Psychophysiological Imagery Assessment in Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Author(s): Dana Bichescu-Burian / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2009

Several research studies have established in the past that patients with posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of various traumatic events show a marked increase in peripheral physiological responsiveness during personalized trauma-related imagery (Orr & Roth, 2000). The present study builds on this topic by investigating responses to unpleasant (trauma-related) and neutral events within an imagery experiment in aged Romanian victims of political imprisonment, decades afterwards. Peripheral physiological indicators are examined using a Vitaport II ambulatory digital recorder Ŕ heart rate (HR) and skin conductance level (SCL) Ŕ as well as self-perceived arousal within three groups Ŕ a grup of former political detainees with chronic PTSD (N = 13), a group of former prisoners who never had such a diagnosis (N = 14), and a control group (N = 9). PTSD patients exhibited a distinctively increased HR reaction during imagery of traumatic experiences than during imagery of neutral contents. From the comparison between HR and SCL responses to traumatic and to neutral thought contents in patients without PTSD and in controls no such differences were identified. The HR response change to imagery of traumatic memories classifies individuals with highest severity of PTSD. Additionally, statistical analysis of the heart rate and skin conductance responses between persons with and without PTSD it showed that chronic PTSD patients exhibited a general heightened arousal state in that they showed a significant higher HR and SCL response than the persons who never had a PTSD diagnosis during all three personal imagery sessions. This suggests that long-term PTSD may lead over decades to an increased baseline physiological activity, generally higher physiological responsivity during all kinds of imagery contents, which may be unpleasant or neutral, trauma-related or not. These findings support the idea that the typical symptom of “hyperarousal” by four-decades-chronic PTSD patients comes to physiological expression during the mental undergoing of personal experiences and is especially highly expressed during the imagery of personal traumatic experiences.

Grèves scolaires et universitaires au Sénégal Critique de la raison militante

Author(s): Harouna Sy / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2009

Au Sénégal les grèves scolaires et universitaires sont devenues un phénomène endémique. Au cours d’une année, on peut observer plusieurs grèves qui durent longtemps. On a cherché l’explication de ce phénomène dans la « politisation » des champs scolaires et universitaires. Il s’agirait donc d’une « caporalisation » des organisations revendicatives des élèves et des étudiants par des partis politiques, surtout de gauche. C’est cette explication que l’auteur soumet à l’épreuve des faits. Il définit les grèves comme violence militante et procède à une critique de la raison militante.

A vidék válságai. Az ipari válságzóna jelenségeinek összefüggései a rendszerváltozás után az észak-borsodi bányásztelepülések példáján

Author(s): Péter Alabán / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 54/2013

Rural Hungary appears to have been anything but homogeneous after the change of regime in Hungary. The transition from Socialism into a market economy created insurmountable problems in several regions, mostly in the fields of economic restructuring, employment, unemployment and social composition. The picture is especially depressing in the northern region of Hungary, in the once flourishing settlements relying on mining and heavy industries, which had provided them with certain livelihood. The study focuses on villages surrounding the city of Ózd, where the survival and sustenance of the population was directly threatened by the closure of factories, plants and mines in the area. Alabán concentrates mainly on Farkaslyuk and the village of Somsály on the periphery of Ózd. Here, the memory of the halcyon days survives only in nostalgic reminiscences. The factory and its facilities, the mine, reading club, swimming pool, choir, brass band and sports club are all mosaic pieces from another age, which had once defined the everyday lives of the people living in the Farkaslyuk Miners’ Estate and Somsálybánya. The common features of both Farkaslyuk and Somsálybánya include social restructuring, negative migration processes due to manifold reasons such as demographic processes and the lack of employment opportunities, deep poverty and subsequent social ghettoisation, the gradual deterioration and disintegration of cultural and educational facilities, and last but not least, a hopeless vision for the future. With the aim of instigating new research, the study examines crisis indicators in the field of economy, society and culture, which often appeared together and had cumulative effect. It also presents collective and individual life narratives and survival strategies, which are often different to the experiences of people in similar Hungarian regions.

„[A]z ínség olly rém alakban gyakorlá hatását”. Válságreflexiók 1863–1864-ről

Author(s): Krisztina Boa / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 54/2013

Consistently warm weather from the year 1861 onwards caused drought and the ensuing famine of 1863–64, which affected at least 47 administrative regions in Hungary to a varying degree. The study explores this sustenance crisis through the eyes of a rather heterogeneous group, who either lived through these hard times or were aware of it through various channels. The multi-genre sources, such as diaries, daily chronicles, reminiscences, memoirs and letters, provide a glimpse into the geographical extent of the crisis. In addition, the sources also attest to a range of phenomena associated with the economic crisis, such as burnt-out crops, bad harvests, shortage of food and fodder, threat of famine and the loss of farm animals. The shared experience of weathering the crisis together amplified the awareness of contemporaries: many have realised the significance of money shortage and recorded the dramatic changes in the price of crops and animals. The study also discusses society’s responses to the economic crisis, such as the consumption of famine food, migration and criminal activity directly triggered by food shortage. Boa gives examples for local crisis management effortsby examining the measures taken by famine boards in Miskolc and Békéscsaba, where she focuses on the role of a Lutheran pastor, Lajos Haán, and the uncertainty surrounding his board membership. The study concludes with a description of various unique forms of crisis management, such as charity events and other initiatives, as well as the personal motivation of private individuals’ that made these possible.

