School Shooting in Serbia – A Huge Collective Trauma and Challenge for Public Mental Health

Abstract

Traumatic experiences are frequent and may cause serious consequences, affecting an individual, a larger group of people, or a whole society. Collective trauma might be a cataclysmic event that shatters the basic fabric of society leaving the profound acute and long-lasting effects. In addition to the loss of lives, huge injuries, collective trauma, or “social wounds,” often arouses a crisis of meaning. Unfortunately, school shootings causing most tragic collective trauma have become frequent in many countries. The one that recently occurred in Serbia with mass victims was unprecedented and unique experience that affected the whole population. The causes might be multiple and should be thoroughly assessed, with an integrative, biopsychosocial approach (genetic predisposition, developmental problems, parenting, media, i.e., social influences, relationship with peers, and personality structure). The consequences of such horrific traumatic experience are profound, and a challenge for public mental health, with a whole spectrum of psychological effects, both on individual and collective level. In addition to mental health consequences and potential long-term trauma and grief, school shootings can have significant consequences for society and the law. There is an urgent need for public health approach to trauma, prevention, and mental health promotion in schools and the whole society.