Kolpakov Ya.V., Krokhin I.P., Rozanov D.S. Pathopsychological study of the image of the future self in the prognostic assessment of the trajectory of schizophrenia and schizotypal disorder in young male adolescents

Schizophrenic spectrum disorders attract the attention not only of psychiatrists, but also of psychologists, especially clinical, sociologists, historians, philosophers, and ordinary people. Both the phenomenology and the genesis, development, and consequences are interesting. This article reflects all the listed elements. 

The purpose of the pathopsychological study was to assess the trajectory of schizophrenia and schizotypal disorder in younger male adolescents through a comparative study of specially selected self-image techniques. These nosological variants of schizophrenic spectrum disorders were chosen in view of their greatest representation, as well as in view of the observed trend towards the predominance of schizotypal disorders in comparison with a decrease in the proportion of various variants and forms of schizophrenia proper.

The research methods involved both the use of traditional, partially forgotten pathopsychological tests “Pictogram” by L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria with the interpretative scheme of B.G. Hersonsky, “Scales of Self-Assessment” by T.V. Dembo and S.Ya. Rubinstein. And modifications of such techniques, such as MID-Test F.L. Goodenough (version of Machover's Draw a Person Test) with the interpretive scheme of A.L. Wenger, the short essay “My Future”, the methodology “Who am I?” by M. Kuhn and T.S. McPartland, interpreted from the standpoint of psychiatric and pathopsycholinguistics. Traditional methods were used for mathematical calculations, but the data were processed using the most modern computer software packages for statistical processing IBM SPSS Statistics 30.0.0.

The respondents in the pathopsychological study were 50 male adolescents aged 13–15 years. Of these, two comparison groups of 25 people were formed. The main group consisted of 25 boys (average age – 14.2 ± 0.4 years) who underwent clinical supervision on an outpatient basis in the consultative and diagnostic department of children's admission and inpatient in children's departments of the Central Clinical Psychiatric Hospital named after F.A. Usoltsev, under the Ministry of Health of the Moscow Region (Moscow). 

The diagnoses according to section V of the ICD-10 corresponded to the basic codes F20 and F21. The control group consisted of 25 boys (average age – 14.3 ± 0.5 years), students in grades 7–8 from secondary educational schools of the Department of Education and Science in Moscow. There were no clinically established diagnoses of section V of ICD-10.

The results of the pathopsychological study led the authors to the conclusion that, despite the apparent attributive changes in the social situation of development, there are no changes in the nosospecificity of the schizophrenic symptom complex, which reflects its stability in cultural and historical understanding.

Key words: image of the future self, pathopsychology, prognostic assessment of the course trajectory, schizophrenia, schizotypal disorder, younger adolescents

For citation: Kolpakov, Ya.V., Krokhin, I.P., Rozanov, D.S. (2025). Pathopsychological study of the image of the future self in the prognostic assessment of the course trajectory of schizophrenia and schizotypal disorder in younger male adolescents. New Psychological Research, No. 2, 167–217. DOI: 10.51217/npsyresearch_2025_05_02_09

Acknowledgement

The authors express their gratitude and appreciation to clinical psychologist S.V. Oshashin for assistance in collecting empirical data, to Candidate of Psychological Sciences and Associate Professor E.I. Sulimovskaya for methodological support, and to all staff members and medical psychologist O.T. Uteulina of the F.A. Usoltsev Central Clinical Psychiatric Hospital of the Moscow Region Ministry of Health for their kind and considerate attitude toward the researchers.