With the inauguration of the UK's first ever Medical Film festival MedFest in 2011 there has been resurgence in the interest of the association between psychiatry and film. The festival in 2012 was titled "HealthScreen": Understanding Illness through Film and its aim, according to the founder Dr Kamran Ahmed, was, 'To stimulate debate of the social, political and ethical implications of portray...

Given that the natural birth ratio is 106 males to 100 females, and that females tend to have longer life expectancies, it is shocking to learn that “more than 100 million girls and women are missing” (Sen, 1990, p. 61). Birth ratios of males and females would predict that there should be more women living today, particularly in Asia (Bunch, 1995). But in some parts of the world, men outnumber ...

During the 1994 conoict in Rwanda, rape occurred on a massive scale in the genocide that claimed the lives of between 500,000 and one million Rwandans. Réne Degni-Segui, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Rwanda, as appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Commission, estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 rapes occurred in total. He elaborated that “[r]ape was s...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (ICD-10 codes: F43.1, F62.0; DSM-IV-TR code: 309.81) [1, 2] is a complex severe and chronic psychiatric illness influenced by environmental and genetic factors [3-10]. PTSD is an anxiety disorder developed in a person experiencing, wit‐ nessing, or learning about an extreme physically or psychologically distressing event, asso‐ ciated with unprecedented viol...

Comment le massacre est-il traité par la philosophie ? Un petit parcours de Platon à Giorgio Agamben, en passant Polybe, Cicéron, Montaigne et Grotius qui s’adonnent citation des Anciens, montre que philosophique est réticent aborder violence extrême masse. Plusieurs hypothèses sont envisagées : groupe constitution, comme lors d’un imprévu, n’est pas pensé antique ; rapproché stasis fait l’obje...

The development of this book exploring the establishment of protocols and standard operating procedures (SOPs) contributes towards the creation of an adopted suite of methodologies and helps ensure a consistent and appropriate quality of process and practice. The protocols and SOPs discussed here are specifically developed for application to the scientific investigation of crime scenes, particu...

In Colombia, violence seems uncontrollable. Along with massacres and group killings of astonishing cruelty, there are also kidnappings and disappearances, abuse of children and the elderly, and rape of young adolescents. Every day, without respite, Colombians are witnesses or victims of street crimes as well as racial, sexual, and socioeconomic discrimination. Unwillingly, they become agents of...

These results fit with a substantial body of epidemiological research, which has consistently shown that mental disorders become common in populations affected by war and conflict. The most prevalent set of symptoms corresponds well with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Endemic rates of PTSD, affecting at least every sixth person and sometimes even every other person, have been found among...

The 1991-1995 War for independence of Croatia was a cruel armed conflict, provoked by the conquering aspirations of the "Yugoslav Federal Army" under Serbian command and Serbian terrorists. It took place on the territory of the Republic of Croatia and gave rise to a mass destruction of civilian and sacral buildings and civilian massacres. Here we present three representative cases as an example...