FROM THE AUTHOR
I present this work to the PT Readers [ ??? "Oddaję tę pracę w ręce PT Czytelników" ???] as proof of my return not only to my old homeland, but also to the interests of a clinical psychologist: I ask, however, that I be allowed to share my memories of the most difficult times. Besides the request of my old friends to make my achievements and clinical experience accessible to a new generation of psychologists, those experiences were the second reason I undertook this work in my old age. They are also present to some extent in the content of this book.
When I arrived in the United States in 1978, after many hardships, I was already, unfortunately, recognized by the then intelligence agencies as a bearer of extremely dangerous knowledge about the nature and psychology of this now-transient pathopolitical system. Such a man should, at the very least, have been silenced. Ideally, however, he should not have survived on the New York streets. Within the first few weeks, I was entangled in a system of intrigues whose perfidy surpassed the imagination of even an experienced psychologist. I also had no idea how drained and dependent the Polish institutions there were.
Confidential information about me reached everyone who wanted to believe it. I was immediately accused of insulting a respectable woman whom I hadn't even had the privilege of knowing. The rumor spread that it wasn't me, but some younger, suspicious man who had arrived using my credentials. The former director of Radio WE received a confidential warning that I was a special agent who had come to organize an assassination attempt on him—and he believed it. Jews received information about my alleged anti-Semitism.
I was denied any help, not even a frank conversation. A social boycott was declared. More sensible people distanced themselves from me "just on the safe side." Working for bread in the harshest conditions had broken my strength. Passing on this dangerous knowledge to the scientists there was out of the question. I survived thanks to God's protection. However, I never doubted that the time would come when I would be able to return to Poland.
In such circumstances, I began to learn the customs of this country and its psychological diversity, its highly complex social relations and politics. After several years, I was able to once again draw on scientific literature and occasionally offer assistance to those compatriots whose mental health was threatened in this hostile world.
When I was finally able to return to Poland after thirteen years of absence, I found a picture of destruction far deeper than I could have imagined while living there, overseas. The psychological organizations at whose meetings I had been a frequent speaker had ceased to exist. So I tried to establish contact with university centers, where I met academics I had once known. In the meantime, however, they had become different people. Habits of submission and a certain acceptance of pathological authority have become commonplace in this country. In psychology, the prohibitions imposed by this authority still apply.
Unfortunately; At every step, I could observe how the lack of the psychological data I had exported, which should have returned to the country on time and on radio waves, immunized people's personalities and provided support for their healthy criticism, unfortunately opened the way to poisoning people's minds.
Was this failure to fulfill my task also my fault? Did I fail to seize some opportunity? I will never find a satisfactory answer, although I still think back to certain situations. My body couldn't handle it. Nec Hercules contra plures.
Under the conditions of pathopolitical rule, an engineer, physicist, astronomer, or pharmacist might not have felt the control over their field too painfully. Psychology, especially clinical psychology, and psychiatry were, however, sciences that permanently threatened to expose the pathological nature of such supposedly popular power. Perfidious control over them, the erasure of all data that could serve such a diagnosis, or their appropriate retouching, were a vital necessity of such a system. It was also necessary to treat appropriately those suspected of already understanding too much and ensure that such individuals did not obtain academic positions.
In medicine, similar restrictions applied to medical psychology, the more subtle aspects of psychiatry, the study of psychopathy, and some aspects of human genetics. This impaired the professional preparation of doctors only slightly and depending on the type of specialization. However, it was ruining psychiatry. This situation should be overcome for the good of medical science, which constitutes a whole, and for the good of those patients who need this very knowledge.
I have yet to meet a scientist who understands the causes of this immanent control. Therefore, it continues to operate within them, even though it has become anachronistic. Psychological works published today bear this consequence, and their language is difficult to understand. Meanwhile, psychology forms an organic whole to a greater extent than medicine. Deprived of certain elements and distorted by others, it ceases to function as a whole.
Therefore, I decided to turn to practicing psychologists; in whom daily contact with people in need of help has developed the necessary discipline of thought and a sense of psychological realities. I want to speak to these colleagues about matters of our daily work, to facilitate and modernize it. I therefore dedicate this work to those psychologists, as well as physicians, who, for the good of others, seek support in an unadulterated understanding of psychological reality. I have selected here issues that constitute the quantitative core of the daily work of a clinical psychologist, striving to provide practical assistance in solving various human problems.
This work is based primarily on past Polish experience in diagnostics and psychotherapy, and is dedicated to the well-being of people living in our country. Data from foreign sources have already been adapted for our needs. Therefore, its recommendations do not require adaptation, as they have been transferred from sometimes very different cultural, social, and economic conditions.
With the exception of the second chapter, devoted to research on the nature of evil, the reader will not encounter extensive theoretical considerations. The work primarily offers sound advice for diagnosticians and psychotherapists, based on my own experience but enriched with in-depth theoretical reflection. I have tried to simplify the language of this work as much as possible to make it accessible to non-psychologists. Nevertheless, it offers a modern approach consistent with the best trends in science and practice.
Andrzej Łobaczewski
