This posting expounds more on my last article from July 10, 2009. There might be more on this subject coming soon.
We all have unconscious scripts that we operate from originating in our childhood; from friends, family, community, culture and nation. When we fail to identify these scripts, standard operating procedures or behavior patterns, the consequences from such can become overwhelming. Baffling choices can leave us questioning our decision making skills and can have deleterious effects on our lives leaving us with a lifetime of regret and sorrow.
When we fail to look at why we make our decisions and how we made them, then we can become caught in a cycle of self defeating behaviors. Sometimes we may begin to accept our "bad luck" or "fate" and resign ourselves to a life of broken dreams. If we believe in our perceived life restrictions then we fail to live to our potential.
Showing posts with label social skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social skills. Show all posts
July 11, 2009
November 24, 2008
Predisposition to Develop Trauma Based Disorders or Personality Disorders
The ambiguity of family dynamics can lead to mixed feelings or even a lack of feelings depending on the degree of possible neglect or abuse. We rely on our parental figures to shape our personality and values structures, through attachments with significant others, the attachments become avenues of exchange. If this exchange becomes distorted to the point of the child becoming a repository instead a healthy exchange of proper boundaries, then the nature of our attachments may become warped.
Attachments can be considered the vehicles of spontaneity, to become spontaneous the person must develop a mechanism for the free exchange of intimacy and interpersonal skill sets. Without a healthy development of attachments then disorganized attachments form. The d-attachments become the mechanism to gauge interactions in the environment and in doing so they become rigid, an if this then that kind of existence.
The d-attachment arraignment only allows for what can be controlled under a series of contingencies plans, or procedural knowledge, usually modeled after our parental attachments, an identification with the aggressor or other such negative role model.
The mind can develop into split affective regions where multiple self-states dissociate the incompatible values systems and set up residence along with establishing a unified substructure within matching internal guidance systems. The dissociated subsystems run parallel to other self-states and emerge when a particular skill set needs to asserted pertaining to situational interactions. Here the trauma based disorders may lead the symptomology into further entrenching of compartmentalization, and neglectful family structures may lead to personality disorders.
The cycle of procedural enactments play out in significant others that we allow in our lives, the reason why we keep having the same argument and never finding a resolution. We enact our past roles and project them into our relationships acting out the roles of our prior childhood to attempt to resolve the attachments constructively. Since we have not been shown healthy attachment enactments then we reside in the cycle of d-attachments and further compound our disorders through retraumatization and or neglect, predisposing the person to develop trauma based disorders or personality disorders.
October 9, 2008
Warrior Survival Skills
I thought that this comment was relevant to the problem of soldiers and veterans survival skills that worked so well in combat, actually become a hindrance once they return home. I want the warriors of today to realize that these skill sets can be adapted for use in society, that we can use most of our PTSD symptoms as new skill set.
Granted that our minds have been overexposed to the primitive portion of our brain and we have a hyper-response thinking landscape, but coming from strengths perspective we do have a vast amount of skill sets to work from. With becoming educated on how our minds used to work and how they function today after combat we can begin to make sense of our thinking patterns and reaction responses, and to learn to govern our facilities more efficiently.
Comment from a reader,
Granted that our minds have been overexposed to the primitive portion of our brain and we have a hyper-response thinking landscape, but coming from strengths perspective we do have a vast amount of skill sets to work from. With becoming educated on how our minds used to work and how they function today after combat we can begin to make sense of our thinking patterns and reaction responses, and to learn to govern our facilities more efficiently.
Comment from a reader,
I'm a clinical psychologist who spent many years working with Vietnam vets with PTSD and doing research on PTSD. I have a son fighting in Afghanistan. One concept I found universally helpful in working with veterans with PTSD is to realize that you develop coping styles that are important survival skills in your combat environment. The problem is when you get back to the rest of the world the environment is different and those skills no longer work. Recognizing the now-past survival value of those coping styles often helps. The problem is then finding new ones to take their place while realizing your "symptoms" are just ways of expressing habits you developed to survive, that are now harmful instead of helpful.My response,
The attachment to my combat survival skill was hard for me to let go of, I unknowingly thought I would die if I gave them up. Seemingly my senses and body would hijack my mind and I could only be a witness looking out as I reflexively reacted to apparent hostility.
I honestly feel if I had not learned about values, social skills, and identifying the habits of survival that you speak of I would have wound up in prison, dead or some other way institutionalized.
Thank you for your comments and for your work and research with our veterans of Vietnam. I look forward to becoming a clinical social worker and therapist helping our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
May God bless you and your son's safe return home.
October 1, 2008
Combat Veterans and Institutions: A Systems Analysis
Returning Combat Veterans (RCV), have a difficult time reintegrating back into society and life within their family. They deal with a myriad of symptoms combining to hinder the RCV from coping in the civilian world, while having constructive relationships with their family and friends. The lack of psychological education and training while in the military poorly prepares the soldier for the horrors of war and the negative effects on mental functioning. Further compounding the problems for the RCV upon their return they encounter limited services and a Veterans Administration (VA) system more in tune with economics and regulations then providing best outcomes. The scope of this paper explains these concerns as they relate to the competition between veterans seeking help and a system geared toward a macro structural functionalist model that concentrates on peripheral wide applications. A deeper apprehension and awareness has to come forward for our veterans to get the help they need.
