Psychology in Ukraine: A Historical Perspective

This book was conceptualized as an effort to provide for a Western reader not familiar with psychology in the East, a broad outline of Ukrainian Psychology within the socio-historical context. Since the 1950s there were few publications in the U.S.A. that described psychology in the former Soviet Union (Bauer, 1962; Brozek & Mecacci, 1974; Brozek & Slobin, 1972; Rahman, 1973; Raznor, 1971). Unfortunately, some authors identified psychologists in the Soviet Union as "Russian psychologists." Only two articles (Holowinsky, 1978, 1987 specifically discussed Ukrainian Psychology. Since the 1991 declaration of independence in the Ukraine, psychologists in the Ukraine are attempting to establish scholarly cooperation with the mainstream of Western psychology. As indicated by Professor Charles A. Maher, "this book will be valuable to scholars, researchers, and practitioners, who want to learn about an important but somewhat neglected aspect of the history of tradition of psychology."