PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) has impacted veterans of combat throughout history. With current advances in protective combat armor and in combat medical treatment, more and more of the soldiers who would have perished in the battlefield are being saved and returned home. While their physical wounds may heal, the traumatic events experienced on the battlefield continue to impact their personal, social, and vocational lives. This study explores the perceptions of veterans with respect to their vocational stability and the impact that PTSD has had on their vocational functioning. Eleven veterans were selected to participate in this qualitative study. These veterans were all veterans of combat actions ranging from the Vietnam War to the current military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once selected, these veterans participated in interviews which explored their vocational history, their perceptions of their employment instability, and their perceptions of the impact that PTSD had on their vocational functioning and employment instability. Once the interviews were completed, they were transcribed and analyzed using open coding to identify common themes throughout the data. These themes included behavioral issues, perception of treatment, and their military experiences. Each theme was explored and interpreted to identify how PTSD impacted these participants in maintaining employment instability. Interpretations of the data lead to the conclusion that combat-related PTSD does, as the literature identifies, cause vocational instability. However, the data shows that while the participants did experience vocational instability, it was not because they were typically fired or dismissed from employment, but rather, they quit jobs prior to being fired. The participants were able to identify their triggers and stressors to the point that they simply quit their jobs when these triggers and stressors arose. Thus, much of their vocational instability may possibly have been prevented had they been able to effectively communicate their stressors and triggers to their employers and co-workers. Limitations of the study as well as implications for practice and future research are discussed. / text

A critical review of evidence-based literature addressing screening, barriers to treatment, treatment modalities and programs of care for posttraumatic stress disorder and depression in active duty military members was conducted using the Galvan method. The ONS levels of evidence and the ONS weight of evidence scale were used to critique and analyze extant research. Programs of care and their evaluation were reviewed. Gaps in research were identified and suggestions for evidence-based treatment and program evaluation of evidence-based treatment of PTSD and depression in military members are proposed.

Correctional services are viewed as a high-risk profession, given the exposure to violence and other stressors that characterises the work. These factors contribute to occupational stress and the possible development of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among correctional officers. There is an abundance of intemational literature on the development of PTSD in various populations, but almost no literature that examines the prevalence of PTSD amongst correctional officers in other countries as well as in South Africa. This study is aimed at exploring occupational stress, PTSD and coping strategies in South African correctional officers, using demographic data, the Impact of Events Scale-Revised, the Occupational Stress Indicator and the Coping Resources Inventory. Results, as measured by the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), revealed that correctional officers who worked directly with prisoners, and were therefore exposed to violence, experienced PTSD symptoms. Coping style findings (Coping Resources Inventory) showed that unmarried officers tended to use avoidance coping strategies to deal with occupational stress, whereas married officers tended to use approach coping strategies. It seems that marriage is a protective factor or buffer against stress. Surprisingly, results of the Occupational Stress Inventory did not reveal high levels of stress overall amongst correctional officers. Higher occupational stress was found amongst officers who had been in the correctional services for more than six years. The implications of the above findings indicate that correctional officers, who suffer from PTSD and occupational stress, must be identified and treated. The study further hopes that the findings and associated recommendations made can inform prevention and intervention programmes in the correctional services. Prevention and intervention programmes should impact at the level of the individual and the organisation through programmes such as stress management, stress inoculation and critical incident stress debriefing as well as, structural administrative and environmental change programmes within the correctional services. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

