Soldiers Revisit Iraq in Virtual Reality/ Putting the soldier back in the war he had left?

I was reading an article that rubbed me the wrong way , for all respectable purpose's of having a soldier come back from war, and the Dr.'s taking the technology of Virtual Reality, and making them live it again. And if that wasn't enough, they are prescribing them alternate placebo/antipsycotics too monitor them and thier progress.
Granted there is no real antidoate for for PTSD, to me it would seem thier methods would cause more harm for the individual soldier's too have to relive thier nightmares and fears over and over again? I am no Psych. Dr., but I for one think this rather a mundane and unethical way of going about this issue.

Beach smells burning rubber, diesel fuel, even body odor as he sits behind the steering wheel of his Humvee in the virtual experience. Then, suddenly, gunfire crackles and Beach feels a jolt as a rocket-propelled grenade blasts his vehicle, shattering his hand and wounding a buddy.
"It puts you back there, for sure," Beach said. "The stuff doesn't look totally real, but it all feels real. It's scary."

I wasn't sure if this topic should go to the "Medical" side of the conversation, but on the same hand. "Virtual reality has never been used for some many tramatically induced, freshly returned war vetrans, or still active military."
Though the article does manage to "TRY" too mask the over all outcomes of using this technique, as something that has been used for the last decade, I believe it was to train the soldier's for battle without putting them in harms way. Not for putting them back into the mental state of "Warfare" after they have come home.

If this is not the proper threads mod's, please feel free to ;acte as you see fit. It is just one of those stories that seem's very redundant, and possibly dangerous for those who have came from danger and may not be prepared to deal with it all over again.

Source:

home.peoplepc.com.../4674b1c0_3421_13345200706171899421269

That certainly does seem odd at first glance...

Perhaps what they are trying to do, is allow the soldier a chance to come to terms with what happened over there. Perhaps the initial experience occurred too fast in the mind of the soldier for him/her to be able to fully deal with it.

I'm no psychologist though, so I could be wrong in that assumption.

War really messes a person up regardless, and with the trend in todays times, we are going to have alot of cases of PTSD on our hands.

Originally posted by johnsky
War really messes a person up regardless, and with the trend in todays times, we are going to have alot of cases of PTSD on our hands.

I have nade some really earlier threads dedicated to this happening to our troop's, and I am sure that it is also happening to the civilians involved. It just seem's as an act of extreme confidence too be able to subjigate someone through "Hell" all over again with the hope of "Curing" them with having to relive every traumatic reinactment over again and again.
I,as you have stated, am know psych. Dr., but if I were, "I would be very careful on the Ice which I walked upon.
Even though the comment's by the soldier were anything but "Defying" to these experiments, there did seem to be the under-tones of a very traumatised experience during this new testing procedure.
If it works out? "WEll, I am will wait too see...?" Just hope this doesn't become swept under the perverbial rug as another Gov. cover up after it has proven itself more destructive than helpful??

I agree-- I don't like it either. I understand that it may be "desensitizing" but it can be traumatizing as well.

I would guess that they select the soldiers to do this on and they don't just do it as a blanket treatment to everyone. At least, I hope this is not the case.

(the thought occurred to me that this kind of thing can also be used to "rewire" a person's expectations to "it's okay. you did what had to be done." rather than "it was a nightmare over there. It's all wrong." Without more details, I can't comment but like you I'm uneasy about the whole thing.)

Your original story vanished, but I tracked it down to here:
www.washingtonpost.com...

ZDNet notes that some have gone through the training but others dropped out early:
government.zdnet.com...


I wonder what their pre-screening is.