Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'War – Psychology'

Interdisciplinary war trauma research suggests wars involving ethnic cleansing have debilitating and serious impacts on the physical and mental health of survivors. There has been a lack of focus on female-specific victimization, although female-driven cultural practices are altered as a result of traumatization. The South Slavic female survivors of the Balkan War partake in extensive cultural practices that have been shaped by their experiences of trauma. The current study used a qualitative approach to understand how women's traumatic experiences are manifested in and ameliorated by their oral memory traditions, or the cultural practice of sharing transgenerational information. Specifically, data from psychosomatic clinical sessions spanning a ten-year period were analyzed to identify how the somatic practice of the Kolo, or the round dance or sharing of information in a circle, has provided the women an outlet for their cultural expression and healing. Results are discussed in terms of psychosomatic themes that help us understand the effects of trauma.

Guided Autobiography is a process of writing, sharing and preserving one’s life stories and life experiences. It leads one down a path through vast stores of memories, leading to an increased awareness and appreciation of having lived through so much.

The purpose of this study was to adapt Birren’s Guided Autobiography (GAB) program for U. S. veterans 65 years of age and older. The themes developed for this study were based on Birren’s nine themes for conducting autobiography groups. It was tailored to include themes relevant to older adult war veterans. Local veterans were interviewed and asked about past war experiences. The responses were recorded and analyzed using qualitative research methods. GAB serves to assist Gerontologists, Social Workers and other Health Practitioners in that it helps to provide insight into veterans’ experiences.

Trauma is a social justice issue by which many of its sufferers historically have remained mystified in a web of misdiagnosis, the most notorious being hysteria. Today, individuals suffering from attachment disorders, anxiety, and depression and the victims of violence, addiction, emotional abuse, and physical abuse often have overlapping symptoms roughly mirroring trauma response symptomatology. These individuals comprise the bulk of those seeking relief from the healing professions, yet the DSM-V has but one diagnosis for trauma: posttraumatic stress syndrome. Recent advances in neuroscience have converged with observations from the field of psychology to confirm the need for a more complex trauma diagnosis. It is time to bring trauma out of the lab and into the streets. Using artistic-creative methodologies, this production thesis channels the expanding body of trauma research into comic strips designed to stimulate social dialogue about the existence of trauma response symptoms in our communities.

Compassion is often misunderstood. To live with compassion does not mean to give up one’s own well-being or to jeopardize the well-being of her family in order to serve the needs of others. Compassion means one must first take care of herself before she is able to tend to another. True compassion can exist only within the framework of well-balanced psychology or even-mindedness. It takes healthy self-esteem to realize one’s own limits and set clear and direct boundaries to protect those limits. Compassion means being deeply human and at the same time honoring one’s self and others.

Compassion, like muscle memory and rote memorization, is cultivated through practice. The current research from the field of neuroscience interprets compassion as a learned behavior as well as delineating that meditation is one of the most powerful tools for cultivating compassion and other balanced neurological states of being.

If we cultivated meditation, as we do reading and writing, as a part of the educational process for children from toddlers, through higher education, would that, in time change, what seems to be our addiction to the Ares archetype—war? At the very least, some students will see more compassionately, relate to life with more empathy, meet challenges with more optimism, and live with a greater sense of well-being and resilience. At best most of our children will grow up with these life affirming qualities that have power beyond measure to heighten the collective to live in a more peaceful state of consciousness.

This dissertation discusses the relationship between compassion and peace. As humanity becomes more compassionate, peace becomes a more viable state.

The purpose of this study was to examine the phenomena of burnout and self-care as experienced by long-term anti-war activists. The current investigation of burnout and self-care was carried out using a qualitative transcendental phenomenological approach developed by Clark Moustakas. Interviews were conducted with eight adult men and women who had been active in the anti-war movement for at least ten years. The data collection consisted of in-depth interviews with open-ended questions regarding participants' experience of self-care and burnout in the process of anti-war activism.

Findings reveal that participants experienced burnout and self-care in much the same way as other professions. Participants experienced burnout within the following themes: stress, frustration and exhaustion; inner and outer pressure and responsibility; body shut-down; betrayal and isolation; and depression and grief. These activists experienced self-care within the following themes: enrichment of soul; satisfaction and celebration; great love and healing; awareness and keeping balance; deep understanding; and belief, enthusiasm and inspiration. In addition, the research uncovered the irony that while anti-war activism causes burnout at times, this same activism plays a critical role in self-care for the activist. Furthermore, findings lend support to previous studies of the experience of anti-war activists. Future research on this topic is suggested in several areas.

For decades the occurrences of genocide, war, and conflict have been documented and data have been collected on the numbers of those displaced and/or lost their life. Historically, however, there has been a dearth of research pertaining to the psychological response of those who have survived exposure to these events. Emerging studies are investigating the symptomology and manifestations of the trauma induced by exposure to genocide, war, and conflict events. Nonetheless, there continues to be a lack of research regarding treatment. The present qualitative study, which utilized semistructured interviews as data collection methods, investigated the culturally based manifestations of PTSD and treatment modalities specific to survivors of genocide, war, and conflict currently residing in South Africa. Study participants included a variety of health care workers. Several exposure-specific and culturally relative themes emerged related to the trauma resulting from these events, such as survivors losing their sense of self-identity, having a distrust of others, and feeling as though there is a lack of justice in the world. These themes, along with other interventions and modalities of treatment for PTSD, were employed to create broad clinical recommendations for treatment. The recommendations centered on the health care worker having both a cultural and systemic understanding of clients and their presenting concerns. The results of this study provide valuable information regarding how individuals experience, perceive, and cope with trauma that can be applicable to a broad range of health care personnel. Additionally, these are data that can impact the design of future treatment modalities for PTSD.

