Looking at Psychosomatic Development of Child through the Lens of Galperin's Theory

The paper addresses the issue of applying Galperin's theory to the analysis of psychosomatic development in children. From this perspective, psychosomatic ontogenesis can be seen as a process of one's acquisition of body functions and actions that go through certain developmental and learning stages; as a result, a fully developed body phenomenon achieves some characteristics similar to those of higher mental function. Social regulation of bodily manifestations that controls the process of their acquisition is reviewed as one of the key mechanisms of incorporating various aspects of body functioning into the social context and their gradual transformation under its influence. The development of one's abilities to control his/her body functions, the categorical structure of inner senses, one's image of his/her appearance, images of health and illness, of symptomatic behaviour etc. all are explored in the paper from the perspective of the concept of stage-by-stage formation of mental actions. The paper also examines normal and abnormal patterns of psychosomatic development in relation to interiorization principles common for both of them.

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