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Through the Window. Kinship and Elopement in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Through the Window. Kinship and Elopement in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Author(s): Keith Doubt / Language(s): English

Keywords: Elopement; Marriage customs and rites in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This book is not about war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, evil, or the killing of a society. It is about a cultural heritage, something vital to a society as a society, something that was not killed in the previous war, something that is resilient.Through the Window: Kinship and Elopement in Bosnia-Herzegovina accounts for the trans-ethnic character of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s cultural heritage, focusing on marriage customs shared by different ethnic groups, namely, elopement and affinal visitations. The study provides for the inter-subjective logic that “makes sense” of these two complementary rites of passage that establish the collective identities of Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox in Bosnia-Herzegovnia, and shows how the affinal relation called “prijatelji” is special to Bosnia and unique to its social character.

Living and Aging with HIV. An Interdisciplinary Approach

Życie i starzenie się z wirusem HIV. Podejście interdyscyplinarne

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: HIV infection; neuroimaging; antiretroviral treatment; aging; cognitive disorders; HCV

A monograph on the epidemiology and course of HIV infections, neuroimaging diagnostics, and the cognitive adaptation (psychological functioning) of people infected with HIV, as well as their aging processes – with a particular emphasis on their olfactory and auditory functions and metabolic bone diseases. The authors - neuropsychologists, psychiatrists, radiologists, and audiologists - present the results of their own research and a reliable and critical review of the current body of literature. This publication is addressed to psychologists and caregivers of people infected with HIV.

Discourses on emotions – pedagogy and everyday school life

Dyskursy o emocjach – pedagogika i codzienność szkolna

Author(s): Irena Przybylska / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: emotional culture; the school's emotional climate; teacher's emotional work

The theme of the present work constitutes, in the broadest sense, the emotions and their importance in everyday school reality. In the book, I attempt a reading of academic discourses which concern emotions and an indication of their importance for pedagogical thinking and action. The educational discourse is constructed by, above all, the concept of emotions as an important factor for growth and education and the concept of assistance in the development of emotional competence of students. Assuming cultural definitions of emotions, I argue that in school as a social space and institution, emotions are not only a result of interpersonal processes, obligations and expectations but are also ontologically grafted into the process of upbringing and should be a studied discipline of educational influences in its own right. The framework for theoretical discussion is constituted by the category of emotional culture, defined as a collection of rules which direct behaviours and the expression of emotions, as well as the meanings given to emotions in a particular socio-cultural context. The semantic field outlined by this category turned out to be sufficiently generative to limit the object of empirical research to the emotional climate of a classroom and the emotional work of the teacher, where according to the theoretical assumptions, the emotional culture becomes apparent. The emotional climate has been conceptualized as a permanent or transitory availability of certain categories of emotions, which is socially established in emotional conventions. The emotional work of the teacher means undertaking actions as a response to the rules of emotional culture and with the purpose of maintaining self-presentation and emotional climate conductive to the performance of tasks expected of the teacher’s role. In such an understanding, emotional work has not only a psychological meaning, but also a pedagogical one. On the basis of heuristic models of emotional climate and work, the research tools have been constructed: The Questionnaire Emotional Climate – Student, and the Questionnaire Emotional Work – Teacher. The accuracy and the cohesion of both have been confirmed statistically. Due to the nature of the researched facts and pedagogical phenomena and the purpose of research, which, apart from a description also involve an attempt at an understanding and interpretation of the importance of emotions in a classroom environment, the empirical procedure employed triangulation. On the basis of the research results, among others, a relation between the teacher’s emotional work and the emotional climate of the classroom was verified. The description of the studied variables was “condensed” with a layer of subjective impressions, teachers’ and students’ convictions and observations gathered in the researched classrooms. Emotional experience of students in classrooms was described, and, on the basis of interviews with teachers, areas where they undertake emotional work were characterized. The book’s narrative remains open, as the undertaken concepts revealed many research fields which inspire further study and discussion. Moreover, the acquired results indicate the key areas for the redefinition of professional training of teachers, where the discourses on emotions are almost entirely absent.

