The impact of war and economic sanctions on the mental health system in Iraq from 1990 to 2003 : a preliminary report

This paper explores the effects of war in Iraq in the period between 1991 and 2003, with a focus on the effect of economic sanctions on mental health services. The authors, Iraqi psychiatrists with direct contact with patients and events during this period, review literature and reports published contemporaneously. They describe how the mental health system in Iraq was deteriorated, not only by war, but also by United Nations imposed sanctions during the period between the first and second Iraq war.

‘Our NGO family has suffered a tragedy, and we will survive : ’ Evaluating a crisis response intervention with expatriate aid workers in Afghanistan

In 2008, Taliban forces killed four aid workers in Afghanistan. Immediately afterwards, expatriate and national field staff undertook crisis management activities on the ground. While this was a devastating event, field and headquarters staff agreed that the organisational response to the crisis was positive. Nine months later, 19 expatriate staff members involved in the crisis response participated in an evaluation to reflect on personal and organisational factors that contributed to their post crisis resilience.

Marital conflict in the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda : an explorative study within the context of community based sociotherapy

This article explores the ongoing impact of the genocide in Rwanda on marital relationships. Its specific focus are genocide related factors that generate relational trauma and the consequences of this trauma for the everyday lives of spouses affected by it. The qualitative study that informs this article was conducted within the context of a community based sociotherapy programme.

The War on Children : Time to end grave violations against children in conflict

There are approximately 350 million children living in areas affected by conflict today, according to new research carried out by the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO) for this report.

 

War-Related Traumas and Mental Health Across Generations

This issue of JAMA Psychiatry presents the findings from an epidemiological study from Santavirta et al on the risk of psychiatric hospitalization among the offspring of adults who were evacuated as child refugees to Sweden during World War II under the Finnish Evacuation Policy. The study provides a glimpse into the potential intergenerational associations of being a child refugee during World War II with psychiatric hospitalization, with particular attention to sex.

Neural activity during the viewing of emotional pictures in veterans with pathological anger and aggression

Anger and aggression are common mental health problems after military deployment. Anger and aggression have been associated with abnormalities in subcortical and cortical levels of the brain and their connectivity.

Here, we tested brain activation during the processing of emotional stimuli in military veterans with and without anger and aggression problems.

Thirty military veterans with anger and aggression problems and 29 veterans without a psychiatric diagnosis (all males) participated in this study.

Adult-onset trauma and intergenerational transmission : Integrating empirical data and psychoanalytic theory.

This article addresses the tension in psychoanalytic thinking regarding adult-onset trauma and its potential effects on children who were not directly exposed to the same parental trauma. Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes early attachment trauma as predictive of the response to trauma later in life. This emphasis on early trauma delayed recognition of adult-onset trauma-related disorders and the development of adequate trauma-focused treatments.

Adult-Onset Trauma and Intergenerational Transmission: Integrating Empirical Data and Psychoanalytic Theory

This article addresses the tension in psychoanalytic thinking regarding adult-onset trauma and its potential effects on children who were not directly exposed to the same parental trauma. Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes early attachment trauma as predictive of the response to trauma later in life. This emphasis on early trauma delayed recognition of adult-onset trauma-related disorders and the development of adequate trauma-focused treatments.

Trauma transmission in Adult Offspring of Jewish Holocaust Survivors

During psychotherapy a man describes a dream, “I am hiding in the cellar from soldiers who are searching for me. Overwhelmed by anxiety, I know that if they find me they will kill me on the spot . . . Then I am standing in line for selection; the smell of burning flesh is in the air and I can hear shots fired. Faceless and undernourished people with striped uniforms march away to the crematoriums. Then I am in a pit full of dead, skeletal bodies. I struggle desperately to bury the cadavers in the mud . . . I feel guilty for what has happened, though I do not know why.

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