Mentalization as a Protective Factor between Insecure Attachment and the Development of Psychopathological Disorders

The development of mental disorders in adults has its roots in the early childhood experiences. Transmitted from generation to generation, an insecure attachment impairs the ability to mentalize, which plays a special role in the processing of traumatic injuries and the healing process. The aim of the article is to show the development of mental disorders in children and adults; to present mentalization as a protective factor in the transmission of insecure attachment, as well as to indicate clinical implications.

Teenage Motherhood as a Challenge of Modern Times

Adolescence tends to be perceived as a time of seeking autonomy and independence, as well as of reorganizing one’s social functioning and forming one’s identity. Young people wish for their concepts of themselves and their future lives to remain cohesive and stable. Undoubtedly, motherhood belongs to one of the most important experiences which shape a woman’s life in a certain way. It is clearly connected with the biological nature as well as with certain sociocultural expectations. Teenage motherhood tends to be perceived as a serious problem in social discussions. Becoming a mother before the coming of age is connected with the necessity of accepting responsibility for the child and it contributes to a change of the previous way of functioning. The aim of the paper is to present the specificity of the period of adolescence, teenage motherhood, difficulties and the role of support for the young mothers. 

Comparison between Religious Experiences in Early, Middle and Late Adulthood

The aim of the study was to examine the differences in religious experience in early, middle and late adulthood. The study examined 608 people who were a part of catholic religious communities. Religious Experience Scale, which includes five dimensions: Importance rating, Negative experiences, God’s support, Entrusting in God and Openness to God, was used. Statistical analyzes showed that the level of religious experience was significantly differentiated by the age of the respondents for four out of five dimensions of Religious Experience: Importance rating, God’s support, Entrusting in God and Negative experiences. People in late adulthood were characterized by the highest level of Importance rating, God’s support, Entrusting in God and the lowest level of Negative experiences compared to people in early and middle adulthood. The nature of late adulthood – i.e., the ability to discover the specificity of religious experience to understand and interpret the signs of God’s presence and action in everyday events – may account for the observed effects. The results of the study add to the knowledge on religious experience depending on the developmental stage of the person. They could be used to adjust the character of pastoral counseling to the needs of specific age groups of adult clients.

In order to determine whether the reported association between the development of theory of mind (ToM) and speech comprehension in ASD children also exists at the early stages of ToM development, a group of 33 children with ASD and reduced ToM development were tested using the Belief understanding subscale of the SToMM and the Speech comprehension subscale of the IDS-P. The statistical analyses demonstrated that children with ASD presenting different levels of early ToM skills also have different levels of speech comprehension. Accordingly, supporting the development of speech comprehension can facilitate the acquisition of early ToM skills. At the same time, the results of a qualitative analysis also suggested that manipulating objects in space, moving them as well as moving themselves may help children with ASD to complete ToM tasks.

Development of the Ability to Create Multidimentional Products among 7–9 Years Old Children

Artistic activities are one of the basic and most important activities during childhood. They are a rich source of information about child’s development, their values and temperament as well as their sense of aesthetics and beauty. At the same time these abilities have attracted considerable attention as a research field of interest in developmental psychology. This article presents results of research aimed at examining the level of 2D and 3D artistic activities performed by children aged 7–9 years, as well as at comparing the quality of these works. The acquisition of additional data pertaining to the research group made it possible to conduct a precise statistical analysis, which has been combined with the observations enabled the formulation of constructive and undoubtedly interesting conclusions. Conduct of the undertaken research was possible thanks to the careful selection of appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods – i.e., the observation method, the method of analysing the child’s products, the ability test (Goodenough-Harris Draw-A-Man Test) and the statistical analysis (descriptive statistics, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient). The artworks used in the study were created by 50 children aged 7–9 years, which formed an extensive research group in which, as assumed, an impressive number of correlations related to children’s 2D and 3D plastic skills were demonstrated. The conducted qualitative and quantitative research allowed for the statistical confirmation of the presence of both a strong positive correlation between the ability to perform 2D and 3D art work by children aged 7–9 years, and a number of complementary correlations between the age of the child and his/her artistic abilities, between education of both parents and child’s artistic abilities, as well as between mother’s education and the number of children she has.

Experiences of a Developmental Crisis in the Course of Life in Twentieth-Century Writers. Sándor Márai and Maria Kuncewiczowa

The subject of this study is the psychological analysis which uses a biographical method to analyze the last stages of a long life and the crisis “between life and death”of the two outstanding writers of the twentieth century: Maria Kuncewiczowa and Sándor Márai. The analyzed data giving insight into the life events and the personal experiences of the last few years of their lives was sourced from the last texts published by the writers. In the case of Maria Kuncewiczowa, these are: Notatki włoskie: Przezrocza (Italian Notes: Transparencies, 2010) and Listy do Jerzego (Letters to Jerzy, 1988). In the case of the Hungarian writer Sándor Márai, it will be the final part of the 5th Volume of the Diary 1977–1989, pp. 345–387 (Márai, 2020). The tasks and challenges at this stage of life, which is one immediately preceding the inevitable death, are as follows: functioning at the late old age in a changed life situation after the death of the spouse and the manner of responding to one’s own death. The analysis of experiences related to the life situation, mainly carried out with use of the conceptual apparatus of the psychology of the course of life (Bühler, 1999), allows us to observe the coherence of life events and subjective experiences in the examined period of life, which is an expression of the creative activity and the spirituality of these outstanding writers, as well as constitutes their life experience in preparation for the death.