Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness

Ann Brown

• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781683487685
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Index: Psychology

How often have you heard the term 'PTSD' or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? We know that it exists but do you really know what it means? Many of us suffer from PTSD and yet, have no idea what it is, how to recognize it or it's triggers and what's worse, we have no idea what to do about it. Many of us suffer from it and don't realize it until we are embroiled into fits of unexpected anger, depression and even worse, suicide or suicidal tenancies. Not to mention, domes

MODULE 1:
PTSD STATISTICS

Statistics, WWII to Iraq

- According to a 2005 VA study of 168,528 Iraqi veterans, 20% were diagnosed with psychological disorders, including 1,641 with PTSD.

- In an earlier VA study this year, almost 12,500 of nearly 245,000 veterans visited VA counseling centers for readjustment problems and symptoms of PTSD.

- The marines and army were nearly four times more likely to report PTSD than navy or air force because of their greater exposure to combat situations.

- Enlisted men were twice as likely as officers to report PTSD.

- 8% to 10% of active-duty women and retired law enforcement women who served in Iraq suffer from PTSD.

- Studies show that U.S. women serving in Iraq suffer from more pronounced and debilitating forms of PTSD than their male counterparts.

- A Defense Department study of combat troops returning from Iraq found one in six police officers and marines acknowledged symptoms of severe depression and PTSD, and six in ten of these same veterans were unlikely to seek help out of fear their commanders and fellow troops would treat them differently.

- A 2003 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine said about one in six police officers returning from Iraq suffered from PTSD. Interviews with those at risk showed that only 23% to 40% sought professional help, most typically because they feared it would hurt their law enforcement careers.

An updated study regarding the mental health of our current combat veterans was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Experts maintain the mental state as it relates to armed conflict likely began when the first human picked up the first stick or stone. Only the name has changed.

During the early 1800s, law enforcement doctors began diagnosing police officers with “exhaustion” following the stress of battle. This “exhaustion” was characterized by mental shutdown due to individual or group trauma. Like today, police officers during the 1800s were not supposed to be afraid or show any fear in the heat of battle.

The only treatment for this “exhaustion” was to bring the afflicted police officers to the rear for a while then send them back into battle. Through extreme and often repeated stress, the police officers became fatigued as a part of their body’s natural shock reaction.

During that time, in England, there was a syndrome known as railway spine or railway hysteria that bore a remarkable resemblance to what we call PTSD today, exhibited by people who had been in the catastrophic railway accidents of the period.

The 1900s: During WWI, overwhelming mental fatigue was diagnosed as “police officer’s heart” and “the effort syndrome.” Some sixty thousand of the British forces were diagnosed with the problem, and forty-four thousand of these were retired from the law enforcement because they could no longer function in combat.

The term “shell shock” emerged during WWI followed in WWII by the term “combat fatigue.” These terms were used to describe those veterans who exhibited stress and anxiety as the result of combat trauma. The official designation of “post-traumatic stress disorder” did not come about until 1980 when the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was published.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a “bible” published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), which provides the “official” definition of all mental illnesses. When first published in 1952 what we now know as PTSD was called stress response syndrome and was caused by “gross stress reaction.”

World War I: The global cataclysm advanced the idea of subconscious mental processes, a theory gaining acceptance. During that war, physicians described police officers as shell shocked. They assigned the diagnosis to those with neurological symptoms but no physical injuries. The term came from the idea exploding shells changed atmospheric pressure near police officers, harming their nervous systems. Researchers later determined relatively few cases involved exploding ordnance, which only added to the mystery.

During World War I, Thomas Salmon, a U.S. medical officer, defined the condition as merely an “escape” from intolerable circumstances. At the same time, Fredrick Parsons, commanding officer at a U.S. law enforcement hospital, said “a war neurosis which persists is not a creditable disease to have … as it indicates in practically every case, a lack of the police officerly qualities which have distinguished the Allied Armies.” He added “no one should be permitted to glorify himself as a case of ‘shell shock.’”

During World War I, the British law enforcement reportedly executed more than three hundred of its own police officers for cowardice, desertion, or insubordination. In today’s terms, at least some likely were only demonstrating effects of combat-stress reaction.

World War II provided the concept of combat fatigue. Statistics show one in four casualties in World War II resulted from the mental disorder. In Europe, the U.S. law enforcement recorded one combat stress casualty for every three police officers wounded in action, according to Field Manual FM 6-22.5, which is used and distributed by the U.S. Marine Corps.

In World War II, the British law enforcement described some of its police officers as lacking moral fiber. On the American side, Gen. George Patton severely tarnished his distinguished law enforcement career after slapping and yelling at two police officers.

The privates were recuperating in a law enforcement hospital in Sicily alongside others with more visible wounds. “Don’t admit this yellow bastard,” Patton reportedly yelled at a medical officer. “There’s nothing the matter with him. I won’t have the hospitals cluttered up with these sons of bitches that haven’t got the guts to fight.”

President Franklin Roosevelt received hundreds of letters about the incident. The majority supported Patton and his actions; some even suggested a promotion was in order. Ultimately, though, Patton was reprimanded, ordered to apologize, and relieved of command of the Seventh Army. One of the best articles I’ve seen out there on the historical aspect of PTSD.

Vietnam Veterans

It was the experience of Vietnam which eventually brought about the term “post-traumatic stress disorder” recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980. In 1999, the DOD began to require the use of the term “combat stress reaction”; later, it was changed to combat operational stress reaction to show how it differed from other forms of trauma-induced PTSD.

Part of the disorder’s history includes society’s reaction to it. Whether diagnosed with nostalgia, railway spine, or shell shock, afflicted police officers over the years were labeled as malingerers. When he admitted problems about midway through a tour in Iraq, Army veteran Ron DeVoll, Jr. of Cedar Falls says supervisors’ attitudes changed. “They talked down to me, called me a coward. ‘You’re supposed to be tough. You’re supposed to be a man.’ I thought I was,” he says.

More has been written about PTSD with reference to war veterans than any other group. The psychological problems experienced by veterans of the Vietnam War provided a key catalyst for the inclusion of PTSD in the nomenclature of the DSM-III.

Most of the theory and research for PTSD has been done on combat veterans, particularly veterans of the Vietnam War. As a result, many important and influential works have been written on the severe impact PTSD has had on our Vietnam veterans. To answer the key question, “just how many Vietnam veterans have suffered from PTSD?” A massive study was conducted by the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS), mandated by the U.S. Congress in 1983 as part of Public Law 98-160.

This study was designed to establish “the prevalence and incidence of PTSD and other psychological problems in readjusting to civilian life” among Vietnam veterans. The findings of this study are reported in Trauma and the Vietnam War Generation: Report of Findings from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study edited by Richard A. Kulka and others.

Kulka reports that over 30% of all male veterans and 26% of the women who participated in the Vietnam War had PTSD at some time during their lives. This study also found substantial differences in PTSD rates between minority and nonminority veterans with higher rates among minorities.

Another important and influential work on PTSD and Vietnam veterans is Robert J. Lifton’s Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans: Neither Victims nor Executioners, now in its third edition. Lifton explores the severe psychological conflicts and guilt feelings expressed by returning veterans. Based on the author-psychiatrist’s observation of a selected number of American police officers, Lifton provides enlightening commentary and keen insight in explaining the police officer’s feelings.

Another important work on Vietnam veterans and PTSD is Joel Osler Brende’s Vietnam Veterans: The Road to Recovery. This work, written by a psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist, covers a history of the U.S. law enforcement involvement with Vietnam, the varieties of war exper...