This research has focused on the concept of intergenerational trauma, elaborating on the post-Apartheid condition. Drawing on trauma theory, such as that provided by clinical and psychoanalytic approaches on the one hand, and on narrative and identity theory on the other, the project examines the long-term implications of Apartheid, particularly for the identities of post-Apartheid generations. The families who participated in this study all experienced a particular traumatic event, personally experiencing the political violence of Apartheid. However, the study focused on how this event has been integrated into and represented in family histories, how what is ‘said’ and what remains ‘unsaid’ within families functions and constitutes their identities in their ongoing lived experiences. Women’s narratives, often considered secondary to the grand narratives of struggle and conflict, are drawn out to show the ways, as primary caregivers, they form the pivot for the (intergenerational) transmission of secondary traumatisation or for negotiating new versions of family history that make it possible for both them and their children to create meaningful lives in the shadow of their tragedies. Utilising a narrative method which explores the interactional dynamics, structure and content of participants’ stories, the narratives of these women and their children are analysed first for the ways in which what was said (and even what remained ‘unsaid’) was complicated by the ‘interactional dynamics’ of research and, in particular, research across a language divide. The second layer of analysis attends to the narrative structure or form in which the stories are told. The final phase of analysis focuses on the thematic content of the narratives. In telling classic ‘trauma’ stories, of the political deaths of family members and partners under Apartheid, these women spoke of events which marked ‘turning points’ in their lives and which continue to leave their mark in their embodied experience. They also told of navigating a context of continued and pervasive violence, speaking of the violences of today, particularly domestic and sexual violence and HIV/AIDS, and they link these to their own embodied experiences after the political trauma event. Through intergenerational talk on relationships and sexuality, mothers attempt to navigate and negotiate new versions of family history for their children, as they try to create lives for their children that are dissimilar to their own, particularly with regard to violence. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

My interest in the process and effects of the witnessing act guides the purpose of this study. Here, I initiate a deeper understanding of the vicarious witnessing experience from the perspective of the witnessing participant. My central question is: How do individuals make sense of vicariously witnessing trauma through narrative, visual, and evidence-based representations of traumatic events in the concentration camps of Europe? Vicarious witnessing begins with abstract representations of the event. The evidence is witnessed firsthand, but the event itself is represented through various perspectives such as photographic or artistic images, survivor stories, or physical remnants. Witnessing the evidence evokes a potent embodied experience, so that a person can make the statement, "I have imagined what another has experienced, hence I believe I know." It is through the imagination that a witness forms a picture of the trauma. Undoubtedly, there is immense power in meeting another's experience in the realm of imagination. Compassionate action and social justice is based in this area of human empathy. To best achieve my purpose, I use a narrative method that involves two types of analysis, interpretive readings and narrative instances, as an approach to understand the participant's experience of vicarious witnessing. Participants in this study construct three types of narrative texts-written, spoken, and visual. Each textual perspective shapes the meaning that the participant attempts to express. As a first level of analysis, interpretive readings of the texts include general, specific, visual, and relational readings. Secondly, through exploring the interaction between various parts of these texts, and between the texts themselves, I explore three types of narrative instances--single-text, intratextual, and intertextual. Each analysis of a narrative instance is matched specifically to each participant, and I believe, is uniquely adequate for understanding the experience of vicarious witnessing. My inquiry outlines how individuals make sense of vicariously witnessing trauma, clarifies the meaning that participants make of the vicarious witnessing experience, shows the risks and coping involved in vicarious witnessing, and presents the kinds of social action that vicarious witnessing evokes. In the field of counselling psychology, the witnessing experience is an important aspect of trauma theory that has been left unexplored by psychologists. My research enlarges the social and theoretical conversation concerning the vicarious witnessing experience.

Two-hundred and twenty-four participants who reported a history of child abuse trauma were recruited from the internet, clinical (community outpatient) and prison settings and completed a battery of assessment measures, including Briere's Child Maltreatment Interview Schedule (CMIS) (slightly modified), Detailed Assessment of Traumatic Stress (DAPS), Cognitive Distortion Scale (CDS), and Inventory of Altered Self Capacities (IASC); van der Kolk's Self Inventory of Disorders of Extreme Stress (SIDES-SR); Nijenhuis's Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire (SDQ-20); and a modification of the CMIS to assess for adult victimization experiences (Adult Victimization Survey or AVS; Dietrich, unpublished instrument). It was hypothesized that Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Affect Dysregulation, and Problems with Interpersonal Relatedness would be associated with later revictimization experiences during adulthood with this sample, and that disturbances in ability to regulate self capacities and other complex posttraumatic sequelae would be associated with perpetration of physical or sexual violence during adulthood. Data were analyzed for 207 individuals who reported childhood maltreatment per the CMIS. Results provide partial support for the hypotheses. Women were significantly more likely to report revictimization, and male inmates were significantly more likely to perpetrate against others. Whereas PTSD and Somatoform Dissociation are the strongest dynamic predictors of any sexual or physical revictimization, Impaired Self Capacities are more often associated with revictimization by intimate partners in particular. Trauma-specific dissociation was associated with a decreased risk of revictimization, whereas peritraumatic and trait dissociation did not enter predictive models. Posttraumatic sequelae were not associated with increased risk of physical perpetration with these samples; however, IASC scores were associated with an increased risk of sexual perpetration and victim-based cognitive distortions were associated with decreased odds of sexual violence. These findings provide partial support for the Complex PTSD (Herman, 1992a) construct. Results are discussed in terms of implications for treatment, further study, and classification. Limitations are noted.

