Posted on Jan 8, 2016
Veterans Let Slip the Masks of War: Can This Art Therapy Ease PTSD?
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RP Members and Connection check out this article on a different type of therapy for PTSD.
How papier-mâché masks are helping Iraq and Afghanistan veterans heal.
Service members suffering from PTSD often feel like they’re wearing a mask. Melissa Walker asks them to make one.
Walker, an art therapist and healing arts coordinator with the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center runs an art therapy program in which service members returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD or a traumatic brain injury (TBI) are asked to make papier-mâché masks to express their feelings.
How papier-mâché masks are helping Iraq and Afghanistan veterans heal.
Service members suffering from PTSD often feel like they’re wearing a mask. Melissa Walker asks them to make one.
Walker, an art therapist and healing arts coordinator with the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center runs an art therapy program in which service members returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD or a traumatic brain injury (TBI) are asked to make papier-mâché masks to express their feelings.
Veterans Let Slip the Masks of War: Can This Art Therapy Ease PTSD?
Posted from thedailybeast.com
PTSD
Therapy
Art
Edited >1 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 11
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I did this at Walter Reed (the old one), and at Ft. Belvoir. It wasn't a paper Mache mask, but we had to draw masks that showed what we felt. No matter who it was, anger, hurt or destroyed feelings, pain, guilt, was the common theme. We had to talk about them in detail and why we still held onto these feelings, and while the incidents were different, what was left over in the Soldier was the same. I know no one in the Army or any other branch will listen, but they need to realize there is a serious problem running rampant in the ranks and giving a powerpoint class to check a box, meaningless commercials or slogans, to make a flag officer feel ok, all mean nothing. Once a Solder makes the most important decision he'll ever have to make (to get treatment), the Army shouldn't make it a timeline of progress so we can chapter him/her and wash the hands. 45 days is a start. I though it was a good one. But right as you see the corner turning, it's time to move you out, and the next Soldier in. This is an UNSAT practice. The Soldier asked for help, and you want to make it a timeline affair so you can push numbers through? It DOES happen. Also units need to understand that once that Soldier is in therapy leave him/her alone. The duty roster, DA6, work schedules don't mean sh*t anymore. Getting this Soldier able to function in or out of the Army should be the goal, but it's NOT. Sir I apologize for ranting on your thread, but this is a sore subject for me. I've seen grown men crying their eyes out because they see a chance in therapy but the Army see's a Soldier who should be at work or PT formation. In the end, in the few I saw, they were taken out of therapy against the doctors wishes, and returned to their companies. How are we taking care of the troops when we won't allow them to fully heal, or are so pressed for replacements we'll chapter them out and say go to VA......WE SEE HOW THAT'S GOING.... I could only wish I had 30 minutes with the SMA or ACOS to really look at what they're doing to their service, and not based upon glassed over and "nice" reports sent up to make it seem we're doing "all we can". We're not doing all we can, when a unit CO or higher wants to move this troop out so they can request a replacement.
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Maj John D Benedict
I am not convinced this is the final solution, but it does seem to be a step in the right direction.
In addition to treatment, I wonder how many vets take time to start or resume hobbies? Something you are interested in will help occupy time, and may even be therapeutic. Perhaps gardening or yard work would also help, as they are both know to be therapeutic.
In addition to treatment, I wonder how many vets take time to start or resume hobbies? Something you are interested in will help occupy time, and may even be therapeutic. Perhaps gardening or yard work would also help, as they are both know to be therapeutic.
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SSG Warren Swan
Maj John D Benedict - They tell us to do that, and I have tried, but nothing feels the same anymore. It's like you're going through the motions, and everyday is the same. I was into cars and weapons before. I liked to have that "cool, fast car", and I have two Cobras now, a 1993 and 2003. I loved big stereos, had a $5k stereo installed in my Escalade. Wanted a lifted truck, got it and it's lifted. Got into riding motorcycles. Watched youtube for an hour after buying my first one, and now have a 2012 Busa that is worth $30k (it's been completely redone). Weapons got a few, but they all feel like shallow victories, unless I'm shooting with my kind (vets of any service). I'm enjoying the shooting the same as my bike. When I'm doing either one, it's me just me and I can shut out the world.
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PO3 (Join to see)
Agreed! When I was in my goals were changed when I read about Carlos Hathcock. How he was treated after saving many only to receive more injuries himself. That freaked me out. I sat long and hard trying to understand.
I'm glad that the government is doing more now than before.
But if we are going to send out our people to battle properly trained. Then we are responsible to help them upon returning from battle.
I'm glad that the government is doing more now than before.
But if we are going to send out our people to battle properly trained. Then we are responsible to help them upon returning from battle.
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I would be interested in doing one of these. I know some others have voiced interenst. It is never easy becoming transparent with PTSD and now with the newissues of Moral Injury. Thanks to COL Mikel J. Burroughs for his continued leadership and willingness to be courageous as we all stand together. Helaing comes slow and from many different sources. Stay the course, remember we have each others backs.
