Healing Combat Trauma

New Book Out: Soldiers' Own Photos from the War

Ran across a new book the other day that looked good enough to buy: This is Our War: A Soldiers' Portfolio: Servicemen's Photographs of Life in Iraq, by Devin Friedman, editor.  (See sidebar).  (Friedman is a senior writer for GQ.)  If you want to get a perspective on the war in Iraq and what it's like to go through for those who serve in it, this book is an opportunity to literally "see" the war through their eyes.  Flipped through it in a bookstore and it seemed really compelling.  Here's what the description says on Amazon:

Book Description
For all who have served in Iraq in the past three years, plus everyone who cares about those quarter million Americans—their wives and husbands, parents and children, friends and colleagues—here are 250 glimpses into life in wartime Iraq, a singularly intimate soldier’s-eye view of their war. Neither pro-war nor anti-, not Republican and not Democratic, this book is what life is really like for the troops: a true, honest glimpse into the banal and the breathtaking, the horrific and the honorable, the silly and sad and heartbreaking. 

(Sounds like a great way for those of us who weren't there to add to our perspective.)

The Perils of Suicide

A chaplain stationed in Iraq writes informally that six of the soldiers in his general area have taken their own lives recently, which is obviously six far too many.  No real conclusions as to why, but some soul-searching (no pun intended) as to how suicide has become "instant gratification" with a weapon when situations are beyond what we can handle.  No matter the reason or the circumstances, what a shame for those people and their families.

Canada's Only In-Patient Program for PTSD

An article from several years ago in the Psychiatric Times describes Canada's only in-patient program for PTSD sufferers.  The program, at a location called Homewood Health Centre, is located in Guelph, Ontario; and is modeled on a program in Philadelphia, PA., developed by psychiatrist Sandra L. Bloom, M.D., in the 1980s.