The problem between bureaucracies, the combat veteran and their family receiving help lies with the systems application of dynamic systems theory to address problems that require a more interactive ideology such as the ecological systems approach. The main criticism of systems theory treats the person as a machine or something that can be “fixed” lies central to the VA’s approach (Robbins, S.P., Pranab, C., Canda, E. R., pps. 28-47). The models and programs stemming from government to redress RCV issues fail to take into account the magnitude of their problems that extend beyond the medical model and psychological paradigm. The attempt by the VA to apply a blanket policy of treatment on all veterans who face problems such as the affects of psychological trauma in combat has failed.
The military way of life provides strong attachments through a communal approach to every aspect of interactions between soldiers and their families, whether through a support network for the spouse of a soldier to help one another, or to the training of our troops. Developing and enveloping the individual perspectives while opening them to a cohesive togetherness usually not felt before enlisting in the armed services. Now add in a military conflagration and this level of interpersonal commitment and associations become welded to each other’s identity (Lee, 2008f). By educating the soldiers on how personal bonds can be broken by combat and the importance of redeveloping connections with significant others could lessen the mental shock upon returning home.
While many physical features of the RCV may have changed, the deleterious effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) leave nothing the same and completely alter the landscape of the mind. “Taking another's life in the name of freedom, patriotism and because of your job description profoundly changes the person.” (Lee, 2008a, para. 2) Their whole existence has been transformed by the experience of killing; the morality of war trumps the niceties of society and lends the RCV to a reflexive reactionary response to the environment. The enormous adaptive impositions caused by combat disposes of coping and social skills, personal values, cognitive development, definitions of boundaries, stress management, and appropriate responses to environmental stimuli. All of these issues combine to challenge the RCV’s reintegration back into society, “…the environment, which is physical and social…can either support or fail to support the adaptive achievements of autonomy, competence, identity formation, and relatedness to others” (Robbins, 35).
Value identifications have importance to the combat veteran with PTSD, as their value system has been compromised by the acts of killing and war. The values and morality of war greatly conflict with society’s norms and principles. When the combat veteran brings this survival perspective home with them it alienates them from everyone who has not experienced combat, war and or trauma. Combat changes and alters the soldier’s sense of importance and trivializes niceties that lubricate society’s interactions and exchanges. Without identifying what values the veteran or soldier deems important they will continue to operate from the old combat values set and wonder why people [fail to] understand them (Lee 2008c, para. 3).
Soldiers in combat develop a powerful attachment to one another; the strength of this symbiotic bonding overshadows all others, even family. First of all the degree of familiarity and closeness that extreme survival situations such as combat, brings people together to a height one has never experienced before. People have an instinctual need to feel a belonging such as in a herd where they feel safe. This “herdness” has supplanted all other attachments while people they once knew intimately have become foreign and strange. The family, friends and soldier feel this estrangement and all involved become unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Family and friends cannot understand what the RCV has been through, so the soldier or veteran seeks other survivors who do (Lee, 2008e).
The militaristic concentration on rituals of drilling and killing so that one becomes a more efficient “terminator” through automatic reflexive responses to survival, leads the veteran prone to using violent behavior in any given situation where boundaries have been crossed. The open system dynamics of “normal” interaction has become highly dysfunctional for the RCV who has lost their “goodness of fit” within their home environment. The breakdown of a unifying suprasystem interferes with the holistic dimensions of the veteran, increasing the separation and antagonizing the loss of identity that humans claim from associations within their communities. Without an understanding of boundary maintenance the RCV often develops a feeling of being attacked at home and in their community due to their inability to adapt to the fluidity of boundaries inherent with socialization.
Ehrenreich (2003) seeks to advance an understanding of “social traumas” where, …[i]n the context of physical devastation, massive social displacement, and ongoing violence, the hierarchy of need reasserts itself: concrete needs for, health care, housing, and jobs, the need for social reconstruction and reintegration, and the necessity of social reconciliation may dwarf individual emotional needs.
The identification and reinforcement of values, emotion identification, and anger management techniques along with stress management training would enable soldiers to realize better coping strategies when coming out of the combat zone. Further, interpersonal communication and social skills education along with boundaries identification would foster closer relationships with significant others (Lee, 2008d). Further on the topic of values and principles, these systems have a connection to feelings and emotions or the lack thereof with one who dissociates as most RCVs and complex-PTSD sufferers do. Emotions and feelings are the arbiters of values, principles, and morality; the ethical dilemmas that keep most people in check can get bypassed with a combat veteran’s lack of affect. A normal reaction with a non-traumatized brain would trigger an emotive response cascading into consideration of appropriate responses. The higher level processes of cognitive interaction delve into a consideration of choices and consequences, whereas the traumatized brain operates from the lower base of primitive survival systems and defensive mechanisms forgoing the thought of repercussions (Lee, 2008c).
The subsystem of a combat squad having experienced several fire fights develops a sense of oneness with each other; they have become an independent ecosystem; one organism through the forging process of fight or flight. Due to the nature of killing and survival their emotionality has become severed from their environment and channeled into the solidarity that soldiering brings. If one of them gets wounded or killed they all feel it through their connection of unity and common goal of survival (Lee 2008d). Bonding through blood and battle takes the soldier to a new level of raw humanism forged through survival and fight or flight defensive mechanisms. The psychology of killing alters the terrain of the mind disabling the rational machinery and enabling the ancient reflexive responsive unconscious (Lee, 2008f).
