Violence without a Face: the Analysis of Testimonies of Women Who Were Sexually Assaulted During the War in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Background: This study examined testimonies of women who were sexually assaulted multiple times by multiple unknown offenders. In these testimonial narratives, it is possible to detect specific modalities of traumatic event expression. This expression lacks any spatial, temporal, auditory or emotional determinants of the event.

Quality of Life of Persons Suffering from Schizophrenia, Psoriasis and Physical Disabilities.

Background: Studies have addressed the impact of chronic diseases and their treatment on quality of life (Qol), but the relative impact of different chronic conditions on patients' level of subjective functioning is mostly unknown. Stigma is associated with poor Qol in various chronic diseases. The aim of this study was to compare the quality of life of people suffering from schizophrenia with the quality of life of patients with psoriasis and physical disabilities.

[Psychological support to burn patients].

Severe burns and their treatment are among the most painful experiences a person can have. Emotional needs of burn patients have long been overshadowed by the focus on survival. Today, when the survival rate is much higher than in the past, the need of psychological and psychosocial engagement in working with victims of severe burns has emerged.

Psychodynamic approach as a creative factor in psychopharmacotherapy.

The treatment of psychiatric disorders often consists of a combined approach that integrates both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. Unfortunately, psychiatric texts and the educational process in psychiatry training do not adequately address the combined approach. There is a lack of information concerned with the psychological aspect of prescribing medications.

[Why benzodiazepines are still in wide use?].

The advent of benzodiazepines in the 1960s provided their wide use in neurology and psychiatry. They proved to be myorelaxant and anticonvulsive therapy in neurology; their anxiolytic and hypnotic properties have made them the treatment of choice for insomnia and anxiety problems; they have also been used in alcohol withdrawal and in anesthesia, and for a wide range of treatments in other clinical branches. However, reports giving rise to a prescription controversy including abuse, harmful effects, intoxication and dependence toward addiction appeared soon.

Psychiatric aspects of basal ganglia diseases.

This review clarifies the fact that basal ganglia diseases are psychiatric as much as neurological diseases. It illustrates psychiatric aspects in Parkinson's disease and other hereditary basal ganglia diseases such as Wilson's disease, Huntington's chorea and others. In these diseases, psychological disorders can be difficult to diagnose, whether they are concomitant with the primary (neurological) disease, they are its consequence, or they are the result of a specific pharmacotherapy prescribed for these disease, etc.

Group analytic psychotherapy (im)possibilities to research.

In the course of group analytic psychotherapy, where we discovered the power of the therapeutic effects, there occurred the need of group analytic psychotherapy researches. Psychotherapeutic work in general, and group psychotherapy in particular, are hard to measure and put into some objective frames. Researches, i.

Effects of meaning or psychodynamic psycopharmacotherapy.

Despite advances in psychiatry, treatment outcomes are still a big problem, and are not always substantially better than it was in the past time. Treatment resistance remains a serious psychiatric problem. One of the reasons for that is that the pendulum has swung from a psychodynamic framework to a biological one, and the impact of meaning (i.

Aggression in group psychoanalytic psychotherapy: questionnaire development (GA-AG).

The aim of this study is developing of a questionnaire that observes aggression in group psychoanalytic psychotherapy and examines its factor structure. The questionnaire comprised of 160 statements in five-point Likert-type scale was developed through analysis of the content of aggressive communication among patients during group sessions. The questionnaire was applied on 253 patients that attended 40 small therapy groups in 9 cities in Croatia.

Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus: diagnostic and clinical features according to revised ACR criteria.

Neuropsychiatric disorders appear in about 70% of the patients diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The aim of this study was to evaluate morphological and functional abnormalities of central nervous system (CNS) in SLE patients with neuropsychiatric manifestations (NP) of disease by testing their relationship. We tested 10 patients (9 females, 1 male) with clinical manifestations of neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NP-SLE).

Empathy in group psychoanalytic psychotherapy: questionnaire development.

The aim of this study is to develop a questionnaire that can observe empathy in group psychoanalytic psychotherapy and examine the structure of its factors. A questionnaire comprised of 160 items in five-point Likert-type scale was developed through analysis of communication and interaction related to empathizing during group sessions. The questionnaire was applied on 256 patients from 40 therapy groups in 9 cities in Croatia.

Emotional stress as a trigger in sudden cardiac death.

The influence of anxiety and depression on cardiovascular disease is well-known in terms of chronic cardiovascular and ischemic states. It happens mostly through diminished cardiac vagal modulation and greater procoagulant activity in depressed patients. But the impact of emotional factors in acute cardiac events is not estimated enough.

Gender differences in war-related disappearance in Croatia (1991-1995).

From 1991-1995, the war in Croatia cost tens of thousands of lives (approximately 11834 persons killed between 1991-1994), and human rights abuses led to significant numbers of disappeared persons (3052). A total of 2395 families were searching for one disappeared person and 168 families of disappeared were searching for more than one person. 2035 men were reported disappeared and 528 women.

Changes of defense mechanisms and personality profile during group analytic treatment.

Researching efficiency of group-analytic treatment and following Foulkes' principle of the "group-as-a-whole", the methodology was applied. That enabled the evaluation of expected changes of group members individually, as well as the group-as-a-whole. In this study three small groups (20 patients) were followed up and changes were evaluated after second and after fourths years of group analysis.

Group members' assessment of their conductor in small analytic group.

In this pilot study the authors present the group members' assessment of their conductor in group analysis--the treatment conducted in accordance with concept >>group-as-a-whole<< of S. H. Foulkes.

Patients' ranking of therapeutic factors in group analysis.

The aim of this research is to assess which therapeutic factors are of greatest importance to patients in group analytic psychotherapy, and whether the patients' characteristics and the phase of the group process influenced their evaluation of therapeutic factors. The Yalom's group therapeutic factors questionnaire was filled out by 66 patients, members of small groups conducted according to group analytic principles. The average scores for each therapeutic factor were subsequently ranked by importance to the patients and related to their age, sex, education, previous psychotherapeutic experience and phase of group process.