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Faces of clinical psychology - book review

Mgr Anna Słomian

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Faces of clinical psychology - book review

medforum

Patient in psychologist's office

A mentor is a wise teacher, while a master is someone who not only skilfully shows us the ways of knowing, but also makes us aware of and discovers our scientific and research potential. Unfortunately, nowadays, students less and less recognise lecturers as masters and less and less frequently call them authorities. Therefore, if pupils, students and colleagues pay tribute to a deceased mentor, special attention should be paid to this.

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The last two parts of the reviewed publication are made up of articles addressed mainly to psychologists, especially specialists in clinical psychology. The first paper of the fourth part is entitled The Triumvirate of Determinants of Life Success and its author, Zbigniew Zaleski, focused on the problem of determinants of success, the foundation of well-being and happiness, or generally speaking positive psychology. The issues discussed here - let us add - in addition to the above-mentioned specialists, may also be of interest to the non-specialist reader, and the reception of the content of the article will be facilitated by the accessible language. After all, success, career, achievements in various areas of life are something that each of us dreams of and strives to achieve. Zbigniew Zaleski began his considerations by discussing the conditions for success in life, such as intelligence, motivation and the environment in which a person functions, and then focused on an attempt to define the term "meaning of life" in psychological terms and discussing the place of dreams "in the perspective of human development and fulfilment". In the following subsections of his work, the author, referring to examples from life and his own experiences, also emphasised the importance of factors such as effort, perseverance and emotions on the path to success.


The remaining two chapters by Ewa Zasępa and Joanna Głodkowska are texts devoted to intellectual disability in the context of positive psychology. Professor E. Zasępa was interested in the problem of happy existence of people with intellectual disabilities.


In the article Intellectual disability in the perspective of positive psychology, the author first asks questions such as whether and to what extent mentally disabled people can feel happy and what is the condition of a happy life for a person with intellectual disability. She considers the issues of the thought processes of people with varying degrees of impairment and their level of understanding of experienced issues and situations, such as the death of a loved one. The author also addresses the issue of the essence of faith in the life of an intellectually disabled person and the importance of satisfaction with even minor achievements of a person with an impairment.


Joanna Głodkowska, on the other hand, attempted to discuss the level of optimism of young people with mild intellectual disabilities, referring to the attributes of - what she called - positive psychology. In her paper, she attempted to answer questions such as whether and to what extent optimism in life is a developmental strength for people with mild intellectual disabilities? and whether and to what extent is an optimistic or pessimistic style of explaining [life events] a differentiating factor in the functioning of people with intellectual disabilities compared to people with normal development? In the following sections, the researcher precisely formulated the research problem, characterised the subjects, outlined the research techniques and extensively discussed the results of the questionnaires.


The fifth and final part of the reviewed publication will be of interest mainly to specialists in the field of clinical psychology, although the last two chapters will also be interesting reading for special educators teaching children at the early school level and physicians - especially those who deal with the therapy of persons with eating disorders. The articles collected in this section deal with specialist issues related to tools used to diagnose various disorders and measurements - such as psychometric ones.
The first article, by Adam Biel, is devoted to the qualities and values required in scientific work. Reflecting on the themes of freedom, gratitude, trust, forbearance, perseverance and resourcefulness, the author attempted to demonstrate their importance and relevance in the modern world, and that possessing them is the best guarantee of effective work, not only scientific and research work.


Ewa Pisula, in turn, looked at the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders, difficulties in their diagnosis, diagnostic standard tools and their availability in Poland. Agnieszka Weiner devoted her article to tests of musical perceptual skills of early school-age children, the characteristics of these skills, the psychometric properties of the test that checks them, and finally focuses on the results of the method used in the study, i.e. factor analysis. The publication concludes with an article by Małgorzata Starzomska, in which the author demonstrated a measure of the impact of methodological errors on the reliability of the research results obtained. The author demonstrated the essence of methodological reliability by referring to interesting studies on anorexia.


The publication Oblicza psychologii klinicznej (Faces of clinical psychology) is an item that should undoubtedly be included in the book collection of practising psychologists and students of this field of science. Interestingly, the range of issues discussed in the book may be of interest to psychology enthusiasts with no background in this discipline. Most of the articles are written in accessible language, i.e. also understandable for readers without a degree in psychology.


Faces of Clinical Psychology is a book that can be confidently recommended to all those who work with people with disabilities, especially intellectual disabilities. The book's strength lies not only in its clear language and interesting subject matter, but also in the multitude and variety of sources cited by the authors of the articles - works by Polish and foreign researchers. After each article, the reader will find an extensive bibliography, which will facilitate further research and the possibility of exploring the selected issue. In many articles from the publication, the reader will also find tables, diagrams and appendices with additional information.


Faces of Clinical Psychology is a book that fulfils all the requirements for a scientific work and, at the same time, is a human-centred publication about which each of the authors of the articles writes not only with substantive excellence, but also with the easy-to-read sensitivity of a humanist.


The first part of the publication is devoted entirely to the person of Professor Janusz Kostrzewski, thanks to which the reader gets to know the portrait of a scientist, a man - an altruist and a didacticist, who was able to evaluate the research ideas of his colleagues and students severely, but immediately afterwards to suggest possible other solutions. However, each of the following parts of the book is equally a tribute to the Professor. Professor's students and collaborators, taking the trouble to continue his work in such a complete and scientifically interesting way, could not have done a better job of honouring the Master's memory and thanking him for what they got from him.