The focus on killing without contemplating consequences severs the RCVs ritual of connection to community, family, and wholeness resulting in deviant adaptations. Their formative connections have remained back in the field of combat and killing, where they left part of themselves with their buddies who have yet to come home while carrying the guilt of leaving them behind. They feel that egoistic “warrior archetype” connection with the military and the battle buddy who had their back in the combat zone. In this mind frame when the veteran comes home; they become lost in a world that no longer makes sense to them due to adaptive process of bypassing the five senses and emotional attachment to considerations of interactions. The hard wiring of the combat veterans mind acts as if their life depends on the ritualism of defensive hyper-vigilance and keeps the RCV stuck in a malposition (Lee, 2008b).
When combat takes away the soldier who has became the centerpiece of an intimate community it breaks down. Whether he has been buried or she has become a prisoner of her own mind; war fractures the body, mind, spirit and the community that once knew cohesion (Lee, 2008f). Some soldiers will long for that interconnectedness left in the field when they came home and reenlist or volunteer for another tour. Many soldiers find that their PTSD symptoms dissipate or vanish while back in the theater of combat, they have reentered the realm of survival, fight or flight and oneness with soldiering (Lee, 2008e).
The troops who do make it out of the theater of combat have been changed in body and mind. They have lost substantial parts of their mind, soul and community. Psychological trauma devastates the battle buddy, spouse, and children while splintering everything that once was the bedrock of the American Soldier (Lee, 2008f). In addition the military needs to teach mental health sensitivity training and PTSD awareness as a standard, in basic training and continuing throughout their careers thus giving mental injuries of war validity. Training in these areas would give our soldiers an extra set of tools and weapons in fighting the psychological effects of combat and war. Educating them before hand of what they may face upon going home would prepare them if they develop PTSD. Otherwise they will have gained the insights and ability to recognize when their fellow soldier suffers from PTSD (Lee, 2008d).
References
Ehrenreich, J. H., (2003). Understanding PTSD: forgetting trauma. Journal of Social Issues, 3 (1) 15-28.
Lee, S. (2008a, July 13). Forgive me. PTSD, a soldier’s perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/07/forgive-me.html
Lee, S (2008b, July 20). My first email response. PTSD, a soldier’s perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-first-e-mail-response.html
Lee, S. (2008c, August 22). Thoughts feelings and behavior. PTSD, a soldier’s perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/08/thoughts-eelings-and-actions.html
Lee, S. (2008d, September 5). Fully train our soldiers for the rigors of war. PTSD, a soldier’s perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/09/fully-train-our-soldiers-for-rigors-of.html
Lee, S. (2008e, September 6). Soldiers in combat develop powerful attachments to one another. PTSD, a soldier’s perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/09/soldiers-in-combat-develop-powerful.html
Lee, S. (2008f, September 14). Lower recruitment standards contributing to military suicide rates. PTSD, a soldier's perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/09/lower-recruitment-standards.html
Robbins, S. P., Pranab, C. and Canda, E. R. (2006). Contemporary human behavior theory: a critical perspective for social work. Boston: Pearson Education.
The problem between bureaucracies, the combat veteran and their family receiving help lies with the systems application of dynamic systems theory to address problems that require a more interactive ideology such as the ecological systems approach. The main criticism of systems theory treats the person as a machine or something that can be “fixed” lies central to the VA’s approach (Robbins, S.P., Pranab, C., Canda, E. R., pps. 28-47). The models and programs stemming from government to redress RCV issues fail to take into account the magnitude of their problems that extend beyond the medical model and psychological paradigm. The attempt by the VA to apply a blanket policy of treatment on all veterans who face problems such as the affects of psychological trauma in combat has failed.
The military way of life provides strong attachments through a communal approach to every aspect of interactions between soldiers and their families, whether through a support network for the spouse of a soldier to help one another, or to the training of our troops. Developing and enveloping the individual perspectives while opening them to a cohesive togetherness usually not felt before enlisting in the armed services. Now add in a military conflagration and this level of interpersonal commitment and associations become welded to each other’s identity (Lee, 2008f). By educating the soldiers on how personal bonds can be broken by combat and the importance of redeveloping connections with significant others could lessen the mental shock upon returning home.
While many physical features of the RCV may have changed, the deleterious effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) leave nothing the same and completely alter the landscape of the mind. “Taking another's life in the name of freedom, patriotism and because of your job description profoundly changes the person.” (Lee, 2008a, para. 2) Their whole existence has been transformed by the experience of killing; the morality of war trumps the niceties of society and lends the RCV to a reflexive reactionary response to the environment. The enormous adaptive impositions caused by combat disposes of coping and social skills, personal values, cognitive development, definitions of boundaries, stress management, and appropriate responses to environmental stimuli. All of these issues combine to challenge the RCV’s reintegration back into society, “…the environment, which is physical and social…can either support or fail to support the adaptive achievements of autonomy, competence, identity formation, and relatedness to others” (Robbins, 35).
Value identifications have importance to the combat veteran with PTSD, as their value system has been compromised by the acts of killing and war. The values and morality of war greatly conflict with society’s norms and principles. When the combat veteran brings this survival perspective home with them it alienates them from everyone who has not experienced combat, war and or trauma. Combat changes and alters the soldier’s sense of importance and trivializes niceties that lubricate society’s interactions and exchanges. Without identifying what values the veteran or soldier deems important they will continue to operate from the old combat values set and wonder why people [fail to] understand them (Lee 2008c, para. 3).