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This all sounds good but as a young MP stationed at West Point back on my birthday in the late 70s. While driving back to post to end my swing shift 3-11 from Camp Buckner I was the first one on the scene of a one car accident involving a car broad siding a large oak tree just below 9W with multiple fatalities the oldest being a 19 year old Driver impaled and two rear passenger girls with broken necks. But he worst was the male in he back middle that was split up the middle from the from bucket seats. He was in shock and screamed at the top off his lungs the whole time they cut the top and put him in the ambulance only to bleed to death hours later. I have never sat in the middle of the front or rear since that day.
So I have my doubts about PTSD treatment and this does not include my time in combat
So I have my doubts about PTSD treatment and this does not include my time in combat
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SFC William Farrell
Some story SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT. I was on FD for years and saw too much, never good. I also did MP duty with the reserves at WP in the 70's. I remember at a football game, one of the bleachers on a parade field came crashing down, a few injuries that day.
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TSgt David Whitmore
Way back when, as a teenager, in the late-'60s and early-'70s, I spent every Friday evening and three weekend days riding and working an ambulance; and I trained in mine rescue. Saw my first dead body, the result of a hit-and-run, out in the city streets, on my 14th birthday; and spent the next six years doing and seeing that same sort of thing. After college, I got a job in a different city and had to leave that volunteer work behind; but the images, the memories of what I saw, what I experienced, still remains firmly etched in my brain.
Through all the experiences I have had with various mental health services, both in the military and in the civilian world, I have always been told those experiences were of 'no consequence' to 'the real world' of today. I have watched family members, who being active duty (at the time) and experiencing varying levels of PTSD when they came back from their deployments, go through similar treatment by the military's mental health doctors, all the while being told that folks who were or who had had issues weren't qualified to help them, only they (those doctors) could. My one nephew and his then-wife were told that even he couldn't help himself, he had to place all his trust in them; and then, they scheduled him for a FOURTH 90-day deployment in his three years in the Army. He was informed that he had two choices, he could go on the deployment or he would be given a General Discharge. He selected the discharge, which the Army upgraded to Honorable.
The VA and the family have helped him through lots of issues. I got him to start talking, to me and then to others that have gone through the same, or similar things. He has gotten better, but he is not the same kid I knew from when he was growing up. But then, none of us is. He has two wonderful kids and he gets along with his ex-wife. And he has since, recently, married again; and his new wife knows, from his perspective, what he has gone through; I told him (and probably others did too) that she needed to know all about everything he had gone through and everything he was still learning how to deal with issues, if he wanted her to be his 'forever-and-ever' wife.
This was never anything the military mental health folks told him to do.
A thought!
Perhaps if the prospective mental health doctors actually experienced what our soldiers do, doing at least one deployment's worth and accompanying these fighters as they do what is necessary throughout that entire deployment; then, maybe, they would understand just what it is they need to do to help their patients.
These 'doctors' must not be allowed to remain in the protected areas, they would have to actually do whatever our fighters do; they can't act like the officers the military claims they already are.
As I said, it's a thought. A silly one at that; it'll never happen.
Through all the experiences I have had with various mental health services, both in the military and in the civilian world, I have always been told those experiences were of 'no consequence' to 'the real world' of today. I have watched family members, who being active duty (at the time) and experiencing varying levels of PTSD when they came back from their deployments, go through similar treatment by the military's mental health doctors, all the while being told that folks who were or who had had issues weren't qualified to help them, only they (those doctors) could. My one nephew and his then-wife were told that even he couldn't help himself, he had to place all his trust in them; and then, they scheduled him for a FOURTH 90-day deployment in his three years in the Army. He was informed that he had two choices, he could go on the deployment or he would be given a General Discharge. He selected the discharge, which the Army upgraded to Honorable.
The VA and the family have helped him through lots of issues. I got him to start talking, to me and then to others that have gone through the same, or similar things. He has gotten better, but he is not the same kid I knew from when he was growing up. But then, none of us is. He has two wonderful kids and he gets along with his ex-wife. And he has since, recently, married again; and his new wife knows, from his perspective, what he has gone through; I told him (and probably others did too) that she needed to know all about everything he had gone through and everything he was still learning how to deal with issues, if he wanted her to be his 'forever-and-ever' wife.
This was never anything the military mental health folks told him to do.
A thought!
Perhaps if the prospective mental health doctors actually experienced what our soldiers do, doing at least one deployment's worth and accompanying these fighters as they do what is necessary throughout that entire deployment; then, maybe, they would understand just what it is they need to do to help their patients.
These 'doctors' must not be allowed to remain in the protected areas, they would have to actually do whatever our fighters do; they can't act like the officers the military claims they already are.
As I said, it's a thought. A silly one at that; it'll never happen.
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