IN THE TRAP OF SCHEMES? Early nonadaptive schemes of Jeffrey Younga but psychosocial functioning of adults

W PUŁAPCE SCHEMATÓW? Wczesne nieadaptacyjne schematy Jeffreya Younga a funkcjonowanie psychospołeczne osób dorosłych

Author(s): Dorota Mącik / Language(s): Polish

Terapia schematu staje się coraz bardziej popularnym podejściem do leczenia zaburzeń uznawanych jako trudne, jak osobowość borderline. Wczesne nieadaptacyjne schematy, czyli silne i trwałe wzorce przeżywania emocjonalnego i związane z tym przeżywaniem zachowania, powtarzalne w różnych życiowych sytuacjach, mają znaczenie nie tylko w przypadku zaburzeń, lecz także wpływają na jakość życia osób zdrowych. Prezentowane w książce wyniki badań wskazują, że schematy, związane zwłaszcza z zaburzeniami więzi i brakiem poczucia bezpieczeństwa emocjonalnego, wiążą się z takimi trudnościami ludzi jak słabsza jakość relacji i większe poczucie rozczarowania w związkach romantycznych, tendencja do unikania bliskości, większe nasilenie negatywnych emocji i koncentracja na negatywnych aspektach wydarzeń, słabsza samoocena, a nawet pojawianie się cech lękowych i depresyjnych.Jest to opracowanie bardzo wartościowe pod względem naukowym, dobrze porządkujące wiedzę w zakresie roli nieadaptacyjnych schematów poznawczych w społecznym funkcjonowaniu człowieka dorosłego. Jest to pierwsza praca w polskiej literaturze psychologicznej tak dobrze udokumentowana empirycznie.Z recenzji prof. dr hab. Teresy RostowskiejMożna stwierdzić, że jest to praca oryginalna i bardzo wartościowa. Nie ma podobnych badań, które odnosiłyby się do schematów tworzących się w rodzinach, w których nie dochodziło do nadużyć, a jedynie występowała pewna niekompatybilność pomiędzy potrzebami dzieci i ich odzwierciedleniem przez rodziców. Jest to praca absolutnie nowatorska, a uzyskane wyniki mają istotne znaczenie poznawcze dla psychologii klinicznej i psychoterapii.Z recenzji dr hab. Małgorzaty A. BasińskiejDorota Mącik – dr nauk humanistycznych w zakresie psychologii, pracownik Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego Jana Pawła II, Katedra Psychologii Klinicznej.Psychoterapeutka, certyfikowana przez Polskie Towarzystwo Psychoterapii Poznawczo-Behawioralnej, szkoliła się również w terapii schematu. Obecnie zajmuje się problematyką trudności i zaburzeń psychicznych, starając się efektywnie połączyć teorię z praktyką kliniczną. W pracy naukowej koncentruje się na poszukiwaniu mechanizmów, które mogą wyjaśniać przyczyny zaburzeń i trudności w codziennym funkcjonowaniu. Najważniejsze publikacje: Między przyjemnością a uzależnieniem. Psychologia zakupów nieplanowanych (Wydawnictwo Naukowe Grado, Toruń 2008); Polish adaptation of the The Young Schema Questionnaire 3 Short Form (YSQ-S3-PL), Psychiatria Polska 2017 (wraz z J. Oetingen, J. Chodkiewiczem i E. Gruszczyńską); Symptomy zaburzeń zdrowia psychicznego a wczesne nieadaptacyjne schematy — ocena zależności, Psychoterapia 2017, 180 (1); Rola postaw rodzicielskich w kształtowaniu wczesnych nieadaptacyjnych schematów. Badania populacji nieklinicznej, Polskie Forum Psychologiczne 2018, 23 (1).