Soldiers in combat develop a powerful attachment to one another; the strength of this symbiotic bonding overshadows all others, even family. First of all the degree of familiarity and closeness that extreme survival situations such as combat, brings people together to a height one has never experienced before. People have an instinctual need to feel a belonging such as in a herd where they feel safe. This “herdness” has supplanted all other attachments while people they once knew intimately have become foreign and strange. The family, friends and soldier feel this estrangement and all involved become unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Family and friends cannot understand what the RCV has been through, so the soldier or veteran seeks other survivors who do (Lee, 2008e).
The militaristic concentration on rituals of drilling and killing so that one becomes a more efficient “terminator” through automatic reflexive responses to survival, leads the veteran prone to using violent behavior in any given situation where boundaries have been crossed. The open system dynamics of “normal” interaction has become highly dysfunctional for the RCV who has lost their “goodness of fit” within their home environment. The breakdown of a unifying suprasystem interferes with the holistic dimensions of the veteran, increasing the separation and antagonizing the loss of identity that humans claim from associations within their communities. Without an understanding of boundary maintenance the RCV often develops a feeling of being attacked at home and in their community due to their inability to adapt to the fluidity of boundaries inherent with socialization.
Ehrenreich (2003) seeks to advance an understanding of “social traumas” where, …[i]n the context of physical devastation, massive social displacement, and ongoing violence, the hierarchy of need reasserts itself: concrete needs for, health care, housing, and jobs, the need for social reconstruction and reintegration, and the necessity of social reconciliation may dwarf individual emotional needs.
The identification and reinforcement of values, emotion identification, and anger management techniques along with stress management training would enable soldiers to realize better coping strategies when coming out of the combat zone. Further, interpersonal communication and social skills education along with boundaries identification would foster closer relationships with significant others (Lee, 2008d). Further on the topic of values and principles, these systems have a connection to feelings and emotions or the lack thereof with one who dissociates as most RCVs and complex-PTSD sufferers do. Emotions and feelings are the arbiters of values, principles, and morality; the ethical dilemmas that keep most people in check can get bypassed with a combat veteran’s lack of affect. A normal reaction with a non-traumatized brain would trigger an emotive response cascading into consideration of appropriate responses. The higher level processes of cognitive interaction delve into a consideration of choices and consequences, whereas the traumatized brain operates from the lower base of primitive survival systems and defensive mechanisms forgoing the thought of repercussions (Lee, 2008c).
The subsystem of a combat squad having experienced several fire fights develops a sense of oneness with each other; they have become an independent ecosystem; one organism through the forging process of fight or flight. Due to the nature of killing and survival their emotionality has become severed from their environment and channeled into the solidarity that soldiering brings. If one of them gets wounded or killed they all feel it through their connection of unity and common goal of survival (Lee 2008d). Bonding through blood and battle takes the soldier to a new level of raw humanism forged through survival and fight or flight defensive mechanisms. The psychology of killing alters the terrain of the mind disabling the rational machinery and enabling the ancient reflexive responsive unconscious (Lee, 2008f).
The focus on killing without contemplating consequences severs the RCVs ritual of connection to community, family, and wholeness resulting in deviant adaptations. Their formative connections have remained back in the field of combat and killing, where they left part of themselves with their buddies who have yet to come home while carrying the guilt of leaving them behind. They feel that egoistic “warrior archetype” connection with the military and the battle buddy who had their back in the combat zone. In this mind frame when the veteran comes home; they become lost in a world that no longer makes sense to them due to adaptive process of bypassing the five senses and emotional attachment to considerations of interactions. The hard wiring of the combat veterans mind acts as if their life depends on the ritualism of defensive hyper-vigilance and keeps the RCV stuck in a malposition (Lee, 2008b).
When combat takes away the soldier who has became the centerpiece of an intimate community it breaks down. Whether he has been buried or she has become a prisoner of her own mind; war fractures the body, mind, spirit and the community that once knew cohesion (Lee, 2008f). Some soldiers will long for that interconnectedness left in the field when they came home and reenlist or volunteer for another tour. Many soldiers find that their PTSD symptoms dissipate or vanish while back in the theater of combat, they have reentered the realm of survival, fight or flight and oneness with soldiering (Lee, 2008e).
The troops who do make it out of the theater of combat have been changed in body and mind. They have lost substantial parts of their mind, soul and community. Psychological trauma devastates the battle buddy, spouse, and children while splintering everything that once was the bedrock of the American Soldier (Lee, 2008f). In addition the military needs to teach mental health sensitivity training and PTSD awareness as a standard, in basic training and continuing throughout their careers thus giving mental injuries of war validity. Training in these areas would give our soldiers an extra set of tools and weapons in fighting the psychological effects of combat and war. Educating them before hand of what they may face upon going home would prepare them if they develop PTSD. Otherwise they will have gained the insights and ability to recognize when their fellow soldier suffers from PTSD (Lee, 2008d).
Ehrenreich, J. H., (2003). Understanding PTSD: forgetting trauma. Journal of Social Issues, 3 (1) 15-28.
