PTSD may get name change again

PTSD may get name change again
by
Chaplain Kathie

The military has been struggling with addressing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the stigma attached to it for over a decade. Now they are once again thinking of just changing the title. Combat Post Traumatic Stress Injury would accomplish separating this kind of trauma from other causes. There is a huge difference between a one time event in a person's life and the type of PTSD caused by multiple events. There is also a difference between being a "victim-survivor" and participating in the event itself. While we may be able to understand an average person suffering after a crime or accident, we find it difficult to understand how constant exposures can profoundly change a serviceman or woman.

Changing the "distress" to "injury" is also appropriate since it is caused by an outside force and does not begin with the individual. Trauma is Greek for "wound" so the term "injury" better describes what happened to cause it along with supporting the notion that as with any injury, healing follows. If they change the term to "injury" attaching it to combat, then they need to consider if they will follow through with this by awarding the Purple Heart or not. The debate on issuing a Purple Heart for PTSD and TBI has been going on for a long time since both are wounds caused by combat operations.

I have to admit that I am torn on this. In a way, it seems like a very good idea but on the flip side, it very well could make things worse for veterans coming to terms with what happened to them. The battle to get rid of the stigma has included getting them to understand that PTSD is nothing to be ashamed of. Would changing the name again harm or help? Would it really make that much of a difference?

Perhaps the best way to remove the stigma of PTSD is to begin with the way the military has been trying to prevent it and get them to stop. Training them to be "resilient" and telling them they can strengthen their minds tells them they are weak in the first place. If they end up with PTSD it is their fault because they were not mentally tough enough to take it. When they are suffering and one of their buddies is walking away fine and dandy, that is what they think of themselves. They were just not tough enough.

Half of the veterans needing help never seek it because then they believe they would have to admit there is something mentally wrong with them instead of accepting the fact they wouldn't need help if they had not been through combat and no one walks away after combat unchanged. Some are changed more deeply than others because they are able to feel things at a deeper level. Even the strongest character in a group will be changed given enough events and prolonged stressful days. Being told they could have trained their brains reenforces what they are more apt to think. It is their fault. The military needs to stop this practice first or all the name changes in the world will not work.

New name for stress disorder considered
Army wants troops more open to seeking treatment for PTSD.
By Lindsay Wise, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Monday, January 16, 2012


The president of the American Psychiatric Association says he is “very open” to a request from the Army to come up with an alternative name for post-traumatic stress disorder so troops returning from combat will feel less stigmatized and more encouraged to seek treatment.

Dr. John Oldham, who serves as senior vice president and chief of staff at the Houston-based Menninger Clinic, said he is looking into the possibility of updating the association's diagnostic manual with a new subcategory for PTSD.

The subcategory could be “combat post-traumatic stress injury” or something similar, he said.

“It would link it clearly to the impact and the injury of the combat situation and of the deployment experience, rather than what people somewhat inaccurately but often assume, which is that you got it because you weren't strong enough.”

The potential change was prompted by a request from Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army's vice chief of staff, who wrote to Oldham last year, suggesting that the psychiatric association consider dropping the world “disorder” from PTSD.

“We are actually trying to work together to see what might be possible,” he said. “Everybody feels — and the general did as well — that that would be a whole lot better because soldiers are not as uneasy with the word ‘injury.' That's a war injury, a combat injury. It's not associated with the same kind of stigma and discomfort.”
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