Abstract
To heal from war requires time and understanding. Today appropriate treatment modalities for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Vietnam veterans continue to be debated. Advocating a particular approach is dependent upon clinical and theoretical points of view, therapeutic and diagnostic skills, conceptualizations about posttrauma psychiatric sequelae, therapeutic needs and treatment objectives, and countertransference issues and dynamics about the trauma of the Vietnam war and the personnel who were sent to fight it (Wilson, 1989; Parson, 1988). In this chapter, I will present one perspective about the treatment of PTSD among Vietnam veterans: comprehensive, holistic peer-group approach. The aftermath of the impact of the Persian Gulf War and “Operation Desert Storm” should be a pointed reminder to us all. Most of the dynamics, issues, and strategies discussed in this chapter transcend various eras of war as well as generational and national boundaries; they are applicable to a range of war-related and civilian trauma (Scurfield, 1992; Scurfield & Tice, 1992).
When I got back to Nam, the only people who I could relate to were other Vietnam vets—but they were the last people I wanted to be around.
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Scurfield, R.M. (1993). Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among Vietnam Veterans. In: Wilson, J.P., Raphael, B. (eds) International Handbook of Traumatic Stress Syndromes. The Plenum Series on Stress and Coping. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2820-3_74
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2820-3_74
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