The purpose of this thesis is to locate the experience of individuals in the shared experience of a cultural community, to reveal a collective experience. Further, this thesis aspires to demonstrate that the experience of trauma is transmitted, often silently, intergenerationally. This is an attempt to define a community of distant survivors, and to locate the echoes of the voice of trauma hidden in the narratives of its members. The study explores the events of the December 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami. At the moment of the tsunami disaster all the participants in this study, Indonesian International Students, were studying in Montreal Canada. The impetus behind this qualitative inquiry into the essential experience of trauma is the desire to bring the experience of distant survivors to the foreground; to recognize vicarious victims by listening for echoes in their narratives. The aim of this thesis is to (1) locate personal narratives in the context of collective grief, (2) detect the re-creation of that grief in subsequent generations. This project has been undertaken with the hope of determining ever more effective social work practices for today's survivors, and of sparking interest in trauma research for tomorrow's victims.

<p><font face="Times New Roman"> <p align="left">Limitations of the study include the issue of counsellor variables and the fact that the participants varied between receiving a debriefing on a group or individual basis. The experience of the trauma debriefings were explored but more specific information relating to debriefing could have been elicited. Therefore, these findings cannot be generalised and further research could<font face="Times New Roman"> explore the utility and efficacy of trauma debriefing.</font></p> </font></p>

The TRC hearings is the most important form of assessment in the South African social system yet, because it was used as an evaluation of social life and trauma under apartheid. Both victims and perpetrators therefore, took the TRC seriously. The Khulumani support group observes that the TRC achievement in reconciliation and reparation needs further consideration to make proper reparation. The purpose of this study is to understand why political victims are still hurting in post apartheid South Africa. The empirical research comprises of a survey of 10 victims of political trauma. The survey questionnaire solicits information on kinds of trauma, the impact of trauma on individual and community, and the shattering of mental schemas amongst others. The survey revealed that most victims of political trauma are probably females, middle aged and illiterate. These people need to find themselves forms of guidance from older and more experienced victims. In addition, the survey revealed that although the value of psychological help was recognized, most victims did not attend such programs. Victims also said that, "the Government had not recognized their hurts". It can therefore be concluded that the government is still accountable for the state victims are in. The pilot research studies also revealed that the victims' high expectations are measured or based on the material things that they see political leaders having. However, achievement should be consistent with availability of resources, education, and psychological help for the victims themselves. Furthermore, the case stories showed that there are valid problems that these victims continue to experience. There is an urgency for more focused research into parameters that define effectiveness and efficiency in helping political victims in South Africa. Furthermore, it is imperative that the country deliberately increases psychological help. In addition there is a need to increase financial assistance. Finally, it is important to localize support groups, and to develop alternative ways to educate the existing traumatized victims. On this respect Christian Counselling groups may be of assistance. / Thesis (M.A)-University of Durban-Westville, 2005.

The experience of living through an unexpected, life-threatening cardiovascular surgery can be a profound. This study examined the experience of 4 men who had survived ruptured aortic aneurysm using a phenomenological research design.Audio-taped interviews were analyzed for common themes and patterns. Two strong, opposing constitutive patterns were found. The patterns the data conveyed were: 1) fear as a response to overwhelming pain and clouded perceptions, and 2) gratitude for recovery in an atmosphere of caring support.This study was significant in beginning to bring to understanding the phenomenon of surviving major, unexpected cardiovascular surgical trauma. It is recommended that health care providers be more attentive to similar patients' experiences and listen to how their lives have changed as a result of their experiences. / School of Nursing