Iraq veterans need more psychiatric help, says (UK) judge

[deadparrot]

Soldiers returning home from service in Iraq must be given more psychiatric help before being allowed to socialise with the public, a judge said yesterday, after a lance-corporal suffering from post-traumatic stress fractured a man's skull and left him fighting for his life.

L/Cpl James Savage spent six months on a tour of duty in Iraq last year during which his best friend died in his arms while he was giving him the kiss of life. He also witnessed his superior officer being blown up during an attack by insurgents.But just days after he had requested medical help to deal with the psychological effects of his experiences, he was allowed to leave his barracks to celebrate his end of tour.

Judge Tonking, sitting at Stafford Crown Court, warned that many combat soldiers returning home in similar conditions may present a danger to the public.

He told the soldier: "You returned from Iraq via Cyprus where you had asked for psychiatric help because of the horrific things you had seen and, within a matter of days, you were able to go out onto the streets of Burton, drink as much as you like and be in a position where you would react in the way you did."

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article1219737.ece

[Mandate My Ass]

1. Well, the upside to this is that the Brits recognize the huge problem

PTSD poses in soldiers returning from the front. It seems they are ensuring their vets get the help they need. Our DOD, in the meantime, is trying to make it harder for vets to claim they suffer from PTSD and are trying to change the criteria of the diagnosis, which will make it harder to claim any disability. Hence, the ticking time bombs and potential McVeighs will be walking the streets of America without any way to expiate their pain except drugs and violence.

[Monkeyman]

2. PTSD drinking is part of forgetting

Care should of been given before he was able to go anywhere

[woo me with science]

3. Excuse me???

"But just days after he had requested medical help to deal with the psychological effects of his experiences, he was ALLOWED (my emphasis) to leave his barracks to celebrate his end of tour."????

He better well have been ALLOWED to leave his barracks if he chose to do so. There is absolutely nothing in the article that indicates that he had shown evidence of being a danger to himself or others prior to the incident.

What is the message here? That he should have been held for treatment against his will, because he underwent some very traumatic experiences? That the mere act of requesting treatment should rescind his right to change his mind and put him at the mercy of others to determine, prior to any violence, that he should be treated against his will? Wow.

Spare citizens of any country, including veterans, from trauma treatment that they do not choose to seek. Especially given emerging research that strongly suggests a great deal of trauma therapy, as it is currently practiced, may actually do more harm than good.

People need to read Gerald Rosen's recent textbook on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which reviews research indicating that the 20-year accepted practices of urging trauma survivors to reiterate their traumas with a therapist actually does more harm than good in many cases. That it can cause victims of trauma to focus excessively on their traumatic symptoms, strengthening the brain pathways that reinforce the PTSD responses, and fostering increased helplessness and dysfunction rather than strength.

Yes, people should have access to therapy when they seek it for traumatic experiences they cannot manage themselves. Nobody should be denied such support when they need it. But nobody should be pushed into "trauma therapy" just because they experienced a trauma that someone ELSE decided might be overwhelming.

Human history is a testament to the inherent resilience and strength of MOST human beings to even extreme traumatic episodes. The support of family and friends has for centuries been the balm that allows most people to manage terrible experiences and move on.

A soldier wants to go out and celebrate with his buddies? More power to him. I daresay that doing so has the potential to be 1,000 times more healing than being forced to sit in a room and regurgitate trauma to some stranger in a suit.

The trauma industry in this country is seriously disturbed. It is through attitudes like this that normal behavior and responses become pathologized, and people are given the terribly damaging message that their own resources are insufficient to manage life without the help of "professionals" at every turn.

I suspect that the increase in PTSD in soldiers over the past 20 years is, at least in part, related to the fact that so many of them have been pushed into bogus therapies that may actually make their symptoms worse rather than better. So this one episode in which a punch was thrown is now being put forth as a reason to enforce treatment on people who have previously committed no crime?

This article, at least the way it is worded here, is an outrage.

[Monkeyman]

4. No but they had to see signs of his PTSD and made sure of care

You know that vet to vet seems to be the only treatment that works But Bush's Veterans Commission plans to close them. We know one out of four coming home have PTSD we need to watch for the signs and give treatment. Bogus therapies will be all these kids get. How do I know about drinking helping you to forget PTSD got me in 69