Selman completed an MA in psychology at Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2011.

Tell us about your involvement with the study, Selman?

In a fruitful collaboration with my dear colleagues (Prof. Lidija Injac Stevović & Tamara Radojičić), I have primarily been working on mental health policy analysis in our five countries, then on clinical assessments of our study participants, data analysis (both quantitative and qualitative) and papers for national and international journals. 

Tell us a bit about yourself outside work - what do you like to do in your free time?  

Creative and fulfilling parenthood, coupled with the working challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been my main preoccupation for a year now. During my spare time, I also jump into the interesting and responsible role of the administrator of a Facebook group - Personality Psychology, Neuropsychology, and Positive Psychology) with over 13K members. Sometimes, I dare to ‘steal’ some precious time (that definitely belongs to my son and wife) in order to have the pleasure of reading and enjoying some Nabokov, Miller, or Durrell.

Why is your research important? What are the real-world applications?  

Not mine but our research is very important for people suffering from severe mental disorders. I will share with you and our readership several underpinnings of my statement: (1) lots of these people receive only medication; (2) patients liked DIALOG+ because clinicians invest their time in listening, understanding and trying to solve patients’ problems; (3) usually, patients are not asked to carry out personally-relevant activities during their quotidian life, I mean the activities that are doable and could improve their quality of life (as it is the case with the DIALOG+ intervention); and (4) they need to be reintegrated into their local communities (accepted and supported by their close and extended families, neighbours, and other people they could interact with).

What do you think are the biggest barriers and/or facilitators to improving mental health research and/or clinical practice in the region?  

Probably it would look like a too pessimistic view, but I do not see any facilitators to improving neither mental health research nor the clinical practice in this field in our region. This gives me enough space to list the current barriers; however, I will highlight just two of them – (1) insufficient levels of researchers’ methodological knowledge/skills and (2) the well-known research-practice gap that stems from lack of productive and constructive communication between the academic community and (mental and lots of other) health professionals.

Share some funny/endearing memories from your experience on the study?  

When a patient shared with me that his clinician asked him (I will provide here the literal translation of the question): “I., what are we going to drink next?’’ In our language, “drinking medication” means the same as “taking medication” and his question in our language sounds like “having another (especially alcoholic) drink”. Another patient, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, told me that on New Year’s Eve, “we'll be in the plus.” She wanted to say that the temperatures in our city will be above 0°C. Keeping in mind that there is ''the plus'' and ''the minus'' phase in bipolar disorder, this sentence that comes from the mouth of the person for whom I know (and she knows) that experiences these phases sounds pretty witty.