Problems of Psychology in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, Vol.5, 2013, PPC

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Authors: Stanislava Stoyanova

Multicultural environment means diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender, religious, social belonging, etc. Multicultural environment retains workers from a variety of cultural backgrounds. The scientific journals like Problems of Psychology in the 21st Century are the result of the efforts and the co-operative work of the authors, the editors, the reviewers and the readers in multicultural environment. Its aim is to promote scientific knowledge that could improve mutual understanding and coping strategies in everyday life situations.

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Authors: Birutė Jakubkaitė, Rimantas A. Kočiūnas

Experiential groups are one of prevailing forms of group counsellor training, which is devoted to exploring group dynamics and other aspects of group work through direct personal experience. However, there is still too little research carried out in this topic and some lack of consistency appears in this field of research. The research reported here was aimed at analyzing group participants’ perceptions of multiplicity of contexts, as a distinctive characteristic of such group, which appears due to different goals raised and variety of roles performed in the same group. A qualitative approach was employed in this study using semi-structured interviews with graduates from international group therapy program. 5 participants of the Group therapy training program at the Institute of Humanistic and Existential Psychology (Lithuania) were chosen for this study. Besides theoretical lectures, program participants went through three experiential groups that were guided by experienced group counselors and also gained sort-time group guiding experience. The work of all groups was observed by two program supervisors. Study participants were asked to share the experience about taking part in group counselors training program, mostly focusing on experiential groups and their discussions with supervisors. The data gathered during interviews then was subjected to thematic analysis. Based on the results, the main topics related to group multiplicity were revealed and discussed: intrapersonal context of participants; organizational context of the training program; interpersonal context and wholeness context. Intrapersonal context of participants was associated not only with their personal dynamics in experiential group process, but also with participant’s personal traits, motivation, anticipatory expectations, attitude towards psychological help, the training program, other participants, experiential group counselors and supervisors. Talking about organizational context of the training program participants mentioned analysis writing that assisted in better understanding of experiential group processes and structuring own experience. Experiential groups and their supervision processes were perceived by participants as extended and complementing each other. Interpersonal context encompassed interactions with group participants, group counselors and supervisors. Wholeness context involved the perception of group dynamics in experiential group as well as in participating in the whole training program. Perception of this wholeness helped participants understand the multidimensionality of training and adapt to it. According to data of this study it can be noted that these various contexts are intertwined together, therefore it would be useful to focus separately on each of them in the future. This could assist in more detailed and clear understanding of their interactions.

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Authors: Valentina Kamenskaya, Larissa Khokhlova

The study contains the theoretical review of different historical approaches to the study of typological properties of a man. One of the well-known typological systems in foreign psychology has been developed in constitutionology, juvenility characteristics, however, haven’t been included in its structure. On the basis of the studied samples the authors of the research consider the empirical proofs of juvenility existence, its significance in typological perspective and the formation of mental functions. The research findings of typological properties of the morphofunctional brain organization as a subject of both Russian and foreign psychology and psychophysiology are analyzed. Theoretical and experimental material is integrated in the analysis of individual typological peculiarities of students of higher educational establishments. The regularities of their manifestation at genotypic, behavioral and personal levels representing various hierarchical layers of a person’s typological system are revealed.

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Authors: Lúcia Ramiro, Margarida Gaspar de Matos, Marta Reis

Recently HIV is falling in a significant number of countries, partly due to the adoption of preventive behaviors, which demonstrates that decreasing sexual transmission of HIV is possible. The aim of this research was to analyze preventive sexual behavior in Portuguese adolescents, including information and attitudes about HIV/AIDS, and assessing whether they changed from 2002 to 2010. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire from the Portuguese sample of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC), a collaborative WHO study. The study provided national representative data of 10587 Portuguese adolescents, randomly chosen from those attending 8th and 10th grades and the opportunity to examine trends in sexual behaviour on a national level. In terms of preventive behaviours, results showed an increasing trend regarding the percentage reporting first sexual intercourse at 14 years old or more and condom use at last sexual intercourse and a stabilized trend concerning having had sexual intercourse and contraceptive pill use. Nevertheless, in terms of information and attitudes about HIV/AIDS, results showed a systematic decreasing trend.

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Authors: Aída M. Reséndiz Barragán, Mariana A. Sierra Murguía

Obesity has been declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an epidemic, due to a growth trend in obesity rates over the past 60 years and it is estimated that by 2015 there will be approximately 2.3 billion overweighed adults and 700 million obese adults worldwide. Bariatric surgery has shown to be the most effective intervention for the treatment of severe obesity with better long-term results. While most post-operative patients of bariatric surgery show improvement in psychopathology and quality of life, psychological recurrences have been identified thereafter. It has been reported that for people who have not been able to implement changes in their lifestyle, the result of the operation may not be optimal and may even be counterproductive with undesirable outcomes, such as recovery of lost weight, malnutrition, depression and anxiety, as well as using food as a soothing agent to stressful stimuli, present failures in following the diet, as well as dissatisfaction with the staff of the clinic In recent years the number of bariatric surgeries performed annually has tripled showing a tendency to continue increasing, psychosocial and behavioral factors play a fundamental role in the long- term effects of the surgery; for this reason, the objective of this study is to describe the main psychological recurrences after bariatric surgery as well as a proposal for post-surgical cognitive behavioral group psychological support.

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Authors: Editorial Board

End page, Vol. 5, 2013, PPC