Lee, S. (2008a, July 13). Forgive me. PTSD, a soldier’s perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/07/forgive-me.html
Lee, S (2008b, July 20). My first email response. PTSD, a soldier’s perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-first-e-mail-response.html
Lee, S. (2008c, August 22). Thoughts feelings and behavior. PTSD, a soldier’s perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/08/thoughts-eelings-and-actions.html
Lee, S. (2008d, September 5). Fully train our soldiers for the rigors of war. PTSD, a soldier’s perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/09/fully-train-our-soldiers-for-rigors-of.html
Lee, S. (2008e, September 6). Soldiers in combat develop powerful attachments to one another. PTSD, a soldier’s perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/09/soldiers-in-combat-develop-powerful.html
Lee, S. (2008f, September 14). Lower recruitment standards contributing to military suicide rates. PTSD, a soldier's perspective. Retrieved from http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/2008/09/lower-recruitment-standards.html
Robbins, S. P., Pranab, C. and Canda, E. R. (2006). Contemporary human behavior theory: a critical perspective for social work. Boston: Pearson Education.
September 25, 2008
A PTSD Tool Box: Suggestions in Help for a Combat PTSD Vet
For now concentrate on three things; your thoughts, feelings and behavior. Today the only thing you can change or control is your behavior, by doing so you can change your thinking and feelings over time. With concentration on your own thoughts and feelings you can begin to reconnect with yourself and better control your behavior.
- Get into counseling-to help with choices, services and direction of care
- Find a therapist you can trust-therapy for PTSD and the integration of thoughts, feelings and behavior
- Find a psychiatrist you trust-medications may help to manage anxiety, depression, etc
- Get a "Tool Box" for coping with PTSD
- Find some people who you can identify with who have PTSD to talk with-a link on how I put these things together, What I Did to Battle PTSD
- Educate yourself on PTSD and identify the symptoms of your particular case
- Tool Box,
- Find one or many anxiety reducing techniques-praying, meditation, exercising, yoga, tai chi, etc
- Identify warnings and triggers-for defensive mechanisms management
- Training in interpersonal communication-will reduce stress and alienation
- Emotion identification and thinking pattern recognition-you are not your emotions, it is OK for you to feel the way you do
- Behavioral awareness-with a concentration on responsibility for your behavior; do not let others actions dictate your own
- Values identification (what is important to you)-to help with overcoming debilitating effects of PTSD
- Boundaries identification-important in maintaining proper relationships
- Anger management and conflict resolution skills-a major issue with PTSD
- Set short and long term goals
September 5, 2008
Fully Train our Soldiers for the Rigors of War
In the military, especially in combat arms the training centers on becoming effective warriors without a concentration in developing into a full identity and individual, a requirement for reintegration back into society. In a battle with no solid enemy and no apparent battleground the warrior having been trained to combat the physical comes in contact with a foe that can over shadow the imagination.
The identification and reinforcement of values, emotion identification, anger management techniques along with stress management training would enable soldiers to realize better coping strategies when coming out of the combat zone. Further, interpersonal communication and social skills education along with boundaries identification would foster closer relationships with significant others.
By preparing the soldier or veteran they would have the necessary skills and tools to deal with the normal psychological adjustment of combat trauma and reintegration back into society. Also the person would have a proper foundation to treatment should they develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
In addition the military needs to teach mental health sensitivity training and PTSD awareness as a standard, in basic training and continuing throughout their careers thus giving mental injuries of war validity. Indoctrination and acceptance of psychological wounds would eventually break the stigma tied to mental trauma and allow soldiers and veterans to reach out before their lives spin out of control.
Training in these areas would give our soldiers an extra set of tools and weapons in fighting the psychological effects of combat and war. Training them before hand of what they may face upon going home would prepare them if they develop PTSD. Otherwise they will have gained the insights and ability to recognize when their fellow soldier suffers from PTSD.
As it stands now upon returning home after having been gone from family and loved ones the soldier goes through a psychological evaluation screening. Our soldiers know full well that if they give the wrong answers upon returning from Iraq and Afghanistan they will be kept from seeing their loved ones sooner. They have more incentive to ignore or commit to denial the signs of mental distress inherent in the actions of combat. This system compounds the problems of PTSD instead of addressing them, by reinforcing and legitimizing excuses and reasons to drive on without asking for help.
Finally, most Vietnam Veterans exhibited signs of PTSD years after coming home. Although I exhibited signs within the first year, it was 10-14 years before my PTSD became debilitating.
The identification and reinforcement of values, emotion identification, anger management techniques along with stress management training would enable soldiers to realize better coping strategies when coming out of the combat zone. Further, interpersonal communication and social skills education along with boundaries identification would foster closer relationships with significant others.
By preparing the soldier or veteran they would have the necessary skills and tools to deal with the normal psychological adjustment of combat trauma and reintegration back into society. Also the person would have a proper foundation to treatment should they develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
In addition the military needs to teach mental health sensitivity training and PTSD awareness as a standard, in basic training and continuing throughout their careers thus giving mental injuries of war validity. Indoctrination and acceptance of psychological wounds would eventually break the stigma tied to mental trauma and allow soldiers and veterans to reach out before their lives spin out of control.
Training in these areas would give our soldiers an extra set of tools and weapons in fighting the psychological effects of combat and war. Training them before hand of what they may face upon going home would prepare them if they develop PTSD. Otherwise they will have gained the insights and ability to recognize when their fellow soldier suffers from PTSD.
As it stands now upon returning home after having been gone from family and loved ones the soldier goes through a psychological evaluation screening. Our soldiers know full well that if they give the wrong answers upon returning from Iraq and Afghanistan they will be kept from seeing their loved ones sooner. They have more incentive to ignore or commit to denial the signs of mental distress inherent in the actions of combat. This system compounds the problems of PTSD instead of addressing them, by reinforcing and legitimizing excuses and reasons to drive on without asking for help.
