Applied psychology and psychotherapy

The objective of the research was to adapt for use in Russian-language contexts a set of instruments that assess the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic practices. The instruments explore the effectiveness of different types of therapy, without evaluating the abstract, idealized characteristics or specifics of each approach, specialist, or therapeutic case. The adapted instruments are based on reflective data about the significance of therapeutic events, from the point of view of both the client and the therapist. We translated, edited, and adapted forms developed by John McLeod and Mick Cooper — a “Goals Form”, a “Goal Assessment Form”, a “Post-Session Form”, and a “Therapy Personalization Form”. The adaption was intended to cohere with the stylistic and cultural aspects of the Russian language. The research showed that the instruments and the methods have great potential for practical and theoretical application in qualitative studies to formulate hypotheses and to verify them in quantitative studies. The phenomenological analysis reveals the reliability, appropriateness, and validity of the adapted instruments for identifying specific meanings of the psychotherapeutic cases considered. The instruments can be used in studies exploring helpful aspects and effectiveness in different types of therapy (cognitive, existential, outdoor therapy, online counseling, etc.) with different groups of clients. It is reasonable to continue the use of the Russian-language version of the instruments in further studies exploring the effectiveness of psychological practices. The adapted instruments facilitate comparison and cross-cultural studies, and formulation of meaningful hypotheses about the effectiveness and quality of the psychotherapeutic process.

The theoretical framework of this analytic study is based on studies in the field of film perception. Films are considered as a communicative system that is encrypted in an ordered series of shots, and decoding proceeds during perception. The shots are the elements of a cinematic message that must be “read” by viewer. The objective of this work is to analyze the existing theoretical approaches to using films in psychotherapy and education. An original approach to film therapy that is based on teaching clients to use new communicative sets and psychotherapeutic patterns through watching films is presented. The article specifies the main emphasized points in theories of film therapy and education. It considers the specifics of film therapy in the process of increasing the effectiveness of communication. It discusses the advantages and limitations of the proposed method. The contemporary forms of film therapy and the formats of cinema clubs are criticized. The theoretical assumptions and empirical research that could be used as a basis for a method of developing effective communication by means of films are discussed. Our studies demonstrate that the usage of film therapy must include an educational stage for more effective and stable results. This means teaching viewers how to recognize certain psychotherapeutic and communicative patterns in the material of films, to practice the skill of finding as many examples as possible for each pattern and to transfer the acquired schemes of analyzing and recognizing patterns into one’s own life circumstances. The four stages of the film therapeutic process as well as the effects that are achieved at each stage are described in detail. In conclusion, the conditions under which the usage of the film therapy method would be the most effective are observed. Various properties of client groups and psychotherapeutic scenarios for using the method of active film therapy are described.

Childhood obesity is one of the most dangerous pathologies; it can lead to serious illness in the absence of medical support. In this article we give an overview of the use of videogames for reducing and normalizing the weight of overweight and obese children. We discuss the categorization of the existing games and their limits, and we outline the perspectives of psychopedagogical research in the domain of game design for treating obese and overweight children. The role of long-term motivation in the treatment of obesity is one of the crucial questions we discuss. We try to understand how videogames can help children and parents maintain motivation during weight-loss treatment. The role of parents is undeniable in ensuring the success of weight-loss programs for overweight or obese children. Perhaps videogames can be the instrument for families’ lifestyle changes.

This article illustrates the process of reaching conversation in the case of Anna, a 10- year-old girl, in a countryside Portuguese primary school, through neuropsychological habilitation and psychotherapy. This case identifies the theoretical and methodological concepts from Vygotsky’s cultural historical conceptualization in psychotherapy practice. Vygotsky introduced a new form of thinking in psychology, the concept of play, as a cultural and relational tool on a child’s (consciousness) development. During psychotherapy, Anna progressed through the following stages: 1) not playing (deploying the toys, with no relations between them or awareness of social rules); 2) worldplay (building worlds using wooden blocks and other toys, establishing relations between the characters and their possessions); and 3) imaginary situation (with no toys). At the end of this process, she was able to talk about her issues, communicating in a more adaptive way, especially in a schooled society. When she reached conversation, Anna’s activity was also changed. Therefore, there was a qualitative change regarding her needs, motives and ways of acting and reacting to herself, others, and cultural tools or events.

Collaborative project work facilitates social interactions among peers and between them and their teachers. It allows students to work in their zone of proximal development (ZPD), promoting their knowledge appropriation. It empowers adult students, allowing them to express their voices and their cultures. Inter-empowerment mechanisms are part of this process, facilitating the internalization of intra-empowerment mechanisms. Both of them shape students’ life trajectories of participation (César, 2013a). This work is part of the Interaction and Knowledge (IK) project. During 12 years (1994/1995–2005/2006) we studied and promoted social interactions in formal educational scenarios. We assumed an interpretative paradigm and developed an action-research project (three-year alternative curriculum, 7th–9th grades) and a 10-year follow up. The participants were the seven students who completed this course, their teachers, and other educational and social agents. Data collecting instruments included observation, interviews, informal conversations, tasks inspired by projective techniques, students’ protocols, and documents. Data treatment and analysis were based on a narrative content analysis. The results are mainly focused on one student: Ernesto. His legitimate participation in this course facilitated his inclusion in school and in society. It promoted his socio-cognitive and emotional development and allowed him to internalize intra-empowerment mechanisms. This enabled him to improve his life trajectory of participation.