THE MORAL DEMOCRACY. The Political Thought of Aung San Suu Kyi

THE MORAL DEMOCRACY. The Political Thought of Aung San Suu Kyi

Author(s): Michał Lubina / Language(s): English

Aung San Suu Kyi spoke passionately about non-violence, she wrote involved articles about compatibility of democracy with Buddhism and she won the hearts and minds of so many with her call for the freedom from fear (…) It seemed – for more than two decades – that Suu Kyi was a perfect, non-Western propagator of democracy, human rights, rule of law (…) Yet a deeper analysis reveals that Suu Kyi intellectually, indeed, has been a democrat all along, but a Burmese democrat (…) Suu Kyi understands democracy in a Buddhist way and she reasons about politics using Buddhist ideas, idioms and concepts (…) This Buddhist dominance of her political thought had several consequences, the most important one being that her approach to politics has first and foremost been a moral one (…) her vision of democracy (and of politics in general) is a moral vision. It is something I propose to call “the moral democracy.”The same reason that made her famous and admired worldwide, now contributed to her fall from grace. For too many outside Burma/Myanmar it is impossible to understand how Suu Kyi – yesterday’s global personification of good and morality – can now silently endorse crimes against humanity conducted in her country and accept forced relocation of 700 thousand people. A cynic would quote Bertrand Russell’s words (“we have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach”) and add a commentary that it applies especially to politicians. One, however, may offer a more favourable explanation: that Suu Kyi represents a tragic clash of ideas, including moral ideas, with political reality. Whatever the case, it was morality that made her famous, it was the same moralistic attitude that contributed to her removal from international Olympus and it is this moral understanding of politics that is the hallmark of her political thought, which is here to stay for longer, as political ideas last longer than changing political circumstances and fashions.From the PrefaceThe dramatic fall from grace of Burma's human rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi shocked the world. Michał Lubina's magisterial account of Aung San Suu Kyi's political education demystifies the behavior in power of this otherwise enigmatic leader. This is the indispensable book for anyone who wants to understand the mind of one of the world's most controversial women.Prof. Salvatore Babones, University of SydneyDr. Michał Lubina, known in Poland for portraying Aung San Suu Kyi not as a human rights activist, but as a realist politician in the very footsteps of her father, now comes out with his research to the international audience. Following the example of Mahbubani’s Can Asian Think? Lubina shows the intellectual and philosophical tradition of Myanmar through the case study of Suu Kyi’s political thought. It’s a unique undertaking that presents Suu Kyi from an unexpected angle: as a theoretician and political thinker or sage. Both the scope of research done and the material presented are very impressive and rather unique, even on international scene.Prof. Bogdan Góralczyk, University of Warsaw, Former Ambassador to MyanmarThis book is a well-documented and well-constructed, multilayered, complex, analytical work based on very rich research, interviews with Suu Kyi and personal observations of the Author, who displays unquestioned analytical skills. As such the book represents a pioneer work in Burmese studies.Prof. Agnieszka Kuszewska, Jagiellonian University in CracowNone of the numerous books and articles that I have read about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi dissects her political thoughts and background as thoroughly as the book written by Dr. Michał Lubina. He shows the political construction of her character, her struggle, her idealism, her sources of inspiration and her weaknesses. It is a necessary publication to read in order to understand historical and contemporary policymaking in today’s Burma. Dr. Marion Sabrié, University of Rouen NormandyDr. Michał Lubina is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Middle and Far East, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland and author of six books, including the first history of Burma/Myanmar in Poland and the only biography of Aung San Suu Kyi in Polish.

