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    An Operators Manual for Combat Ptsd: Essays for Coping
    An Operators Manual for Combat Ptsd: Essays for Coping
    An Operators Manual for Combat Ptsd: Essays for Coping
    Ebook190 pages2 hours

    An Operators Manual for Combat Ptsd: Essays for Coping

    By Ashley Hart II

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    About this ebook

    An Operators Manual for Combat PTSD has been written to give the combat veteran a sense of hope and to develop an inner voice to assist in coping with everyday life. We live in two worlds: The physical world around us; The world we can see, hear, touch, and feel, and the world within ourselves. These essays assist the veteran in learning how to monitor triggers, our cues, and balance the world within with the world we live in. With harmonic balance, there is essential well being, validation, even joy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateNov 10, 2000
    ISBN9781469789750
    An Operators Manual for Combat Ptsd: Essays for Coping
    Author

    Ashley Hart II

    Ashley B. Hart, II, Ph.D. is a psychologist practicing in Arizona. Prior to serving veterans, he provided military psychological services to the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and Naval Investigative Services. He received his doctorate in 1982 from Kent State University.

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      Book preview

      An Operators Manual for Combat Ptsd - Ashley Hart II

      All Rights Reserved © 2000 by Ashley B. Hart II, Ph.D.

      No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

      Writer’s Showcase

      presented by Writer’s Digest

      an imprint of iUniverse.com, Inc.

      For information address:

      iUniverse.com, Inc.

      620 North 48th Street, Suite 201

      Lincoln, NE 68504-3467

      www.iuniverse.com

      ISBN: 0-595-13798-9

      ISBN: 978-1-4697-8975-0 (ebook)

      Printed in the United States of America

      In Memory,

      Doc Rhino 1/5

      17 February, 1968

      Contents

      Epigraph

      Foreword

      Acknowledgements

      Introduction

      Keeping It In The Smart Brain Utilizing Spreading Activation: How To Use This Manual

      PTSD/It’s A Stress Disorder/It’s An Anxiety Disorder

      Awareness Of Thoughts, Feelings, And Bodily Sensations

      The Nature And Course Of Trauma

      The Self-—Learned Helplessness—Spreading Activation Stopping Stinkin’Thinkin’

      The Wild Ride-The Dinosaur Dump—The Limbic System

      Cognitions—Internal Dialogue

      The Bottleneck In Awareness

      Information Processing: Top-Down—Bottom-Up Processing Serial And Parallel Processing Assimilation And Accommodation

      Triggers Hard Wired And Hot Wired

      Smart Brain Stuff If Harpo Is Honking, Is Einstein Listening?

      Warning Signs—Don’T Forget To Breathe

      The Edge—Letting Go Of The Anger-Vulnerability

      Naive Psychology—Looking For Your Clear Space Verification

      Validation—Covering Your Six—People As Social Beings

      Finding Good Grief And Closure

      Beyond Freedom And Dignity

      Self-Soothing/Self-Destruction The Pros And Cons Of Negative Reinforcement

      Affective Tolerance Affective Repertoire

      Learned Optimism

      The Rip Van Winkle Effect

      On The Beach The Pale Blue Dot And The Existential Dilemma

      Acceptance And Desire

      The Pretrauma Self Finding Harmony And Creating Synergy

      Shattered Assumptions

      Anniversary Dates

      Watching, Reading, Hearing The News,

      Gives You The Blues Tragedy And Trauma As Entertainment

      Spitting It Out Or Swallowing It Whole

      The Many Faces Of Anger

      Dealing With Feelings And The Purpose

      Of Psychotropic Medications

      Wired Tired

      Thoughts And Feelings The Hazards And Emotional Miseducation Of American Men

      Deterrent Or Defense: Using Assertive Communication Skills

      It Takes A Long Time To Eat Humble Pie From The Speed Of Light To The Speed Of Mind

