Comments on: A very modern trauma

By: bigorange

bigorange — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:34:41 +0000

PTSD is now controlled via supercomputers by amnesia walling brain. The U.S. military currently uses this on all soldiers. By mm microwave laser to cerebellum soldiers are forced to forget yesterdays trauma and left with an altered reality. The general population is also mind controlled via the same technology.

By: Richard M Stallman

Richard M Stallman — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 05:13:34 +0000

According to Achilles in Vietnam, by Jonathan Shay, the Illiad is the
description of the PTSD of Achilles. Put far too simplistically, his
commander cheated him, his buddy was killed, and he went berserk. I
am no expert on the matter, but Shay says that these are typical of
the circumstances that cause PTSD in recent times.

If you want to buy the book, please don’t get it from
Amazon (see http://stallman.org/amazon.html).

By: Tim Barker

Tim Barker — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 19:16:32 +0000

I agree with you comment, but isn’t it rather a matter of trust? It is difficult to believe in “historical” as true unless it part of our experience or memory.

By: skyewriter

skyewriter — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 05:34:40 +0000

Preposterous, to assign gender to PTSD. More mysterious is the Psych community’s rejection of Complex PTSD (as often observed in abused children, regardless of male, female or androgynous) as being genuine.

I recall the term “shell shock” being used to describe the trauma in soldiers pre-Vietnam. Regardless, the victims of war are not only those who fought in them or the unfortunate people whose country and culture were decimated and Westernized. The families, the children of Veterans frequently lived on a battlefield — I know this was true for me (a woman who was once a little girl with a brutal alcoholic father who relived his time on the front lines in the US Army and often used me as a punching bag or soccer ball). There have been people and events in the past twelve years that have triggered agony in me so extreme, I didn’t care whether I lived or died. The pain is so extreme it has a physical component and sometimes involves Dissociation.

So what will the newest DSM call this exquisitely painful inconvenience: Post Traumatic Stress by Proxy? And only males will be afflicted? I’ve sought appropriate therapy and treatment for PTSD and will continue to do so. At the first mention of Personality Disorder, I’ll leave the office and refuse to pay the tab. How pathetic these “Mental Health professionals” are. WOMEN: advocate for yourselves, do the research and if the first opinion seems hackneyed and wrong, get yourself a second opinion (and do not make any mention of the first opinion).

By: sats

sats — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:45:29 +0000

Dr David Nutt, referred to in another article on your blog writes about treating PTSD with psychedelics in his book ‘Drugs without the hot air’. ‘Because pharmaceutical companies know that any drug with a chemical similarity to an illegal psychoactive substance is unlikely to be approved, they tend to avoid these areas of research altogether.’

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 08:06:04 +0000

Good post! There’s also a book out there for anyone who’s interested in a more in-depth analysis of the historical nature of PTSD. It’s called “The Harmony of Illusions” and is written by Allan Young.

And as a commentary to the replies to this post, I think that people shouldn’t equate historical to false, as some here are wont to do. Knowledge being historical and/or constructed doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. That’s a dichotomy that I think it’s best to try and move past, similar to what most modern history and sociology of science has done.

By: marcellas

marcellas — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:59:03 +0000

As a behavioral psychologist its baffling to witness the disregard of conditioning and habituation in all this discussion of neurology. By conditioning I an referring to both classical and operant, (Skinner and Pavlov). Look closely at anyone with PTSD and you will see clearly that their suffering is being reinforced or “conditioned”. They expect to receive some consideration for their suffering or to avoid something aversive by it or both. Cultural expectations shape the expression of distress, and all this occurs subconsciously and automatically. This explains why the person’s symptoms and suffering are completely genuine, and tend to significantly improve once they are declared “100% disabled”.

By: jim pivonka

jim pivonka — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 14:19:44 +0000

Bingo. It’s hard for me to imagine a response to this article that would better sum and illustrate my own reaction. Which is something between incredulity and disgust.

It is hard to find historical accounts of continental drift before the 19th century, btw. The earth’s crust must have started behaving the way it does after Wegener suggested it do so.

By: jim pivonka

jim pivonka — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 14:15:09 +0000

Jen. Sheesh. Warmest regards, and tenderness to you. Wile E Coyote, indeed!

By: Tim Barker

Tim Barker — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 05:56:56 +0000

This is an interesting point and far be it from me to contradict eminent research, especially as I have not studied this area. Surely, PTSD has existed and as the article points out is perhaps an issue of diagnosis. Furthermore I appreciate the problem of historical records and that as Richard McNally puts it ‘often these symptoms have to be asked about specifically to be detected.’

However, using an arbitrary example; the British Government gave posthumous pardons(1) to soldiers shot for desertion in WW1 who are now said to have been suffering from PTSD. If symptoms such as ‘intrusive memories, hyper-arousal, and avoidance of reminders or emotional numbing.’ were suffered by these victims is it not PTSD? If not what is it? Should we give it a different category? As each situation is different and specific and therefore, should be referred to differently. It follows that soldiers fighting in Afganistan suffer, not with PTSD but ATSD for example.

(1)Editorial,‘300 WWI soldiers receive pardons’ (BBC News Wednesday, 16 August 2006) accessed 8th August 2012