Finally, most Vietnam Veterans exhibited signs of PTSD years after coming home. Although I exhibited signs within the first year, it was 10-14 years before my PTSD became debilitating.
August 20, 2008
Warrior Archetype
The military trains us to believe in self sufficiency in all matters other than survival in terms of combat. You know the ad on TV that says an "Army of one". As much as they drill team work on a firing squad, movement, and never leave a buddy; they also instill this facade of invincibility.
The majority of soldiers in the military reside at the level of ego development, where a good dose of identifying emotions and empathy would help negate the aggressive side that young men feel (Sugar, 279-283). In primitive cultures, rituals help identify the aggression and integrate this "warrior archetype" into the complete person. Usually along the way an elder mentors them and helps identify the emotions and differing parts of the psyche while instilling an integration of the differing selfs, mother earth, community and spirituality.
In the military the ritual of drilling and killing concentrates on becoming an automatic reflexive response to aggression and survival. My point, the focus of killing without learning how to deal and cope after they go home leaves the returning veteran aimless and without a ritual of connection to community, family, and wholeness. Their formative associations have been left back in the field of combat and killing, where they have left part of themselves with the ones not going home and take with them the guilt of leaving.
They feel the egoistic interconnectedness with the military, the "warrior archetype" and the battle buddy who has been left back in the combat zone rather than with significant others upon returning. In this mind frame when the veteran goes home they become lost in a world that no longer makes sense as they have been taught not to process the five senses and emotional attachment imperative to social interaction. The combat veterans mind acts as if their life depends on a reactionary environment incompatible with the development of long lasting relationships (Sugar, 287). How do I live in regular society if I am stuck in this malposition?
Young combat veterans coming out of the military may need help with accessing and identifying their intrinsic values and principles and the process of reintegrating back into society and reestablishing their new roles.
The majority of soldiers in the military reside at the level of ego development, where a good dose of identifying emotions and empathy would help negate the aggressive side that young men feel (Sugar, 279-283). In primitive cultures, rituals help identify the aggression and integrate this "warrior archetype" into the complete person. Usually along the way an elder mentors them and helps identify the emotions and differing parts of the psyche while instilling an integration of the differing selfs, mother earth, community and spirituality.
In the military the ritual of drilling and killing concentrates on becoming an automatic reflexive response to aggression and survival. My point, the focus of killing without learning how to deal and cope after they go home leaves the returning veteran aimless and without a ritual of connection to community, family, and wholeness. Their formative associations have been left back in the field of combat and killing, where they have left part of themselves with the ones not going home and take with them the guilt of leaving.
They feel the egoistic interconnectedness with the military, the "warrior archetype" and the battle buddy who has been left back in the combat zone rather than with significant others upon returning. In this mind frame when the veteran goes home they become lost in a world that no longer makes sense as they have been taught not to process the five senses and emotional attachment imperative to social interaction. The combat veterans mind acts as if their life depends on a reactionary environment incompatible with the development of long lasting relationships (Sugar, 287). How do I live in regular society if I am stuck in this malposition?
Young combat veterans coming out of the military may need help with accessing and identifying their intrinsic values and principles and the process of reintegrating back into society and reestablishing their new roles.
August 19, 2008
Battling PTSD
The identification and reinforcement of values, social skills and anger management techniques along with realizing warning signs and stress management training strategies enables veterans to realize a better life. Without integrating these skill sets into the neurological pathways, the heavily imprinted traumatic axonal entrenchment supersedes conscious thinking processes and the mind seeks behavior reminiscent of the initial trauma. The hyper states of PTSD once engaged result in the continuation of the dominate neurological processes.
A deeper apprehension and awareness has to come forward for our veterans to get the help they need.
I have learned that I do not have to let PTSD define me, I now have a skill set and the tools with definite boundaries to interact with significant others and society. This did not come easy, first the battle within to admit to the need for help when I believed that I could handle anything due to my training and experiences.
I was in a drug and alcohol treatment center affiliated with the VA for 20 months from 2005-2007. During this time I had classes in behavioral and cognitive restructuring at the treatment center along with boundaries identification, anger management, group therapy, individual counseling, conflict resolution skills, and peer accountability in a structured environment. I was also am working a twelve step program of recovery and learned spiritual principles and a relationship with a higher power.
During this time I also found a resource to do private therapy outside of the VA system and worked on my childhood issues for 18 months. The therapist that I worked with was a great influence on my decision to become a therapist myself. I trusted the man and he was empathic and I found trust and communion with him.
In conjunction with all of the above I was receiving individual therapy at the VA with a PhD Psychologist for PTSD along with group therapy for 6 months, where I learned values identification and skill sets for reducing anxiety. Cognitive restructuring and anxiety reduction I did independently and separately with different organizations. I read numerous books on PTSD, depression, OCD, cognitive and behavioral psychology and Buddhism.
For the first year I was prescribed colonopin for at the treatment center. I was literally insane, was almost kicked out of the program three times, full of anger, hostility, and self pity.
It took 18 months and trying 9 different antidepressants medications before I found one that worked the best for me. I now take 200 mg of wellbutrin two times a day for dysthymia, omeprazole 20 mg twice a day for acid reflux, 100 mg of fluvoxamine once before bedtime for OCD and PTSD, 1600 mg of gabapentin for restless leg syndrome and somataform pain and finally 400 mg of modafinil in the morning for fatigue.
