We prepared the publication that we currently offer to the general public, bearing in mind many sensitive and professionally and humanely competent workers active in helping professions.
We also had in mind all students who are preparing themselves at various levels of the educational process for the profession of social worker, social pedagogue, or social andragogue, and who are also improving their personal competence, which is as important for their work as their professional competence. After all, the actual tools of social aid in direct contact with clients are the workers of the helping professions themselves.
We wanted to present the psychology of life journey, that is, Biodromal psychology (in Slovakia the idea of Biodromal psychology was presented for the first time by professor Jozef Koščo, the international authority in psychology, in 1960), to the reader because it has much to offer those who focus on solving problems instead of lamenting them, so that they do not fall into pessimism and rigidity not only in their professional life but also in their personal life. It is a general truth that someone who does not strive and work to improve his or her own personality cannot effectively and meaningfully help, educate, and lead people to their own personal development.
In helping professions, especially when a person has chosen this work from inner consideration and motivation, they are usually not interested in external glitter and are truly engaged, giving their best, because they do not merely work—they devote themselves to people, to the world, and to life itself. This happens in everyday life, in each life situation, and without regard to their own problems. They know and feel that problems are given to people in order to teach them how to solve them within their psychological, social, and material limits. Their belief probably comes from practical experience that the source of change in any difficult life situation of any individual is deeply hidden inside his or her psyche. This potential source, waiting for its realization in every person, we decided to call individual potential.
Exactly this genetically given power—the human disposition to survive and to develop into a unique personality—can be activated by social impulses. Workers in helping professions have in hand powerful tools of aid, with which the entire system and network of help is equipped. A psychological change in the person is exactly the moment which, in managing, solving, and prevention, is the key to resolving social or personal problems for a person in distress.
We present Biodromal psychology as a science whose knowledge, methodological processes, ways of identifying, understanding, and interpreting psychological events in lifelong development, learning, and personal improvement can contribute to the interdisciplinary theoretical basis and the practical activity of helping professions. We are thinking of the helping professions of social worker, social pedagogue, and social andragogue, whose professional activity is focused, through their own specific methods, on prevention, management, and solving the social and educational problems of target groups and individuals.
We composed this publication so that it could first offer readers both theoretical and applied knowledge of Biodromal psychology. We also considered the professional curiosity of readers and incorporated selected studies into the structure of this book, in which we presented applied topics of Biodromal psychology. We also used our long-term experience in teaching adult university students in the subject Biodromal Psychology, which we established in the Department of Andragogy of the Philosophic Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 1993 and later developed further in the study field of social work in the Social Work Department of the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the University in Prešov, Slovakia, from 2010 to today. These professional experiences with teaching students at bachelor and master levels of university studies led us to include the tutorial study of Biodromal psychology in this book. Our own practice in the field of psychological counselling and psychotherapy for adults also inspired us to publish examples of Biodromal psychology too.
Author: Prof. PhDr. MÁRIA MACHALOVÁ, PhD. LITERATURE:
MACHALOVÁ,MÁRIA.2010. Biodromálna psychológia pre sociálnych pracovníkov, sociálnych pedagógov a andragógov. (Biodromal psychology for social workers, social pedagogues and andragogues.) Brno (Czech Republic) : IMS, 2010. ISBN 978-80-87182-10-9.
MACHALOVÁ,MÁRIA.2011. Biodromálna psychológia pre pomáhajúce profesie. (Biodromal psychology for helping professions.) Prešov (Slovakia) : Pravoslávna bohoslovecká fakulta, Prešovská univerzita, 2011. ISBN 978-80-555-0321-0.
MACHALOVÁ,MÁRIA.2011. Psychologia biodromalna w zawodach wspomagących. (Biodromal psychology in helping professions.) Gorlice (Poland) : ELPIS, 2011. ISBN 978-83-931180-6-9.