After Fort Hood rampage, questions of toll on military psych Drs

by smkovalinsky | November 8, 2009 at 08:03 am

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Questions of burn-out, psychiatric illness, stress , rise to the surface in probe of Major Hasan

After Major Nidal Malik Hasan went on his shooting rampage at the Fort Hood military base, the New York Times takes a closer look at what these army psychiatrists, such as Major Hasan was, must go through.

Hasan has listened to hundreds of stories of trauma told him by US troops who had been stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, he felt a conflict over the wars due to his own Muslim roots. Did the FBI probe perhaps only serve to alienate him further?

One must surely wonder if the correct protocol was used in this case: Why did the FBI probe not take place in tandem with some temporary psychiatric discharge or hospitalization?

Could the psychiatrist himself perhaps stood in need of psychiatric intervention? How much and to what degree were his sympathies with Islamic suicide bombers truly political in nature and fueled by political concerns: Or were they themselves symptoms of a psychotic depression which needed medical treatment?

Many of the patients who fill the day are bereft, angry, broken. Their experiences are gruesome, their distress lasting and the process of recovery exhausting. The repeated stories of battle and loss can leave the most professional therapist numb or angry.

And hanging over it all, forpsychiatrists and psychologists in today’s military, is the prospect of their own deployment — of working under fire in Iraq or Afghanistan, where the Pentagon has assigned more therapists to combat units than in previous wars.

That was the world that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, inhabited until Thursday, when he was accused of one of the worst mass shootings ever on a military base in the United States, an attack that killed 13 and left dozens wounded. Five of the dead were fellow therapists, the Army said.

Major Hasan’s motives are still being investigated. But those who work day in and day out treating the psychological wounds of the country’s warriors say Thursday’s rampage has put a spotlight on the strains of their profession and of the patients they treat.

Major Hasan was one of a thin line of military therapists trying to hold off a rising tide of need. So far this year, 117 soldiers on active duty were reported to have committed suicide. The Army has only 408 psychiatrists — military, civilian and contractors — serving about 553,000 active-duty troops around the world. As a result, some soldiers home from war, suffering from nightmares and panic attacks, say they have waited almost a year to see a psychiatrist.

Many military professionals, meanwhile, describe crushing schedules with 10 or more patients a day, most struggling with devastating trauma or mutilated bodies that are the product of war and the highly advanced care that kept them alive.

Some of those hired to heal others end up needing help themselves. Some go home at night too depressed to talk to their children. Others, like Bret A. Moore, a former Army psychologist at Fort Hood, ultimately quit.

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albertacowpoke

at 08:13 on November 8th, 2009

Here is a different take published in the Washington Post today.

The two occasionally would sit together in plastic chairs beneath a wind chime on the landing outside her second-floor apartment, she recalled. She was Christian and he was Muslim, but they shared coffee and talked about God. But this morning, Hasan said that he would be deploying to Afghanistan soon and that he did not want to go. He gave her a copy of the Koran.

"I'm going to do good work for God," he told her.

Then he walked downstairs, through the grassy courtyard, stepped into his silver Honda Civic and drove to Fort Hood. Four hours later, he allegedly opened fire in the Soldier Readiness Center in a rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 38, the deadliest shooting ever on a U.S. military installation.

smkovalinsky

at 08:16 on November 8th, 2009

Yes, I see. But where does on draw the line between true political and religious ideology, and simply having "snapped"? I always believed Timothy McVeigh got into what he did due to chemical and clinical depression (read a lengthy bio of McV, and all seemed to point to the fact that he needed medication).

albertacowpoke

at 09:44 on November 8th, 2009

Maj Hasan could have been self-medicating. After all he would have had relatively easy access to prescription drugs. So is there a link between him and McVeigh?

Roy C

at 08:39 on November 8th, 2009

The idiot had his own unresolved psychiatric problems which got him, an educated man, to convert to a pre-Enlightenment religion, not compatible with reason and science.

He specifically cited the most violent sections of the Koran in his lecture he gave other shrinks as reported on NPR and cited by me on another story.

What attracted him to violence? Did the Koran provide the justification? Was he "resigned" and "surrendered" to Islam because it took away his autonomy, making life simpler for a man who couldn't cope?

I would like to see an autopsy done on his brain to see if there were lesions present of long duration.

Medication makes adolescents snap because they process serotonin differently.

McVeigh wanted to be a "big man", important. He chose the low-ball way to do it. Same with this guy. They were both zeroes with women. Here is their "potency" problem. Same as that Korean kid in college.

