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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Could War Simulations Help Prevent PTSD?

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The Navy’s USS Trayer has been called the unluckiest ship in the fleet because it’s constantly under attack.

At least it feels that way to new recruits, who spend 12 hours on the $60-million training ship as part of a simulation that mimics the chaos and fear of war.

With floods and fires, the exercise looks and feels real – and that’s the idea.

The military’s hoping that these kinds of simulations will help prevent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by prepping the “warrior brain” for what war is really like.

Do you think the war simulations will help prevent PTSD? Let us know on Facebook.

Guest:

Other stories from Thursday's show

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

  • http://www.fibrowitch.net Jan Dumas

    So  what your saying is the military has crated a live Kobayashi_Maru_scenario  Looks like Star Trek predicted the future again.

  • gunter hiller

     Clinical desensitization procedures, on the basis of brain science and battle simulation are questionable because they are decoupled  from social and moral contexts.
    Here is a narration that includes them:  Soldiers not only face battlefield horrors, but alsoemotional gratifications by bonding with their comrades.  When they return from theirtours they re-enter the cold world of capitalist individualism in a society that is almostentirely unaffected by the war these men are asked to fight, other than dispensing  ritual commendationsfor their bravery and sacrifices.  This can often produce a sense a sense of loss and bewilderment.It an incongruous situation, a cognitive dissonance, a sense of alienation from the bonds they knew and felt. Unsurprisingly, many veterans ask to be re-deployed.
    The questions we should ask is what kind of a social and moral situation they could re-enter
    to deal with their ptsd.

    I know the problem.  As an 85-year old Holocaust survivor I was forced to adapt to a world
    that had opted to restore the status quo ante, the return to business-as-usual.
    I have not succeeded.  Meditation has ameliorated my ptsd, but not my sense of alienation.

  • Magrinha1

     This sounds like the treatment given to Alex in A Clockwork Orange except in that case the horrible images combined with electric shocks, as his eyelids were propped open with metal clips, were meant to train him not to be violent.  I wonder if future soldiers in training, exposed to realistic images and sounds of war, might then choose not to fight.

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