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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Atrocities exposure in Vietnam combat veterans with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder: relationship to combat exposure, symptom severity, guilt, and interpersonal violence.

Vietnam combat veterans (N = 151) with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) completed measures of atrocities exposure, combat exposure, PTSD symptom severity, guilt and interpersonal violence. PTSD symptom severity, guilt and interpersonal violence rates were similar to previously reported studies that examined treatment seeking combat veterans with PTSD. Controlling for combat exposure, endorsement of atrocities exposure was related to PTSD symptom severity, PTSD B (reexperiencing) symptoms, Global Guilt, Guilt Cognitions, and cognitive subscales of Hindsight-Bias/Responsibility and Wrongdoing. These results are discussed in the context of previous research conducted regarding atrocities exposure and PTSD.

Guilt↗

Exposure to atrocities and severity of chronic posttraumatic stress disorder in Vietnam combat veterans.

OBJECTIVE: The authors' objective was to explore aspects of trauma associated with severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Vietnam veterans. METHOD: Several ratings of stress exposure and symptom severity were administered to 40 patients with combat-related PTSD. RESULTS: A significant relationship was observed between exposure to atrocities and the impact of PTSD on veterans' lives, as measured by the Mississippi Scale for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Exposure to atrocities was also significantly correlated with current symptom severity. In contrast, combat exposure alone was not significantly associated with overall symptom severity. Both atrocity and combat exposure, however, were significantly related to reexperiencing symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The data suggest that the enduring effect and severity of PTSD symptoms on an individual are associated more with exposure to brutal human death and suffering than the threat of death associated with combat.

Adult↗

The development of a scale to assess war-time atrocities: the War Events Scale.

The War Events Scale (WES) was developed to assist clinicians with the assessment of war zone veterans' exposure to, and participation in war-time atrocities distinct from combat, and their current distress from these events. Data concerning content validity, test-retest reliability, internal consistency, as well as correlational data with the Combat Exposure Scale and the Mississippi Scale are presented. Results indicate that the WES does have adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and correlates moderately with the Combat Exposure and Mississippi Scales. Initial results suggest that the WES may be helpful in collecting extremely sensitive information concerning the exposure of war zone veterans to atrocities.

Combat Disorders↗

'Eloquent chaos' in the oral discourse of killing fields survivors: an exploration of atrocity and narrativization.

If "narrative" implies a form of discourse in which sequenced events are meaningfully connected, an "anti-narrative" is a chaotic discourse form "of time without sequence, telling without mediation, and speaking about oneself without being fully able to reflect on oneself" (Frank 1995: 98). This paper examines narratives and anti-narratives in the oral discourses of survivors of the Cambodian killing fields. Through an extended analysis of two cases, we demonstrate the internal logic and "eloquence" of anti-narratives--i.e., the ways in which anti-narrative patterns vividly express and reveal a survivor's complex and continuing experience of atrocity.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Intergroup atrocities in war: a neuroscientific perspective.

Studying the most extreme outcomes of intergroup hatred--murder, mass killings and genocides--has long been part of historical and social research. Neuroscientists and psychologists have also been interested in interpersonal and intergroup violence. This article considers the question of how atrocities arise from a neuroscientific perspective, focusing on war as the context in which they most often occur. It describes relevant aspects of brain function, relates them to social psychological research on intergroup hostility and applies the resulting framework to a case study: the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

Brain↗

Destructiveness, atrocities and healing: epistemological and clinical reflections.

In this paper, destructiveness is approached as a multi-dimensional phenomenon where the mental health perspective addresses only one of these dimensions. An attempt is made to locate this phenomenon in the context of epistemological and societal considerations. Critical of mono-dimensional explanations based on causal-reductive epistemology, the paper instead proposes the idea of an 'ecology of destructiveness', according to which mental health professionals cannot possibly continue to assume the role of detached observers. The ordinariness and archetypal fascination of destructiveness are discussed as preventing the psychologizing and pathologizing of it. In addition, it is suggested that 'destructiveness may be a tragic facet of the human condition', without this implying any justification of it. Based on my work with a group of Bosnian ex-camp prisoners, some basic principles of how one can work with survivors of atrocities are derived and discussed. A central feature of this work is the attempt to create an appropriate therapeutic context within which a 'therapeutic presence' and 'therapeutic witnessing' can be developed. Finally, the relevance of Jungian insights to this kind of work is reviewed and the emergence of new types of defences of the self is identified.

Humans↗

Shame, guilt, self-hatred and remorse in the psychotherapy of Vietnam combat veterans who committed atrocities.

The soldiers who perpetrated atrocities during the Vietnam War are a group much less studied than the victims of violence during peacetime. These soldiers were catalyzed by war to express a darker side of their humanity, a side that our society often chosses to ignore. At some level their experiences relate to us all. In the future more young men and, probably young women, will be sent to war. Once they have been transformed by military training and the hellish conditions of war, society tends to forget them--to leave them wandering in a no man's land of their own tortured thoughts and feelings. We need to understand more about how such transformations of the self beset our returning soldiers. And, once this has happened, we need to know how to help them reintegrate into society and reconnect with others in a meaningful way. A psychotherpy that embraces the patient's need to express remorse is necessary in order to help these patients work through their guilt and self-hatred. These are the main objectives of treatment.

Adult↗

Psychological responses to war and atrocity: the limitations of current concepts.

Because of the prevalence of wars, political violence and other forms of man-made disaster in Third World countries many individuals and communities suffer prolonged and often multiple traumas. In Western psychiatry certain conceptions of the response to violence and trauma have been developed, including the widely used category of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We argue that because concepts such as PTSD implicitly endorse a Western ontology and value system, their use in non-Western groups should be, atmost, tentative.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

The United States cover-up of Japanese wartime medical atrocities: complicity committed in the national interest and two proposals for contemporary action.

To monopolize the scientific data gained by Japanese physicians and researchers from vivisections and other barbarous experiments performed on living humans in biological warfare programs such as Unit 731, immediately after the war the United States (US) government secretly granted those involved immunity from war crimes prosecution, withdrew vital information from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and publicly denounced otherwise irrefutable evidence from other sources such as the Russian Khabarovsk trial. Acting in "the national interest" and for the security of the US, authorities in the US tramped justice and morality, and engaged in what the English common law tradition clearly defines as "complicity after the fact." To repair this historical injustice, the US government should issue an official apology and offer appropriate compensation for having covered up Japanese medical war crimes for six decades. To help prevent similar acts of aiding principal offender(s) in the future, international declarations or codes of human rights and medical ethics should include a clause banning any kind of complicity in any unethical medicine-whether before or after the fact-by any state or group for whatever reasons.

Biological Warfare↗