      The Ten Thousand Meter Stare: Doctor My Eyes

      Cues Of Safety Living Life In The Here And The Now It’s OK To Be OK

      It’s OK For Things To Be OK

      Down In The Valley And The Cumulative Effects Of Traumatic Exposure

      Lessons Not Learned Are Repeated And The Art Of Reframing

      Boxes And Mirrors

      The Problem Of Violence From Frustration To Aggression

      Flashbulb Memories And Flashbacks From Feelings To Emotions

      Slip Sliding Away: The Nature Of Dissociative Processes

      Anger Displacement And The Anger Thermometer

      Once A Warrior Always A Worrier, Yet A Gentleman

      Taking Stock Of Your Progress And The Problem With Hope

      Turn A Difficulty Into A Plan Don’t Turn A Difficulty Into A Problem

      The Moral Animal

      Rules Of Engagement

      Sublimation And The Trouble With Too Much Introspection

      Immature Psychological Defense Mechanisms

      Common (Neurotic) Methods Of Psychologiacal Defense For Combat PTSD

      Mature Psychological Defenses For Validation

      Hierarchy Of Needs For Combat PTSD

      Fixation

      Unfinished Business—Setting Bait For Trouble The High And Low Road Coping Skills Bag Of Tricks

      Survivor Guilt The Grieving Process And Finding Closure

      How We Sleep—Nightmares—Sleep Apnea—Dream Innoculation Therapy—Sleep Induction Techniques

      Secondary Wounding, Indignation, And Secondary PTSD

      Afterword

      References

      Epigraph

      That makes a man go mad for all his goodness of reason, a rage that rises within and swirls like smoke in the heart and becomes in our madness a thing more sweet than dripping of honey.

      Homer, The Iliad

      Foreword

      I am pleased to present this foreword on behalf of all combat veterans from the theaters of operation in World War I, to the Gulf War. Dr. Ashley B. Hart, Ph.D., had devoted many hours, days, months, and years examining the aspects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in combat veterans. He has given many veterans a hope they did not have prior to seeing him. He has on occasion taken that walk with the veteran. This book of essays is intended to help individuals who served in combat and experience problems in adjustment.

      Regardless of conflict, approximately 15% of all combat veterans develop PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Mental health research has been able to identify several factors that contribute to the onset of PTSD, and in particular, combat PTSD, which includes the severity of the combat, and length of exposure. These factors are mitigated by age and level or responsibility. These are just some of the facts Dr. Hart will present in this book.

      If you are a combat veteran, or a wife, or family member, hopefully these essays will explain aspects of combat PTSD to you. If you are a combat veteran and do experience problems in adjustment, I hope these essays are helpful to you.

      Art Nottingham

      Veterans Benefits Counselor

      Arizona Department of Veterans Services

      Sergeant Major, USMC, Ret.

      Acknowledgements

      In putting together this Operators Manual for Combat PTSD I benefited from the help and collaboration from many peers and colleagues. I should thank first and foremost my operations manager, Eloise Rivera, who prepared the manuscript and endured numerous corrections and revisions in addition to her busy responsibilities elsewhere in my office. Kelly Turner assisted in formatting the manuscript for publishing. I wish to thank Sean Underhill and Ron Perkins for their assistance in developing the graphics and formatting the graphics respectively.

      I want to thank Art Nottingham, Arizona Veteran’s Service Commission, for his feedback on this work, and Harold Ruggles who provided editorial feedback helping this writer find his voice. This was written for an ongoing PTSD group, and I would like to thank the feedback, assistance, and the opportunity to facilitate such a group for these veterans. We refer to ourselves as The Thursday Night Gang, and over the years I have become more of a participant than a facilitator. In addition, I also wish to thank the collegial support received from the Veterans Administration Hospital Tucson, and their PTSD Clinic along with the Tucson Vet Center.

      Ashley B.Hart II, Ph.D.