Applied psychology of rehabilitation

Stosowana psychologia rehabilitacji

Author(s): Stanisław Kowalik / Language(s): Polish

Stosowaną psychologię rehabilitacji wyróżnia autorskie ujęcie problematyki. Decydują o tym trzy cechy książki.Po pierwsze, przedstawiona w niej wiedza psychologiczna, odnosząca się do osób niepełnosprawnych i ich rehabilitacji, skonfrontowana została z doświadczeniami praktycznymi autora książki. Wyniki tej konfrontacji spowodowały, że niektóre z powszechnie przyjmowanych zasad działania psychologów w obszarze rehabilitacji osób z zaburzeniami psychicznymi, urazami mózgu, przewlekłymi chorobami somatycznymi, widocznymi uszkodzeniami ciała są przez Stanisława Kowalika kontestowane.Po drugie, w książce przedstawiono wiele propozycji innego odczytania problemów doświadczanych przez osoby niepełnosprawne i pomocy psychologicznej w ich rozwiązywaniu. Przy czym autorowi nie chodziło o negowanie już istniejących praktyk rehabilitacyjnych, instytucjonalnie uznawanych za poprawne. Bardziej zależało mu na ukazaniu alternatywnych form pracy z osobami niepełnosprawnymi.Po trzecie, wiele z omówionych w książce propozycji pracy psychologa rehabilitacji nawiązuje do tradycji, gdy tworzony był ten dział psychologii stosowanej. Można ją określić jako okres zrównoważonego regulowania praktyki rehabilitacyjnej przez wiedzę naukową i ideały humanistyczne. Natomiast w obserwowanej obecnie sytuacji stopniowej dehumanizacji rehabilitacji, warto ciągle przypominać o tych ideałach, szczególnie gdy pracujemy z osobami niepełnosprawnymi.

Travelling across Cultures

Travelling across Cultures

Author(s): Anca Mihaela Dobrinescu / Language(s): English

Keywords: intercultural communication; globalization; reshaping of identities; intercultural education;

This book is intended as a wake-up call. It is a book whose main aim is to enhance awareness of some of the problems with which contemporary world confronts itself. It is a humanist’s effort to draw attention to those issues that cause individuals’ anxiety and may eventually lead to their alienation. The question the book attempts to answer is how important intercultural communication is in an age of globalization, whose processes have irremediably affected society. Our intention is to gain insight into how globalizing practices have contributed to the reshaping of identities. We are also interested in finding out what knowledge and skills individuals should be equipped with to cope more efficiently with the challenge of living in the “global village.” Special attention will be given to issues related to communication between cultures as well as to some of the serious problems education has to consider in the new, and much too rapidly, changing context. The book will then be about intercultural communication and intercultural education as we see the two necessarily interrelated.

Reflexivity Profiles and Career Types. A Counsellogy Perspective

Profile refleksyjności i typy karier. Perspektywa poradoznawcza

Author(s): Ewa Dębska / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: career types; reflexivity profiles; reflexivity; counselling; career adviser

The author describes the reciprocal interconnections between reflexivity profiles and career types of those who professionally support people in their choice of education and work. She examines the notion of reflexivity and, analysing the results of qualitative research, constructs the typology of careers. Five career types emerge from the research: cumulative, balanced, market, adaptive and family. Using the reconstructed biographies, the author creates the category of “reflexivity profile”, shows its constitutive elements and divides it into existential, intrapersonal, anticipatory, rational and interpersonal. She then reflects on the importance of reflexivity profiles for careers of professional career advisers.

Phenomenological-pragmatist interpretation of the hyper-connectivist world: on topics of philosophy of information:

Fenomenologicko-pragmatistická interpretace hyperkonektivistického světa: k problémům filosofie informace

Author(s): Michal Černý / Language(s): Czech

Keywords: information; philosophy; education;

