Why Some Soldiers Develop PTSD While Others Don’t

Posted on by helpingsoul

Neuro_biol_PTSDPre-war vulnerability is just as important as combat-related trauma in predicting whether veterans’ symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will be long-lasting, according to new research published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

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Researcher Bruce Dohrenwend and colleagues at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and the New York State Psychiatric Institute found that traumatic experiences during combat predicted the onset of the full complement of symptoms, known as the PTSD “syndrome,” in Vietnam veterans. But other factors — such as pre-war psychological vulnerabilities — were equally important for predicting whether the syndrome persisted.

The researchers re-examined data from a subsample of 260 male veterans from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study. All of the veterans in the subsample had received diagnostic examinations by experienced clinicians that included information about the onset of the disorder and whether it was still current 11 to 12 years after the war ended.

Dohrenwend and colleagues focused on the roles of three primary factors: severity of combat exposure (e.g., life-threatening experiences or traumatic events during combat), pre-war vulnerabilities (e.g., childhood physical abuse, family history of substance abuse), and involvement in harming civilians or prisoners.

The data indicated that stressful combat exposure was necessary for the onset of the PTSD syndrome, as 98% of the veterans who developed the PTSD syndrome had experienced one or more traumatic events.

But combat exposure alone was not sufficient to cause the PTSD syndrome.

Of the soldiers who experienced any potentially traumatic combat exposures, only 31.6% developed the PTSD syndrome. When the researchers limited their analysis to the soldiers who experienced the most severe traumatic exposures, there was still a substantial proportion — about 30% — that did not develop the syndrome. This suggests that there were other factors and vulnerabilities involved for the minority of exposed who did end up developing the PTSD syndrome.

Among these factors, childhood experiences of physical abuse or a pre-Vietnam psychiatric disorder other than PTSD were strong contributors to PTSD onset. Age also seemed to play an important role: Men who were younger than 25 when they entered the war were seven times more likely to develop PTSD compared to older men. The researchers also found that soldiers who inflicted harm on civilians or prisoners of war were much more likely to develop PTSD.

The combined data from all three primary factors — combat exposure, prewar vulnerability, and involvement in harming civilians or prisoners — revealed that PTSD syndrome onset reached an estimated 97% for veterans high on all three. While severity of combat exposure was the strongest predictor of whether the soldiers developed the syndrome, pre-war vulnerability was just as important in predicting the persistence of the syndrome over the long run.

The researchers conclude that these findings have important implications for policies aimed at preventing cases of war-related PTSD.

Given the seemingly potent interaction between combat exposure and pre-war vulnerability, these results emphasize the need to keep the more vulnerable soldiers out of the most severe combat situations.

Dohrenwend and colleagues also point out that the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, like the Vietnam War, are “wars amongst the people,” and they underline the need for research examining the circumstances in which harm to civilians and prisoners is likely to occur. Such research could provide important clues for preventing such devastating violations of the rules of war.

In addition to Dohrenwend, co-authors on this research include Thomas Yager and Ben Adams at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University; and Melanie Wall of the Mailman School of Public Health and Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University, and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

The research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant R01-MH059309) and by grants from the Spunk Fund, Inc. and a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Horti-culture Therapy for Veterans

Posted on by helpingsoul

Veteran’s Farm

The military provides a strict discipline, structure, camaraderie, and purpose.  It is in honor and service.  Once in the civilian world, the connectedness, support, and purpose are lost.  Combined with internal wounds of TBI, PTSD, depression, and anxiety, Veterans have a challenging time being accepted into society and given a chance with work.

Horticulture therapy is one example where a sense of brotherhood is felt again while building skills and diminishing depression.  The program gives hope, purpose, and proficiency for a career outside the military.

To bridge the gap between civilian and military environments, a practiced discipline, structure, and personal community need to be created.  It can be accomplished through building homes for the homeless, providing disaster relief after a natural disaster such as an earthquake, hurricane, tornado, tsunami, or volcanic eruption.  The premise is that the wounded warrior is helping themselves while serving others.  The focus naturally enables mindfulness practices, living in the here-and-now which in turn manages uncomfortable emotions, and continues their values of dedication and purpose to serve.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YKb-qWfh9E

The Secret of Love (Spoiler Alert)

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journey by Deepak Chopra, MD

The Internet has taken up the slack from print media by offering tips on love and relationships, which pop up on home pages, in tweets and in news teasers many times a day. If the secret to lasting romance could be shared like a recipe for cinnamon buns, our problems would be over. But love isn’t a fact, formula, or definable in words.

