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Picture: Vima newspaper

The economic crisis which has become an everyday life for the past one year and a half, the recession, the measures for the backfilling of the deficit, the poverty, the decrease of the purchasing power – all of this affects the mentality, ruins the mood and leads to a mass depression. All of this we discuss with friends and relatives, however the opinion of a specialist means a lot more – that is why the Vima newspaper talks to the psychiatrist Dr. Mateos Yosafat, chairman of the Group analysis and family therapy association.

Somebody losing his job is one of the consequences of the crisis which logically leads to stress, anger, inferiority complex, says Dr. Yosafat. “The opposite feeling we gain when we are working and we are getting paid for this – especially the men feel particularly useless if they do not work. However where there is no job it is possible to reach to strong reactions like a depression and antisocial behavior. The revolutions in the history of mankind start from neurotics.”

According to Dr. Yosafat in spite of the fact that for the year 2008 according to the statistical service of Greece the number of suicides has increased, the “economic crisis” factor cannot be the only one in order to cause more suicides. “This is a problem with many sides, however I do believe that there is nothing to worry about. Usually people who take their lives already have something which is torturing them from inside, even though at the time of a crisis the feeling of hopelessness and anger increases. Do you remember the Chinese student who stands in front of the tank during the riots at the Tananmun square and he actually kills himself? He didn’t do this out of heroism. There is something else hiding behind the act. Many times the heroes are actually victims.”

As far as it comes to the progress in the history, Dr. Yosafat gives as an example Sweden and Norway saying that actually these countries take care of their citizens a lot better then the communist countries do. “The changes come with maturing of the country. In Greece the idea that the revolution brings something good could be seen within a local, left sided way of thinking. In the European culture this kind of thinking does not exist.”

The Greeks are immature, more neurotic, aggressive and emotionally dry compared to the rest of the western Europeans, says Dr. Yosafat, who to a greet extent attributes these defects to the education given by the mothers. “If the Greeks had a normal relationship with their mothers they would have loved their wives more. The parental love takes the shape of a kind of over caution which turns into a weapon which is used according to the particular case.”

According to the assessment of Dr. Yosafat from now on the Greeks will pay more attention to the psychoanalysis because when maturing “the people want to discover themselves.” According to him it is very important that in the private sector the maternity leave to become one year because during the first year the child needs the contact with the mother in order to develop its sense of security. “Do you know how much money the country would have saved if its citizens were growing up properly” ends Mr. Yosafat.