Authors

In 1999, at the Slovak Medical University in Bratislava, she obtained a specialization in public health management (Master of Public Health/MPH). In 2009, she successfully completed her doctoral studies in the field of nursing and rehabilitation at the University of Trnava, Slovakia.

She worked as the main state adviser and general director of the department for the education of health professionals at the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic, as well as a specialist for health promotion at the National Public Health Authority of the Slovak Republic, a consultant to the presidium of the Slovak Medical Chamber for conceptual, legislative and strategic matters and as vice-president of the Slovak Chamber of Clinical Physicists, Laboratory Diagnosticians, Language Speech Therapists and Therapeutic Pedagogues. She is a member of the Association of Therapeutic Pedagogues PRO LP Bratislava, of the Slovak Psychiatric Society of the Slovak Medical Society, of the Bratislava Association of Medical Doctors, of the Interdisciplinary Section of the Medical Society of Natural Medicine, of the International Society of Natural Medicine and of the Slovak Pedagogical Society of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

In September 2009, she was nominated for the European Commission’s “Single European Market” award for her work in the field of recognition of the professional qualifications of health professionals. In September 2015, she was awarded by a letter of thanks from the Slovak Medical Society for her contribution to the development of cooperation between the Slovak Medical Society and the Slovak Medical Chamber in the field of continuous education of healthcare professionals. From September 2021 she is the recipient of the award of the Slovak Chamber of Medical Physicists, Laboratory Diagnosticians, Language Speech Therapists and Therapeutic Pedagogues “Therapeutic Pedagogue of the Year 2021”.

She works as a university teacher at the Faculty of Education of the Comenius University in Bratislava, where she helps students to grow personally and professionally. She likes to use storytelling and beautiful literature as teaching tools. She is the author of approximately 120 professional articles and publications on the topic of organization and management of medical education, health care and health promotion. He currently writes mainly professional and scientific articles on the topic of bibliotherapy, which are most often published in Philologia, European Scientific e-Journal and Studia Scientifica Facultatis Paedagogicae.

From the research, she processed and defended numerous final research reports, e. g. in the area of ​​aggressive behavior of preschool children, social readiness of children for school, social competence and social skills of children from orphanages. She published the results in the journals Psychology and Child Pathopsychology, Preschool Education, and Educator. They served to improve the quality of management work in kindergartens, children’s homes, and for teachers in school practice. She lectured about them at many professional and scientific conferences, subsequently they were published in anthologies in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and the German Democratic Republic. V. Diešková received her scientific rank at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Comenius University in Bratislava in 1981.

In the 1980s, she headed the Department of Educational Psychology at VÚDPaP-e and began researching and applying new forms of educational work in schools. She dealt with exercises according to the Yoga system in daily life and noticed its impact on the physical and mental health of educators and children. She organized several theoretical and practical seminars for them. Later, she met Janette Raiwater, an important representative of psychosynthesis, a pupil of Roberto Assagioli. She completed a therapeutic training seminar with her in the Czech Republic (1991) and organized two more training seminars with J. Rainwater in the following years for teachers and psychologists in Slovakia.

These interests led V. Diešková to change her permanent place of work. In 1991, she moved to the Faculty of Pedagogy of the Comenius University in Bratislava to the Institute for Child Development Research, which was headed by M. Bažány. Here she continued researching youth, published articles in monographs and anthologies, lectured social work students on the subject of social pedagogy. She led seminars on psychosynthesis at the curative education department.

In 2005, the civil association Social Work at the faculty published V. Diešková’s publication: Basics of social pedagogy. In it, she also dealt with youth drug addictions and their prevention, in which she participated in the pedagogical-psychological counseling center in Bratislava-Petržalka in 1999-2000.

Psychological support for child patients with cystic fibrosis and their parents at the Faculty Hospital of Pneumology and Physiology in Bratislava – Podunajské Biskupice in 2001-2002. In addition, she continued to educate herself in psychotherapy, she completed many hours of training seminars, mainly with I. Verny (Switzerland) in process-oriented psychotherapy.

She participated in therapeutic seminars of systemic constellations according to B. Hellinger. V. Diešková also started working with students with this method. In 2009-2010, she completed the Extension training of family, systemic and life constellations with W. Nelles, who created a broader approach to constellations than their founder.

