Dr. Vlasta Meden Klavora

The time comes when one meets the other side of life – death. Bidding farewell and facing the loss of the ones who have left a permanent mark in our life. We have accompanied our professional colleague, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, group analyst, court expert and friend, Dr. Vlasta Meden Klavora to her eternal rest. She went to another world, the world of complete silence and peace. We are left with grief and memories of our common path. On this path we were more her fellow travellers than co-creators as she was always the one full of life energy and vigour.

Dr. Klavora was born 64 years ago in November in Postojna, where, with her characteristic persistence, she finished secondary school and then continued to study medicine in Ljubljana. She graduated at the beginning of autumn in 1979. During this time, she met her future husband, an architect, and together they created a family. She decided to specialize in psychiatry and was first employed at the Idrija psychiatric hospital where she worked between 1984 and 1992. She studied group analysis in Ljubljana between 1991 and 1995. Later she became the head of Psychiatric dispensary and then continued her work at the Private Psychiatric Clinic of Nova Gorica.

In her work, she often encountered “severe pathology” and persistently searched for new diagnostic and therapeutic pathways. She has repeatedly returned to the individual, his experience and understanding of himself, his environment and people, and looked for the reflection of his experiences in fine arts. She was an aesthete and felt at home in art. That is why in 2006 she completed her doctoral studies in the field of anthropology of everyday life with a dissertation titled: Artistic Creativity and Psychotic Disorder. The dissertation was followed by her book debut When a Soul Has Nowhere to Go. In 2010 she was the inspiration behind a symposium titled Creativity and Mental Disease that was held at the Idrija Psychiatric Hospital and the proceedings of which were published in a comprehensive and richly illustrated monograph.

She organized a number of professional interdisciplinary meetings of the psychiatric and psychotherapeutic sections and Group Analytic Society. We admired her great organizational and logistical skills, and above all her ability to connect people of different disciplines. She was also an exceptional host.

She had a strong sense of selecting current professional topics and wrote a number of professional articles, either alone or with colleagues. She helped organize and present her work at meetings of the Slovenian Psychotherapists Association and the Slovenian Group Analytic Society whose chair she was between 2003 and 2007. She participated in the exhibition of the artwork of the patient named “Pigro” in Dubrovnik and published her findings in Psychiatria Danubina’s (edition 6, 8 and 17 in 2011). She participated in organizing group analysis studies at the Institute of Group Analysis Ljubljana. She also led educational groups in post-graduate studies in psychotherapy. Since 2013 Dr. Klavora has been a member of the Honorary Tribunal of the Slovenian Psychotherapists Association and the Slovenian Group Analytic Society, to which she importantly contributed with her opinions and ethical attitude.

At our joint meeting this April, she had many new plans for cross-border regional cooperation, not being aware that a tragic outcome of her short and severe illness would interrupt the search for and discovery of the new.

With her passing away we have lost an important part of our common life. In the distance there quietly appears a revelation: how short and yet rich our earthly life can be. Thank you Vlasta.

Janez Rojšek