WAR TRAUMA IN VETERANS AND THEIR FAMILIES

WAR TRAUMA IN VETERANS AND THEIR FAMILIES
Title WAR TRAUMA IN VETERANS AND THEIR FAMILIES PDF eBook
Author Jamshid A. Marvasti
Publisher Charles C Thomas Publisher
Pages 357
Release 2012-04-01
Genre History
ISBN 0398087253

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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.

They Were Families

They Were Families
Title They Were Families PDF eBook
Author Stephanie Mines Ph. D.
Publisher
Pages 192
Release 2015-11-17
Genre Family & Relationships
ISBN 9781581072778

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In surveying the literature on war and its aftermath, including the literature on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), there is virtually nothing about the families of veterans. These families are the scapegoats of war. Their story is timeless but the author believes the time has come to tell it. The RAND Corporation study initiated by the National Military Families Association reports that military families have more emotional distress and anxiety than the general population. 95% of these families feel that others (outside the military) are unaware of their dilemmas. They are correct. The needs of the families of our veterans are, for the most part, ignored. In particular, their children are not given the support they need to offset the toxic conditions of war that is brought home. The distress in the homes of veterans creates an epigenetic burden that is carried most heavily by children. Investigations into the mechanisms of the intergenerational transmission of trauma reveal that the children of veterans who have seen combat and who have returned from war with PTSD are more prone to violence; are at a higher risk for behavioral, academic and interpersonal problems; have difficulty maintaining friendships; are more likely to have sensory challenges or to be diagnosed with autism; are at higher risk for depression and have difficulty concentrating. Knowing all this, what do we provide to take this burden off the shoulders of children and families? Close to nothing. Three simple, initial steps can begin to shed light on this shadow: Education; Resources; and Family Centered Transition. This is a book devoted to these three steps. When the author discussed these steps with civilians they frequently respond, in all innocence, by saying: "Don't we already have this?" These three steps are so common-sense, so obviously needed, that the assumption by people who have not investigated this issue is that it has already been taken care of by the powers that be. Surely "they" know this. But there is no "they." We must be the "they" that voices this obvious need and advocates for its fulfillment. It is a tall order, but it must be done.

The Lost Road Home

The Lost Road Home
Title The Lost Road Home PDF eBook
Author Milly Balzarini
Publisher
Pages 252
Release 2008-01-01
Genre Post-traumatic stress disorder
ISBN 9781930374270

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?The Lost Road Home provides veterans and loved ones with the direction they need for help and recovery from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).?Do you know a veteran changed by the experience of war? Have you noticed impatience, explosive anger, alcohol or drug abuse, hopelessness, isolation, depression or reckless behavior? If so, you may know someone suffering from PTSD.In The Lost Road Home, Milly Balzarini shares the poignant, heart-wrenching stories of veterans from wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Korea and World War II suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. For these veterans, their world had changed. They had changed. Many felt lost and isolated because they returned to a world that refused to hear, or couldn?t understand, the trauma they had experienced in war. Because of these readjustment problems, an estimated 150,000 veterans from Vietnam alone committed suicide. Even today an estimated 6,200 veterans, including soldiers returning from Iraq, commit suicide each year?that?s 18 veterans a day, a rate twice that of the national average. This book provides help to veterans and families coping with post-traumatic stress disorder and shares the practical, real-world symptoms of PTSD along with how to get the medical and financial help so desperately needed.

War and Family Life

War and Family Life
Title War and Family Life PDF eBook
Author Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth
Publisher Springer
Pages 349
Release 2015-12-16
Genre Social Science
ISBN 3319214888

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This unique resource provides findings and insights regarding the multiple impacts of military duty on service members and veterans, specifically from a family standpoint. Broad areas of coverage include marital and family relationships, parenting issues, family effects of war injuries, and family concerns of single service members. The book's diverse contents highlight understudied populations and topics gaining wider interest while examining the immediate and long-term impact of service on family functioning. In addition to raising awareness of issues, chapters point to potential solutions including science-based pre- and post-deployment programs, more responsive training for practitioners, and more focused research and policy directions. Among the topics covered: • Deployment and divorce: an in-depth analysis by relevant demographic and military characteristics. • Military couples and posttraumatic stress: interpersonally based behaviors and cognitions as mechanisms of individual and couple distress. • Warfare and parent care: armed conflict and the social logic of child and national protection. • Understanding the experiences of women and LGBT veterans in Department of Veterans Affairs care. • Risk and resilience factors in combat military health care providers. • Tangible, instrumental, and emotional support among homeless veterans. War and Family Life offers up-to-date understanding for mental health professionals who serve military families, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Crisis and Chaos

Crisis and Chaos
Title Crisis and Chaos PDF eBook
Author Colleen McCarty-Gould
Publisher Nova Publishers
Pages 198
Release 1998
Genre History
ISBN 9781560726173

