DEAR READERS,

We invite you to spend some time reading the 18th issue of the “International 
Journal of Psychology: A Biopsychosocial Approach”.

Publications in this issue present the latest results of research in the field 
of psychology in Lithuania and abroad as well as go deep into such important 
phenomena as Career Adaptability, Existential Crisis, Global Service Learning, 
School Counsellors’ Preparedness for Working with Students & Chronic Illness, 
and Readiness to Change. The variety of analysed phenomena once more sus-
tains the truth that there are plenty of unanswered questions concerning human 
mental processes and behaviour. Publications in the journal follow the idea of 
studying such processes based on the viewpoint that both mind and behaviour 
originate, develop and function due to the close interaction between biological, 
psychological factors and social environment. Thereby, authors analyse psycho-
logical issues within the broader context, including biological, psychological, and 
social aspects.

To sum up, the publications of this issue are aimed at analysis of factors 
improving personal adaptation in various activities and social environments. 
Authors of the publication “School Counsellor Preparedness for Working with 
Students & Chronic Illness: Insights and Applications from a Service Learning  
Experience in Southern Africa” bring up the problem that despite increasing rate 
of chronic illness among children, many school counsellors may not be prepared 
to handle such issues due to lack of training, professional development, or cul-
turally diverse experiences. Author reviews the literature on chronic illness and 
school counsellor preparation, moreover, referring to his own participation in  
a service learning experience in Southern Africa, discusses opportunities for work-
ing with students and chronic illness in the United States.

The theme analysing factors related with students’ adaptation in various 
activities and social environment is continued by Paradnike et al. in publication 
“Career Construction in Academic Setting: Links between Career Adaptability 
and Study Engagement.” This publication explores study engagement phenom-
ena as an indicator of occupational well-being of students, and raise the pre-
sumption that study engagement might be one of many positive career-related 
outcomes linked to career adaptability. Along with college students, authors 
present research results analysing links between career adaptability of college 
students and study engagement. Two other publications (Jones et al. “Assessing 
Global Service-Learning: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Evaluating Students’ 

International Journal of Psychology:  
Biopsychosocial Approach 2016 / 18 
ISSN 1941-7233 (Print), ISSN 2345-024X (Online) 

EDITORIAL



Intercultural Development” and Petrolienė et al. “Psychometrics of the readiness  
to change questionnaire (RCQ): the Lithuanian version”) analyse efficiency of 
methods intended to assess client’s readiness for changes or counselling work 
with the client improving his development and environmental adaptation.

Petrolienė and colleagues in the publication “Psychometrics of the readiness 
to change questionnaire (RCQ): the Lithuanian version” claims that smoking,  
unhealthy diet, low physical activity, overweight and risky alcohol consumption 
persist as actual problems among Lithuanian adults nowadays. Authors relate 
these issues with heart related problems and state that it is important to have  
a valid, short, clear measure of readiness to change health behaviour in the native 
(Lithuanian) language as changing life style can be a problem in rehabilitation 
process of cardiac patients in Lithuania. Thus the article analyses psychometrics 
of Lithuanian version of the Readiness to change questionnaire (RCQ) among pa-
tients undergoing cardiac rehabilitation. 

Jones et al., in “Assessing Global Service-Learning: A Mixed-Methods Ap-
proach to Evaluating Students’ Intercultural Development,” discusses the Global 
Service-Learning (GSL) as an important contributor to student’s intercultural  
development. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of cultural 
immersion as a service-learning project and to use the Intercultural Develop-
ment Inventory (IDI) to better understand the changes in student development as  
a result of this project.

In their article “The experience of an existential crisis: a theoretical analysis,” 
Butėnaitė and colleagues examine phenomenon that reveals problems of envi-
ronmental adaptation of a person, i.e. existential crisis phenomenon. Authors 
state that the results of this analysis will help us understand the experiences of an 
existential crisis and the peculiarities of people who are going through it.

The editorial team invites you to read and analyse the articles in the “In-
ternational Journal of Psychology: A Biopsychosocial Approach.” We would like  
to encourage discussions between scientists and academic communities in Lithu-
ania, USA and other countries, to strive for collaboration of scientists represent-
ing various scientific fields and branches. This would promote the development 
of Psychology and expand practical implementation possibilities enabling to find 
the most appropriate solution for problems faced both by the individual and the 
society within the rapidly changing social milieu.

We invite the scientists to submit original empirical as well as theoretical  
articles with diverse methodology and methods of statistical analysis, which 
would expand the knowledge in the field of Psychology, and (or) have importance 
for practical psychologists.

Prof. dr. Loreta Bukšnytė-Marmienė
Consulting Editor