About the Department of Psychology

The history of the Department of Psychology begins in 1932 – the year of the foundation of the Berdyansk State Pedagogical Institute. Then the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology was created, the first head of which was Prokhor Andriyovych Lyashenko, with whose name almost the entire history of the institute is associated.

The first specialist in psychology with a scientific degree and title was the Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences (in psychology), Associate Professor Boris Davydovych Praysman, who from 1950 to 1953 headed the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology. Before him and after him (until 1981), the Department was headed only by specialists in pedagogy.

In 1953, P. A. Lyashenko was again appointed head of the Department. After him, from 1959 to 1966. The department is headed by the former Deputy People's Commissar of Education of the republic, Associate Professor Dmitry Evdokymovych Lober, who was replaced in this position in 1966 by the former rector of the Rivne Pedagogical Institute, Associate Professor Ivan Grigorovich Oplakansky. From 1974 to 1977, the department was headed by Associate Professor Vira Pavlivna Perepelytsia.

From 1981 to 2004, the head of the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology (from 2001 - the Department of Psychology) was a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Doctor of Psychological Sciences, Professor Vasyl Kupriyanovych Demydenko - a well-known Ukrainian psychologist and teacher, the author of more than 200 scientific works, including monographs, textbooks, methodological recommendations, curricula, etc.

An important event in the history of the Department of Psychology was the opening of the postgraduate program in 1992, which in a relatively short time prepared 10 candidates of psychological sciences. Among the first postgraduate students were the teachers of the department, who, under the leadership of V. K. Demydenko, carried out their scientific research and successfully defended their candidate dissertations in leading scientific institutions and higher education institutions of Ukraine. Today, continuing the ideas of the scientific school of V. K. Demydenko and implementing modern achievements of psychological science, they successfully work at the Berdyansk State Pedagogical University.

The creation of the scientific school of V. K. Demydenko allowed in 2001 to separate the Department of Psychology into an independent structural unit, and in 2004 to open the specialty "Practical Psychology". Since 2014, the Department of Psychology is a graduation program for bachelors in the specialty 053 Psychology, and in 2023 for the first time, a recruitment of applicants for the second (master's) level of higher education in the same specialty was carried out.

The modern Department of Psychology is a structural unit of the Faculty of Psychological and Pedagogical Education and Arts of the Belarusian State University of Political Science and Law with a powerful scientific and pedagogical staff, which allows for the successful implementation of two educational and professional programs in the specialty 053 Psychology. The activities of the Department of Psychology are based on the best domestic traditions and modern achievements of psychological science and practice, aimed at training competitive specialists in psychology with a high level of professional competence, intellectual activity, and social responsibility.