Methodology of clinical-psychological research of space and time representations in old age: possibilities and limitations

Abstract

Theoretical and methodological problems of clinical-psychological research of ageing are discussed in the article. Demographic, clinical and epistemological parameters that determine actuality of studying this period of ontogenesis are considered. Factors hindering planning and conducting psychological studies of people of elderly and senile age as well as interpreting the results of these studies are analyzed. The need for search of those integrative underlying factors that largely determine normal or abnormal mental functioning in late ontogenesis is argued. The importance of studying of the space and time factor as the special psychological reality from methodological perspectives of Russian clinical and cultural-historical psychology is substantiated in the article.