Members of the military returning from combat operations often exhibit a co-occurring triad of PTSD, traumatic brain injury , and pain, which complicates problems with substance abuse.
To understand the psychodynamics of the dissociative fugue, Dr Michael Sperber analyzes some of the characters in a collection of interrelated vignettes set in small town America.
Combat veterans who have suffered a moral injury in the past may be predisposed to a recurrence of the painful memories associated with previous trauma after exposure to similar traumatic events with moral overtones.
The role of prevention of trauma and prevention of functional impairment after trauma is paramount, because this may disrupt the accumulated physiological and psychological effect of stressors in the individual.
James Dao reports in the New York Times that the military is considering 2 steps to reduce its startling rate of active duty suicides—which is approaching an unacceptable one suicide every day. Both measures are completely sensible, but neither goes nearly far enough.
With understandable urgency, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has made suicide one of his top priorities, instructing commanders at all levels to feel acutely accountable for it. The numbers are startling. On average 1 active duty soldier is killing himself each day--twice the number of combat deaths and twice the civilian rate.
Apathy is our enemy. Pain, paradoxically, is our ally because it is one of the most powerful fuels we have to impel us to a different and better tomorrow.
A treatment model for soldiers returning from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other areas of conflict, “RESPECT-Mil” reaches out to soldiers affected by anxiety, PTSD, and depression.
Colonel David M. Benedek, MD—a psychiatrist—takes a brief look at the emotional fallout of war in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and points you to the "The Clinical Manual for Management of PTSD."
