New Challenges in Psychology / Jitka Prevendárová, Martin Kuruc, Štefánia Ferková, Lucie Poláková Silůvky: Palma, 2017, ISBN 978-80-904620-0-7
The new publication by J. Prevendárová et al. addresses selected issues from the fields of basic theoretical as well as applied psychological disciplines. It is not monothematic and its ambition, as the title suggests, is to provide the reader with a different perspective on the psychological aspects of human existence, or to highlight current problems of the individual and humanity and offer an alternative. What thus connects the seemingly disparate chapters is the interest in the human being and their experience.
This collective work, 238 pages in length, contains 14 separate chapters. The first ten chapters address issues of general psychology (the subject of psychology, its religious and philosophical foundations, the system of psychological sciences, schools of thought, mental processes and states). What we, however, consider a contribution and, in our professional environment, an extraordinary achievement, is the author's courage to transcend traditional approaches to defining basic concepts. Overcoming conventions, she offers an alternative in understanding and defining consciousness, confronting "Western science" not only with spiritual traditions but also with the knowledge of quantum physics. At the same time, we also appreciate the effective use of parallels and analogies, which facilitate understanding of the presented nature of consciousness ("matryoshka," "PC: hardware, software"). The publication thus becomes accessible not only to professional but also to lay audiences. We also positively evaluate the author's effort to support facts with examples from her own psychotherapeutic practice, which brings science closer to life and the reader closer to science. With a chapter on love, she concludes not only the topic of emotions but also this entire conception of psychology as a science and its mission.
The eleventh chapter, Cognitive Processes and Functions, presents an attempt at a comprehensive view of human cognitive processes and functions. We appreciate the author's effort to relate them to other components and processes of personality. To no small degree, this is aided by the presented model of three components in the structure of personality, to which he gave his own graphical form, respecting the principles of learning and the rule of clarity. A pleasant practical touch is a guide to changing one's thinking, specifically the technique Transformation of Negative Experience into Positive, which has proven itself in counseling and therapy.
In the chapter on the morality of children and adults in the family and school, the author draws attention to the need to devote increased attention to this issue in the current dehumanized and over-technologized social situation. We also reflect the urgency of this problem in the era of mass digital dementia. In addition to defining the basic concepts of the psychology of morality, the chapter also offers a useful overview of specific diagnostic and research tools. However, we consider the greatest contribution to be the presentation of a research project, which includes the modification of an existing standardized tool and the subsequent application of the author's own methodology on a sample of older school-age children and adults. We positively evaluate the relatively detailed overview of information on the construction of the method (including an example of one of the model situations presented to the respondent), the description of the sample and the testing process, as well as the subsequent data processing, which resulted in three basic categories of responses. We identify with the author's conclusions, especially concerning the moral reasoning of children, where, in our judgment as well, it is more useful to encourage the moral development of children themselves than to assume the role of an arbiter, the only one competent to solve a problem or conflict. Only in this way can they grow into full-fledged independent beings at the desired moral level.
The last two chapters also touch upon internal processes, i.e., human experience. Chapter 13 is devoted to stress and its management, which is a rather fundamental area of psychology given today's pace of life. The author does not focus on specific coping strategies (there are many such concepts), but rather directs the chapter toward developing mental resilience and focusing on personality strengths, which can act preventively in terms of coping with stress in today's performance-oriented society. The last, 14th chapter, titled Psychologie barev, is a synthesis of basic information about the physical nature of color perception, about colors in the context of human history and individual cultures. It brings the reader interesting results of research devoted to color perception in relation to associations, especially in the area of emotions. The author presents basic diagnostic methods using colors, employed in psychodiagnostics, and deals in considerable detail with the symbolism of individual colors. The conclusion of this inspiring chapter is devoted to the healing effects of colors on humans, which have been recorded in both the somatic and psychological domains.
The publication can serve to deepen the knowledge of all those interested in psychology; with its interdisciplinary scope, however, it can also inspire the wider public. At the same time, it offers a certain cultivational dimension for those interested in personal development.
Mgr. Lenka Ďuricová, PhD. Katedra psychológie Pedagogická fakulta UMB v Banskej Bystrici