The presented monograph is a source of critical reflection of the philosophy of information, which is strongly related primarily to topics close to the philosophy of education. It is based on the work of Luciano Floridi. I have a new grasp of his thoughts and arguments, at least in three ways. I read Floridi’s thoughts (fundamentally differently structured) with the context of standard philosophy as such – it follows the cosmological, logical, epistemic, ontological, linguistic aspects. It is based on a course I have been teaching (with my colleagues) for many years at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno. In the monograph, I offer many topics that are almost misunderstood in literature. They analyze the relationship of information and paradox, the association of information to time and space, or the philosophy of education. These topics are open and can be used for further research in this area. The second original approach is the reflection of corporeality and pragmatism. Pragmatism is represented primarily by Mark Johnson and George Lakoff. Their emphasis on the ecological perception of thought and on the body as a fundamental key to understanding being is strongly evident in the book. This “new generation” of pragmatic philosophers influenced by cognitive sciences must be taken very seriously in philosophical discourse. The study also emphasizes the ideas of Martin Heidegger, who is perceived very critically outside the village of his admirers for various reasons. We believe that his new reading or new grasp of some of his ideas offers an original approach to the philosophy of information, which will differ in many ways from the way it is commonly grasped by “true Haideggrians”. Of course, we will also refer to his pupils in this interpretation scheme, especially Jan Patočka and Hannah Arendt. Outside these two great traditions, three personalities are essential to our reading of the philosophy of information, but it is difficult to put them in any particular stream or direction. I, therefore, take them pragmatically-phenomenologically, although I know that many of their ideas could be conceived differently. These are Henri Bergson, Martin Buber and Piere Teilhard de Chardin. The resulting book offers a systematic examination of individual facets of the new world – a world that is hyper-connectivity, for which it is not possible to effectively and consistently introduce the differences between online and offline, between man and machine. A world in which we abandon the figure of thought based on “either-or”, and move towards a more ecological, holistic, emphasizing a continuum of a particular environment. We then explore this environment. The world we are thrown into is fundamentally different from the world in which Heidegger could study his ancient philosophers, or Bergson could study the role of memory in the constitution of the human person. It is a world that is fundamentally transformed by digital technology, in which connectivity is one of the fundamental characteristics of the world. This phenomenon leads to the fact that “traditional philosophical production” reflects the world rather than the real world and fixes itself in a position where it is not capable of new radically significant statements. My monograph is a contribution to getting out of this position and the modern philosophy of information. The philosophy of information is a suitable tool for solving a wide range of problems we face.

Memory of Places: A Cultural Sociology of Remembering

Paměť míst: Kulturní sociologie vzpomínání

Author(s): Csaba Szaló / Language(s): Czech

Keywords: cultural sociology; cultural memory; existentialism; phenomenology; place; history; lived world; lived corporeality;

Sociology teaches us to see the world anew. This book offers a new way of understanding the world by means of a cultural account of remembering. Its ability to help one to see the world anew depends on the persuasiveness of its recounting of our relationship to the past. This foretells the central importance of giving up on thinking separately about mind and body. Thus, concepts used in existential phenomenology are of key consequence for my account of remembering, insofar as this theoretical vocabulary gives us the tools to disclose and express the deeper structure and meaning of experiences related to sensible traces of the past. The increased importance of memory studies, especially the current emphasis placed on cultural trauma and iconicity in cultural sociology, has encouraged me to propose that cultural interpretation must be supplemented with phenomenological descriptions. This is partly because the theoretical model developed by Jeffrey C. Alexander to understand the formation of cultural trauma has revealed that it is no longer possible to adequately interpret our relationship to the past using concepts that rely on cognitive models of remembering. Instead, the social force and performative power of icons implies that our relationship to the past is more akin to indirect forms of expression. As a result, phenomenological aesthetics takes on increased importance for the interpretive strategy of cultural sociology. While cultural sociology can shed light on how language expresses the meanings of material objects, it could do this and more by focusing on a form of expression that captures meanings corresponding to the past without becoming utterly conceptual. Existential phenomenology, in particular, the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, brings these mostly disregarded features of expression as well as lived experience into relief. Indirect expressive forms produce meaning not by means of words resulting from the semantic relations assigned to them in language, but instead, as cultural pragmatics demonstrates, meaning is also an effect of how readers or audiences interpret he sense of these works and performances. Hence, cultural forms that depart from the categorical expressions characteristic of conventional language bring to our attention the importance of those meanings which turn up in pre-conceptual perceptual experiences. The view that traces of the past can be given meaning by cultural forms that indirectly disclose them is further developed in three chapters. In “The Silent Memory of the Body” I consider an account of remembering that is adequately responsive to lived experiences, on the basis of the ordinary intuitive point of view from which we understand ourselves as neither disembodied minds nor mechanical machines but as living human beings. It is this bodily point of view as such, that is, our basic unconscious bodily continuity with the world constituting a pre-reflexive understanding of our own experiences, which grounds our immediate awareness of the past. In addition to the background understanding we bring with us from pre-conceptual experience, moreover, we have an intuitive sense of the personal and emotional sphere that is intermingled with our pre-cognitive familiarity with ourselves and the world we inhabit. This interdependence of embodied self and world that manifests itself in places we inhabit is clarified in the second chapter, entitled “Lived Memory of Places”. The significance of places arising from the role of body in our orientation in the world is affirmed in a peculiar manner through the sociological critique of their devastation by the globalised forces of modernity. Precisely in its capacity to eliminate the diversity of places, the prospect of globalised uniformity of economic, political and cultural infrastructures heightens awareness of the particularity of places. This vulnerability of a particular “somewhere” characterised by its singular configurations of meaning and unrepeatable history, is traced in the second chapter as giving rise to cultural forms of nostalgia and homesickness. Human dwelling always contains movements, that is, the rhythmical circulations of human beings, their practices and experiences. The third chapter, “Visible Traces of the Past”, focuses on the topological organisation of places determined by humanly constructed objectifications. Configurations of furniture, fragrance, pictures and stories are like ruins as far as the significance of duration in the crystallisation of places is concerned. Through a phenomenology of place that exposes to view non-categorical sense and the human activities behind the meaning of appearances, the third chapter returns to the concrete things and lived experiences of our everyday life-world which represent the book’s point of departure.

