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Books on the Library's Shelves
Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War by Gabriella Lettini; Rita Nakashima Brock
The first book to explore the idea and effect of moral injury on veterans, their families, and their communitiesAlthough veterans make up only 7 percent of the U.S. population, they account for an alarming 20 percent of all suicides. And though treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder has undoubtedly alleviated suffering and allowed many service members returning from combat to transition to civilian life, the suicide rate for veterans under thirty has been increasing.
Veterans by Margaret Haerens
Readers will explore the treatment of veterans, and the impact, positive or negative, of the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) on veterans' needs. Across four chapters, essays are either for or against various topics, allowing readers to sharpen their critical thinking skills. Essays discuss service issues for veterans diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury, and looks at ways in which the government can best help veterans, from a new G.I. Bill to assured funding for V.A. services.
Books Online
Ptsd by Allan V. Horwitz
Post-traumatic stress disorder--and its predecessor diagnoses, including soldier's heart, railroad spine, and shell shock--was recognized as a psychiatric disorder in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The psychic impacts of train crashes, wars, and sexual shocks among children first drew psychiatric attention. Later, enormous numbers of soldiers suffering from battlefield traumas returned from the world wars. It was not until the 1980s that PTSD became a formal diagnosis, in part to recognize the intense psychic suffering of Vietnam War veterans and women with trauma-related personality disorders. PTSD now occupies a dominant place in not only the mental health professions but also major social institutions and mainstream culture, making it the signature mental disorder of the early twenty-first century. In PTSD, Allan V. Horwitz traces the fluctuations in definitions of and responses to traumatic psychic conditions. Arguing that PTSD, perhaps more than any other diagnostic category, is a lens for showing major historical changes in conceptions of mental illness, he surveys the conditions most likely to produce traumas, the results of those traumas, and how to evaluate the claims of trauma victims. Illuminating a number of central issues about psychic disturbances more generally--including the relative importance of external stressors and internal vulnerabilities in causing mental illness, the benefits and costs of mental illness labels, and the influence of gender on expressions of mental disturbance--PTSD is a compact yet comprehensive survey. The book will appeal to diverse audiences, including the educated public, students across the psychological and social sciences, and trauma victims who are interested in socio-historical approaches to their condition. Praise for Allan V. Horwitz's Anxiety: A Short History "The definitive overview of the history of anxiety."--Bulletin of the History of Medicine "A lucid, erudite and brisk intellectual history driven by a clear and persuasive central argument."--Social History of Medicine "An enlightening tour of anxiety, set at a sensible pace, with an exceptional scholar and writer leading the way."--Library Journal
Films on the Library Shelves
