Preventing and Treating the Invisible Wounds of War

Preventing and Treating the Invisible Wounds of War
Author: Justin T. McDaniel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2023
Genre: History
ISBN: 0197646581

This volume provides several perspectives that help practitioners, advocates, and policymakers understand the impact of historical and recent wars on U.S. Military veterans. The chapters address newly recognized psychological conditions as risk factors for more serious diagnosable mental health disorders.

Invisible Wounds of War

Invisible Wounds of War
Author: Marguerite Guzman Bouvard
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2012-07-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1616145544

There’s no real homecoming for many of our veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They may go through the motions of daily life in their hometowns, but the terrible sights and sounds of war are still fresh in their minds. This empathic, inside look into the lives of our combat veterans reveals the lingering impact that the longest wars in our nation’s history continue to have on far too many of our finest young people. Basing her account on numerous interviews with veterans and their families, the author examines the factors that have made these recent conflicts especially trying. A major focus of the book is the extreme duress that is a daily part of a soldier’s life in combat zones with no clear frontlines or perimeters. Having to cope with unrecognizable enemies in the midst of civilian populations and attacks from hidden weapons like improvised explosive devices exacts a heavy toll. Compounding the problem is the all-volunteer nature of our armed forces, which often demands multiple deployments of enlistees. This results in frequent cases of post-traumatic stress disorder and families disrupted by the long absence of one and sometimes both parents. The author also discusses the lack of connectedness between civilian society and military personnel, leading to inadequate healthcare for many veterans. This deficiency has been highlighted by the urgent need to treat traumatic brain injuries in survivors of explosions and the high veteran suicide rate. Bouvard concludes on a positive note by discussing some of the surprising and encouraging ways that the chasm between civilian and military life is being bridged to help reintegrate our returning soldiers. For veterans, their families, and especially for civilians unaware of how much our soldiers have endured, The Invisible Wounds of War is important reading.

Invisible Wounds of War

Invisible Wounds of War
Author: Terri L. Tanielian
Publisher: RAND Corporation
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN:

Summarizes key findings and recommendations from Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery (Tanielian and Jaycox [Eds.], MG-720-CCF, 2008), a comprehensive study of the post-deployment health-related needs associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, and traumatic brain injury among veterans of Operations Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedom.

Treating Traumatic Stress Injuries in Military Personnel

Treating Traumatic Stress Injuries in Military Personnel
Author: Mark Charles Russell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0415889774

Treating Traumatic Stress Injuries in Military Personnel offers a comprehensive treatment manual for mental health professionals treating traumatic stress injuries in veterans. It is the first book to combine the most recent knowledge about new paradigms of combat-related traumatic stress injuries and offers a practical guide for treating the spectrum of traumatic stress injuries with EMDR, recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense clinical practice guidelines as one of the most well-suited treatments for military-related stress injuries.

Soul Repair

Soul Repair
Author: Rita Nakashima Brock
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2012-11-06
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0807029084

The first book to explore the idea and effect of moral injury on veterans, their families, and their communities Although veterans make up only 7 percent of the U.S. population, they account for an alarming 20 percent of all suicides. And though treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder has undoubtedly alleviated suffering and allowed many service members returning from combat to transition to civilian life, the suicide rate for veterans under thirty has been increasing. Research by Veterans Administration health professionals and veterans’ own experiences now suggest an ancient but unaddressed wound of war may be a factor: moral injury. This deep-seated sense of transgression includes feelings of shame, grief, meaninglessness, and remorse from having violated core moral beliefs. Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini, who both grew up in families deeply affected by war, have been working closely with vets on what moral injury looks like, how vets cope with it, and what can be done to heal the damage inflicted on soldiers’ consciences. In Soul Repair, the authors tell the stories of four veterans of wars from Vietnam to our current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan—Camillo “Mac” Bica, Herman Keizer Jr., Pamela Lightsey, and Camilo Mejía—who reveal their experiences of moral injury from war and how they have learned to live with it. Brock and Lettini also explore its effect on families and communities, and the community processes that have gradually helped soldiers with their moral injuries. Soul Repair will help veterans, their families, members of their communities, and clergy understand the impact of war on the consciences of healthy people, support the recovery of moral conscience in society, and restore veterans to civilian life. When a society sends people off to war, it must accept responsibility for returning them home to peace.

