Aleksandar Dimitrijevic

A Serbian version of modified and revised Experiences in Close Relationships scale (SM-ECR-R).

We present details about the validation of the Serbian version of the Experiences in Close Relationships–Revised questionnaire modified to measure attachment in close relationships in general (SM–ECR–R). Its psychometric features were examined with 2 samples of students (N = 719 and N = 91) and 1 group of employed adults (N = 259). The results obtained in the student sample were equivalent to those obtained in validation studies worldwide, whereas in the more heterogeneous sample of employed adults, internal consistency of both avoidance and anxiety was lower and their intercorrelation was higher. Test–retest reliability was satisfactory, and relations with measures of attachment, empathy, and personality structure were meaningful. The results support the SM–ECR–R as a reliable and valid research instrument, but its internal structure and consistency might vary in different samples, depending on age, education, gender, and culture.

Early Presentation of Neuromyelitis Optica

Neuromyelitis optica is a rare autoimmune demyelinating disease of the central nervous system in childhood. Its relapsing form is usually reported in adults. We report a 3-year-old girl with relapsing, IgG seropositive neuromyelitis optica. Initially she presented with optic neuritis, followed by three relapses with deterioration of optic neuritis and developing transverse myelitis. With each relapse, the treatment was less effective. Four years after the onset of the disease, the patient was blind, had paraplegia associated with urinary and bowel incontinence and short stature.

Psychological characteristics of future helping professionals: Empathy and attachment of psychology students

In this study we investigated whether psychology students differ than students who have chosen non-helping professions in psychological features important for helping activities: attachment and empathy. The sample consisted of psychology students from Belgrade and Novi Sad (N=452) and students from several Belgrade University faculties for non-helping professions. The revised version of Attachment Questionnaire was used for assessment of attachment, while empathy was assessed by Empathy Quotient. The results confirmed hypotheses about the greater prevalence of secure attachment pattern, higher empathic capacity, better mentalizing, and more positive model of the other among the future helpers. These differences between student groups are present at the enrolment, with gender controlled. Finally, the prevalence of the secure attachment pattern and high empathy scores rises with the years spent at studying psychology. We concluded that psychology studies are chosen by persons with higher motivation and capacities for helping professions. Although women outnumber men, differences between the future helping professionals and others cannot be explained by the gender structure of the sample, since men in the helping professions have better results than women in the nonhelping ones.

Definition, Foundation and Meaning of Illness: Locating Georg Groddeck in the History of Medicine

The paper reviews and discusses Groddecks conception of illness. I first argue that Groddeck was a late Romanticist as much as he was a “wild” psychoanalyst. Then I use Groddecks scattered formulations regarding definition, foundation, and meaning of illness in order to articulate them in the form of more explicit scientific statements. Finally, I suggest that Groddecks theory of illness is fundamentally different from current medical conceptions, which, nevertheless, does not make our dialogue with him either less useful or indeed less necessary. It is through an investigation of Groddecks therapeutic attitude and the spirit of his work that psychoanalysis and medicine can build foundations of bold, innovative, and healing future.

The Mentalization Scale (MentS): A Self-Report Measure for the Assessment of Mentalizing Capacity

ABSTRACT The psychometric properties of a new 28-item self-report measure of mentalization, the Mentalization Scale (MentS), were examined in 2 studies: with a sample of employed adults and university students (N1 = 288 + 278) and with a sample of persons with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and matched controls (N2 = 62 + 62). Besides the MentS, both studies employed measures of attachment and the Big Five; Study 1 also included assessments of empathy and emotional intelligence. MentS whole-scale internal consistency was good in the community and acceptable in the clinical sample (α = .84 and .75, respectively). A principal components analysis of Study 1 data yielded 3 interpretable factors, or subscales: Self-Related Mentalization (MentS-S), Other-Related Mentalization (MentS-O), and Motivation to Mentalize (MentS-M). These showed acceptable reliabilities (α = .74–.79), except for MentS-M in the clinical sample (α = .60). MentS scores further exhibited a coherent pattern of correlations with cognate constructs and the Big Five, relating positively to empathy, trait and ability emotional intelligence, openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, and negatively to attachment avoidance and anxiety, and neuroticism. Persons with BPD scored significantly lower on MentS total and MentS-S. The proposed scale is thus deemed suitable for quick, yet meaningful, assessments of mentalization in both individual differences research and clinical contexts.

Being Mad in Early Modern England

It has become almost a rule that the birth of scientific psychiatry and what we today term clinical psychology took place in the short period between the last decade of the XVIII century and the 1820s. Everything that happened before that period—every description, diagnosis, and therapy—has been considered “pre-scientific,” outdated, in a way worthless. In this paper, however, I am providing the argument that, first, the roots of contemporary psychiatry reach at least to England of the early modern period, and that, second, it may still turn out that in the field of mental health care historical continuities are more numerous and persistent than discontinuities. Thus, I briefly review the most important surviving documents about the treatment of mental disorders in England of Elizabethan and Jacobian period, organizing the argument around the well-known markers: diagnostics and etiology, therapy, organization of the asylum, the public image of the mentally ill.

Boundaries of the personality and their early development

The first part of this paper reviews different notions of personality boundaries in dynamic psychology. Although the explicit treatment of this topic was scarce, three different approaches may be discerned. Paul Federns introduction of the concept, the notion of boundaries in object relation theories, and various contemporary notions subsumed under the heading “relational theories.” In the second part, the author reviews both experimental and clinical research and theory regarding the emergence of personality boundaries during the first eight weeks of development. Special attention is paid to the importance of developmentally most primitive mental representations of skin experiences for this process.