Contact Person: 
Hungary: Dr. Thomas Pick, H-1093 Budapest , Bakats utca 8, Hungary, Tel: 36-1-216-5565, 
E-mail: tompick@terminus.inext.hu
International: Susan Scharwiess Windscheidstr 12,D-10627, Berlin, Germany,
E-mail: Susansch10@aol.com

Systems in Transition, an organization that links Mental Health professionals and social scientists across Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and other former Soviet countries (as well as some interested colleagues in Western Europe and the USA) was to have had its 8th Annual Meeting this May in Macedonia. The Balkan War ended that plan, but thanks to its local members and the Budapest based KIÚT Szociális és Mentálhigiénés Egyesület the Conference was moved at short notice to the Hotel Nimród in Dobogókó Hungary. It kept its original title, now both ironic and urgent. "Overcoming Violence: People, Families, Societies. "Many of the discussion groups reflected the planned program which sought understanding of the links between poverty and violence, and how resilience from violent family and social situations may emerge. From Russia Alexander Shapiro, a family therapist, spoke on building family resilience, and Albina Pastina, director of a Moscow women's shelter gave a vivid picture of the links between economic reform, poverty and violence. Robert Oravecz from Slovenia spoke on secondary vicarious traumatization in former Yugoslavia. Later rejoined Tom Pick, Andrea Petritz and György Bodor of Hungary to present the results of a program of rehabilitation training for teachers in Croatia. Dagmar Kopcanova from Slovakia spoke on Children and Violence on TV. But a major focus was the war and learning how people can talk deeply with each other across boundaries of ethnic hatred and suffering, and thinking what can be done locally in face of the catastrophic failures to achieve non violent societies or contain the violence in our midst. Zorica from Belgrade was particularly eloquent in describing the struggle for clarity for Serbs who feel themselves in opposition to Milosevic, angry at NATO bombing, and resentful of the perceived failure of western organizations to support anti Milosevic elements in Yugoslavia/Serbia. SIT members from Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia, Yugoslavia, Russia , Bulgaria , Romanian, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Portugal, UK, USA, Australia, Italy and Germany participated in the discussions. Systems in Transition was founded in 1991 when an international group of family therapists in or near the former communist countries realized the similarities and differences they were experiencing in the massive rapid changes occurring to their patients, their working places and their personal lives. They started to meet annually around a different topic, such as Identity, Leadership, and Gender Issues. By sharing experiences, problems and solutions they learned that they could more easily see their own issues in a wider context, become interested in the theoretic dimensions of change and the interlining of individual, family and community experiences. In 1997, after hearing of the experiences of Sarajevan therapists during the siege, and of the rise in family violence in Russia, the group decided on a three year concentration on understanding the crucial factors that underlay violent behavior in specific settings and, equally important, the factors that have helped prevent deprivation and conflict from erupting into violence. At the Dobogókó meeting it was decided to orient the final "violence" year toward reconciliation and building less violent communities. SIT will also edit a book of readings on Interventions against Violence, another on Transition, and make an anthology of annotated case histories to be of use to teachers, therapists and researchers concerned with preventing violence.