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Unprofessional tattoos in Bulgaria – psychological aspects
Author(s) -
Kazandjieva J.,
Kamarashev J.,
Kadurina M.,
Tsankov N.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of the european academy of dermatology and venereology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.655
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1468-3083
pISSN - 0926-9959
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-3083.1995.tb00347.x
Subject(s) - meaning (existential) , psychic , element (criminal law) , resistance (ecology) , communism , perception , medicine , aesthetics , period (music) , character (mathematics) , the symbolic , psychoanalysis , psychology , law , psychotherapist , art , political science , ecology , alternative medicine , geometry , mathematics , pathology , neuroscience , politics , biology
Background People suffered many psychic traumas during the period of the communist rule which altered their perception of the outer world and of themselves. For many their skin became a place where their frustration could be expressed. Up to now the psychological aspects of tattoos in the countries from Eastern Europe have been decidedly understudied. Method We have studied over 100 tattoos, done after the end of World War II in Bulgaria. Aim To examine the motivations for getting tattoos and their symbolic meanings. Conclusions On the ground of motivation three main groups were differentiated. The first group comprises lines and drawings without any meaning or sense, which could be interpreted as a pure form of autoaggression. The second group consisted of symbols of resistance – anticommunist, promonarchic, etc. The closed character of the socialist society brought to life the third group of motives – symbols of the “west” and of the so called “western way of life”. Many of the tattoos observed by us were self‐made and carried an element of self‐inflicted injury.