| Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is on the rise in today's all-volunteer United States Armed Forces. This thesis uses heuristic and hermeneutic methodology to explore the connection between C. G. Jung's psychological types, the socioeconomic background and childhood development of recruits, and the propensity to develop PTSD. From the perspective of analytical psychology, complexes are the basis for constellated experiences that come with exposure to combat and are the underlying factor in the primitive behavior that most PTSD patients exhibit. Military training is explored as a destructive ritual process that perverts initiation into adulthood and leads to the dissociative process in PTSD. The component of the collective unconsciousness is discussed in terms of its connection to the drive for war, the motivation to hide our collective humiliation over our appalling love of war, and complicating factors in military-related PTSD. The implications for the treatment of PTSD in veterans are discussed. |