Oh yeah, and I also found patience along the way. I learned that meditation, praying and a spiritual connection was important to my recovery. I found through several resources the holistic healing approach was the key to my success.
Then comes then the conflicting bureaucracy bullshit. I tried to get help 7 times over 14 years, the VA's set up triggers the veteran who has yet to acquire the skill set to talk about combat issues. But to get a diagnosis they made me talk extensively in detail about my wartime activities. My experience was I had to acquire a diagnosis before I could receive the help that I needed.
I had told the VA about the abuse I received when I was a child and they used that to reduce my service connected compensation for PTSD. I would suggest to have clients separate their childhood issues for private therapy and use the VA for PTSD therapy.
The VA is just now beginning to set up a model for treating PTSD patients, the program I was in had started in 2004. There is not a complete treatment model yet for veterans and soldiers for PTSD. We are at the beginning and behind the curve in helping and seeing our veterans to a new and healthy life.
I am now in my junior year in the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville and will complete my masters in 2011. My plan is to work at the VA and get experience in working with veterans and specialize in combat and trauma therapy. Eventually I would like to open my own longterm treatment program for veterans with PTSD.
I hope some of this helped and I understand the dilemma that you face.
A deeper apprehension and awareness has to come forward for our veterans to get the help they need.
I have learned that I do not have to let PTSD define me, I now have a skill set and the tools with definite boundaries to interact with significant others and society. This did not come easy, first the battle within to admit to the need for help when I believed that I could handle anything due to my training and experiences.
I was in a drug and alcohol treatment center affiliated with the VA for 20 months from 2005-2007. During this time I had classes in behavioral and cognitive restructuring at the treatment center along with boundaries identification, anger management, group therapy, individual counseling, conflict resolution skills, and peer accountability in a structured environment. I was also am working a twelve step program of recovery and learned spiritual principles and a relationship with a higher power.
During this time I also found a resource to do private therapy outside of the VA system and worked on my childhood issues for 18 months. The therapist that I worked with was a great influence on my decision to become a therapist myself. I trusted the man and he was empathic and I found trust and communion with him.
In conjunction with all of the above I was receiving individual therapy at the VA with a PhD Psychologist for PTSD along with group therapy for 6 months, where I learned values identification and skill sets for reducing anxiety. Cognitive restructuring and anxiety reduction I did independently and separately with different organizations. I read numerous books on PTSD, depression, OCD, cognitive and behavioral psychology and Buddhism.
For the first year I was prescribed colonopin for at the treatment center. I was literally insane, was almost kicked out of the program three times, full of anger, hostility, and self pity.
It took 18 months and trying 9 different antidepressants medications before I found one that worked the best for me. I now take 200 mg of wellbutrin two times a day for dysthymia, omeprazole 20 mg twice a day for acid reflux, 100 mg of fluvoxamine once before bedtime for OCD and PTSD, 1600 mg of gabapentin for restless leg syndrome and somataform pain and finally 400 mg of modafinil in the morning for fatigue.
Oh yeah, and I also found patience along the way. I learned that meditation, praying and a spiritual connection was important to my recovery. I found through several resources the holistic healing approach was the key to my success.
Then comes then the conflicting bureaucracy bullshit. I tried to get help 7 times over 14 years, the VA's set up triggers the veteran who has yet to acquire the skill set to talk about combat issues. But to get a diagnosis they made me talk extensively in detail about my wartime activities. My experience was I had to acquire a diagnosis before I could receive the help that I needed.
I had told the VA about the abuse I received when I was a child and they used that to reduce my service connected compensation for PTSD. I would suggest to have clients separate their childhood issues for private therapy and use the VA for PTSD therapy.
The VA is just now beginning to set up a model for treating PTSD patients, the program I was in had started in 2004. There is not a complete treatment model yet for veterans and soldiers for PTSD. We are at the beginning and behind the curve in helping and seeing our veterans to a new and healthy life.
I am now in my junior year in the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville and will complete my masters in 2011. My plan is to work at the VA and get experience in working with veterans and specialize in combat and trauma therapy. Eventually I would like to open my own longterm treatment program for veterans with PTSD.
I hope some of this helped and I understand the dilemma that you face.
July 20, 2008
My First E-mail Response
I received my first email and would like to share my response,I am honored with your acknowledgment and inspiration. I encourage you who is reading this to e-mail me, comment on my articles good or bad, digg it, stumble it, your criticism is welcome and especially your stories. By coming together and sharing our passions, narratives, compassion, empathy and humanity we begin to heal what has been broken.
My response to my first e-mail:
My response to my first e-mail:
I sure do appreciate your email and your interest in our veterans, they need our love and support. The soldiers that are in denial will have to figure out for themselves that they need help. The sad thing is that it will probably take years for their mental illness to progress to the point of prison, unemployability, divorce, addiction, homicide, and finally suicide. Giving them information and support will help, but they will not get help until they are ready to.(e-mail edited for clarity and fluidity)
The whole soldiering thing trains us to believe we are self sufficient in matters other than survival and combat. You know the ad on TV that says an Army of one. As much as they drill team work on a firing squad, movement, and never leave a buddy; they instill this facade of invincibility. Most of our soldiers are at the age of ego development, where a good dose of identifying emotions and empathy would negate the aggressive side that young men feel. It is an evolutionary instinctual part of a boy growing into a man. In primitive cultures their are rituals that incorporate the aggression and identify it for what it is and integrate this "warrior" archetype into the complete person. Usually along the way an elder mentors them and helps them identify the emotions and differing parts of the psyche while instilling an integration of the differing selfs, mother earth, community and spirituality.
