Qualitative and Psychometric Research of Refugees and Traumatised Subjects in Belgrade

At the end of the 20th century, the communist system and the totalitarian Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia started to collaps. This resulted in several wars which took their toll - there were tens of thousands of innocent victims on all sides of the conflicts, and several waves of refugees totalling hundreds of thousands ensued. All this was followed by an increased level of a whole range of socio-pathological phenomena such as crime, grey economy, drug abuse, alcoholism, divorces, suicides and other social and psychological indicators of social anomaly. With a scientifically valid, objective and reliable approach, this book aims at determining the mental effects these social crises have on the refugees after a relatively long period of time (on average, the main traumatic events took place eight before). Apart from those who lost their lives during the conflicts, the refugees are after all one of the most highly affected social groups in the unstable Western Balkan region. Taking into account the results obtained by similar research work, Opalic endeavours to shed more light on the subjective effects - difficult to notice and to understand - which refugeeism as a forceful, multilayer and in this case long-term trauma causes in the inner world of an individual. DEUTSCH: Diese englischsprachige Studie ist die erste, die sich mit den schweren Traumata und der belastenden psychosozialen Situation von Flüchtlingen in Serbien befasst. Opalic untersucht den Einfluss der Traumata - insbesondere der körperlichen - auf die psychische Integrität des Einzelnen in einer Gruppe mit Hilfe verschiedener qualitativer und psychometrischer Methoden, darunter eine Analyse der Träume der Flüchtlinge und Traumatisierten mit charakteristischen Traumbeispielen, Tests zum psychischen Status aller Traumatisierten (PTSP-10-Skala, Eysenck-Persönlichkeitsinventar, Skala der Einflüsse von Ereignissen, Test der Familienkohärenz) und ein qualitativer Test der menschlichen Figur (Machover-Test). Abschließend illustrieren vierzehn Lebensgeschichten untersuchter Flüchtlinge die Ergebnisse der Studie.