Synopsis
For psychologist and psychiatrist Kazimierz Dabrowski, personality is not a given – it must be consciously created and developed by the individual. In his second English-language book, Personality-Shaping Through Positive Disintegration, first published in 1967, Dr. Dabrowski presents a comprehensive treatment of personality that is still relevant, perhaps more so today than when it was first written. Here Dabrowski describes personality’s individual and universal characteristics, the methods involved in shaping it, and case studies of famous personalities (including Augustine and Michelangelo) demonstrating the empirical and normative nature of personality development.Included in this edition are the original introduction, written by former APA president O. Hobart Mowrer, an appendix detailing a study on gifted children and outstanding abilities conducted by Dr. Dabrowski, as well as previously unpublished biographical pieces analyzing the personalities of Beethoven, Kierkegaard, and Unamuno.Grounded in Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration, Personality-Shaping introduces the concepts at the heart of the theory and at the heart of human potential, creativity, social service, inner conflict, mental illness, and personal growth. Dabrowski’s all-embracing perspective is at once a fresh alternative to the one-dimensional theories and trends pervasive in the field of psychology, and a full statement in its own right of all those aspects of human nature too often marginalized, ignored, or denied – a revolutionary and heartfelt product of Dr. Dabrowski’s incisive observations and all-embracing vision.
About the Author
Kazimierz Dabrowski (September 1, 1902-November 26, 1980) was a psychologist, psychiatrist, educator, and prolific writer, publishing over 30 books and 250 papers in various languages during his lifetime. He received degrees in medicine (University of Geneva, 1929) and psychology (Poznan, 1931), certificates in psychoanalysis (under Wilhelm Stekel in Vienna, 1934) and public health (Harvard University, 1934), and habilitations in children's psychotherapy (University of Geneva, 1934) and psychiatry (University of Wroclaw, 1948), among other honours and achievements. In addition to Stekel, Dabrowski studied under some of the most prominent figures in his field, both in Poland and abroad, including Jean Piaget, Pierre Janet, Édouard Claparède, and Stefan Blachowski. In 1935 he founded the Institute of Mental Hygiene in Warsaw, Poland, which he directed until 1948. Under Nazi occupation, he and his colleagues used the facility to hide Polish resistance soldiers, refugees, doctors and priests involved in the underground movement. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942. In 1950, the communist authorities arrested him and his wife, and he was incarcerated for 18 months. After his release, strict restraints were placed on his activities until he was declared 'rehabilitated' in 1956. Throughout his career he taught and lectured at many universities around the world, including a professorship in experimental psychology at Warsaw in 1956 and, from 1964 on, the position of Professor and Director of Clinical Research and Internship at the University of Alberta. He also served as Visiting Professor at Laval University in Quebec from 1968. He passed away in Warsaw in 1980 after suffering a heart attack in 1979.
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