Gail Furman, psychologist, volunteers to treat today's veterans

Hair Revival: A Time Warp for Tears and Fun



By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: August 5, 2008

Felice Friedman remembers seeing the original production of “Hair.” She was 19 and had traveled to Broadway’s outlands, downtown on Lafayette Street, where Joseph Papp inaugurated the Public Theater with this revolutionary rock musical 41 years ago.

Gail Furman, who also saw the original, shared his sentiments. “I actually was crying as I was sitting there,” she said. “I was thinking of the young men and women dying in Iraq, and no one is saying anything.”

Ms. Furman, a psychologist who volunteers to treat Iraq veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, said she was arrested at a Pentagon protest in 1967, an event mentioned in the show. ( They weren’t trying to get hauled away, she said: “the barricade broke and we all fell over.”) But she remembers, “I was very angry if people didn’t burn their draft cards,” something that, in the show, Claude (Jonathan Groff) decides not to do. (Christopher J. Hanke takes over the role of Claude on Aug. 17 through the show’s close on Aug. 31.)

Now, Ms. Furman said, her feelings about veterans have made an about-face. Instead of contempt for those who served, she feels sympathy and support. “It’s a completely different mind-set,” she said.
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Dealing with the psychological aftermath of floods

Stephanie Salter: Dealing with the psychological aftermath of rising waters

By Stephanie Salter
The Tribune-Star

The woman behind the desk was uncharacteristically tight and terse. If I didn’t know her, if I were some stranger who’d just come into her workplace for services, I might think, “Geez, what’s with her? Would it kill her to smile?”

But I do know the woman, so I asked a question that’s fairly common around these parts just now: “Did you get any flooding?”

Her shoulders sagged and she nodded. Then, in a rush, she began to describe the extent of the damage to her home and all her family’s possessions. As she recounted the scary evacuation the family had to make — one minute life was normal, the next minute water was rushing into her house — her eyes filled with tears.

I’m no psychologist, but I was pretty sure I recognized the signs of post-traumatic stress. I also realized that this woman’s experience was one of thousands in the Wabash Valley and south-central Indiana.

As the physical signs of the great flood of June 2008 begin to fade, so will the consciousness of those of us who were fortunate enough to only read and hear about it. The flood’s victims, however, may look like everyone else on the outside, but inside they will be coping for months with its disorienting destruction.

And that struggle just might make them crabby, spaced out, fearful or weird to the uneducated eye.

If only the Red Cross could hand out survivor buttons that say, “Bear with me — I was flooded.” Until then, Michael Urban, a clinical psychologist in Terre Haute, has kindly provided some of the common reactions people have to traumatic or deeply disturbing occurrences like the area’s recent devastating flood.

Urban also emphasized that, while coping skills and healing time vary among individuals, anything the rest of us can do to stay aware of (and sympathetic to) the tough place many of our neighbors will be in for some time can only help.

“Most of these folks will be managing their job and the rest of their life in addition to the aftermath of the flood,” he said. “You know, we often overlook it, but everybody had a life prior to this, and that life doesn’t stop.”
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http://www.tribstar.com/cnhi/tribstar/opinion_columns/local_story_169195900.html

Norma Perez denies money factor in memo on PTSD

VA denies money a factor in PTSD diagnoses
The Associated Press - The Associated PressPosted : Tuesday Jun 3, 2008 20:42:23 EDT

WASHINGTON — A Veterans Affairs Department psychologist denies that she was trying to save money when she suggested that counselors make fewer diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder in injured soldiers.

Norma Perez, who helps coordinate a post-traumatic stress disorder clinical team in central Texas, indicated she might have been out of line to cite growing disability claims in her March 20 e-mail titled “Suggestion.” She said her intent was simply to remind staffers that stress symptoms could also be adjustment disorder. The less severe diagnosis could save VA millions of dollars in disability payouts.

“In retrospect, I realize I did not adequately convey my message appropriately, but my intent was unequivocally to improve the quality of care our veterans received,” Perez said in testimony prepared for delivery Wednesday before a Senate panel.

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the VA inspector general are investigating whether there were broader VA policy motives behind the e-mail, which was obtained and disclosed last month by two watchdog groups. VA has strenuously denied that cost-cutting is a factor in its treatment decisions.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/06/ap_va_ptsd_060308/

She is the head of a team and should know what this kind of thing would do. She should know better and should know how much harm something like this has done.

Senate Armed Service Committee takes on Mental Health

SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
Defense Directives Have Wide Scope
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 20, 2008; Page A11

From experiments with hybrid vehicles to huge bonuses for psychologists to personal finance lessons, the Senate Armed Services Committee's recommended spending blueprint for fiscal 2009 illustrates how Defense Department funds go for lots more than weapons.

Few corners of government are untouched by the 560-page report, released last week, which represents the committee's recommendations on the defense authorization bill now working its way through both houses.

The Senate panel noted, for example, that a task force of the Defense Science Board reported in February that the Pentagon "systematically underestimates" the cost of fuel for weapons and the benefits that could arise from requiring fuel efficiency in vehicles.

One step being taken, the committee said, is that "designs for the manned ground combat vehicles of the Army's Future Combat System will use hybrid electric drives." The panel itself added $6 million to the advanced technology budget for combat vehicles to develop military hybrid engines and $10 million for an advanced military vehicle battery development and testing initiative.

The committee also recommended that the Defense Department pay bonuses of as much as $400,000 to psychologists who make active-duty commitments of at least four years to various branches of the military. The proposal is based on a report by the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health, which found that "38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of Marines report psychological problems" and that "the number of active-duty psychologists is insufficient and likely to decrease further" without action by the Pentagon.
"We need to ensure that we have adequate numbers of uniformed mental health providers who can train and deploy with our troops and be there when they are needed," Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told the Senate committee in March. "And we must give our service members the tools they need to be able to cope with the stress of combat and the experiences that many of them face each and every day."

W. Patrick Lang, a retired Army colonel who specializes in military matters, said the recommendations for increased spending on personnel, including the recruitment of more psychologists, result because the Pentagon "feels completely responsible for everything that happens in your life, even when you go home or retire." He likened military service to joining a religious order.
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