After retiring in 2009, V. Diešková led several courses for teachers of different types of schools in the Methodical Center of the city of Bratislava. The course Developing emotional intelligence of children was a favorite. In 2010-2011, she lectured for nursing students at the College of Health and Social Work of St. Elizabeth. He continues to lead yoga exercises with groups of adults.

Her further personal development continued in the form of expertise training in various therapeutic methods with the emphasis on innovative psychotherapeutic techniques and supportive activities while working with the clients. She has completed an accredited psychotherapeutic course in the Person-Centered Approach by Carl Rogers΄ psychotherapy methodology. In her long-term practice I had the opportunity to cooperate with social institutions supporting families, providing social services, psychotherapy, prevention and crisis intervention. She also supported and organized various working groups and gained a lot of experience in management of social work, pedagogy and professional training within social supporting programmes.

For many years she was a part of a non-profit social-legal support to the citizens of the capital city of Bratislava and I’ve been actively supervising the Helpline for children and youth along with providing counselling, information and support to children and youth. She participated in various projects implemented by non-profit EU community organizations based in different countries such as: Czech republic, Great Britain, Republic of Ireland, Belgium, France, Hungary, Austria, etc.

Her teaching experience includes lecturing at the Faculty of Education, Comenius
university in Bratislava. In 2013 she completed my doctoral study at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Comenius University in Bratislava and graduated with the academy degree Doctor (PhD.).

I also have been continuously offering counselling in Psychotherapy and Therapeutic Pedagogy on a private basis, starting in 2000 at a medical centre in Žilina and since 2012 till the meantime at the Teraviva private healthcare facility in Bratislava.

She works as a schoolpsychologist, where she help students manage social, emotional, behavioral, and learning problems. She likes to use literature in her psychological work and she also likes to write as a copywriter in various themes.

Since 1983, he has been teaching children in primary schools. In 1991, he was graduated as a teacher of Hungarian language and literature at the Gyula Juhász Pedagogical College in Szeged. Since then, he has been teaching Hungarian language and literature to high school children for sixteen years. For him, the great challenge of this work was to teach children to love reading, to discover the beauty of their native language, to develop understanding and to develop talents. 

His students have achieved very good results in poetry and prose recitation competitions, pronunciation competitions and the like at the district and regional level. One of his students also won first place in the national Competition of Arany János’ Hungarian Native Language. At the same time, during the whole time, he asked himself the professional question: What is the reason for the failures in teaching? The situation of children struggling with difficulties and disorders in reading, comprehension and spelling motivated his second career change within the profession, namely the choice of studying special pedagogy.

He graduated the Gusztáv Bárczi College of Special Education in 2006, majoring in language speech therapy. Since then, he has been constantly dealing with the issue of learning difficulties, rehabilitation and speech correction for children with speech or learning disorders. In addition to professional cooperation, he considers cooperation and constant contact with the child and parents extremely important. Thirty years ago, as a graduate, he did not attach much importance to it. He trusted himself and his students, he was in good contact with his colleagues. During his many years of work as a classroom teacher, he learned a lot in this field. But now he looks at this area of ​​his work as a special education teacher in a different way. A parent can do much to make therapy effective, and if he succeeds in winning him over for this beautiful task, he can almost certainly say that he has almost won the case.

In his work, he applies elements of complex art therapy. He considers himself lucky to have been able to participate in Eszter Balázs’ 60-hour training. The method was originally developed for therapeutic help to children who stutter, but based on own and other experiences, it can be perfectly adapted to other special educational needs. Eszter Balázs’s method is based on the so-called Kodály concept, which was perfected by Klára Kokas in the form of complex art therapy for stuttering. Complex art therapy is a “method in itself” that brings about positive personality changes that indirectly positively affect the development of the integrity of verbal communication. The experience provided by creative activities strengthens the personality and helps to overcome the fear of speaking caused by stuttering. The essence of the therapy is the triple unity of singing, movement and representation. Singing games are aimed at developing the correct breathing technique, mastering a gentle sound start, voluntary change of volume, tone and adjusting the rhythm of singing and speech. Movement exercises allow the child to relax the whole body, relieve spasms during breathing, sound production and articulation. Playful movement imitations enrich the non-verbal and metacommunicative repertoire. The player’s movements have a relaxing effect. During the imaging activity, children are introduced to various techniques: drawing, painting, clay painting, collage, etc. The result and joy of the speech indirectly affects the continuity of the speech. It has also been shown that joint play is also very important in supporting children in this concept.

