Winning the War With PTSD - James Hansen

Winning The War With PTSD is a companion to the memoir Kissing The Tarmac. It offer veterans and others challenged by PTSD an additional opportunity to address their trauma. This workbook provides specific learning objectives to gain more understanding of PTSD, and of both symptom development and resolution techniques. The companion memoir provides a narrative for veterans, who can relate to the author’s combat experience, and learn from his sequential steps to finding peace of mind. The story offers inspiration and hope to those challenged by PTSD, no matter the cause.

The workbook complements the fine publications and practices of the Veterans Administration, nonprofit organizations like U.S. VETS, independent professional counselors and researchers. This workbook is unique. Unlike most PTSD-related publications written by professionals in the mental health field, it is a layman’s approach. Many veterans can relate to the author’s combat experience and how PTSD affected his life after the war.

Comprised of 23 lessons, the workbook provides a ready-to-use curriculum for PTSD support groups and classes. The materials guide a mental health professionals and instructors through exercises paired with short readings, for discussion and journaling in a group study environment. Each lesson builds on the previous one by providing the author’s experiences as real life examples. Participants read from the memoir to study both symptom development and resolution techniques. They learn coping mechanisms, short and long term, and apply the lesson to their own struggles with PTSD.

The subject matter of Winning the War With PTSD is timely. An estimated twenty percent of the 3,000,000 veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2004 suffer from PTSD. About thirty percent of Vietnam War veterans still struggle with the symptoms. Civilians also develop PTSD from a range of traumatic experiences on an ongoing basis.