The Author discussed in his article the problem of ethic foundations of promoters of psychohistory. He argues that psychotherapeutic inclinations of scholars resulted in the alienation of this approach within historical sciences, what — in the end — did not prevent psychohistorians from becoming active outside the closed circle of the discipline.

The Author discussed in his article the problem of ethic foundations of promoters of psychohistory. He, argues that psychotherapeutic inclinations of scholars resulted in the alienation of this approach within historical sciences, what - in the end - did not prevent psychohistorians from becoming active outside the closed circle of the discipline.

The paper On the Psychohistory as a Historiographical Paradigm reviews a book by Tomasz Pawelec: History and the Unconsciousness. Theoretical Premises and Research Practice of Psychohistory, Katowice 2004. The book includes both the reconstruction of the theoretical and methodological assumptions shared by psychohistorians based on the psychoanalysis or the neofreudian conceptions and the characteristics of their actual studies of the history. The psychohistory is presented by T. Pawelec as a vivid and constantly changing paradigm in historiography of 20th century. His book is recommended to psychologists interested in the psychoanalysis and, even more strongly, to historian.

The paper presents the usefulness of the common sense psychology, as well as of the knowledge acquired in various traditions of academic psychology in historical interpretations.

The Author of this review presents the newest book by Maciej Dymkowski on historical psychology. Paweł Jednacz recognizes historical psychology as a new discipline in Poland and he discusses its value from this point of view. The reviewer emphasises introductory character of the book. He pays special attention to Dymkowski's opinion on interrelations between history and psychology, as well as on the craft of a historian and psychologist. Jednacz agrees with the criticism expressed by the author towards psychohistory. He concludes that Dymkowski's work can be used as a textbook of historical psychology, at least until a new dissertation which will show more achievements, research tasks and methods in a fuller and wide-ranging way appears in print.

The paper aims to propose a method of historical investigation of emotions in the past. The author rethinks the phenomenon of empathy as a potential research tool for grasping the emotions of past events’ agents. He provides a psychology-based defi nition and an overview of historiographic traditions associated with empathy. He discusses limitations regarding validity (accuracy) and intersubjective control of empathy. Subsequently, the author proposes how to overcome these limitations.