According to Lev Vygotsky’s theory, every bodily deficiency not only changes a person’s attitude to the world but also entails social consequences, which makes its social and psychological rehabilitation so important. The way in which problems of deformity compensation and supercompensation are solved, is largely determined by a patient`s motivation. The paper deals with stuttering (logoneurosis) as an extreme form of broken communication; it analyses the peculiarities of stutteres and their families, and the specific features of treating this defect; it also dwells on issues involving family co-participation in social rehabilitation. The multilayered system of family group logo psychotherapy - treatment of stuttering children, teenagers and adults - is based on Yu.B. Nekrasova’s method of group logopsychotherapy. It also employs non-traditional techniques: Nekrasova’s dynamic psycho-therapeutic diagnostics and biblio-, kinesi-, symbol-, video- and cinema therapies.

This system may serve as a model for forming motivational involvement and intragenic activity by patients and their relatives in social rehabilitation processes. The paper describes the levels and psychological structure of motivational involvement and mechanisms of its formation in logopsychotherapeutic processes. Motivational involvement is understood as a source of a subject’s intragenic (inner) activity, the paper maps out strategies to form intragenic activity. The family group logopsychotherapeutic techniques may also help optimize communication between parent and child, doctor and patient, teacher and pupil, professor and student.

Aging can be viewed as a continuation of development and an active interaction with the environment during which regressive changes are combined with progressive new formations. It is believed that the self-determining nature of subjectivity in the elderly mediates self-awareness and favors self-acceptance as an active agent that determines the outcomes of one’s own life at this age as an autonomous self-regulating subject of one’s own activity. A formative experience proved the efficiency of using art therapy as a method for mobilizing personal resources during aging.

Basing on Vygotsky’s cultural-historical methodology, Bakhtin’s conception of inner dialogue, and some ideas of object relations theory, the authors propose an integrative approach to self-awareness in psychotherapy. Serious attention is paid to the predictors of borderline personality disorders and comorbid illnesses: pathogenic family conditions of personality development and, in consequence of them, splitting and structural distortions of self-awareness. The descriptive-analytic, semiotic and dialogical procedures of analysis of verbal communications between patient and psychotherapist were elaborated and approbated.

Organizational culture presents an interest for research and practice of social psychology. This article is intended to discuss the problem of managing the organizational structure on two levels that contain most topical problems: general methodological level and technological level. Organizational culture is a system with its distinct features that consists of units and sub-systems with their specific features. An organizational-culture system comprises several levels: leader’s personality level (as well as the personality level in general), level of executive team (as well as of a small group in general), level of organization in general (level of a large group).

This paper is an invitation for professionals to discuss modifi cations of free associations technique and the position of therapist in analytic situation. Let me briefl y formulate these ideas.

The work is aimed at the studying of the reflexive process of a personality dur­ing psychoanalysis, which has never been researched empirically basing on the material of a subject's narrations of their dreams. It was shown that during the psychoanalytical process the reflexive processes of a personality enhance, become more active and change qualitatively. As reflection develops, the subjects start to think reflexively about their dreams, which leads to qualitative and quantita­tive change of intrapsychic images. The extracommunicative direction of dreams during psychoanalysis is replaced by the intrapsychic one, and the content of the reflexive processes changes qualitatively. The amount of ascertaining statements decrease, more frequent is detailed description of inner feelings and emotions of the subject.

The author analyzes in brief the historical development of psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy in Soviet Union and pots-Soviet Russia. He expresses his view on modern state of affairs between state and private practice and gives a detailed account of the formation of modern Russian psychoanalytic community and its entry into the international community.

The paper is devoted to consideration of self-regulation training that can be used in order to prevent a development of negative human functional states (HFS) in work environment. According to the well-developed in Russian work and organizational psychology traditions the effects of practical implementation of various self-regulation methods on job efficiency and worker's well-being are analyzed. The positive patterns of changes in HFS syndromes taken place as a result of prolonged courses of self-regulation training are described. It is shown that a successful acquisition of self-regulation skills strongly depends on (1) specificity of job content and (2) individual sensitivity to various relaxation techniques. These findings are useful for enhancing the quality of work-site stress management and health promotion programs.

The psychological basis of creative thinking training as a means of development of conflict competence of a professional includes: in the first place, the knowledge of psychological nature of creative thinking of a professional; in the second place, recognition of above situational thinking as a leading quality in the structure of creative professional thinking; consideration of above situational thinking in the context of development of conflict competence of a professional, in the third place. In order to develop conflict competence, it is necessary to learn to get above the level of momentary requirements of a situation, to detect above situational problems, to set the goals, excessive from the point of view of the initial task. Pro­fessionals, thinking in terms of above situation, while analyzing a conflict situation, start to realize and actualize their own resources, which facilitates a creative way in problems resolving. It is the detection of above situational problems that forms the basis for creative thinking and is characterized by a set of key personal qualities necessary for his self-transformation as an agent.

Management as a form of cognition implies gaining new experience and knowledge, particularly about oneself. Traditionally, the psychology of social cognition distinguishes between an object and a subject of cognition (i.e. the one who cognizes). The subject of cognition can represent both an individual and a social group. As consciousness and mentality of an individual changes in modern society, essential topics of social cognitive psychology assume new importance: society components are becoming inter-cognitive. There is a change in the structure of management relations within the management system that includes aims and functions, as well as the subject and object of management.

Authors discuss notable philosophical and psychological aspects of Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as different features of meditation techniques in their relations to psychological study of consciousness.