In 2013, he passed the teacher’s exam in the field of drama pedagogy. In 2018, he obtained a master’s degree, the topic of his final thesis was: “Helping children aged 10-14 with reading difficulties and reading disorders using the tools of acting and poetry”. Teachers in 2020. As part of this project, his task is to create high-quality audio recordings of recommended literary works for bibliotherapy intended for children with reading difficulties of teachers who help them and by demonstrating examples of good practice from his own many years of professional experience and in other similar ways to support the project team in fulfilling the set educational and achieving project results.

She was an external gallery artist and lecturer at Slovak National Gallery for ten years too. She is currently on parental leave.

In publishing, through the biography of Cyril Kutlík, she got to work on the history of art education at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in Serbia (since 2002) and in Slovakia (annual publications of VŠVU in 2014 and 2019). Professional collaboration on texts and exhibitions dedicated to Slovak-Czech-Serbian artistic and cultural influence (2020, 2018, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2008, 2005). Editorial cooperation on the books of art theorist prof. Ivan Rusina (2016, 2011, 2009). Member of the Slovak Syndicate of Journalists (2003 – 2010).

As a volunteer, she regularly wrote for the Scout monthly Médium (1998-2014), adult education in Slovak Scouting (2004-2007: Baobab Forest School, Creativity Course, Crafts Course and Art as a Program Element course, which were accredited by the Slovak Ministry of Education). She lectured at creative workshops for clients cso Krídla (Wings) – association of friends and people with mental disorders (2005 – 2007). She managed animated film workshops for children and youth during the Biennial of Animation festivals, organized by Bibiana – International House of Art for Children Bratislava SK (2008, 2010).

She is interested in archetypal stories, mythology, fairy tales, and various manifestations of human imagination. She published several studies and articles, mostly about the work and philosophy of Mircea Eliade.

After specializing in clinical psychology (2013) and psychotherapy (2017) and after completing the psychotherapy training of the Czech Society for Analytical Psychology, he works in the clinic of clinical psychology and psychotherapy in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm in the Czech Republic.

She works at the clinic of clinical psychology and psychoterapy in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm (CZ). She is in the process of specialization training in the field of clinical psychology. As part of her work with children and adolescencs, she uses elements of play therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy.

My first work in the field of psychology was as a school psychologist in elementary school and high school. After that, I started working in the field of clinical psychology, namely in Janské Lázně (CZ), where I worked with clients after strokes, paralysis and other neurodegenerative diseases. The content of my work was neuropsychological diagnosis, cognitive training and supportive psychotherapy.

Now I work as a psychologist in the health sector at the Mental Health Center in Karviná, where I deal with psychotic and neurotic clients, with whom I work both individually and in groups. I am currently completing a five-year training in cognitive-behavioral therapy and I am also engaged in pre-certification preparation in clinical psychology.In the future, I would like to work with psychotic clients and also deal with the issue of addiction and codependency treatment.

My lifelong great interest in literature led me to the idea of ​​connecting therapeutic work with literature and using some literary works for group therapy with psychotic clients. I am very much looking forward to this job.

From 1995 – 2004 he worked in print media from the position of advertising salesperson to director of advertising in several monthly magazines.

He spent the years 2005-2011 abroad. In Ireland – in Dublin, he worked as a technician at GE Security, within which he received the Global Reward & Recognition for Quality in 2009. In 2009-2010, he attended courses dedicated to HRV biofeedback organized by the manufacturer emWave Ltd., U.S.A.

After returning from abroad in 2012, he completed an activation program for memory training for seniors at the Memory Center in Bratislava. In the years 2012-2015, he completed training for the therapeutic use of hypnosis for children and adults in Prague and Liptovský Mikuláš, and at the same time successfully completed a bachelor’s degree in curative education at the Faculty of Education of the Catholic University in Ružomberok.

