PTSD in Veterans

WHAT IS PTSD?

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, series of events or set of circumstances. An individual may experience this as emotionally or physically harmful or life-threatening and may affect mental, physical, social, and/or spiritual well-being. Examples include natural disasters, serious accidents, terrorist acts, war/combat, rape/sexual assault, historical trauma, intimate partner violence and bullying.

PTSD has been known by many names in the past, such as “shell shock” during the years of World War I and “combat fatigue” after World War II, but PTSD does not just happen to combat veterans. PTSD can occur in all people, of any ethnicity, nationality or culture, and at any age.

American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders. In Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., text rev.).

Over 20 odd years of fighting in Afghanistan, Australia lost 41 soldiers killed in action. We now know that over that same period, at least 1400 serving and ex-serving veterans took their own lives. Lindsay, P (2023) The Home Front- the never ending war within our veterans, p2.

Prof. Harry McConnell has more than 30 years experience in treating veterans of WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. He has a passion for helping Veterans and their families through the difficult times post deployment, service and transition to civilian life.

If you or a loved one is struggling with mental health, please call Lifeline directly on 13 11 14. If your life or someone else's life is in danger call 000.

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HOLISTIC APPROACH

Since PTSD is such a complex phenomenon that manifests in so many facets of a veterans life, treatments must be coordinated to address the gamut of issues that he or she might face. PTSD need to be seen as a systemic disorder rather than purely a psychological one, because it's accompanied by a range of physical conditions and diseases, including metabolic and altered immune function, which is reflected in increased rates of cardiovascular and autoimmune disease.

Professor McFarlane underlines the importance of treating these biological symptoms “the limited effectiveness of evidence based psychological interventions in people with PTSD, particularly in veteran populations highlights the need to develop a biological therapy that address the underlying neurophysiological and immune dysregulation associated with PTSD”. Prof AC McFarlane, ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder is a systemic illness, not a mental disorder: is cartesian dualism dead?’, Medical Journal of Australia, 3 April 2017.

TREATMENT OPTIONS

There are many highly effective treatmentsnused in PTSD including: (1) cognitive therapy helping patients recognise thinking patterns and keep them stuck, (2) exposure therapy and systematic desensitisation helping patients safely fight frightening situations and memories in order to cope with them, (3) eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) which combines exposure therapy with guided eye movements that can help patients to process traumatic memories and change how they react to them, (4) stress inoculation training, (5) a variety of adjunctive medications, (6) transcranial magnetic stimulation therapies, and (7) a wide array of individual and group therapies.

There has been an emergence of therapies which aimed to address common underlying processes that are believed to contribute to a range of emotion related disorders. It is useful to combine mindfulness, cognitive therapy, with behavioural therapy and support networks and systems for veterans in an integrated and holistic manner. Lindsay, P (2023) The Home Front- the never ending war within our veterans, p196.

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