The Effectiveness of Mental Disorders Prevention and Treatment: Research Conclusions for Clinical Practice

Skuteczność zapobiegania zaburzeniom psychicznym i ich leczenia: wnioski z badań dla praktyki klinicznej

Author(s): Jadwiga Małgorzata Rakowska / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: evidence-based practice; prevention of mental disorders; crisis interventions; psychotherapy; social rehabilitation; therapeutic relationship

Kompleksowy przegląd aktualnego stanu badań skuteczności interwencji psychoterapeutycznych w zapobieganiu zaburzeniom psychicznym i ich leczeniu oraz użyteczności płynących z nich wniosków w praktyce klinicznej. Autorka analizuje metody wykorzystywane u dorosłych, dzieci i młodzieży wraz z interpersonalnymi uwarunkowaniami skuteczności takich interwencji i podaje rekomendacje dotyczące wdrażania rezultatów tych badań w praktyce klinicznej. Publikacja dostarcza klinicystom informacji użytecznych w prowadzeniu praktyki według wskazań modelu praktyki klinicznej opartej na dowodach empirycznych.

Green Inclusion, or the Relationship Between Man and Nature, Outdoor Education and a Forest Fairy Tale

Zielona inkluzja, czyli o relacji człowieka z przyrodą, outdoor education i leśnej bajce

Author(s): Joanna Godawa / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: outdoor education; therapeutic forest stories; balanced development; nature-deficit disorder

The book investigates contemporary human relationships with nature, and in doing so emphasizes the necessity of re-establishing contact with nature for personal growth. The author discusses a wide range of issues including balanced development in relation to ecology, and the importance of a proactively adventurous attitude towards the outdoors. Godawa suggests a three-phase pattern of returning to nature, reflecting the three stages of rites of passage described by the anthropologist Arnold von Gennep. She also writes her own therapeutic forest stories, intended to prepare children to initiate their creative relationship with nature. She strongly believes that outdoor education can be the most efficient way to restore the loss of contact with nature in modern life.

Organizations towards the challenges of sustainable development - selected aspects

Organizacje wobec wyzwań zrównoważonego rozwoju – wybrane aspekty

Author(s): Łukasz Jarosław Kozar,Piotr Oleksiak / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: sustainable development;organisation;human capital;green competence;work-life balance

The monograph is part of a stream of considerations on current processes and phenomena related to the implementation of sustainable development in organisations. In this book, the authors emphasise that in the context of sustainable development of organisations, numerous views are being confronted and new theories are emerging. Therefore, the book should not be treated as an exhaustive analysis of the discussed aspects, but as a contribution to the discussion on the issue of changes in modern organisations in the face of sustainable development challenges. Its basic aim is to identify organisational solutions in the field of human resources management aimed at supporting sustainable development of organisations. On the basis of the selected aspects analysed, it is presented what changes can be made by a contemporary organisation wishing to enter the path of sustainable development. An important part of the analysis is devoted to the issue of sustainable human resources management. The authors point out that the transformation of an organisation towards sustainable development is impossible without the involvement of its employees in the process. Therefore, people managing organisations should direct their attention to creating green competences of their employees.

