|
The
Psychological Consequences of Killing: Perpetration-Induced
Traumatic Stress
The
presentation is based on:
- My
research into the experiences of veterans who have killed
in combat (as related in my book, On Killing).
- My
experience as a law enforcement trainer and a trainer
of mental health professionals (onsite in the aftermath
of the shooting of 15 students and teachers in Jonesboro,
Arkansas, and after several other major school shootings).
The
presentation will cover:
-
The physiological and psychological responses to combat:
recent law enforcement research that provides powerful
insight into interpersonal combat as "the universal human
phobia," powerful heart rate increases now documented
as occurring in combat, and resultant physiological responses,
including forebrain shutdown.
-
The existence of a resistance to killing that exists in
the midbrain of most healthy members of most species,
becoming ascendant when the forebrain shuts down in combat,
and the impact of this resistance across the centuries
and as it was documented in World War II.
-
How the military and law enforcement communities have
learned to overcome the resistance to killing, primarily
through operantly conditioned responses using killing
simulators in training which were designated by B. F.
Skinner as an "almost perfect example of operant conditioning,"
the resultant dramatic increase in participation in killing
activities rising from 15 to 20 percent in World War II
to around 95 percent in Vietnam, and the tragic cost that
can result, and did result in Vietnam.
-
The price of this conditioning and a detailed analysis
of some of the factors in the etiology and treatment of
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
|
|
|
|
Read
a different article:
|
|
