Psychiatrist in Vietnam?
Dates: 1/4/02,6:47 PM through 1/4/02,7:51 PM (2 postings)
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Psychiatrist in Vietnam?
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FROM: Christine Perkins <[removed]@jcls.org>
REC'D: 1/4/02, 6:47 PM
We've given her medics, doctors, nurses, etc. but she's really keen on
psychiatrists.
We've checked _What Historical Fiction Do I Read Next_, _World Historical
Fiction_ , etc.
Any leads? Thanks in advance for your time.
--Christine Perkins
_____________________________
Christine Perkins | [removed]@jcls.org
Young Adult / Reference Librarian
Jackson County Library Services
413 West Main Street
Medford, Oregon 97501
(541) 774-6412
FROM: Molly Williams <[removed]@waveinter.com>
REC'D: 1/4/02, 7:51 PM
A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Century
by Ben Shephard, 487 pp, with illus, $27.95, ISBN 0-674-00592-2,
Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press, 2001.
Partial review: It is a carefully researched and meticulously
documented history of war psychiatry. In it, Shephard (producer of
Thames TV's acclaimed The World at War and frequent contributor on
the history of psychological trauma for the London Times Literary
Supplement) takes us from the trenches of "The Great War" through
the aftermath of the Gulf War. He introduces us to a range of
historical figures, from World War I psychiatrist William Rivers,
recently repopularized in British fiction, to potent voices of
Vietnam protest such as psychoanalysts Chaim
Shatan and Robert Jay Lifton. .... Battlefield treatments were
similarly determined by the technology of the time, ranging from
electrical stimulation in World War I to rest and barbiturate
sedation in World War II. Shephard hints that an unintended role for
war psychiatry is to assuage the shame society accumulates when
sending its youth to war. It promotes an image of the veteran as
victim and then fosters the sense that everything possible in
providing care has been done. A War of Nerves looks closer, however,
and paints an often unflattering
image of war psychiatrists battling over competing values and
conflicts of conscience rather than the welfare of patients per se.
It is a history often marked by expediencies, amplified claims,
iatrogenic harm, and war injury. Given battlefield realities,
perhaps the least surprising finding is that both medicine and the
military are consistently left wanting of interpretable scientific
data from which to judge whether and for whom battlefield psychiatry
"works."
(Lots of reviews of this online.)
Also, a work of fiction that sounds similar to M*A*S*H but during
the Vietnam War:
/Sargent Back Again/ (1980), published later as /Medic!/
by Charles Coleman
Review and summary: http://www.back2vietnam.com/rreviews.html
~ Molly Wms.
--
Molly Williams
Volunteer, Waterboro Public Library: http://www.waterboro.lib.me.us
[removed]@waveinter.com
Christine Perkins wrote:
>
> We have a patron looking for a book, any book, featuring a military
> psychologist / psychiatrist during the Vietnam war. Fiction or non-fiction
> (maybe a memoir?) both welcome. We've found plenty on the psychiatric
> effects of the Vietnam war on vets and civilians, but the patron has heard
> that psychiatrists served in the armed forces in Vietnam and wants
> something more about their experiences.
>
> We've given her medics, doctors, nurses, etc. but she's really keen on
> psychiatrists.
>
> We've checked _What Historical Fiction Do I Read Next_, _World Historical
> Fiction_ , etc.
>
> Any leads? Thanks in advance for your time.
>
> --Christine Perkins
>
> _____________________________
> Christine Perkins | [removed]@jcls.org
> Young Adult / Reference Librarian
> Jackson County Library Services
> 413 West Main Street
> Medford, Oregon 97501
> (541) 774-6412
>
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