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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is marked by symptoms following exposure to extreme trauma. For loved ones of combat veterans unable to shake the grip of war, the homefront is indeed a battlefield. For many families, the memories of the departure, and all the plans and hopes for tomorrow, are shattered when the loved one returns. He comes home, but he's different. He returns from that faraway place, but yet a part of him seems to be there still, thousands of miles away. For centuries societies have shipped their youth off to war, fully expecting them to return home the same, to pick up where they left off, to carry on and to "fit in". Though this extraordinary book focuses on the uniqueness of war and PTSD, the disorder is also associated with other large-scale traumas like natural disasters and personal traumas like rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence. Although the severity of the veteran's trauma, and therefore the effects of that trauma vary from home to home, certainly one principle universally applies: Young people who see or participate in the atrocities of combat do not come out of the experience unscathed. This unique book brings their plight home.

Emotional Aftermath of the Persian Gulf War

Emotional Aftermath of the Persian Gulf War
Title Emotional Aftermath of the Persian Gulf War PDF eBook
Author Robert J. Ursano
Publisher American Psychiatric Pub
Pages 602
Release 1996
Genre Medical
ISBN 9780880486521

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Emotional Aftermath of the Persian Gulf War explores the impact of war from a unique perspective -- it addresses not only the effect of trauma on soldiers in combat but also the toll war takes on families and communities as a whole. In this book, experts from the Department of Defense (including Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense, who provides the preface), the Veterans Administration, the National Institute of Mental Health, Israel Defense Forces, and academia provide an integrated look at the psychiatric and psychological effects of war and the treatment of war-related stress and psychiatric disorders. The authors focus on the experience of servicemembers and of their families in response to deployment, separation, and loss, and reintegration after the war. They discuss the treatment of combat casualties, those with and without psychiatric illness, who were rapidly returned home still in the acute stage of their injuries. The authors emphasize providing the best support, both medically and psychologically, for military personnel and their families for the essential mental health and effectiveness of the fighting force and the improved quality of life of individual people. The special needs of families and of reserve and guard members are considered, and models of community outreach programs for coping with the stressors of war are discussed. Unique in terms of the role that technology played -- including live TV coverage, Patriot missiles, and "smart" bombs -- the Gulf War was a part of the day-to-day lives of the fighting forces and their families, communities, and nations.

Fields of Combat

Fields of Combat
Title Fields of Combat PDF eBook
Author Erin P. Finley
Publisher ILR Press
Pages 238
Release 2011-04-07
Genre Psychology
ISBN 0801460700

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"If you consider Iraq—like I do, probably twenty-nine out of thirty days—to be the pinnacle of your life, then where do you go from there? And I'm sure that a lot of veterans feel that way. To them, that was it. That was everything. So now what? They have to find something meaningful and purposeful." "When I got back from Afghanistan, there was not even so much as a briefing that said, 'Let us know if you're having problems.' There wasn't so much as a phone number. There was literally nothing." "I knew it was crazy. I was thinking, the guy on the roof's either a sniper or he's going to radio ahead. And then I thought, this is San Antonio. There's not snipers on the roof, nobody's going to blow me up here." "Whenever I look at people back here at home, I know what they're going to look like dead. I know what they look like with their brains blown out or jaws blown off or eyes pulled out. When I look at somebody I see that, to this day." —Voices of veterans interviewed in Fields of Combat For many of the 1.6 million U.S. service members who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, the trip home is only the beginning of a longer journey. Many undergo an awkward period of readjustment to civilian life after long deployments. Some veterans may find themselves drinking too much, unable to sleep or waking from unspeakable dreams, lashing out at friends and loved ones. Over time, some will struggle so profoundly that they eventually are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress Disorder (PTSD). Both heartbreaking and hopeful, Fields of Combat tells the story of how American veterans and their families navigate the return home. Following a group of veterans and their personal stories of war, trauma, and recovery, Erin P. Finley illustrates the devastating impact PTSD can have on veterans and their families. Finley sensitively explores issues of substance abuse, failed relationships, domestic violence, and even suicide and also challenges popular ideas of PTSD as incurable and permanently debilitating. Drawing on rich, often searing ethnographic material, Finley examines the cultural, political, and historical influences that shape individual experiences of PTSD and how its sufferers are perceived by the military, medical personnel, and society at large. Despite widespread media coverage and public controversy over the military's response to wounded and traumatized service members, debate continues over how best to provide treatment and compensation for service-related disabilities. Meanwhile, new and highly effective treatments are revolutionizing how the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides trauma care, redefining the way PTSD itself is understood in the process. Carefully and compassionately untangling each of these conflicts, Fields of Combat reveals the very real implications they have for veterans living with PTSD and offers recommendations to improve how we care for this vulnerable but resilient population.