Long-acting injectable antipsychotics were developed in the second half of the twentieth century as an important element in the deinstitutionalization process of psychiatric patients. Today, their role is significant in improving compliance, achieving stable drug concentrations in plasma, preventing relapses, and enhancing cognitive functioning in chronic patients. Although several long-acting secondand third-generation antipsychotic preparations have been registered over the past two decades, only four preparations are currently registered in our region: long-acting risperidone microspheres and in situ microparticle-based (ISM) formulations; paliperidone palmitate formulations for one and three months. This review aims to present their pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, clinical efficacy, side effects, and challenges in titration and interchangeability of these preparations.
Psychedelics are psychoactive substances that cause changes in perception, state of consciousness, mood and numerous cognitive processes. The best known are lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), psilocybin and mescaline. The main mechanism of action of psychedelics is agonism towards serotonin 5-HT2A receptors. In the middle of the 20th century, interest in the use of psychedelics in treatment of affective disorders and addiction disease arose, but due to political pressure and the potential danger of uncontrolled use, they were banned in the 1970s. In the absence of innovations in treatment and new psychopharmacological agents, the potential of psychedelics in the treatment of mental disorders has again been the focus of research in recent decades. In this paper, the neurobiology of psychedelics will be presented in the light of current research on their effects on neural networks and neuroplasticity, and therefore the possibilities of therapeutic application in psychiatry. Also, recent research will be presented with an emphasis on randomized double-blind placebo-controlled studies in which the effectiveness of the use of psychedelics in the treatment of depression and disorders caused by the use of alcohol and other psychoactive substances was examined. Findings so far indicate that psychedelics may be a promising new approach for the treatment of mental disorders, but the use of psychedelics for these purposes raises not only bioethical, but also new legal issues.
This paper explores the deep parallels between phenomenological psychiatry and the modern novel, arguing that both disciplines act as "guardians" of the lived world (Lebenswelt) against the reductive tendencies of modern scientism. Drawing from phenomenological psychiatry - particularly the work of Jaspers, Minkowski, Binswanger, Fuchs, Sass, and Parnas - and literary modernism as articulated by Kundera and others, I show how both psychiatry and literature illuminate the subtle textures of subjective experience, including temporality, embodiment, and intersubjectivity. Literary modernism, exemplified in the works of Kafka, Woolf, Proust, and Kundera, not only anticipates but extends the phenomenological exploration of disturbances in these experiential structures, such as those seen in depression, schizophrenia, and trauma. By juxtaposing phenomenological psychiatry's clinical accounts with literary portrayals, the paper reveals how the novel's narrative imagination offers "eidetic" insights into lived experiences that exceed positivist, objectifying models of mind. The analysis extends to Serbian and Yugoslav literature, showing how authors such as Petrović, Kiš, Pavić, Pekić, and Živković have crafted intricate narratives that align with phenomenological psychiatry's emphasis on the relational and historical embedding of subjectivity. Ultimately, this comparative analysis argues that both literature and phenomenological psychiatry fulfil an indispensable role: to safeguard and deepen our understanding of the lived world in an era dominated by abstraction and reductionism.
The most significant factor in theapeutic change is the therapeutic relationship. In this paper, we will consider the specifics of the therapeutic relationship from the perspective of analytical or Jungian psychotherapy. First, we will briefly explain the characteristics of the therapeutic relationship in the classical, archetypal and developmental school of Jungian psychotherapy. We will connect the psychotherapy process with the concept of individuation and in that context we will explain the analytical approach to the symptom as a crisis in the individuation process. Various viewpoints on transference will be presented, from the development of Jung's original ideas to the latest viewpoints on the nature and use of transference and countertransference in therapeutic work. We will compare psychoanalytic viewpoints on transference and countertransference, as well as the therapeutic relationship with the Jungian approach, in the paper we will discuss some of the similarities and differences in these approaches. In particular, we will consider the concept of the wounded healer. W e could understand this constellation as an archetypal basis for establishing an analytical relationship. Guggenbuhl-Craig extended the concept of the "wounded healer" to the field of all helping professions. This archetype has two poles; the first is manifested through health, power, ability, while the second pole of this archetype is manifested through weakness, illness, passivity, incapacity, dependence. It often happens that only one pole is associated with the role of doctor and psychotherapist. The second pole of the archetype - weakness and illness - is related to the role of the patient. And in fact, the therapist, just like the client, carries within him the potentials of both opposite aspects -health and illness. The wounded healer understands and heals precisely his wound, which never completely heals and represents a common field of experience for both the therapist and the client. We can also understand the recovery process as the process of activating the "inner healer" in our patients. After completion of the therapeutic process, they rely on their inner potential for healing and recovery, which is not only a result of the introjection of the therapist and the therapeutic relationship, but also has its archetypal basis.
