Dusica Lecic-Tosevski, Saveta Draganic-Gajic, and Milica Pejovic-Milovancevic
Institute of Mental Health, Belgrade, Serbia
War and Suicide. Hauppauge, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2009, 306 pages.

What is war and how humans behave during war are questions which have been intriguing during the whole history of civilization. Wars and conflicts are, unfortunately, ubiquitous, have been always present in human history, and also in every day lives through media, where we are faced with their destructive power. They cause civil causalities, loss and destruction of homes, economies and infrastructures. Organized violence, such as wars, oppression by dictatorships and massive terrorist attacks are extreme cases in which hundreds or thousands of people are exposed to trauma in a short period of time. In this chapter the authors discuss theories of wars and specifities of human behavior from several different perspectives emphasizing instinctive, biological and environmental factors in understanding the phenomenon of human aggression which escalates during wars. Further on, they discuss psychosocial consequences of wars, especially on family and children, as well as the specificities of mental health professional work in war periods.