War and the Soul:Healing Our Nation's Veterans from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

by Edward Tick

published

November 25th 2005 by Quest Books

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binding

Paperback, 272 pages

isbn

083560831X (isbn13: 9780835608312)

description

This book teaches how truly to heal war trauma in veterans, their families, and our communities. Drawing on history, mythology, and soldiers' stories ...more

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Ginnie rated it:

05/20/08

bookshelves: psychology

recommended to Ginnie by: Charissa Drengsen

Update No sooner had I posted this review than ran across a news story that set my hair on fire. "A recent RAND Corporation study reported that one in five returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan experiences post traumatic stress disorder or major depression. Sufferers of PTSD characteristically have "lived through a traumatic event that caused them to fear for their lives, see horrible things, and feel helpless." PTSD patients are often suicidal, and a misdiagnosis...more Update No sooner had I posted this review than ran across a news story that set my hair on fire. "A recent RAND Corporation study reported that one in five returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan experiences post traumatic stress disorder or major depression. Sufferers of PTSD characteristically have "lived through a traumatic event that caused them to fear for their lives, see horrible things, and feel helpless." PTSD patients are often suicidal, and a misdiagnosis can prevent appropriate care.

On March 20, Norma Perez, team leader and psychologist at the Temple, Texas, Olin E. Teague Veterans' Center, sent an e-mail (below) to medical workers asking them to "refrain" from diagnosing veterans with PTSD. The facility PTSD program coordinator wrote that, due to the increase in "compensation-seeking veterans," social workers and psychologists should consider ruling out PTSD and instead render a diagnosis of the less-serious "adjustment disorder." Perez warned colleagues that "there have been some incidence [sic:]" where veterans receiving non-PTSD-level compensation and pension appeal their cases "based on our assessment." (According to the Veterans Benefit Administration, PTSD "qualifies as a disability" entitling a veteran to an "improved pension.")'
Here is a link to the e-mailed document from Slate magazine.
http://www.slate.com/id/219168...

I'm not often moved by a book from first page to last, but this has been one of them. Author Tick has spent decades of his life working as a therapist with war survivors from WWII to Iraq who have suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. The scope of his understanding as expressed in the book is reflected in his belief that PTSD "may be the moral defeat of our nation internalized in its veterans." It takes 276 pages of careful analysis before reaching this conclusion, but he builds a strong case along the way for dealing with PTSD as an identity disorder, and for understanding identity as bound up deeply with what lies at the living core of every human being - the soul.

It's impossible to do justice to the breadth and depth of Tick's argument in a brief review, but readers should be prepared for an acceptance of war as something that emerges from the psyche, where it finds expression first in archetypes and myth and then emerges as a rite of passage into adulthood. In other words, the willingness to go to war in individuals is not pathological but in fact part of a needed growth process. What makes this problematic in the modern age is the terrible destructiveness of modern weaponry and the modern war machine. The individual can be consumed in its ferocity and suffer profound psychological wounds (compounded by physical ones) that require immense healing. Alas, our culture, as returning veterans from Vietnam learned, knows next to nothing about how to provide healing that helps these men and women return to productive lives.

This is a book to be read slowly; there is much to absorb. Drawing on mythology, ancient literature about war, and Native American traditions, Tick explores how other cultures have regarded war and warriors. For those with either pro-war or anti-war sympathies, he makes an argument that each can learn from - building a model of healing that reflects some of both points of view. War is so deeply embedded in ourselves and in our connection to Divinity, he argues, it will never go away, and not because we are basically savage but because we need war to become fully human. The challenge is to re-imagine war and rediscover what has been understood, taught, and practiced in the warrior traditions that predate the modern age. While this may seem an impossible task, its vision can still serve those who look for a way to release themselves and others from the ravages of PTSD. The many case histories included in these pages show this process at work, and for those who have tears to shed, prepare to shed them.

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"Post-traumatic stress disorder increasingly afflicts veterans of modern warfare. To begin healing, says Edward Tick, we must see PTSD as a disorder of identity itself. War's violence can cause the very soul to flee and be lost for life. Drawing on history, mythology, and thirty years of experience, Dr. Tick reveals the universal dimensions of veterans' soul wounding. He uses methods from ancient Greek, Native America, Vietnamese, and other traditions to restore the soul so that the veteran can, at last, truly return home. His work is invaluable for veterans of any war as well as for their families and all who would help them."--BOOK JACKET....less

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1 comments

Abigail marked it as to-read

05/04/08

bookshelves: to-read

recommended to Abigail by: Ginnie Jones

Some years back I read Claude Anshim Thomas's memoir At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey, in which he detailed his many psychological battles after returning home from Vietnam, before conversion to Buddhism finally offered him a more productive path. He made mention of the fact that an astonishing number of today's older homeless men are actually Vietnam veterans, and I recall thinking that there has to be a b

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

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