Vladeta Jerotić grew up as the only child of an official of the Royal Court of Audit (Glavna kontrola) in Zadarska Street of the old Belgrade quarter Kosančićev venac. He attended the primary school and the gymnasium in his native place and graduated with maturity diploma in 1942. The young man could not continue his education at the university, because the academic institution was closed in the years of the German occupation during World War II in Yugoslavia.
In his memoirs, he described his parental home as non-nationalist, non-chauvinist and non-communist, and that no one from his whole family joined Tito’s PartisansorMihailović's Chetniks. Jerotić remained true to this principle and he never became a member of the Communist Party or any other political organization. In 1945, he began studying at the Medical Faculty and obtained his doctorate as MD in 1951. He specialized in neuropsychiatry and psychotherapy and spent several years for further professional training in Germany, Switzerland and France. During his stay in Bern, the young doctor had written contact with Hermann Hesse in 1959, which is listed and archived in the inventory and the collection of the Swiss Literary Archives. In 1961, he came back to Belgrade and worked at the institute of occupational health. In 1963, he moved to the Dragiša Mišović hospitalinDedinje and became appointed chief of the department for psychiatry in 1971–85.
He can be described as a believing Christian of the Serbian Orthodox religion, but he always wisely exerted the principles of respect, tolerance and openness towards other religions, based on the long-term knowledge from his psychological work. Jerotić described the human psyche as divided into three "parallelly and continuouslyactive" layers based on beliefs and traditions from either paganism, the Old Testament or the New Testament.[16]
Jerotić often compared and combined beliefs and teachings from different religions: "A man/woman is spiritually restless when she/he both loves and hates one and the same person (his/her child, spouse) sometimes or for a long while. She/he is unhappy when his/her love remains unrequited, she/he is then capable of turning into hate the love previously felt, unhappy when in fear of the loss of a loved one, deeply sorrowful and restless when the loss actually occurs. On the basis of this truth, the great Indian philosopher Buddha grounded his philosophical teaching incorporating the four truths and the eightfold path to salvation. However, one thing remains clear to the Christian and the psychologist that people shall remain restless as long as they love and hate."[17][18][19]
Death and legacy
[edit]A part of Dalmatinska Street in Belgrade, from Takovska to George Washington, was named after Jerotić in 2021Jerotić on a 2024 stamp of Serbia
Jerotić died on 4 September 2018 in Belgrade at the age of 94 and the numerous obituaries in the Serbian media appreciated his personality, integrity and philanthropy and presented the respect and importance that the Serbian society and its public pay tribute to him. He was buried in the New Cemetery.[20][21]
In 2007, the Jerotić Foundation (Zadužbina Vladete Jerotića) was established, which manages and preserves the extensive legacy of his lifetime achievement, consisting of more than over 500 publications, including about 200 studies and articles in scientific journals.[22]
50 pitanja i 50 odgovora: iz hrišćansko-psihoterapeutske prakse (50 questions and 50 answers: from Christian psychotherapeutic practice), Ars Libri, Belgrade 2003, ISBN86-7588-014-6.
Psihoterapija i religija (Psychotherapy and Religion), Ars Libri, Belgrade 2006, ISBN86-7588-081-2.
