Customer Reviews

Haunted by Combat: Understanding PTSD in War Veterans Including Women, Reservists, and Those Coming Back from Iraq (Praeger Security International)

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In the growing literature of combat-related PTSD, this slim volume by authors Paulson and Krippner is directed chiefly to practitioners but is also accessible for lay readers. The book is loosely organized to cover a review of the scholarly and scientific literature on the subject, while interjecting examples of PTSD from veterans of wars and conflicts from WWII to Iraq. Krippner is a psychology professor at Saybrook Graduate Institute and Research Center. Paulson, a psychologist, is a combat veteran whose harrowing story is told with gripping detail - both his experience as a Marine on the killing fields of Vietnam and his debilitating descent into a different kind of hell after his return. So is his discovery of a therapeutic path out of that hell and his recovery.

The two men define PTSD broadly, identifying it as a spectrum disorder with commonalities across individual cases but no specific model of symptoms or etiology. They note also significant differences between the experience of Vietnam veterans and the reservists who have served in the Gulf and Iraq Wars. In looking at types of therapy, they provide a survey of different approaches, and question the long-term effectiveness of purely pharmaceutical interventions. Meanwhile, they advocate forms of existential-humanistic therapy, based in part on the theories of Roberto Assagioli, the pioneer of psychosynthesis. The authors provide a helpful overview of the subject and offer positive encouragement for those trapped in the after-effects of life-altering trauma. Their book includes a 15-page bibliography and an extensive index.

It was a few months after I got back from Iraq when I read this book. I hadn't bought it a few people had just given me loads of books, everyone was afraid I had, or was going to get PTSD. I don't know if I did have PTSD, but because of this book and a few like it, I'm doing great now. It's not enough to explain what PTSD is about; we've also got to know what to do about it. Krippner and Paulson offer that explanation and a bag of tools to not only to deal with PTSD but to grow from it. A great book for anyone who has or thinks they know someone who has PTSD.

Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

As a veteran, I appreciated the way this book was written. It is easy to find academic literature that sterilizes and callously treats the condition many war veterans are returning with. This books handles the topic well, thanks to Paulson's personal insights as well as both authors professional contributions. This book helped me to understand a little more about the condition that I am going through, and to know that I am not the only one, and that the things I am going through are part of the condition and I'm not an anomaly.

Effective treatment of PTSD in veterans, or civilians requires a strong and collaborative therapeutic alliance between the patient and the mental heath professional or caregiver. This, in turn, requires cultural competence to understand military and war veterans culture. This book helps in that regard by providing compelling testimonials of engrossing combat and aftermath experiences from veterans of six different wars, the signs and symptoms of persisting mental wounds, and valuable insights about overcoming cultural impediments to successful treatment of PTSD. Each chapter is preceded by the fittingly poignant war poetry that are sure to be reread many times. This is a very rewarding and readable book, written collaboratively by a Vietnam combat veteran who has suffered from PTSD, and by a professor of psychology with decades of research on war trauma. It will be very useful for anyone wanting to build cultural competence to help PTSD sufferers and survivors of war trauma.

My only disappointment in this book was that I had expected more of a layman's guide to PTSD in war veterns, and it, in truth, reads more like one of my psychology textbooks rather than a practical resource. The wording is clinical and cumbersome at times.

However, there is a WEALTH of information in this book.

As a Vietnam veteran I was especially appreciative of the manner used by Paulson and Krippner to describe the feelings and emotions of combat veterans. The descriptions given of the feelings of being "alone in the world" and the "chaos" created in the world of the veteran were very much on target. I am currently writing my Master's thesis on the subject of PTSD and even though I am well familiar with past studies dealing with Vietnam veterans, this book gives insight into the lives and trials of those members of our "volunteer" army and the families they are leaving behind to make it on their own during the service member's deployment.

I have a much clearer understanding of this issue. PTSD is something unless you experience it - you don't understand it. This book helped me profoundly, in my own life as well as understanding the lives of others and those who serve our country....reguardless of gonernmental falshoods, unquestioning of mission, thinking they are doing the right thing (soldiers). They are not at fault, but suffer the consequences of war forever, things we are immune to and "could never happen here". Being at war changes lives forever - just because we don't see it in our safe cocoon doesn't mean it is not real for those who 'do' . Trauma is trauma. Until we experience it. Lets recognize that even our soldiers have a conscience to stuggle with...Haunting forever.