Vladimir Serbsky

Vladimir Petrovich Serbsky (, in Bogorodsk – in Moscow) was a Russian psychiatrist and one of the founders of forensic psychiatry in Russia. The author of The Forensic Psychopathology, Serbsky thought delinquency to have no congenital basis, considering it to be caused by social reasons.

The Central Institute of Forensic Psychiatry was named after Serbsky in 1921. Now the facility is known as the Serbsky Center (Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry).

Biography Vladimir Petrovich Serbsky was born in 1858 in Bogorodsk (now Noginsk, Moscow Region) in the family of a zemstvo doctor.

After Serbsky grew up, his family moved to Moscow, where he studied at the Second Moscow Gymnasium. After graduation he entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow University, graduating in 1880 with a candidate's degree. In the same year, he entered the Medical Department of Moscow University. Since he already had a higher education, he was immediately placed into the third year. Serbsky was fascinated by the study of nervous and mental diseases and became one of the students of SS Korsakov. In 1883 Serbsky defended his thesis on "The clinical importance of albuminuria", for which he received a silver medal. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Scientific activity Under the supervision of Serbsky, the Tambov hospital became one of the most advanced institutions of its type in Russia. Straight jackets and leather sleeves were banned in the patients clinic. There was a widespread use of work and entertainment for patients and the main contingent of workers who took part in walks and other festivities consisted of chronic patients.

Serbsky was the first teacher at Moscow University in 1892 who lectured on forensic psychiatry to students of the law and medical departments.

Serbsky worked on issues of diagnosing the main forms of psychosis. He was the first one to find that some of the painful manifestations observed in adult patients are consequences of their childhood intellectual disorders. Gradually, Serbsky formulated the basic principles of the methodology by which psychiatrists could now determine the degree of the patient's sanity, that is, the ability to critically evaluate his actions.

Serbsky proved that from the point of view of psychiatry even a dangerous criminal can be a sick person. In this case, he should be isolated from society and be allowed to heal. The scientist was deeply convinced that in many crimes the environment that influenced the formation of his personality is to blame. He suggested introducing mandatory psychiatric examination for those accused of committing serious crimes. Usually in such cases, death sentences were imposed.

In 1912, Serbsky organized and headed the "Moscow Psychiatric Circle of Small Fridays," which became one of the first organizational structures composed and led by psychoanalysts (M. M. Asatiani, E. N. Dovbnya, N. Ye. Osipov, O. B. Feltsman and others). He criticized a number of provisions of Freud's teachings and the works of Russian psychoanalysts, including his students. At the same time encouraged the discussion of psychoanalytic problems. The discussions were carried out from the first day of the work of the circle.

Serbsky developed a modern form of sponsorship for psychiatric patients, was one of the founders of the Journal of Neuropathology and Psychiatry after S. S. Kosakov and the Russian Union of Psychiatrists and Neuropathologists, he was an active participant in all psychiatric and Pirogov congresses, delivering program papers on problems of forensic psychiatry, participated in many psychiatric examinations in cases that caused great public outcry, defending his own-always clinically sound- opinion.

Scientific works Serbsky VP Report on the examination of psychiatric institutions in Austria, Switzerland, France, Germany and Russia, submitted to the Tambov Provincial Zemstvo Board. - Tambov, 1886. Serbsky VP Report on the state of the hospital for the mentally ill at Tambov Zemsky hospital, 1886. Serbsky VP About acute forms of insanity // Medical Review, 1885? 3. Serbsky VP Review of reports on the status of institutions for the mentally ill in Russia for the years 1890-1900 "/ / Medical Review, 1893-1902 gg. Serbsky VP On the project of organizing zemstvo care of the mentally ill Moscow provincial zemstvos. - M., 1893. Serbsky VP Teaching psychiatry for lawyers / / Collection of Jurisprudence, 1893. Serbsky VP On forensic psychiatric examination // Proceedings of the Vth Congress of the Society of Russian Physicians in memory of NI Pirogov. Serbsky VP Judicial psychopathology. Volume I. - M., 1895. Serbsky VP Judicial psychopathology. Volume II. - M., 1900. Serbsky VP On the conditions for placing mentally ill persons who committed crimes in psychiatric hospitals by the definition of the court and their release. International Union of Criminalists. Russian Group / / Journal of the Ministry of Justice, 1901. Serbsky VP On the issue of early dementia (Dementia praecox) // Neuropathology and psychiatry them. S. S. Korsakov, 1902. Serbsky VP Duration, course and outcome of mental illness, 1906. Serbsky VP Recognition of mental illnesses. 1906. Serbsky VP A Guide to the Study of Mental Illnesses. - M., 1906. Serbsky VP Short therapy of mental illnesses. - M., 1911. Serbsky VP Psychiatry. - M., 1912.

Memory Since 1912 the name of Vladimir Petrovich Serbsky has been carried by the Central Institute of Forensic Psychiatry in Moscow.

Major works The Forensic Psychopathology (1896-1900) On Dementia praecox (1902) Manual of Study of Mental Diseases (1906)