Jadwiga Ślenzak (1917–2022) – nestor and pioneer of Polish clinical paediatric psychologists

Dr. Jadwiga Ślenzak was born in Działoszyce on 11th November 1917 and graduated from high school in Mysłowice in 1938. During the war, Dr. Ślenzak was involved in the underground teaching of girls in a countryside estate, where she survived the war. After the war, Dr. Ślenzak studied psychology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She was greatly influenced by Professor Zygmunt Mysłakowski (1890–1971), who was specializing in pedagogy and theory of education, and who employed Jadwiga Ślenzak as his assistant while she was still a student, and she worked in psychological counselling.
Dr. Ślenzak graduated from the Jagiellonian University in psychology in 1948 and was employed at the Educational and Treatment Clinic (Poradnia Wychowawczo-Lecznicza) of the University, where she continued her psychological counselling. In 1949, Dr. Ślezank moved to Rabka, which had sanatorium treatment centre for children suffering from tuberculosis. She started her work in the Counselling Office of the Institute of Mental Hygiene in Rabka (Poradnia Instytutu Higieny Psychicznej) and began her master’s thesis. Then, she accepted the permanent position of psychologist and pedagogical instructor in the Children Sanatorium Centre in Rabka and defended her master’s thesis in 1949. Dr. Ślenzak worked in this centre for 15 years (1949–1964). During her residence in Rabka, Dr. Ślenzak collaborated with Stanisława Rączko (1911–1997), who specialized in therapeutic pedagogy and special education and operated a mobile puppet theatre for children with tuberculosis as an innovative psychotherapeutic means. Dr. Ślenzak’s research interest was focused on helping and rehabilitating children who survived tuberculosis-induced meningitis and encephalitis, and she achieved a significant level of expertise in her work. She ran teaching and training courses for nurses, educators, and teachers employed in the rehabilitation sanatorium. Under the direction of Dr. Ślenzak, there were also organized courses for psychologists who wished to undertake work in the institutions with a curative and educational profile. Based on data from her clinical research, Dr. Ślenzak started her doctoral dissertation in 1962 and defended her Ph.D. thesis at the Jagiellonian University in 1965. The thesis was entitled “Disturbances of psychological development in children after tuberculosis-induced inflammation of meninges and the brain and perspectives of their rehabilitation”. One of the reviewers of...


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