War Trauma draws on the experience of prior wars for valuable insights to help people who are now in the military or in the healing professions, and their families and communities, to deal with todays realities of combat and its aftermath -- which so often entails PTSD (post-traumatic stresss syndrome), depression and the risk of suicide. This is part three in A Vietnam Trilogy, which studies the psychiatric impact of war on soldiers and veterans, and their families. The effects go on for decades after the violence occurred, and we are still just learning to understand the depth and variety of problems it can cause. Further, Scurfield documents his proven innovative therapies for treating PTSD. This third volume looks at what military and mental health professionals -- and the Veterans Administration (VA) -- should have learned from the Vietnam War in order to better protect American servicemen and servicewomen in later conflicts and to help them recover afterwards. The Persian Gulf War, for instance, had an immense impact on veterans of all wars. The author was a national faculty member for joint VA-DOD training programs to enhance mental health response readiness for receiving anticipated medical and psychiatric casualties from the Persian Gulf War. What he found was a resurgence of selective amnesia and denial about the true impact of war. Scurfield notes, "Chillingly, what happened in Vietnam in 1968--69 regarding psychiatric casualties has enormous parallels to what is happening today regarding U.S. psychiatric casualties from the Iraq War."

For those veterans who do not respond productively to, or who have little interest in office-based, regimented, and symptom-focused treatments, the innovative approaches laid out in Healing War Trauma is the guidebook clinicians need to chart new paths to healing.

The Poetics of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Postmodern Literature provides an interdisciplinary exploration in early medical trauma treatment and the emergent postmodern canon of the 1960s and 1970s. By identifying key postmodern literary tropes (paranoia, uncanniness, biomediation) as products of an overarching post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) narrative paradigm, this concise study reveals unexplored aspects of the canonical novels at hand—such as the link between individual and collective traumatization—highlights the presence of epic elements in postmodern narratives, and identifies the influence of emerging psychiatric treatment on the post-WWII novels at hand. Performing a medical humanities reading of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-5 (1969), and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961), this book introduces a novel way of examining trauma at the intersection of narrative, history, and medicine and recalibrates the importance of postmodern politics of transformation, while making the case for an aesthetics of trauma. By examining the historico-political developments that dictated the formation of PTSD in the wake of the wars in Korea and Vietnam, this book argues that the perception of PTSD symptoms directly influenced aesthetic and literary tropes of the Cold War era.

A nationally renowned PTSD authority reveals the psychiatric impact of war on soldiers and veterans, dented or minimized by government and the military. Through efforts to treat veterans of past conflicts he illustrates the inevitability of lifelong psychiatric scars from today's conflicts as well.

Through the stories of veterans and the author's own understanding as a psychiatric social work officer in Vietnam and his extensive post-war experiences as a mental health professional, A Vietnam Trilogy describes the impact of war on veterans from a psy.

War Trauma and Its Wake a vital book for anyone interested in understanding the military experience, and the lessons contained in its pages are crucial for any clinician committed to healing war trauma.

In this study of the psychiatric impact of war on soldiers and veterans, Scurfield (social work, U. of Southern Mississippi) recounts his three different experiences in Vietnam, first, in 1968, as an Army social work officer working with psychiatric casualties, and in 1989 and 2000 when he and other veterans returned on missions of peace. Scurfield

Drawing on diverse fields, from neuroscience to anthropology, this title lets you consider the geographical, interpersonal, temporal, and spiritual transitions individuals experience when they move in and out of the camp and the impact their time outside the camp has on family and community.

An original and groundbreaking examination of the psychological devastation of war through the lens of Homer’s Iliad in this “compassionate book [that] deserves a place in the lasting literature of the Vietnam War” (The New York Times). In this moving and dazzlingly creative book, Dr. Jonathan Shay examines the psychological devastation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer’s Iliad with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. A classic of war literature that has as much relevance as ever in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Achilles in Vietnam is a “transcendent literary adventure” (The New York Times) and “clearly one of the most original and most important scholarly works to have emerged from the Vietnam War” (Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried). As a Veterans Affairs psychiatrist, Shay encountered devastating stories of unhealed PTSD and uncovered the painful paradox—that fighting for one’s country can render one unfit to be a citizen. With a sensitive and compassionate examination of the battles many Vietnam veterans continue to fight, Shay offers readers a greater understanding of PTSD and how to alleviate the potential suffering of soldiers. Although the Iliad was written twenty-seven centuries ago, Shay shows how it has much to teach about combat trauma, as do the more recent, compelling voices and experiences of Vietnam vets. A groundbreaking and provocative monograph, Achilles in Vietnam takes readers on a literary journey that demonstrates how we can learn how war damages the mind and spirit, and work to change those things in our culture that so that we don’t continue repeating the same mistakes.

Experiencing symptoms of traumatic stress can be debilitating. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a normal reaction to an abnormal event. Recovering from Traumatic Stress: A Guide for Missionaries provides information and resources for support that can lead to comfort and healing. This book teaches about the symptoms experienced after a traumatic incident and how to recognize them. It offers strength and ways to talk to children and others about traumatic experiences. With God’s help, readers who have experienced traumatic situations can begin to regain a sense of peace for themselves and their families. Stephanie Laite Lanham and Joyce Hartwell Pelletier are presenters with Sunrise Seminars, a Christian association of mental health professionals based in Maine. The group is dedicated to improving the lives of people through education, insight, and change.