Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming

Voorkant
Simon and Schuster, 11 mei 2010 - 352 pagina's
In this ambitious follow-up to Achilles in Vietnam, Dr. Jonathan Shay uses the Odyssey, the story of a soldier's homecoming, to illuminate the pitfalls that trap many veterans on the road back to civilian life.

Seamlessly combining important psychological work and brilliant literary interpretation with an impassioned plea to renovate American military institutions, Shay deepens our understanding of both the combat veteran's experience and one of the world's greatest classics.

In Achilles in Vietnam, Dr. Jonathan Shay used the story of the Iliad as a prism through which to examine how ancient and modern wars have battered the psychology of the men who fight. Now he turns his attention to the Odyssey, the story of a soldier's homecoming, to illuminate the real problems faced by combat veterans reentering civilian society.

The Odyssey, Shay argues, offers explicit portrayals of behavior common among returning soldiers in our own culture: danger-seeking, womanizing, explosive violence, drug abuse, visitation by the dead, obsession, vagrancy and homelessness. Supporting his reading with examples from his fifteen-year practice treating Vietnam veterans, Shay shows how Odysseus's mistrustfulness, his lies, and his constant need to conceal his thoughts and emotions foreshadow the experiences of many of today's veterans. He also explains how veterans recover and advocates changes to American military practice that will protect future servicemen and servicewomen while increasing their fighting power. Throughout, Homer strengthens our understanding of what a combat veteran must overcome to return to and flourish in civilian life, just as the heartbreaking stories of the veterans Shay treats give us a new understanding of one of the world's greatest classics.
 

Inhoudsopgave

Introduction
1
The Workplace
51
THE DEAD TRY TO REPROACH THE LIVING
76
Truth As Deadly Addiction
86
11
92
Dangers Up Down and Sideways
96
Above the Whirlpool
107
Odysseus the Sexaholic
113
19
205
35
217
Odysseus As a Military Leader
231
Conclusion
242
A Pocket Guide to Homers Odyssey
255
Information Resources for Vietnam Veterans
261
Notes
267
46
296

Odysseus at Home
120
Introduction
149
From the Clinic to the Wall
164
Lew Puller Aint on the Wall
180

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Over de auteur (2010)

Jonathan Shay is a Boston-area psychiatrist whose patients are Vietnam combat veterans with severe, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder in the Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic. He is also on the faculty of Tufts Medical School. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Bibliografische gegevens