[The results of a study of speech disorders in schizophrenic patients using one of the variants of the projective method].

The study of speech disorders in schizophrenics led the authors to the conclusion that defects in speech and thinking activity in them are related to the sphere of communicative competence and interpersonality cooperation. Psycholinguistic methods of such defects investigation is proposed. A relationship was found between the type of schizophrenia course and the patient's response to speech stimulus.

[A new verbal projective method for studying personality].

The authors have designed two variants of the "verbal projective test" (VPT) in view of the lack of a projective method genetically similar to the TAT, according to which, however, emotionally saturated, indefinite phrases as regards the content could be used as stimulus material. Theoretically, it could be of special interest in psychopathological cases associated with thinking disorders, as well as "compensate" for the tendency toward TAT aging. Using VPT 19 probands with little progressive neurosis-like schizophrenia and 19 probands with lingering neuroses were examined.

[Characteristics of personality accentuation as a factor in predisposition to psychosomatic diseases].

Using psychological methods of examination, the authors have studied patients with bronchial asthma (n = 90), duodenal ulcer (n = 70), and ischemic heart disease (IHD) (n = 40). The results have shown the predominance of the dysthymic type of accentuation in patients with ulcer, of the pedantic one in patients with bronchial asthma, and of the excitable, obstructive, and dysthymic one in patients with IHD. All groups have been characterized by the presence of the anxiety and cyclothymic type of accentuation.

[Pathopsychological aspect of studies of cognitive activity and personality characteristics during aging and in senile psychoses].

The paper is devoted to the organization, theory and practice of gerontological pathopsychology, including questions of differentiation between normal and pathological in gerontopsychiatry, validity and reliability of experimental-psychological methods. With special reference to a variety of forms of the insight of the disease in elderly age the author shows a multi-factorial nature of personality symptom complexes. The design of a pathopsychological study and the selection of experimental techniques are shown to depend on the nature of clinical tasks facing the investigator.