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Tuesday, March 11, 2003Late last year, Dr. Shay published his second book, "Odysseus in America," about the spiritual and psychic pitfalls that await combat veterans returning to civilian life. His first book, "Achilles in Vietnam," published in 1994, compared the experiences of soldiers in the Trojan and Vietnam Wars to argue that war's psychic wounds — what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder — have always existed. Those spiritual injuries, Dr. Shay wrote, didn't arise just from bad luck in combat. They were the consequences of soldiers' feeling mistreated by their own commanders. Grunts who didn't feel cared for by the officers felt what Achilles felt against Agamemnon in the epic. I like his explanation of the neurology of psychology: Whether the military experience is told in terms of brain chemicals like cortisol and dopamine, military concepts like cohesion and morale, or universal human feelings like trust or love, Dr. Shay says: "These are different refractions of the same beam of light. So there's no dissonance for me going from one language to another." Even the meaning of psychoactive drugs, Dr. Shay says, is multiple. When he prescribes the class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, he hopes for more than a change in brain chemistry, as the drug alters the balance of serotonin in the patient's brain. The effect is also a psychological experience, as the veteran feels less prone to rages. And it is a social experience, as well. "Social recognition has a physiological impact, and an S.S.R.I. triggers some of the same mechanisms as that social experience," he said. "Though I know enough about the nervous system to know that any drug we have is a crude simulacrum." Like many scientists who cross disciplines, Dr. Shay keeps it all together with a unified, and controversial, theory. He believes that trust-destroying trauma has a single biology and a single psychology, whether it arises from political torture, prostitution, domestic violence or combat. He has no use for particularists who want to keep separate accounts for the pain of Holocaust victims, soldiers and abused women. The experience of trauma is unique to each sufferer. Meanwhile, its biology is common to all. So comparing one group's pain to another, Dr. Shay argues, is pointless. posted by Sydney on 3/11/2003 08:13:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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