What is it about?
Historically, the emphasis in trauma research has been on the impact of events involving threat to life and physical integrity. However, we find that so called "non-danger based" traumas, e.g., witnessing the death or suffering of others, as well as experiencing morally challenging situations (Moral Injury), have a more adverse impact on veterans than such "danger based" traumas.
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Why is it important?
Our findings highlight the special adverse effects of non-danger based traumas. Du to the historic emphasis on incidents involving danger, these types of traumatic events may receive to little attention from researchers, clinicians, the public, and the military.
Perspectives
The findings in our study are highly congruent with my own experiences as a military psychologist. Many of my patients struggle with psychological distress, often depression, after witnessing the suffering of children, comrades or civilians. Moreover, sometimes officers and soldiers make judgments in war that have serious unintended consequences, such as friendly fire or civilian collateral damage. Such experiences may be detrimental to mental health.
Andreas Nordstrand
Norwegian Armed Forces
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Danger- and non-danger-based stressors and their relations to posttraumatic deprecation or growth in Norwegian veterans deployed to Afghanistan, European Journal of Psychotraumatology, January 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/20008198.2019.1601989.
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