In the years 2013-2014 and 2021-23, he cooperated with hockey clubs in Martin as part of the mental training and coaching of professional hockey players of MHK Martin.

Since 2013, he has been working in a non-state medical facility, the therapeutic pedagogy clinic in Martin (Slovakia). In the outpatient clinic, he uses art therapy approaches of therapeutic pedagogy: art therapy, music therapy, bibliotherapy, play therapy and psychomotor/movement therapy. At work, he uses various relaxation techniques and techniques to change the state of consciousness. As preparatory therapy, she uses HRV and EEG biofeedback for children and adults with special educational needs. He continues to prepare and implement memory training at the Social Welfare Center (www.psychofit.sk).

In 2023, in cooperation with the publishing house Mladé letá / Slovenské pedagogické nakladateľstvo, he plans to publish a book dedicated to working with the word, creating a therapeutic metaphor or story – The Word as a Tool in Therapy.

In Martin, April 13, 2023.

Here she discovered not only a book on therapeutic pedagogy, but also books by Viktor E. Frankl, which determined her future direction. She decided to study therapeutic pedagogy for a wide range of creative therapies. It gave her the opportunity to combine what she enjoys with helping people. Already in her diploma thesis, she began to devote herself fully to bibliotherapy. Using the motifs of the fairy tale The Neverending Story, she tried to help physically disabled children in institutional education overcome very difficult experiences during their adolescence.

After graduating from university, she worked with hearing-impaired children, and here she began to use other types of creative therapy to a much greater extent to help children understand the symbolism of language. During this period, she also worked as a mobile teacher and visited families of hearing impaired children. She worked at the Memory Center, where she focused on activity therapies and biographical narrative work with people with Alzheimer’s disease. Already during college, she felt a strong need to deepen her knowledge through further therapeutic education. She was looking for a theoretical ground, but also a way to look at a person with his suffering. In this, existential psychotherapy and phenomenology appealed to her the most. And that’s why, right after finishing college, she started studying long-term psychotherapy training in existential analysis and logotherapy in Prague. After its completion, she completed professional psychotherapy practice at the non-state healthcare facility Spirare – at a psychiatric outpatient clinic and in a psychiatric hospital. Since 2016, he has been working in a private consulting practice.

She is a member of the Slovak Psychotherapeutic Society and is on the list of psychotherapists. She is a co-founding member and vice president of the company for logotherapy and existential analysis in Slovakia. Since 2016, she has been organizing various educational seminars, trainings, and workshops both for the professional public and for parents. She prepared the Healing Power of Fairy Tales workshop for the professional public, which has already been repeated several times. He regularly lectures at professional conferences and for parents (Logoday, The art of being a parent, Parent from the left rear…), from seminars such as: I’m not afraid of the wolf, or let’s help each other with a fairy tale (how to help children manage their fear), It’s human to be angry, When a child speaks to us with body language (psychosomatic problems in childhood). From the latest seminars for the professional public: The body as the language of the soul, an introduction to psychosomatics from the point of view of existential analysis. Introduction to therapeutic work with child and adolescent clients (case study seminar). He is currently working on the development of the Bibliotherapy module for the possibility of further education in creative therapies. She has completed training in trauma therapy, and continues to further his education. She is interested in working with symbols (symbolic language of dreams, symbolic language of the body, symbolism in sandplay). And she is pleased and enjoys spreading and providing all this knowledge to her colleagues and parents.

Date of last update: 23/04/2023

In the years 2008-2010, she was the author and coordinator of the Reconstructed Family Internet Portal project, a non-profit project for reconstructed families, stepparents and stepchildren.

Since 2010, she has been working as an assistant professor at the Department of Special Education at the Faculty of Education of Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic). He teaches several subjects focused on the field of expressive therapies, mainly bibliotherapy, drama therapy and occupational therapy in various bachelor’s and master’s study programs at the Faculty of Education of the Charles University. He specializes in the field of creative therapies and their implementation in therapeutic and special educational care and in the school environment. She has published several professional works on this issue. She considers the publication Bibliotherapy in early and preschool age to be the most important.

In Prague, April 28, 2023.