Kazimierz Dąbrowski: biography of this Polish psychologist.

A review of the life of psychiatrist and psychologist Kazimierz Dąbrowski.

Kazimierz Dąbrowski's life, although prolific, is marked by war and censorship. Nevertheless, and despite this, his work has managed to leave his native Poland, cross the Iron Curtain and have the popularity it deserves.

This Polish psychologist, psychiatrist and physician always sought ways to continue expanding his knowledge, as well as contributing to its dissemination by teaching and lecturing throughout Europe and North America.

His theory of positive disintegration has been seen as a real turning point in understanding how personality develops. Let us take a closer look at the life of this researcher through a biography of Kazimierz Dąbrowskiin which we will also learn about his particular theory.

Biography of Kazimierz Dąbrowski.

Although marked by some misfortunes, both personal and lived in his native Poland, Kazimierz Dąbrowski did not cease to contribute for psychology and psychiatry. His life is extensively interesting, and we will look at it below.

Early years

Kazimierz Dąbrowski was born on September 1, 1902 in Klarów, Poland. He was the second of four children in a family of agricultural administrators..

Already in his early childhood he had to live through the loss of a close one, his little sister, who died of meningitis at the age of three.

But it was not only the death of his sister that marked him, as he lived through the First World War at a very young age. he lived through the First World War at a very young age, being close to where he was born.He lived through World War I at a very young age, and a town near where he lived was one of the battlefields.

When he was only twelve years old, he saw with his own eyes the hundreds of corpses of soldiers killed during the war, scattered in the streets and places where he played.

Already at that time he could see firsthand how capable mankind was of committing the most atrocious acts.

Education and early career

Dąbrowski's academic life is characterized by being very prolific and extensive.He was one of the great minds of the last century, but his direct contact with violence did not prevent him from being one of the great minds of the last century.

Although he was initially educated by his family at home, he later enrolled in the private school Stefan Batory in Lublin, attending the center between 1916 and 1921.

In 1921 he entered the Catholic University of Lublin, now John Paul II University, enrolling in the faculty of Polish studies. There he also attended lectures on philosophy and psychology as a listener..

Between 1924 and 1926 he studied philosophy at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. Later, he would study at the medical faculty of the University of Warsaw.

Later he was able to obtain the opportunity to study at the School of Educational Sciences and then to attend the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, an institution created by the neurologist Édouard Claparède. Claparède, together with Jean Piaget and Pierre Bovet, were involved in the instruction of Dąbrowski during his stay in the Swiss country.

In 1929 Kazimierz Dąbrowski completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Geneva on suicide.entitled 'The psychopathological conditions of suicide'.

After extensive training in Switzerland, Dąbrowski returned to Poland and was responsible for the foundation of several centers focused on the treatment of people suffering from psychological disorders.

In 1931 created a clinic focused on treating neurotic patients and people with intellectual problems.. In 1933 he was invited by the Rockefeller Foundation to go to the United States to train at Harvard University. Then, in 1934, he returned to Poland to found the Polish league for mental hygiene, being the secretary of the organization.

War and post-war times

If World War I was already a hard time for Kazimierz Dąbrowski, the times of World War II were no better, especially considering how the Third Reich treated Poland during the conflict.

It is striking that of the 400 or so Polish psychiatrists who practiced before the conflict, only about 38 were still alive at the end of the war. Dąbrowski suffered on a personal level, as his younger brother was killed and his older brother was interned in a concentration camp.

However, despite the difficult times, he had the opportunity to found the College of Mental Hygiene and Applied Psychology in 1942.although it was also in that year that he was arrested by the Gestapo.

At the end of the war, and having already been released, Dąbrowski returned to Warsaw and became the director of the Institute of Mental Hygiene to later, in 1948, obtain the official title of psychiatrist.

Stalinist imprisonment

In 1949 the Polish government, under the directives of Iósif Stalin in the Soviet Union, decided to close the Institute of Mental Hygiene and Kazimierz Dąbrowski was declared persona non grata.

Dąbrowski and his wife Eugenia were deprived of their freedom in 1950, remaining in prison for eighteen months. After his release the psychiatrist's activities were intensively monitored by the communist authorities..

After a few years working as a tuberculosis specialist, without the right to educate or even to treat in psychology or psychiatry, the Polish authorities considered him a 'rehabilitated person' and he was allowed to return to practice in those fields.

In 1962, the Polish state allowed him to travel to the other side of the Iron Curtain, visiting countries such as Spain, the United States and the United States.visiting countries such as Spain, the United States, France and the United Kingdom, lecturing on his views on personality and the treatment of people with mental disorders.

Last two decades of life

In the 1960s, Dąbrowski traveled to the United States and was able to translate some of the research conducted by Polish colleagues into English, to ensure that the world knew about psychiatry and psychology practiced in Poland.

It was in 1964 that his major work, Positive Disintegration was published in English, becoming widely popular within the field of personality psychology.

During his stay in North America, Dąbrowski was able to meet with great American psychologists and psychiatristsamong them Abraham Maslow, who became interested in his theory.

Throughout the two decades of Kazimierz Dąbrowski's life, the psychiatrist devoted himself to teaching and writing, traveling between Canada and Poland.

Kazimierz Dąbrowski died in Warsaw, Poland, on November 26, 1980. After his death, the Polish communist authorities expropriated his property from his widow and children.

Theory of positive disintegration

The theory of positive disintegration of Kazimierz Dąbrowski is a theory of personality development. Unlike most of psychology, Dąbrowski's view is that anxiety is a necessary factor for the proper development of an individual's personality. This aspect, seen as something 'disintegrative' becomes something positive if it is given in the right way and one knows how to cope with it.

In the model it is argued that there are up to five levels of model argues that there are up to five levels of integration-disintegration, which influence the formation of an individual's personality.which influence the formation of a unique personality far removed from the lack of individuality.

Level I: primary integration

At this level people are influenced only by their Biological factors, i.e. heredity, together with influences from the environment.

Individuals manifest a 'primitive' personality, characterized by presenting selfish and egocentric behaviorsThe only purpose is to satisfy their own cravings and desires, being something typical of childhood.

2. Level II: unilevel disintegration.

This level occurs in the face of a crisis, such as puberty and menopauseor in periods in which one has to face a stressful event. It is here where there is a greater protagonism of automatic dynamisms, such as a greater self-awareness and self-control.

The person can rethink many things that, either by the education received or by the culture in which he or she lives, have been taught in a way that he or she now questions, criticizing the status quo.

This, according to Dąbrowski, is the moment in which he begins to form his own personality, which will go in one direction or another depending on how he assimilates and approaches from the ethical point of view the events called into question.

3. Level III: spontaneous multilevel integration

After having critically considered a specific situation or event, the person thinks of multiple ways of dealing with it..

The appearance of several alternatives makes him/her think about how what has just happened would be if he/she had done it in the other way he/she had thought of.

On the basis of the decision taken and the consequences that have arisen, the person will develop or not a more and more adapted personality.but at the same time his or her own unique personality.

4. Level IV: directed multilevel disintegration

At this level the person reaches an absolute control of his development.

If in the previous level what was done was done in a more or less random way, in the fourth level it is done in a deliberate way, fully conscious and with a well-directed intentionality towards a specific towards a concrete objective.

5. Level V: secondary integration

At this level, the person is already a fully stable individualThe person is now a fully stable individual, as long as he has successfully passed the four previous levels. He/she has become a responsible person who meditates appropriately on his/her actions.