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NEW YORK — Stigma surrounding mental illness continues to complicate treatment for veterans with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, according to experts.
The stigma exists not just in the military culture but also as an issue among young men, M. David Rudd, Ph.D., chair of the department of psychology at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, said during a panel discussion on substance abuse and mental health issues among veterans and active-duty military personnel at a meeting sponsored by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.
These young men often perceive experiencing psychiatric symptoms after combat as a failure. For them, it means that they are not invulnerable and that somehow they have done something wrong because they are having problems coping with the stress, said Dr. Rudd, who is a Gulf War veteran.
“It's really a sense of this notion of guilt and shame attached to an experience of failure after having been exposed to combat and then somehow feeling like they haven't responded in the way they should have,” he said.
Many veterans actually prefer to live with the trauma than to treat it, said Dr. Alexander Neumeister, of the psychiatry department at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, who was on the panel. Part of the problem is the evaluation process generally used for patients with PTSD, he said. The evaluation can take hours, and patients have to discuss the trauma that they have been working to suppress. Dr. Neumeister said.
NEW YORK — Stigma surrounding mental illness continues to complicate treatment for veterans with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, according to experts.
The stigma exists not just in the military culture but also as an issue among young men, M. David Rudd, Ph.D., chair of the department of psychology at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, said during a panel discussion on substance abuse and mental health issues among veterans and active-duty military personnel at a meeting sponsored by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.
These young men often perceive experiencing psychiatric symptoms after combat as a failure. For them, it means that they are not invulnerable and that somehow they have done something wrong because they are having problems coping with the stress, said Dr. Rudd, who is a Gulf War veteran.
“It's really a sense of this notion of guilt and shame attached to an experience of failure after having been exposed to combat and then somehow feeling like they haven't responded in the way they should have,” he said.
Many veterans actually prefer to live with the trauma than to treat it, said Dr. Alexander Neumeister, of the psychiatry department at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, who was on the panel. Part of the problem is the evaluation process generally used for patients with PTSD, he said. The evaluation can take hours, and patients have to discuss the trauma that they have been working to suppress. Dr. Neumeister said.
NEW YORK — Stigma surrounding mental illness continues to complicate treatment for veterans with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, according to experts.
The stigma exists not just in the military culture but also as an issue among young men, M. David Rudd, Ph.D., chair of the department of psychology at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, said during a panel discussion on substance abuse and mental health issues among veterans and active-duty military personnel at a meeting sponsored by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.
These young men often perceive experiencing psychiatric symptoms after combat as a failure. For them, it means that they are not invulnerable and that somehow they have done something wrong because they are having problems coping with the stress, said Dr. Rudd, who is a Gulf War veteran.
“It's really a sense of this notion of guilt and shame attached to an experience of failure after having been exposed to combat and then somehow feeling like they haven't responded in the way they should have,” he said.
Many veterans actually prefer to live with the trauma than to treat it, said Dr. Alexander Neumeister, of the psychiatry department at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, who was on the panel. Part of the problem is the evaluation process generally used for patients with PTSD, he said. The evaluation can take hours, and patients have to discuss the trauma that they have been working to suppress. Dr. Neumeister said.