Love is a process, perhaps the most mysterious one in human psychology. No one knows what creates love as a powerful bond that is so full of meaning. If romance was only a heady brew of hormones, genetic inheritance and sex drive, all we’d need is better data to explain it. But love is transporting. It carries us beyond our everyday selves and makes reality shine with an inner light. The reverse can also happen. We crash to earth when the wear and tear of relationships makes love fade.

The process of love is kept alive by evolving and not getting stuck. Infatuation is an early stage of the process. You bond with another person as if by alchemy, but in time the ego returns with the claims of “I, me, and mine.” At that point love must change. Two people must negotiate how much to share, how much to surrender and how much to stand their ground. It would be tragic if romance faded into everyday familiarity, but it doesn’t have to.

Beyond the stage of two egos negotiating for their own interests, there is deepening love. It doesn’t try to turn the present into the past. A married couple of twenty years isn’t still infatuated with one other. So what keeps the process alive? For me, the answer was revealed by reading a startling sentence from the Upanishads, which are like a textbook of spiritual understanding. The sentence says, “You do not love a spouse for the sake of the spouse but for the sake of the self.”

At first glance this seems like a horrible sentiment: We all love on a personal basis and we expect to be loved the same way, for ourselves. But if “self” means your everyday personality, there is much that isn’t very lovable about each of us and as a marriage or relationship unfolds, there’s a guarantee that our partners will see those unlovable things more clearly. Even a knight in shining armor might want to save more than one damsel, and even saint must use deodorant once in a while.

In the world’s wisdom tradition, “love” and “self” are both universal. They exist beyond the individual personality. The secret of love is to expand beyond the personal. When people say that they want unconditional love, they often imply that they want to be loved despite their shortcomings, issues and quirks. But that’s nearly impossible if love remains at the personal level. At a certain point, if you begin to see love itself as your goal, universal love is more powerful and secure than personal love.

The poet Rabindranath Tagore described the spiritual side of love in a single expression” “Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.” The gift of human awareness is that we can locate the source of creation in ourselves. By going deeper into the self, asking “Who am I?” without settling for a superficial answer, the ego-personality fades. A sense of the true self begins to dawn, and it is this self that exists in contact with love as the only reality.

The journey becomes more fascinating if someone else travels with you. Life isn’t about abstractions; it’s about experience. If you have a beloved who stands for the feeling of love, bonding, and affection, your journey has a focus that can’t be supplied merely by thinking. The experiences that love bring include surrender, devotion, selflessness, giving, gratitude, appreciation, kindness and bliss. So if the phrase “universal love” seems daunting or improbable to you, break it down into these smaller experiences. Pursue them, and you will be traveling in the direction of your source, where the true self and true love merge.

That’s where my spoiler alert comes in. Announcing the secret of love cuts short the actual experience. It doesn’t always help to know what’s coming, because you might fall into exaggerated expectations and fall short. It’s better and more realistic to become aware that love is now your personal project. Show kindness and gratitude. Speak about what your beloved means to you. Every step on this journey works on behalf of the two of you but also on behalf of the self that unites you at the deepest level.

The Secret to Desire in a Long-term Relationship

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Consistency and an Instant Reward is the Key to Success

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I learned a great tip from reading an article about Jerry Seinfeld.  An up and coming comedian asked January 2012 Calendar with red "X"Seinfeld just before he was entering the stage, “Do you have any expert advice to become a successful comedian?” He replied, “Write good jokes.”  and then “Don’t break the chain.” He recommended writing a joke every day.  Each day you write mark a calendar with an “X” in bold red, permanent marker.  If you continue this each day, a sequence begins to appear.  Thus, “Don’t break the chain.”  I thought this is great advice for anyone, not just comedians.  You can apply the same technique for anything you want to improve in your life.  You can mark an “X” for each time you exercise, each time you write, learning another language, whatever skill set you want to improve.  The exercise provides a physical activity, a visualization, and a mini-celebration showcasing your accomplishments.  It is a constant reminder of your success which encourages further growth.  Having an instant reward for work well done consistently is the key to achieving your goals.  Its one day at a time, slow, yet sure; similar to the turtle that ultimately beat the jack rabbit to the finish line.  It’s funny how the wisdom from old fables still run true even in today’s fast-paced, technology ridden world.