Questions about PTSD

Dec 06, 2009 11:12

As usual, I'm in over my head. Does anyone know of a good internet resource on PTSD? Target population: former child soldiers.

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Comments 9

purejuice December 6 2009, 14:49:59 UTC
human rights watch is a good place for the overview. i know somebody who's doing a phd thesis on child soldiers, and i'll see if i can track her down.
http://www.hrw.org/en/search/apachesolr_search/liberia+child+soldiers

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purejuice December 6 2009, 15:20:30 UTC
van der kolk is the authority who has apparently determined that traumatic stress causes permanent neuro chemical changes. do not quote me cause that kind of stuff always changes.

but he is the man.

http://www.amazon.com/Traumatic-Stress-Effects-Overwhelming-Experience/dp/157230457X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260112645&sr=1-1#reader_157230457X

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purejuice December 6 2009, 15:48:11 UTC
cross cultural psychiatric practice is notoriously sketchy -- for example, all buddhists test depressed on western dipstick one-size-fits-all diagnostic interrogatories.

in the same way, crude PTSD diagnostics test for western concepts of trauma, high on the list survivor guilt (asian survivors of atomic blasts were alleged to suffer it by robert jay lifton, who pulled it out of his ass, but they do not; as neither do asian survivors of political famine and genocide. they're shame-based societies, not guilt, for starters, and one has a karma to survive or not, etc.) and other ideas which may not be part of trauma psychosis elsewhere.

arthur kleinman of harvard devised these eight questions to ask people of Other cultures about their medical condition.

http://erc.msh.org/aapi/tt11.html

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red_tanya December 6 2009, 23:02:25 UTC
some of the recent research I've read has to do with memory retrieval and storage. Short form: getting someone to "talk it out" right after something has happened may be counterproductive by forcing them to focus on something that would pass naturally without intervention, the act of retrieving memory changes memory, and the nature of memory is very slippery in general.

All the research I'm reading is from the Americas and Europe. As others have pointed out, that lends a bias to the available information.

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lesliessexxy December 7 2009, 03:41:44 UTC
I just wanted to let you know that I think what you're doing is amazing! :)

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none_too_subtle December 7 2009, 17:13:13 UTC
I've been diagnosed with it (was in the military, at a young age); does that count?

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moll_cutpurse December 7 2009, 22:18:51 UTC
Ever read _A Long Way Gone_, the memoir of a child soldier from Africa?

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