Chapter Eleven:
The Psychological Impact of Disabilities
The last chapter of this book focuses upon psychosocial impacts of war that persist into times of peace as warriors return home. The chapter is structured around three themes:
1) the new goals that warriors must develop for themselves as they transition home;
2) the maladies impacting their transitions to home life; and
3) the means that they can use to overcome these maladies, so that they can achieve their goals at home.
Unlike past wars, service members in the current conflict are no longer taught to cope with memories of war by burying the memories and are now encouraged to learn new skills for coping with the symptoms of war that persist into the times of peace. Also, clinicians now provide services in the war zones, marking a massive change from previous wars when few such services were available at scenes of battle and even later, after warriors returned home.
This chapter covers new ways of coping which share in common the ingredient of learning new ways to reduce the fears and anxieties that are invoked by the memories. Just as soldiers were trained to become warriors to fight in war zones, they must now be trained to overcome the memories of war in order to live successfully in peace at home and at work. This chapter is structured around learning three sets of new skills:
1) new skills for coping with the problems that often arise in the
aftermath of war;
2) learning the motivations that are needed to apply these new skills in coping; and
3) learning how to overcome negative feelings and attitudes that impede motivations to learn new ways of coping.
To apply these new sets of coping skills, the chapter is organized around the structure that new goals for living need to be developed to overcome the maladies of war based upon learning new means to cope―especially the means of self-control, taking control of one’s own life, and organizing one’s life around the goals that one will want to achieve.
Author:
Walter Penk, Ph.D., and Ralph Robinowitz, Ph.D., J.D., began their work together as colleagues in 1963 at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. They published their first study on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 1981, based upon their experiences in identifying differences in psychosocial adjustment of substance-abusing veterans and those without exposure to combat.
Their contributions to this chapter arise from their learning about the importance of education and work to treat trauma-related disorders as alternatives to addictive use of illicit drugs. They are now entering their forty-fifth year of collaboration, conducting research on vocational rehabilitation as key psychosocial interventions for warriors who continue to be distressed by war.
Dr. Penk retired from the VA after serving forty-five years at the VA Medical Center in Bedford, Massachusetts. He is currently a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Texas A&M University College of Medicine and a consultant for the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System.
Dr. Robinowitz is both a clinical psychologist and an attorney and served as a commissioned officer during the Korean War era, completing his military service in the Reserves and retiring as a major. He was a clinical psychologist in Veterans Health Administration medical centers in Texas and retired from the VA as director of the drug dependence treatment center at the VAMC Dallas. After leaving the VA, Dr. Robinowitz obtained a law degree and now pursues his legal interest in disabilities and the law.