The Invisible Front

The Invisible Front
Author: Yochi Dreazen
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0385347855

The unforgettable story of a military family that lost two sons—one to suicide and one in combat—and channeled their grief into fighting the armed forces’ suicide epidemic. Major General Mark Graham was a decorated two-star officer whose integrity and patriotism inspired his sons, Jeff and Kevin, to pursue military careers of their own. His wife Carol was a teacher who held the family together while Mark's career took them to bases around the world. When Kevin and Jeff die within nine months of each other—Kevin commits suicide and Jeff is killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq—Mark and Carol are astonished by the drastically different responses their sons’ deaths receive from the Army. While Jeff is lauded as a hero, Kevin’s death is met with silence, evidence of the terrible stigma that surrounds suicide and mental illness in the military. Convinced that their sons died fighting different battles, Mark and Carol commit themselves to transforming the institution that is the cornerstone of their lives. The Invisible Front is the story of how one family tries to set aside their grief and find purpose in almost unimaginable loss. The Grahams work to change how the Army treats those with PTSD and to erase the stigma that prevents suicidal troops from getting the help they need before making the darkest of choices. Their fight offers a window into the military’s institutional shortcomings and its resistance to change – failures that have allowed more than 3,000 troops to take their own lives since 2001. Yochi Dreazen, an award-winning journalist who has covered the military since 2003, has been granted remarkable access to the Graham family and tells their story in the full context of two of America’s longest wars. Dreazen places Mark and Carol’s personal journey, which begins when they fall in love in college and continues through the end of Mark's thirty-four year career in the Army, against the backdrop of the military’s ongoing suicide spike, which shows no signs of slowing. With great sympathy and profound insight, The Invisible Front details America's problematic treatment of the troops who return from war far different than when they'd left and uses the Graham family’s work as a new way of understanding the human cost of war and its lingering effects off the battlefield.

Adaptive Disclosure

Adaptive Disclosure
Author: Brett T. Litz
Publisher: Guilford Publications
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2017-09-26
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1462533833

A complete guide to an innovative, research-based brief treatment specifically developed for service members and veterans, this book combines clinical wisdom and in-depth knowledge of military culture. Adaptive disclosure is designed to help those struggling in the aftermath of traumatic war-zone experiences, including life threat, traumatic loss, and moral injury, the violation of closely held beliefs or codes. Detailed guidelines are provided for assessing clients and delivering individualized interventions that integrate emotion-focused experiential strategies with elements of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Reproducible handouts can be downloaded and printed in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size.

Returning Home from Iraq and Afghanistan

Returning Home from Iraq and Afghanistan
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2010-03-31
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309152852

Nearly 1.9 million U.S. troops have been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq since October 2001. Many service members and veterans face serious challenges in readjusting to normal life after returning home. This initial book presents findings on the most critical challenges, and lays out the blueprint for the second phase of the study to determine how best to meet the needs of returning troops and their families.

War Doctor

War Doctor
Author: David Nott
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2020-03-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1683359062

#1 International Bestseller: A frontline trauma surgeon tells his “riveting” true story of operating in the world’s most dangerous war zones (The Times). For more than twenty-five years, surgeon David Nott has volunteered in some of the world’s most perilous conflict zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993 to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out lifesaving operations in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major metropolitan hospital. He is now widely acknowledged as the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world. War Doctor is his extraordinary story, encompassing his surgeries in nearly every major conflict zone since the end of the Cold War, as well as his struggles to return to a “normal” life and routine after each trip. Culminating in his recent trips to war-torn Syria—and the untold story of his efforts to help secure a humanitarian corridor out of besieged Aleppo to evacuate some 50,000 people—War Doctor is a heart-stopping and moving blend of medical memoir, personal journey, and nonfiction thriller that provides unforgettable, at times raw, insight into the human toll of war. “Superb . . . You are constantly amazed that men such as Nott can witness the extraordinary cruelties of the human race, so many and so foul, yet keep going.” —Sunday Times “Gripping and fascinating medical stories.” —Kirkus Reviews