War trauma

Governments and militaries have long denied or played down the psychiatric toll of war on the people who fight it, yet its effects can persist for decades, and we are still working out how to understand them. Raymond Scurfield, a nationally recognized authority on post-traumatic stress disorder, argues that the psychiatric, psychological and social wounds of today's conflicts will likely prove just as lasting.

This book is the third volume in A Vietnam Trilogy. It asks what military and mental health professionals should have learned from Vietnam and earlier wars, and how that knowledge can help service members, health workers, families and communities face the realities of modern combat and its aftermath. Scurfield draws on his work as a national faculty member for joint VA-DOD training programs that prepared mental health responders before the Persian Gulf War. In that period he saw a renewed pattern of selective amnesia and denial about war's real impact. He also notes that psychiatric casualties in Vietnam in 1968-69 closely parallel those among American forces in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

The book is meant for veterans, their families, their communities and the professionals who care for them. It describes the kinds of trauma soldiers have suffered and offers recommendations for improving therapy for active duty personnel and veterans with post-traumatic stress, along with guidance for their families. Scurfield documents the innovative treatment methods he developed for war trauma and PTSD, and presents a comprehensive model that most treatment approaches have yet to reach. He intends these ideas to serve as a foundation for programs supporting today's veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, their families, and veterans of earlier wars who are still struggling with war trauma.

Scurfield is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Coast. A Vietnam veteran, he worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs for 25 years and directed PTSD mental health programs in Los Angeles, Washington DC, the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii and American Samoa. His work includes more than 50 publications, over 250 presentations, educational videos, national media appearances and research. His most recent publications address the continuing psychological impact of the events of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

He has received several outstanding university teacher awards and the 2006 Mississippi Social Worker of the Year Award, in recognition of his social work and post-traumatic stress interventions on the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, which struck on August 29, 2005. In 1988 he received the Department of Veterans Affairs Olin Teague award, presented by President Ronald Reagan. He continues to develop new approaches to treating war-related PTSD.