Millions of American soldiers have faced the ultimate dilemma: Kill the enemy or risk being killed. Each choice traumatizes the human brain. Too many tours, too many roadside bombs, too many mortar attacks increase the likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Half a million soldiers could come back from Iraq and Afghanistan needing our help to live normal lives. Eric Newhouse, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, writes about the coming crisis of veterans returning from combat with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The huge numbers of returning veterans threaten to overwhelm health care facilities that are already overloaded, clogged with bureaucracy, and overly reliant on prescribing medications. Newhouse lets the veterans tell you what they've been through in combat and how they can't shake it off and return to a peaceful civilian life. Book jacket.

This book takes a case-based approach to addressing the challenges psychiatrists and other clinicians face when working with American combat veterans after their return from a war zone. Written by experts, the book concentrates on a wide variety of concerns associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including different treatments of PTSD. The text also looks at PTSD comorbidities, such as depression and traumatic brain injury (TBI) and other conditions masquerading as PTSD. Finally, the authors touch on other subjects concerning returning veterans, including pain, disability, facing the end of a career, sleep problems , suicidal thoughts, violence, , and mefloquine “toxidrome”. Each case study includes a case presentation, diagnosis and assessment, treatment and management, outcome and case resolution, and clinical pearls and pitfalls. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Related Diseases in Combat Veterans is a valuable resource for civilian and military mental health practitioners, and primary care physicians on how to treat patients returning from active war zones.

As more veterans return from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, more are needing care for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and combat-related traumatic brain injuries (TBI). While there are several treatment and recovery options, outlets for support, and other resources, understanding and gaining access to them is often difficult or confusing. In Combat-Related Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD: A Resource and Recovery Guide, authors Cheryl Lawhorne and Don Philpott offer guidance for returning veterans, from treatment options, to diagnostic criteria and techniques, to resources for rehabilitation and support. The authors begin discussions of TBI and PTSD by offering definitions of each, outlining the risk factors, and exploring the relationship between the two. They then move on to provide explanations of diagnostic criteria, treatment options, prevention techniques, and barriers to seeking care. Sections on the important role that insurance and health care plays, and on the support of family and friends, round out this useful and accessible volume. This is an essential guide for returning veterans, their families, and all who work with veterans suffering from PTSD and TBI.

Compelling stories of American soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with what are now considered this war's signature injuries-- TBI and PTSD -- along with the experiences of our mental health professionals newly mobilized to assist them.

The mission in writing this book was to look beyond politics in order to explore the extent of the ongoing and long-term human cost of war and military occupation. This book addresses the suffering of our troops and their families and our responsibility as a society, first to acknowledge and diagnose this suffering, and then to care for those who are affected by it. The first of two sections, “Clinical Issues of War Trauma,” contains chapters on signs and symptoms, diagnosis, and pharmacotherapy of war trauma. This section explores the vast variety of pathology such as TBI, PTSD, suicide, affective disorder, addiction, spiritual distress, and forensic aspects of combat trauma. To supplement or advance beyond medication and counseling, the editor designed a set of 12-Step Self-Help Principles for Combat Veterans with PTSD, inspired by addiction self-help programs. The second section, “Witnesses to War,” is comprised of four first-hand accounts of experiences in combat zones, during and after conflict. Some of the chapters of this book were written by professionals with direct involvement in combat, from WW II to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This outstanding book will be a standard text at military educational institutions and highly valuable to civilian professionals practicing psychiatry, family counseling and forensic psychology in the military system.

Faces of Recovery continues the report on how millions of American soldiers have faced the ultimate dilemma: kill the enemy or risk being killed yourself. As documented in Eric Newhouse's earlier book, Faces of Combat, PTSD & TBI, each choice traumatizes the brain. The trauma is cumulative; prolonged combat increases emotional and physical injury. This book also introduces a newly discovered complication, moral injury. It occurs when soldiers are ordered into a conflict they cannot morally justify, yet are forced to kill others to stay alive themselves. It happens when soldiers feel their chain of command has betrayed or abandoned them. It can also occur when a soldier has violated their own moral code, for example by killing civilians to avenge the death of friends, or when they fail to protect the buddies who have been watching their backs. Faces of Recovery looks at the personal steps each veteran must take to feel accepted again in society. These include forgiveness, making atonement, self-forgiveness, and physical exercise to help the brain reduce depression and anxiety.

The Spartans called it The Trembler; recent history has seen it termed shell shock, combat fatigue, soldier’s heart, and Vietnam Syndrome. Whatever the name, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has always been with us. With 20 percent of the Veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq exhibiting PTSD symptoms, the United States military has a strong interest in combating the condition. Navy psychiatrist Robert N. McLay has been at the forefront of these efforts. This is his story of using virtual reality to treat Service Members and Veterans with PTSD. As a practicing psychiatrist who works with Veterans and civilians coping with PTSD, McLay had known for years before the September 11, 2001, attacks that effective treatments for the condition were elusive. When active duty called, he met the challenge, becoming the primary investigator on PTSD treatment projects that had Service Members face the ghosts of war in a computer simulator. After using this new form of exposure therapy on the home front, McLay and his team believed they had found a promising way to work with warriors broken by combat, so in 2008 they took it to the front line in Fallujah, Iraq, with the First Marine Expeditionary Force. Several years into the project, McLay recounts openly and with bleak honesty the successes, failures, and limits of virtual reality treatment for PTSD. Filled with poignant firsthand accounts of war and its psychological aftermath, At War with PTSD explains the difficulties of using this specialized technology in the field and discusses such challenges as helping people who refuse to believe in PTSD, including those diagnosed with it. So far, the virtual reality program shows more promise than traditional therapies. And although McLay remains unsure why or how, his experiences hold out hope for those suffering from this devastating disorder.