2004) postulated that human behaviour and functioning does not depend exclusively on their own innate, biological equipment or on their individual experience as circumscribed by their relationship with the environment, but, more strongly, on their (1) experience historical, (2) experience social and (3) experience doubled (conscious).
Following the process of natural evolution, a qualitatively different process emerges: the construction/development of consciousness, which is uniquely human. This requires social relations, in the form of the mutually committed relationship (Leal, 2001) between human beings. The human being is thus understood as engaged in a permanent exchange of psychological contents and structures with the outside world, mediated by the socio-cultural heritage of human experience accumulated and passed on to the next generation.