Both the ideology of Islam and his psychiatric base, training and colleagues, failed him. He also failed himself.

Roy C

at 08:44 on November 8th, 2009

What he liked about the Koran as reported at NPR:

"Officials Begin Putting Shooting Pieces Together," by Tom Gjelten, Daniel Zwerdling and Steve Inskeep for NPR, November 6 (thanks to all who sent this in):

They have grand rounds, right? They, you know, dozens of medical staff come into an auditorium, and somebody stands at the podium at the front and gives a lecture about some academic issue, you know, what drugs to prescribe for what condition. But instead of that, he - Hasan apparently gave a long lecture on the Koran and talked about how if you don't believe, you are condemned to hell. Your head is cut off. You're set on fire. Burning oil is burned down your throat.
And I said to the psychiatrist, but this co[u]ld be a very interesting informational session, right? Where he's educating everybody about the Koran. He said but what disturbed everybody was that Hasan seemed to believe these things. And actually, a Muslim in the audience, a psychiatrist, raised his hand and said, excuse me. But I'm a Muslim and I do not believe these things in the Koran, and then I don't believe what you say the Koran says. And then Hasan didn't say, well, I'm just giving you one point of view. He basically just stared the guy down.

According to this, Hasan made four assertions about the Koran:
1. "If you don't believe, you are condemned to hell";
2. If you don't believe, "your head is cut off";
3. If you don't believe, "you're set on fire";
4. If you don't believe, "burning oil is burned down your throat."

Then a Muslim in the audience confronted Hasan: " I don't believe what you say the Koran says."

Well, what the Koran says is a matter for objective verification. Just open the book and read it. Does it say what Hasan said it says, or does it not?

1. "If you don't believe, you are condemned to hell"

"Lo! Allah will gather hypocrites and disbelievers, all together, into hell" -- Koran 4:140

"Lo! hell verily is all around the disbelievers." -- Koran 9:49

"Allah promiseth the hypocrites, both men and women, and the disbelievers fire of hell for their abode." -- Koran 9:68

"O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites! Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey's end." -- Koran 9:73

And there are many others.

smkovalinsky

at 08:49 on November 8th, 2009

Well, this would be a good religion to join if one were in an angry depression *heads off to buy copy of Koran* just kidding ;(

But Roy, let's not make women the judgment of these men: If they were zeros with women, it may have been a symptom of that which they already were, and not consequence.

Roy C

at 08:56 on November 8th, 2009

Oh, I agree completely.

Both of them were educated enough and not unattractive. No blame from me directed at the women.

The women detect the crazy element and refuse to bond intimately out of an eons-old feminine sense of what is what that modern man has rejected in himself.

The rejection of that perception that steered women away from him, that is what allowed the US Army and the psychiatric community to avoid taking this man out of his position.

J2B (not verified)

at 09:22 on November 8th, 2009

George W. Bush secretly visits Ft. Hood victims is.gd/4QeNn

a211423

at 10:12 on November 8th, 2009

One of the symptoms of several kinds of mental illness is a heightened sense of religion and one's relatinship and oneness with their god. They believe they are sent by their god to perform acts for reasons that a rational person would know are wrong, but they believe it is an act of salvation for them.

Certainly, if he survives and tells his story we will know more about what were his motivations and the circumstances leading up to the events.

Admiral Casey gave a statement today stating he was afraid this was going to fuel anti-Muslim sentiments against Muslims in the Army. As we mourn for the victims and their families, I hope we can separate the man from religion and not use this as an inditement against all Muslims.

Roy C

at 10:33 on November 8th, 2009

I think that it is time for Muslims to get the lead out and begin very public criticism of all this. I don't hear much, if at all.

If the Muslims don't soundly condemn this and explain how this is supposed to be a violation of the Koran, then they will have brought the anti-Muslim feeling on themselves.

Mohammed was a person of two faces, the original face that talked about the brotherhood of man and the later face of a man who had a Jew killed in the attempt to find his valuables.Later, Mohammed held up the caravan to consummate the marriage with his new wife, the ex-wife of the man he had just killed.

Having such a founder complicates morality for the religion's followers.

Mritunjay

at 11:10 on November 8th, 2009

Roy how much progress can we expect from the so called ideologues who issue "fatwas" on issues like NOT accepting family planning, are AGAINST women empowerment, talk against issues like AIDS awareness for the fear that the devil will be sown into pious minds! Recently a bunch of such "think-tanks" issued fatwas in India:

The Jamiat also noted that the women’s reservation bill seeking 33% reservation for women in legislatures was “uncalled for” as “bringing women into the mainstream will create social problems and issues including their security.”

