An Afghan woman’s story: Fighting for a better life

In Afghanistan, most families strongly believe that their female members should stay at home concern themselves with housework. In general, women are anything but encouraged to get an education and/or have a professional career. This personal reflection shows that Afghani women, with support, can develop their competences and enjoy life.

 

The girl who wanted to stand-up in class and speak to her classmates

There are several factors that can lead to social anxiety disorder (fear of being judged or rejected), such as genetics, environmental factors, learned experiences, deficits in social skills, cognitive factors and/or culture. Considering all these factors, there are many people prone to develop social anxiety disorder in Afghanistan. In a recent study conducted at Herat University, it was shown that many students suffer from social anxiety disorder.

From the editors . . . An introduction to a Special Issue : A focus on mental health and psychosocial support in Afghanistan

Afghanistan continues to face extraordinary challenges after almost 40 years of continuous armed conflict. Despite these difficulties, many Afghans have been working tirelessly to protect, rebuild, develop and maintain their national institutions. One such effort was the National Strategy for a Mentally Healthy Afghanistan [Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GOIRA), & Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), 2009], which recognised the impact of conflict on mental health and psychosocial wellbeing.

Trauma and trauma care in Europe

The European countries have a long history of exposure to large-scale trauma. In the early 1990s the increasing awareness of the consequences of trauma within the mental health community led to the foundation of local societies for psychotraumatology across Europe and the European Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS), which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2018. The focus of this article is to describe the current state of care for survivors of trauma in the 15 European countries where ESTSS member societies have been established.

The effects of traumatic and multiple loss on psychopathology, disability, and quality of life in Iraqi asylum seekers in the Netherlands": Erratum.

In the article by Hengst et al in the January 2018 issue of The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, a column of unwanted numbers was published in Table 3. The corrected Table is being republished via this erratum.

In addition, the estimates were not visible in 2 decimals because Figure 2 was too small. The content has been enlarged and is being republished via this erratum.

 

Corrigendum to “Do prolonged grief disorder symptoms predict post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms following bereavement? A cross-lagged analysis” [Compr Psychiatry 80 (2018) 65–71]

The authors regret that “β” in the abstract of the published article was written as “β−”. The corrected abstract is as follows. The authors would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused. 

Abstract

Background: Bereavement can precipitate different forms of psychopathology, including prolonged grief disorder (PGD) and posttraumatic-stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. How these symptoms influence each other is unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the temporal relationship of symptoms of PGD and PTSD following bereavement.

Secondary traumatization, relationship problems, and adult children’s wellbeing : Long-term effects of World War II in the Netherlands

The hypothesis of secondary traumatization argues that children raised by parents who were traumatized by war, have more mental health problems than other children. Past evidence for this hypothesis is not consistent.

Social capital interventions in public health : A systematic review

Despite two decades of research on social capital and health, intervention studies remain scarce. We performed a systematic review on social capital interventions in public health and searched the Pubmed and PsychInfo databases. The majority of interventions we identified focused on individual level change (e.g. encouraging social participation), as opposed to community level change.

Ruminative and Dampening Responses to Positive Affect in Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder

Background
Although previous research has focused on distinguishing cognitive styles between Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), little is known about differences in positive affect regulation between these affective groups. The aim of the present study was to extend previous research by investigating such differences between BD and MDD, and between the bipolar subtypes (BD-I vs. BD-II and predominant polarities), using large, clinical, outpatient samples.

 

Top-down and bottom-up control of stress-coping

In this 30th anniversary issue review, we focus on the glucocorticoid modulation of limbic-prefrontocortical circuitry during stress-coping. This action of the stress hormone is mediated by mineralocorticoid receptors (MRs) and glucocorticoid receptors (GRs) that are co-expressed abundantly in these higher brain regions.

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