The purpose of writing “The Relationship Between Religious Coping and Resilience Among Senior Leaders at the United States Army War College” was to determine the relationship of resilience and religious coping among senior Army officers. It measured religious coping, resilience, religious orientation, and explored service-related stresses as experienced by a representative sample of officers.

Chapter One develops the purpose out of a context with senior Army officers who carry a significant burden of responsibility as they are entrusted with the war-fighting effectiveness of soldiers in combat and serve in a culture which places enormous pressures on its senior leaders. The ministry problem is that the stressors faced and methods of religious coping with these stresses have not been fully studied and are not clearly understood by religious leaders, churches, and the military enterprise.

Chapter Two provides a review of the literature pertaining to a working definition and discussion of religion, coping in general, the role of religion in coping, religious orienting systems and how they impact one’s coping patterns, religion’s role in well-being, resilience and coping, spiritual fitness, and military culture.

Chapter Three describes the research design, procedures for data collection, and methodology utilized to measure and understand the relationship between religious coping and resilience.

Chapter Four presents the results and interpretative analysis. The findings indicated a moderate positive correlation between religious coping and resilience. There were several significant correlations between the demographic and religious variables which offer insight into the relationship between religious coping and resilience.

Chapter Five offers observations, implications, and recommendations based on the findings of the research. The results are applied to the ministry of military chaplains, churches, religious organizations serving the military, and the defense enterprise in terms of improved solutions to better support senior military leaders.

Human beings have engaged in trade, conducted war, created shelter, obtained food, practiced healing, and lived in community throughout the millennia. Historically, religion served as the overarching container used to create meaning within these human activities. In contemporary culture, the myth of "the bottom line" which is the Market economy has become the overarching container for a culture continually seeking to monetize human activity and create meaning through narratives of profitability.

Archetypal psychology employs polytheistic metaphors to describe the multiple autonomous forces or archetypes that exist within the human imagination. The work of archetypal psychologists and depth psychology authors including James Hillman, Ginette Paris, Michael Vannoy Adams, Karl Kerényi, Charles Boer, and Thomas Moore form the foundation for an archetypal analysis of the myth of "the bottom line." James Hillman calls for attention to the narratives of business and names the myth of "the bottom line," in Kinds of Power , "The drama of business, its struggles, challenges, victories and defeats, form the fundamental myth of our civilization, the story that explains the underlying bottom line of the ceremonies of our behavior" (1).

This dissertation is an exploration of the way the myth of "the bottom line" and the Market economy affect human experience of the archetype of War in the form of outsourcing of military functions; the archetype of Home in relationship to the commercial entity of a house and the recent market bubble; the archetype of Food in the form of agribusiness, patented seed stock, and processed food; the archetype of Healing in the form of industrialized health care; the archetype of Relationships within social media and technology. This analysis is achieved through an archetypal interpretation of authors who critique the forces of the Market on each of the respective archetypes. In addition, there is archetypal analysis of the voices of the businesses involved in these territories by "reading through" their annual reports and web sites.

Keywords: archetypal psychology, Hillman, Hermes, market, war, home, food, health care industry, social media, technology.

As our war veterans are growing in exponential numbers, so also are their psychic wounds in need of urgent treatment. This qualitative study explores the lives of three war veterans using a narrative-inquiry methodology, informed by their personal creations: a century-old photographic archive, a published novel, a memoire, interview transcripts, military and photography historians' accounts, and recently declassified documents in the National Security Archive of The George Washington University. The researcher addressed the questions: What are the main themes and functions of the coresearchers' self-expressive works? Can the creative process assist in restorying the lives and reconstructing the relationships of individuals? Can such works include those constructed from living memory, as well as those from the past?

Participants included World War II veteran Captain Arthur Enderlin, U.S.N.R, (deceased), former Chief, Office of Telecommunications, National Security Agency; and Vietnam War army veterans, "Harry George," Lieutenant Colonel, retired, former infantry company commander, 6/31 Infantry Battalion/9 ^th Infantry Division; and "Mr. Tu," regulatory policy analyst, Federal Civil Service Grade GS-15, Sergeant (E-5), Delta Company 3/187 Infantry Batallion/101st Airborne Division.

The intensive in-depth research process illuminated the creative healing journey of psyche, coconstructed by both the researcher and the participants. The relational approach and sensibility integrated Jungian analytical psychology, self-psychology, and other contemporary thought in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The outcome supports that creating and expressing "new" life narratives support (a) new self-construction born from fragments, (b) relationship construction, and (c) recovery from trauma. In their interviews and writings, the Vietnam War army veterans echoed themes from their life journeys and healing from trauma, which supported and validated those of the third coresearcher's nonverbal photographic narrative. The researcher employed visual reading and professional curating practices to reach a cohesive understanding of the life narrative of Arthur Enderlin.

The researcher combined approaches in an innovative synthesis which will be valuable to clinical and depth psychotherapists and researchers as avenues for future narrative inquiry using photographic images, writings, and creative modalities with patients and their families. The results and implications will also be accessible to individuals and groups tending to victims of diverse trauma, visual-literacy scholars, archivists, and historians.