BookElspeth Cameron Ritchie, Christopher H. Warner, Robert N. McLay, editors.
Summary: This book tells the professional and personal experiences of American military psychiatrists and their fellow mental health providers in the longest conflict in American history. These men and women treat service members for the psychological consequences from their experiences in battle, including killing enemy combatants; seeing wounded and killed civilian casualties; losing their friends in combat; factoring in personal mental health needs, ; and potentially dealing with their own physical injuries from being shot or blown up. The volume consists of 20 short first-person case studies from mental health providers who have been risking their lives while treating patients in the battlefield since 9/11. Written by experts who have experienced these challenges directly, this text offers both clinical and personal accounts that are not found elsewhere. Topics include tips on providing psychotherapy in battle, evaluating and treating detainees in war prisons such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and the unique challenges of prescribing medication to patients who are also comrades in war. Psychiatrists in Combat; Mental Health Clinicians in the War Zone is uniquely positioned to be a valuable resource for psychiatrists interested in trauma and veterans, psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, military health personnel, and mental health professionals interested in military psychiatry.
Contents:
The Road to Iraq
Farm Boy Turned Military Psychologist: A Summary of War Deployment Experiences, Struggles, and Coping
Someone Always Has It Worse: The Convoy to Balad
Psychiatrists in Combat: From the Deckplates to Division
Occupational Therapists Share Deployment Experiences from Iraq and Afghanistan
The Most Efficient Marine
The Purposeful Doctor
The Iraqi Heart of Darkness: A Visit to Abu Ghraib
The Two Sides of Modern Day American Combat: From Camp Austerity to Camp Chocolate Cake
Zero To Sixty: From Residency to the War Zone
Research at the Tip of the Spear
From Battalion Surgeon to Combat Psychiatrist: Three Tours in Iraq and Afghanistan
"Oh, The Things You Can Find"
Chronicles from the Cradle of Civilization
To Squander the Fighting Strength? Personal
Experiences with Preventive Psychiatry and the Dilemma of Wartime Public Mental Health
Learning to Scale the Wall
Shrink in the Making: Learning to Become a Psychiatrist From the War Wounded
After the Smoke Clears
The French Fourragère: Gore and Lore
Leaving Our Mark
Last of the OSCAR Psychologists in Afghanistan: An Expeditionary Model of Care Jesse. .