Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War (repost)
Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War
Publisher: Beacon Press | ISBN 10: 0807050407 | 2006 | PDF | 223 pages | 1.1 MB
Publisher: Beacon Press | ISBN 10: 0807050407 | 2006 | PDF | 223 pages | 1.1 MB
In the early 1970s, Penny Coleman married Daniel, a young Vietnam veteran and fellow photographer. Soon, Daniel became deeply troubled, falling victim to multiple addictions and becoming strangely insecure. He suffered from what we now call posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After Coleman left him, he committed suicide.
Struggling to understand Daniel’s experience, Coleman began investigating the history of PTSD; she found clear cases of the disorder as far back as the Civil War. In Flashback, Coleman deftly weaves psychology and military, political, oral, and cultural history to trace the experience of PTSD in the military up through the Vietnam War. She then focuses on Vietnam to show why this war in particular led to such a high number of PTSD cases, many of which ended tragically in suicide. Like the soldiers listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, these men are casualties of war.