Professional paper
Will the War for the Croatian Homeland War Veterans Ever End?
Davor Rak
; University of Zagreb, University Hospital Dubrava, Department of Psychiatry, Referral Centre for Stress Related Disorders of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of the Republic of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia
Aldenita Matić
; University of Zagreb, University Hospital Dubrava, Department of Psychiatry, Referral Centre for Stress Related Disorders of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of the Republic of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia
Benedict Rak
; University of Zagreb, University Hospital Dubrava, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to show the psychological consequences of participation in the Homeland War and experienced
trauma which can indirectly be seen through drawing even after more than 15 years after the war had ended. The
research was conducted on a sample of 125 patients of both genders treated in the Daily Hospital program of University
Hospital Dubrava, Psychiatry Clinics. All the tested had trauma in their medical history and all of them met the PTSD
diagnostic criteria, 75 examinees participated in the Homeland War and they represent the veteran group, and 50 examinees
went through a stressful situation during peacetime and they represent the civilian group. All the examinees had
to make two individual drawings, and the task was to portray feelings of term »love« (first drawing) and term »hate«
(second drawing). They could choose motifs and colors freely. When portraying the term love, choice of motifs between the
civilian and the veteran group wasn’t considerably different, and only a small number of male veteran population (6.6%)
drawings hinted at the connection with the Homeland War. The results between two groups are completely different in
portraying the term hate. As much as 76% examinees from the veteran group have unequivocally and directly decided to
portray wartime motifs, unlike the civilian group whose use of wartime motifs was just 10%. When choosing color, nearly
90% of the veteran group used neutral and cool colors to portray the term hate.
Keywords
Homeland War; war veterans; trauma; PTSD; love and hate portray
Hrčak ID:
147558
URI
Publication date:
29.12.2014.
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