Living in Poland in narrative accounts of international students

Living in Poland in narrative accounts of international students

Author(s): Emilia Wąsikiewicz-Firlej,Anna Szczepaniak-Kozak,Hadrian Lankiewicz / Language(s): English

Keywords: intercultural communication; multilingualism; local language; English language; lingua franca; narrative interview

The monograph focuses on the interrelations between language and intercultural communication, with particular emphasis on the importance of foreign language skills in shaping positive personal, professional and educational experiences of students during longer stays abroad, mainly within the Erasmus+ programme. The authors present a critical perspective on the understanding of the role of English as a lingua franca in intercultural relations and highlight the key role of the local language (in this case, Polish) in the processes of conversational control and social integration. The monograph begins with a literature review that focuses on the types of motivations underlying the decision to go or stay abroad and invest in learning the local language. In the next chapter, the authors focus on methodological aspects of narrative research in the context of intercultural communication. The theoretical part is followed by the presentation of the findings of a study based on a narrative interview, which over the course of two years (2018–2019) involved 53 respondents – representatives of 24 countries, who share the experience of an extended stay in Poland for educational or professional purposes. Contrary to popular belief, the research revealed that English is not sufficient to function abroad successfully. The results indicate that people who decide to stay abroad for a longer period should invest in learning the local language, which sooner or later becomes a medium of deep intercultural communication in terms of positioning themselves, building relationships and increasing their cultural and linguistic resources.

Factors Associated with Alcohol Use in University Students

Factors Associated with Alcohol Use in University Students

Author(s): René Šebeňa / Language(s): English

Keywords: students; alcohol; addiction;

Research into alcohol use by young people is mostly focused on adolescents, secondary or further education students rather than university students. However, alcohol drinking among university students is a widely recognized problem and represents a serious health and cultural problem, with many negative individual, interpersonal and cultural consequences. Binge drinking, an increasingly common pattern of excessive alcohol use with serious negative consequences for individual drinkers, those around them, and the university environment, is a major problem on university campuses. Alcohol consumption among youths is affected by a complex of risk and protective factors, investigation of which is essential for a better understanding and focusing of the intervention procedures. The complex linkages of risk and protective factors and problem behaviours change over time and within different cultures and countries. The importance of this kind of research for the field of prevention is obvious: If we can determine the personal and interpersonal protective and risk factors affecting alcohol-use behaviour, we can better plan preventive interventions focused on creating and enhancing the personal protective attributes. To design and develop appropriate interventions, to improve behavioural outcomes for adolescents, a better understanding of these complexities and relations is required.

Metaphysics for the Neurotic. What Is and What Could Philosophical Coaching Be?

Metafizyka dla neurotyka. Czym jest i czym mógłby być coaching filozoficzny?

Author(s): Marcin Fabjański / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: philosophical therapy; coaching; personal development; ancient philosophy; meditation

Seria: Studia Philosophica Silesiensia (3), ISSN 2720-1120 The book deals with the assumptions, practices and challenges facing the new field of practice called “philosophical coaching”. The author proposes a definition of philosophical coaching as ethically and metaphysically engaged coaching, which distinguishes it from all other varieties of coaching, as well as from most psychotherapy approaches, as it is not afraid of metaphysical inquiries and is also ethically committed. From living philosophy, such as was cultivated in Greek and Roman antiquity, and — at the same time — in India and China, it inherited the courage to ask fundamental questions about the meaning of life, human finitude, our place in the cosmos, and the source of good life.

