Annually, in the course of the winter holidays, St Petersburg State University organizes the Winter Psychological School, a unique project with a rich scientific programme, which takes place in the middle of winter on the shores of the snow-covered Gulf of Finland. Participation in the School allows assessing the volume of the psychological community, enrich oneself with new knowledge, meet colleagues from the other universities and exchange contacts for further cooperation. Participating in the Winter Psychological School is a good tradition of students and academics of the Department of Clinical Psychology. This year, the postgraduates – academics of the department – Daria Ivanova, Anna Mikhailova and Anton Pashkov, – spoke with a report at the School on the research project called “I Eat for the Company’s Sake and Other Eating Disorders”, in the course of which together with the participants they discussed the following:
- norms and pathology of the eating behaviour;
- changes in disease classifiers in the field of eating disorders;
- modern issues in the field of psychodiagnostics of these disorders;
- arguments in favour of the food addiction existence;
- physiological basis of the eating behaviour.
This year, many projects were devoted to counseling and psychotherapy, for example, “A Modern Look at Psychotherapy Strategies”, “Introduction to Psychotherapy for Psychologists”, “Every Touch Leaves a Bruise. Borderline Personality Disorder Therapy” and many others.
Except for the 90 minutes workshop and lectures in various areas of psychology, flow-through projects have been taking place for three days. The colleagues, clinical psychologists from St Petersburg State University, held one of them, called “Consultative Reality – Outside the Cliche”. What is a myth and what is a reality in psychological counseling? The project participants found answers to many questions, which were given by the practitioner.
The project “Academic Skills: Graphics for 300, Ethics for 500” became another interesting flow-through project for students, postgraduates, and researchers. It covered 30 topics related to academic skills such as digital etiquette, literary sources, anti-plagiarism, posters, presentations, and diagrams design, and other painful topics of student academic life.
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The school also presented the projects on neuroscience such as “Disneyland for a Zombie or a Peacock Tail? Why and How Do We Remember about Ourselves?”, “Neuroeconomics of Decision Making”. There were also narrowly focused clinical projects such as “Prevention of Suicide among Adolescents (Countering the Sites Leading to Self-injurious Behaviour)”, “Using ICF (International Classification of Functioning) for a Comprehensive Assessment of People with Autistic Spectrum Disorders”.
The school participants include everybody who is interested in psychology, the first-year students, academics, professors, students of other specialties as well as the psychologists practicing for more than 10 years, what allows sharing experiences, finding a supervisor or scientific consultant. In the course of the training seminar “Going Deeper into a Profession. Is there Life after Graduation?”, it was interesting to discuss the wage differences in different regions, available market offers, overvalued Soft Skills, and other issues with the other participants.
Moreover, the cultural work among the masses deserves special attention. Every year it amazes with its creativity – craft workshop, Psychological Mafia, What? Where? When? intellectual game, poetic and guitar evenings, creative performances at the opening and closing of the School. This year, the welcome theatrical performance touched the right chord – “What is the Digital Future? Is there a Place in it for a Psychologist? ”
This year it was possible to get a grant for participation by means of the project. Founders of the School created grants as an encouragement for the scientific activities of young scientists. Therefore, a contractual place at the university is not a reason to deny a trip there.