After the collapse of the communist regime in 1990, a marketoriented economic system has emerged in Albania. Nevertheless, the transition from a hermetic self-reliant system into an open democratic society has been severely undermined at least twice: in 1997 and more recently in 1999 (due to the war in Kosovo). The 1997 turmoil was due to the collapse of savings schemes known as “pyramids”. The “pyramid phenomenon”, to a certain extent experienced by most of the countries in transition, was nevertheless unique in Albania due to the extremely large scale of the population’s involvement. It is estimated that almost 2/3rds of the Albanian population took part in these savings schemes, and that the total sum lost exceeded one billion USD in a country whose total GDP was not more than 2.5 billion USD (1). The social consequences of this collapse were immense and chaos reigned for a prolonged period. Effects on socio-economic status and social mobility were probably profound. The psychosocial environment in Albania is still enveloped by the “pyramid” effect and its sequelae are still shaping to a certain extent the political, economic and social environment.