Working Through What Is

Working Through What Is

Author(s): Grzegorz Sokół / Language(s): English

Keywords: depression; psychiatry; psychotherapy; neoliberalism; transformation; reality;

How do we account for the current proliferation of depression as a diagnostic and cultural category?How has its rise interplayed with the postsocialist transformation and the construction of the neoliberal order? This monograph of contemporary Polish depression sheds light on the social, political, and semantic processes that have shaped its meanings, ex- periences, understandings, and treatments. Examining depression’s history in Poland after 1989, the author not only considers the social conditions of clinical practice, but also explores a broader phenomenon of the cultural dynamic of realification (urealnienie) – the socially produced sense of realness of the world around us. The book thus touches upon various aspects of cultural theory while keeping an ethnographic, empirical character. It is addressed to the academic audience in the field of social sciences, cultural studies, or humanities, as well as anyone with an interest in the social factors shaping mental health and the cultural dimensions of capitalism.

Nature 2.0?: Use of digital technologies for the outdoor interpretation of natural heritage

Příroda 2.0?: Využití digitálních médií pro terénní interpretaci přírodního dědictví

Author(s): Jan Činčera,Michal Medek,Miroslav Lupač / Language(s): Czech

Keywords: interpretation of natural heritage; digital media; evaluation; self-guided trails; augmented reality;

The publication investigates and analyses the quality of outdoor digital interpretation of nature heritage in the Czech Republic. The research part gives overview of digital natural heritage interpretation in the Czech Republic. In detail, it presents three selected examples: self-guided trails Svatojansky okruh and Po stopach Karoliny Svetle, and a learning point Kozakov AR. It analyzes qualitative data acquired by expert focus group and from visitors on the meaning and quality of digital interpretation. Further the work provides an instrument for evaluation of quality of digital interpretation, which is further applied for evaluation of the selected programs. In its last part, the text discusses possibilities and meaning of further development of digital interpretation of natural heritage in the Czech Republic and provides suggestions for increasing its effectiveness in strengthening relationship of visitors to nature heritage.

Two hemispheres – two worlds: On the relationship between brain asymmetry and trends in contemporary Western society

Dvě hemisféry – dva světy: O vztahu asymetrie mozku a trendů v současné západní společnosti

Author(s): Daniel Krchňák / Language(s): Czech

Keywords: Theory of hemispheric asymetry; Iain McGilchrist; two brain hemispheres; cognition; Methodological basis of the analysis of society in terms of brain asymmetry; Western society; Western and Eastern culture; ethics; virtues;

Contemporary Western society is going through myriad dramatic changes and many people view current societal development disapprovingly. Dissatisfaction with the current state of society is widespread in the general public and also many experts point out the worsening state of our environment, increasing inequality, degradation of social capital, and the increase in mental illness. Numerous books have asked how to reverse such an unfavourable development in our society. The monograph Two hemispheres, two worlds looks at this issue through the novel lens of differences in the functioning of brain hemispheres. Research in brain hemisphere differences has made remarkable progress since overcoming the simplistic dichotomy of the rational left hemisphere and the emotional right hemisphere. Two hemispheres, two worlds reviews the most recent findings on brain asymmetry research and identifies as a common trait among all particular differences the right-hemispheric experience-affiliation and the left-hemispheric representation-affiliation. The left-hemispheric take on the world is subsequently identified as having a major influence on the modus operandi of our society and a striking parallel is shown between our current societal ills and the problems of people with a dysfunctional right-hemisphere. Finally, the author sketches specific public policies that could contribute to a more “hemispherically-balanced” society.

PolEnglish Revisited. English Vocabulary in the 21st-century Polish Language

PolEnglish Revisited. Leksyka angielska w polszczyźnie XXI wieku

Author(s): Łukasz Jan Berezowski,Mikołaj Deckert / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Anglicisms; contact linguistics; English borrowings; English loanwords; language contact

This volume deals with the influence of English lexical elements upon Polish, especially upon the units used in Internet discourse and in new media. Of particular interest here are the latest English borrowings – dating back to the turn of the 20th and the 21st century – both lexical and semantic. The aim of the present book is, therefore, to explore the scale of this impact upon Polish on the basis of a corpus compiled and organised in the form of a lexicon comprising 1,600 entries with definitions and examples from Internet websites, social media, forums and modern literature. An important contribution of the publication is to offer an experimental user-focused perspective on Anglicisms, sourcing input from a young generation of Polish speakers.