      Introduction

      Recent publications report that the Veterans Administration currently is compensating over one hundred thousand combat veterans for post traumatic stress disorders while providing care, assistance, and counseling to another five hundred thousand. This manual has been prepared based on my past seven years experience working with combat veterans. These combat veterans have included Pacific, European, and African Theater World War II veterans, Korean War veterans, veterans of numerous conflicts and crisis including Lebanon in 1958 and 1982-84, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dominican Republic, Panama in 1965 and 1990, the Vietnam War, Iran Hostage Crisis, Persian Gulf War, and Somalia.

      I was trained as a psychologist, and psychologists are first trained as scientists before they learn the art of practice. As a scientist I was taught that there are lawful principles of behavior and that these lawful principles are ultimately based on an understanding of the laws of science. Psychology as a science is well within its second century. The separate scientific discipline of psychology was first identified as early as 1880. In my training it was pressed upon me that we are only beginning to discover the underlying principles and lawful nature of human behavior. The goals of this science of psychology include describing, or explaining human behavior, predicting human behavior, and controlling human behavior. This Operators Manual for Combat PTSD is developed with these goals in mind: To assist veterans with Combat PTSD in understanding the psychological, biological, and social principles of psychology in general, and Combat PTSD specifically so they will be able to gain self-control, and improve feelings of self worth and self esteem.

      Within the past two decades, we have learned a great deal about how the brain works. A central tenet of current thinking is that people are the product of human evolution. This human evolution means that for people there are brain structures responsible for aggressive behavior. Usually, during our socialization process we are taught to refrain from using these aggressive brain structures. The problem for victims of Combat PTSD is that these primitive or aggressive structures produce chemical changes in how the brain works, and this influences behavior. Unfortunately, this change in how the brain functions leaves the combat veteran feeling extremely uncomfortable.

      Seeking an understanding of the human mind and human behavior can be traced back throughout our own written history over the past ten thousand years. It is significant that the science of psychology, since the 1880s, has included this understanding of brain structures, and also interpretations of what now might be referred to as the software or the programming of the human mind.

      When Sigmund Freud, a neurologist and the father of psychiatry, began studying human behavior, he developed a model of the mind based on an understanding through analogy of the human world at that time which included: hydraulics, an understanding of electricity, and comparative anatomy in exploring how squid axons or nerve cells behaved. From this, Sigmund Freud developed the first integrated or comprehensive model of human behavior (Id, our primitive urges, Ego, sense of self, and Superego, our morality).

      In the early 1900s American and Russian psychologists began emphasizing the study of human behavior irrespective of what might be occurring within the mind itself. It was thought at that time that we could learn much about human behavior through what we can observe.

      That is what we can see, what we can count, and what we can measure. These behaviorists, Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner, among others, believed that mental constructions of internal cognitive events were just speculation and not based on empirical observation. From this, an understanding of classical conditioning and operant conditioning was developed. This was referred to as the behavioral paradigm.

      In the late 1970s and early 1980s a paradigmatic shift occurred primarily because of advances in understanding the anatomy of the brain, and, with this, the ability to begin exploring how specific aspects of the brain contributed to internal mental events. This led to the development of the cognitive and the cognitive behavioral paradigm. New findings in anthropology and carbon dating have provided a better understanding of our biological roots. This has led to the next conceptual scientific paradigm.

      There is a current paradigm, which is integrating information from biology, psychology, and this is the evolutionary psychology paradigm. Recent advances in CAT scans and MRIs have given psychologists a better understanding of how the mind works and a consilience with other scientists who study behavior and how the brain works.

      Consequently, the topics introduced in this manual were prepared after observation of veterans’ reoccurring patterns or themes and from that information currently available within the science of psychology interpreted within an evolutionary paradigm.

      Ultimately, there are two guiding axioms which are utilized to hold together this information:

      1. The universe operates under a defined and definable set of principles which are unchanging and can be understood by man.

      2. This natural and understandable organization of

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