In the military this ritual just concentrates on the drilling and killing so that it becomes automatic, a reflexive response to aggression and survival. My point is that the focus is on how to kill and do that, not how do I deal with it after they go home to their community and family. They are left without a ritual of connection to community, family, and wholeness. Their formative connection is back in the field of combat and killing, they leave part of themselves there with their buddies who are not coming home yet and take with them the guilt of leaving their buddies behind. They feel that egoistic "warrior archetype" connection with the military and the battle buddy who has his or her back in the combat zone. In this type of mind frame when the veteran goes home; they become lost in a world that no longer makes sense to them because they have been taught to not process the five senses and emotional attachment to interaction. The hard wiring of the combat veterans mind acts as if their life depends on it. How do I live in regular society if I am stuck in this malposition?
Well did I just rattle of some stuff or what. No I do not even know what EFT is, but I will certinally research the approach and look into its value and techniques. As far as volunteering you do not need a degree. Just research different groups and decide which one appeals to you and offer your help. If they do not have the area of service you would like to help with, then organize it yourself. I am looking into groups who mentor young veterans coming out of the military to help with the process of reintegrating back into society and help them access and identify their new roles and other aspects of their intrinsic values and principles.
I am 40 and in school, I have seen many people in my classes who are in their 50's and older. Go to school and chase your passions, by doing so work becomes something other than a task. It becomes a part of you that connects with people in a way we were meant to be, a community of people supporting one another.
I would like to talk more with you and keep in contact by email for now. Thank you for your response to my blog I am deeply appreciative of it. You are the first to email me about it, again thank you. If you would, write some comments on articles that interest or touch you the most. Also, if you would subscribe, digg it, stumble it, email it to all your friends and tell of my mission and the epidemic of mentally ill veterans we will be faced with in the coming years.
You brightened my day,
Scott
July 5, 2008
Never Give in to the Enemy
To say that with treatment we can get better seems to suggest that we can be cured. This is not the case, we can improve our standard of living by learning coping skills, become educated about our triggers, learn to identify and express our emotions. PTSD rewires the brains neurological landscape, it is as if we have been given a new brain with the same memories and no one told us of the switch. With this new brain we have been given hijacked neuropathways telling us that our survival is in jeopardy. Without the education, social and coping skills training, values identification, relaxation techniques, counseling and therapy, this debilitating and overwhelming mental illness will defeat us every time (Cercone, 305-307).
I dealt with PTSD by self medicating for 14 years until my anger, suffering, fear and unmet needs became overwhelming. It can take years for the problems to accumulate to the point of self-destruction. My realization of this began when a man stabbed me in the face because I had offended him numerous times and when he had an opportunity he acted on it. It took someone trying to take my life to realize that I was mentally ill and that I needed help. My behavior, attitude and cognitive processes had digressed to the point of self hatred and feelings of unworthiness.
I kept thinking of killing myself for 15 years or so, driving off the road, instigating fights, fingering my gun and imaging the relief I would feel if I just pulled the trigger. I could not do it myself, so I sought out people and situations that endangered my existence. How do I kill myself without me doing it? I thank God that I persevered through it and I am well enough today that I may help someone else like me, which was Gods plan all along.
If you know of a veteran or someone you may think is suffering from PTSD, help them get help. In the military we are trained to keep going, to never give in to the enemy. The returning veteran needs our help in reintegrating into society. They need our support and assistance to transition from a life or death struggle in combat to a new beginning in society. We will never be the same as we were before we went to war. But with your help and support we can redirect the negative outcomes from PTSD and become productive to society.
DO NOT WAIT FOR YEARS TO GO BY TO SEEK HELP, IF YOU DO YOU COULD LOSE THEM OR YOURSELF TO THIS ILLNESS.
I dealt with PTSD by self medicating for 14 years until my anger, suffering, fear and unmet needs became overwhelming. It can take years for the problems to accumulate to the point of self-destruction. My realization of this began when a man stabbed me in the face because I had offended him numerous times and when he had an opportunity he acted on it. It took someone trying to take my life to realize that I was mentally ill and that I needed help. My behavior, attitude and cognitive processes had digressed to the point of self hatred and feelings of unworthiness.
I kept thinking of killing myself for 15 years or so, driving off the road, instigating fights, fingering my gun and imaging the relief I would feel if I just pulled the trigger. I could not do it myself, so I sought out people and situations that endangered my existence. How do I kill myself without me doing it? I thank God that I persevered through it and I am well enough today that I may help someone else like me, which was Gods plan all along.
If you know of a veteran or someone you may think is suffering from PTSD, help them get help. In the military we are trained to keep going, to never give in to the enemy. The returning veteran needs our help in reintegrating into society. They need our support and assistance to transition from a life or death struggle in combat to a new beginning in society. We will never be the same as we were before we went to war. But with your help and support we can redirect the negative outcomes from PTSD and become productive to society.
DO NOT WAIT FOR YEARS TO GO BY TO SEEK HELP, IF YOU DO YOU COULD LOSE THEM OR YOURSELF TO THIS ILLNESS.
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