Árvízi hangok. Az 1878-as miskolci árvizet megélt személyek történetei

Author(s): Éva Judit Bodovics / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 54/2013

The sudden flooding that hit Miskolc at night time on 30 August 1878 changed the lives of thousands of people in a few hours. Despite the fact that out of all the natural disasters of the nineteenth century this flood claimed the most lives, neither the Miskolc disaster nor the one that took place seven months later at Szeged have received much scholarly attention, even at the level of general interest. On the contrary, contemporary media was acutely aware of the tragedy, recording events and the experiences of people, who had witnessed the terror of the summer disaster. The study attempts to make the voices of flood survivors heard, by reconstructing who they were, their lives before the flood, their experience on the fateful night and how it affected their lives afterwards if they managed to survive. Fifteen stories of widows, elderly men, bachelors, children and family men have been reconstructed from narrative and statistical sources to shed light on the perceptions and experiences of the survivors. As the number of narratives is insufficient for overarching conclusions about ‘crisis management strategies’, the aim of the study is simply to present the reconstructed life stories of survivors. In conclusion, however, the narratives do show that the chances to rebuild lives after the flood largely depended on the flexibility of the bread-winner’s occupation and its adaptability to new conditions.

Növekedés és hanyatlás az Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia történelmi emlékezetében

Author(s): György Kövér / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 54/2013

While the year 1873 had been imprinted into the memory of nearly everyone recording history, another year of crisis forty years later in 1913 left barely any traces in memory. What causes this difference and how can it be interpreted? One reason is the complexity and severity of the events that took place. In addition to the financial crisis in 1873, the last great cholera epidemic also swept across the Monarchy this year. In contrast, the later crisis, triggered in the autumn of 1912 by the Balkan Wars, mainly affected financial and credit markets and industrial and commercial turnovers. It is hard to escape the impression that historical memory is shaped by the perception of crisis at least as much as ‘facts’ and ‘reality’. The study deals with the perception of crises on three levels: contemporary diaries and memoirs, the writings of contemporary economists and retrospective accounts by historians. The personal experiences of three minor characters from 1873 belong in the first category: the study examines the memoirs of Avraham Meir (1830–1907), an Orthodox Jewish merchant and District Officer Péter Krasznay (1830–1916), as well as the diary of the attorney Sámuel Szűcs (1819–1889). It is clear that the short-term crisis perceptions of contemporary witnesses depend partly on their personal disposition and partly on external factors. Sources in the second category show that contemporary academics were not entirely unaffected by this either. The study mentions pioneers of Hungarian crisis research Jakab Pólya (1844–1897), Béla Földes (1848–1945; known as Béla Weisz until 1881) and Sándor Tonelli (1882–1950). Kövér then goes on to review the terminology used by leading figures of twentieth-century Hungarian historiography: Gyula Szekfű (1883–1955) referred to the whole pre-war period as “the age of decline”, and Ferenc Eckhart (1885–1957), the author of the first comprehensive economic history of the modern era, considered the years between 1873–1889 ‘the era of crisis and stagnation’ and 1890–1914 as ‘the heyday of economic development’. In the 1960s, the concept of industrial revolution was reinterpreted. The first GDP calculations for key years (1867, 1900 and 1913) were published by Péter Hanák, Iván T. Berend, György Ránki and László Katus. Katus, using the term ‘take-off’ as a synonym for ‘industrial revolution’, divided the post-1887 period into two phases of growth: one long and ‘very fast’ period (1887–1899) followed by ‘deceleration’ (1900–1913). Kövér concludes his brief history of crisis perception with a review of recent scholarship in macro- and micro-economic history.

Az ötödik évszak

Author(s): Abraham B. Yehoshua / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

excerpt of a novel

Figyelő

Author(s): Eszter Dallos / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

Érintettek

Author(s): Anette Hilbert / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

The film-essay by Anette Hilbert is about the two Oscar nominees: “Munich” by Spielberg and “Paradise Now” by Abu Assad.

Apám sok tennivalót hagyott rám...

Author(s): György Fehéri / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

György Fehéri struggles about the choices his father made after 1945.

Hiszek

Author(s): Emil Makai / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

Sárkányölő

Author(s): György Somlyó / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

Versek

Author(s): András Mezei / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

Somlyó György (1920­-2006)

Author(s): János Kőbányai / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

"Mélyen tisztelt földim". Ifj. Leopold Lajos és Babits Mihály barátsága

Author(s): Ernő Csekő / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

The study of Ernő Csekő: about the Jewish characters of one of the most important Hungarian novels by Mihály Babits`s “Dead men” is about the connection between the original characters and the poet, is based on original documents.

A magyar ortodoxia a századfordulón (1891-1906) ­ az ortodox hetilap, a Zsidó Hiradó alapján

Author(s): Erzsébet Mislovics / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

Kórtörténet

Author(s): Zsuzsa Alpár / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

The sociography of Zsuzsa Alpár is devoted to analysing how it feels to be old and Jewish i.e. to be a Holocaust survivor in Hungary today.

Tisztelgés

Author(s): András Mezei / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

Bevezető Paul Engle novellájához/ Paul Engle: A kísértetek

Author(s): Ágnes Gergely,Paul Engle / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2006

Versek

Author(s): Àrpád Kun,Imre Aradi Varga,Tamás Beck / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 05/2009