title: Combat veterans: impressions of an analytic observer in a non-analytic setting.
abstract: The hallmark presentation of combat trauma-nightmares, waking hallucinations, intrusive traumatic memories, and extreme affective reactions to environmental triggers-may best be conceptualized as part of an adaptive mechanism intended to protect the individual against a repetition of trauma. Combat veterans continuously must cope with the extreme affects that combat induced. Fear, rage, guilt, and grief predominate. Their mental and emotional life is complicated by a conscience split between war zone and civilian morality and by the special group dynamics of combat. Optimal clinical understanding of combat-related trauma, whether in a psychoanalytic or general mental health setting, requires an awareness of the interaction of the personal dynamics of each individual with the specific characteristics of their combat situation.
authors.affiliation: NYU Psychoanalytic Institute at NYU Medical Center, USA. hstein@psychoanalysis.net
authors.forename: Herbert H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Stein
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology; D005239:Fear; D006117:Grief; D006167:Guilt; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D019370:Observation; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D011889:Rage; D012931:Social Environment; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D014728:Veterans / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014857:Warfare