Surely not everyone is like that but as someone said: Silence only helps the oppressors.

a211423

at 11:11 on November 8th, 2009

"fatwas" on issues like NOT accepting family planning, are AGAINST women empowerment, talk against issues like AIDS awareness

Islam has not cornered the market on issuing edicts (fatwas) against family planning or the use of condons to prevent the transmission of AIDS. The Catholic Church has lead the charge on these issues for years. I would guess longer than the fatwas you are hearing about.

Like people here who do not ascribe to these edicts from Rome, India must move forward with information instead of adherence to fatwas.

Mritunjay

at 14:02 on November 8th, 2009

Yep. People should adhere to reason rather than fanatic calls backed with no reason or rhyme.

To be more specific, in India maybe since Christianity is still a younger religion we do not see such edicts but as in present case we have seen spate of edicts from Islamic leaders. So much so is the clout they have a seperate Muslim Personal Law to guide many issues that land up in family courts and beyond.

a211423

at 10:51 on November 8th, 2009

I am by no means a religious scholar, but history is replete with atrocities performed by most religions in the name of some sort of religious dogma including Christianity. I watched old movie from 1970 this weekend called The Last Valley. It takes a look at religious dogma during the Thirty Years War that pited Catholics against Protestants. Both sides commited what appears to us as atrocities in the name of "their" god in the isolation of a German valley peasant community. The 21st century in its search for equality and justice is producing zealots not much different than the ones from history who demanded their rightiousness for the one true God. The difference is we are not burning anyone at the stake any more, except with words.

Hugh Askew

at 18:25 on November 8th, 2009

I can't help but wonder when folks will begin to look at their secular beliefs, and see the millions dead from those secular beliefs. Think that will ever happen? Think they will ever open their blind eyes?

I replaced a word or two from your statement here: but history is replete with atrocities performed by most ideologies in the name of some sort of ideological dogma, including democracy/communism/colonialism/fascism/nationalism/patriotism/liberalism/empire, etc., etc., etc.

Think Gengis Khan had any religious motivation? Shaka Zulu? Pol Pot? Napoleon? Stalin? Mao? Atilla? Idi Amin?

"The difference is we are not burning anyone at the stake any more, except with words."

Words? Starvation, torture, gas chambers, firing squads, very descriptive words indeed.

a211423

at 18:53 on November 8th, 2009

You did take some liberties with my comments Hugh, but thats fine. Wars of secular ideologies and the quest for territory and power continue with the same venomous intent as they have throughout the centuries with the results you have described.

The intention of my stating "words" was in reference to the Christian faith as my comparision cited the conflict between Catholics and Protestents and blood shed of the Thirty Years War. I suppose I could have cited the Inquisition or the Crusades.

Secular torture is real, and I am not denying that, but you did manipulate my comments

Hugh Askew

at 19:20 on November 8th, 2009

Don't think i "manipulated" your comments, i tried to compare what you said with reality.

You said - your words: "..but history is replete with atrocities performed by most religions in the name of some sort of religious dogma..."

My comparison: "I replaced a word or two from your statement here: but history is replete with atrocities performed by most ideologies in the name of some sort of ideological dogma, including democracy/communism/colonialism/fascism/nationalism/patriotism/liberalism/empire, etc., etc., etc."

In my original reply, I highlighted the words that that were changed so that the comparison was obvious. ...and replacing "religious dogma" with whatever cause, "ism", or excuse, you would like to choose.

Was trying to point out the reality of man's inability to own up to their faults. It seems to be the acceptable doggerel to claim atrocities against Christianity, while failing to own up to the monstrous abuses of the secular world.

a211423

at 19:44 on November 8th, 2009

Was trying to point out the reality of man's inability to own up to their faults

The inherent dilemma within humans to meld religious and secular life is the reason the founding fathers established the separation of church and state in America. I don't see it as an inability to "own up to faults," in as much as using the tenents of religion to support secular beliefs. And because various religions have different tenents they can be in conflict with singular, secular policies, especially in geographical areas where several religions reside and the creation of conflict is inevitable.

Homogeneous societies have less conflict, but they also have less diversity. The intriguing attribute is they have few or no wars. Tibet is a good example of a theocracy that was peaceful for thousands of years until China came and injected their culture and suppressed Buddhism. Also, a little known area called Ladakh that the Indian government turned into a tourist attraction in 1980s resulted in the decline of their culture.