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Mentally Disordered Or Culturally Displaced? How The Ptsd Label Transforms Personhood In Us Military Veterans, Katinka Hooyer

Theses and Dissertations

Medical experts claim that Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among United States military service personnel, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan has contributed to an “epidemic of suicide” in the U.S. However, veterans, military commanders, and mental health providers argue that feelings of grief, guilt, mistrust, rage, and alienation are actually normal moral reactions to the abnormal situations that war creates. Furthermore, they argue that these normal reactions are currently transformed into a psychiatric diagnosis that promises clinical solution – a cure. Recent epidemiologic studies suggest that evidence-based clinical treatments are ineffective for a majority of veterans with PTSD and that the …