Resilience Training

The article, Unbroken: what makes some people more resilient than others, uses the example of Louis Zamperini as shown in the movie, Unbroken, to examine the role of resilience in the ability to recover after a traumatic event. Written by David Cox for The Guardian, the article discusses current research on resilience, and explains how it can be used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many people experience a severe trauma in their lives, but only a few go on to develop PTSD. For a long time, the focus has been on what makes people more susceptible to developing PTSD. A newer approach to studying stress disorders, as the article establishes, is the study of resilience. Using the example of Louis Zamperini, the article describes an interdisciplinary approach to studying resilience including biological, social, and lifestyle factors.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (commonly referred to as PTSD) is one of the most common, consequential and perilous illnesses a soldier returning home can face. Yet, here

However, the argument that exposure to traumatic event can always result in mental health problems has become controversial because it can stigmatize those who do not believe they have been affected in an adverse manner. Fortunately, only a small percentage of people experience severe enough lose or trauma reactions to meet the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), and most people appear to fully recover from any adverse effect within a relatively short period of time, and to successfully overcome potentially traumatic events with little or no disruption in their normal ability to function (Shalev, 2002). Therefore, it is important to note that “the emergence of interest in the concept of resilience comes at the peak of success of the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), serving as a reminder that

Over decades, the research of resilience has developed from understanding individual’s resilience qualities and protective factors, to the process of resilience and the interventions that promote resilience (Richardson, 2002; Wright et al., 2013). Recently, the focus of resilience shift to the neurobiological process because of the development of science and technology (Wright et al., 2013). While these literatures emerging, there are two noteworthy issues. First, the outcome of the studies were mainly emphasized on main-stream population (Ungar, 2006). Second, little attention was given to resilience across cultures (Ungar, 2006; Ungar et al., 2005). Hence, it is important to investigate how resilience is being defined and understand in different cultures; what are the challenges when conducting a cross cultural research; and what are the key elements when implementing intervention in different cultures.

As we learn more about the cause and effect of PTSD we can better equip ourselves to help those in need. It is a process that has a clear beginning but an unclear ending. A person who can function normally for many years after seeing combat may find it increasingly difficult to sit in a classroom day after day. With raising awareness on not only the severity but the scope of impact of mental health disorders it can eliminate the stigma of weakness and get these men and women who have put themselves second much of their lives the help they

Counselling: “The professional guidance of the individual by utilising psychological methods especially in collecting case history data, using various techniques of the personal interview, and testing interests and aptitudes” (Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, n.d.). It is the process in which a counsellor creates a safe and open environment for a client to speak about a problem that may be affecting them or if they need guidance in how to deal with a particular situation.

In the United States (US) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects 8 out of every 100 persons (United States Department of Veterans Affairs [USDVA], 2015). In which account for about 8 million people that include the military veterans (USDVA, 2015). About 10% of women and 4% of men will develop PTSD during some course of their lives (USDVA, 2015). Veterans are more susceptible to PTSD due to longer exposures to trauma, danger, or witness a violent life threaten incidence during their military service periods (USDVA, 2015). The development of PTSD becomes chronic after no longer seeing or under the “fight-or-flight“ experiences causing a psychological and/ or mental breakdown (National Institutes of Health [NIH], n.d). Such

Also, like adults, they can recover just as easily with therapy sessions and techniques. This is just a preview of what kind of research is being done in order to combat this issue with adolescents that have PTSD. The next step into the paper is to show if children are more resilient than adults or how does PTSD affect the development of children’s mental and physical

PTSD having been on the rise following various deployments necessitated by the various wars against terror, where the soldiers encounter traumatic experiences like harsh training conditions, unfavorable living standards, enemy attacks, extreme working environment, explosions, torture by enemies, loss of colleagues as well as long term separation from family back at home (Melinda S & Jeanne S., 2012). This therefore calls for a concerted effort in handling the pandemic of PTSD since it has been constantly on the increase and as a

Post-traumatic stress disorder is considered as a psychiatric disorder that creates impairments in occupational, interpersonal, and social functioning. Although there are several treatment processes for veterans suffering from this condition, some intervention may fail to generate desired results. Veterans who fail to show appropriate recovery should be supported with an alternative treatment plan (Aurora et al., 2010). Veterans develop the condition because of exposure to traumatizing

With the advances in technology and military medicine, improved amounts of armed veterans are surviving the injuries they endure at war. These brave men and woman are faced to enter the civilian life after enduring the things that they cannot remove form their memories. Posttraumatic stress disorder is a common psychological and physiological consequence of deployment for combat in military veterans. For an individual to be diagnosed of PTSD, the person had to have been exposed to an intense traumatic situation, which resulted in terror or helplessness and continue to re-experience the event for at least a month (World Health Organization). It can be very difficult for a military personal to return from active duty with the mindset that

Military Pathway (2013) concluded “Military life, especially the stress of deployments or mobilizations, can present challenges to service members and their families that are both unique and difficult”. Hence, it is not surprising that soldiers returning from a stressful war environment often suffer from a psychological condition called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This paper provides a historical perspective of PTSD affecting soldiers, and how this illness has often been ignored. In addition, the this paper examines the cause and diagnosis of the illness, the changes of functional strengths and limitations, the overall effects this disease may have on soldiers and their families, with a conclusion of

Levi, Bar‐Haim, Kreiss and Fruchter (2016) provide effective psychotherapy approaches for treating combat veterans with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, which they show their efficacy with a great deal of support. The research is more comprehensive than most studies as it provides an assessment of the psychiatric status at baseline, post-treatment and 8–12 months follow-up using the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale, the PTSD Questionnaire, the Montgomery and Asberg Depression Rating Scale and the Psychotherapy Outcome Assessment and Monitoring System-Trauma Version assessment questionnaire. However, the researchers did not conduct randomized controlled trials to determine treatment efficacy. Litz et al., (2009) added to the research on the treatment of PTSD by stimulating a critical examination of moral injury. The study makes use of the available literature and offers a working conceptual framework and a set of intervention strategies designed to repair moral injury, which is a strength also evident in Peterson et al. (2011).

If veterans do struggle with PTSD after they return from combat the Department of Veterans Affairs, a governmental agency that helps struggling veterans recover, offers two treatments. Studies have been done to see if one of the therapies is more effective than the other. There is not yet evidence that one therapy is better than the other. Cognitive processing therapy, CPT, helps by giving the vet a new way to deal with the maladaptive thoughts that come with PTSD. It also comforts them in gaining a new understanding of the traumatic events that happened to them. One of the other benefits of CPT is that it assists the person in learning how these disturbing events change the way they look at everything in life and helps them cope with that (“PTSD: National”). The second newer option of the two is prolonged exposure therapy, which is repeated exposure to these thoughts, feelings, and situations (“Most PTSD”). This type of therapy is now a central piece in the VA’s war on PTSD. “The problem with prolonged exposure is that it also has made a number of veterans violent, suicidal, and depressed, and it has a dropout rate that some researchers put at more than 50 percent, the highest dropout rate of any PTSD therapy that has been widely studied so far,”(“Trauma Post”). Both of the therapies are proven to reduce the symptoms but both have extremely high drop out rates and low follow through. It

The relevant stratification would be defined as gender. Gender would allow for the researcher to split up males and females in order to determine which has a higher resiliency to combat operational stress. Another relevant stratification could potentially be defined as the combat operational stress exposure and levels of PTSD amongst the females. The subcategory would be the military occupational specialty served while deployed in comparison to the periodic health assessment (PHA) obtained before and after resiliency treatments were introduced. The