Mind Matters: War and the soul

Posted by Dr. Kayta Gajdos on October 6, 2010

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy

O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.”

So began
Edward Tick’s presentation at Mirmont Treatment Center in Lima, two weeks ago.
Dr. Tick introduced us to the topic, “War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation’s
Veterans from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” (also the title of his book) by
reciting what has become known as the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis. According
to Tick, what is little known is that the prayer, while written in the spirit
of Saint Francis, was composed by a soldier in the trenches of WW I who
scribbled it on the back of a holy card depicting that holy man, who had also
been a soldier. (This rendition of origin may be challenged; however, it would
seem that this soldier took heart in these words.)

Tick
considers that post traumatic stress disorder is less a mental affliction to be
pathologized than a heart and soul wound. Furthermore, “It is also a social
disorder arising from the broken relationships between our society and its
veterans.” (the Sun Magazine, June,
2008) Tick notes that we honor the soldier going off to war “to keep the
patriotic fervor up,” yet when he (or she) returns home, the vet often meets
poor treatment (e.g., no health benefits) and lack of social support. (For
example, consider the homeless who are vets.)

Tick
admonishes that we as a society need to face our responsibility as civilians.
“Soldiers have a responsibility to defend their country, and it is our
responsibility as citizens to heal those who have put their lives on the line
for us, even if they fought a war for the wrong reasons or for lies. And we’re
not doing that.”

Our ongoing,
yet distant, wars keep the horrors and hell of war out of sight and out of
mind.

While Tick
reminds us that PTSD is an invisible wound, it is also a natural human response
to violence. Healing and transformation can occur, however, when a community or
society, rather than be in denial, attends to the psychic wounds of its
warriors.

Tick tells
the story of the Plains Indians who based their cultural norms on the buffalo.
They observed that the buffalo would gather in concentric circles—the old bulls
led, protected, and preserved the herd by being in the outer circle. The Plains
people did likewise: the elders went on to the first line of battle, protecting
the young warriors. And the social contract was that when the warriors
returned, the concentric circles switched: civilians welcomed the warriors’
return by being on the outer ring, protecting them. At one point, Tick played
the “victory” song of Native Americans—the chant to which the warrior would
enter the inner circle. But the chant did not engender patriotic hero worship;
instead, it stirred a sense of melancholy, a deep grief, representing “I made
it back” and perhaps also “I have killed and so have faced a deep dark part of
myself.” Tick warns that calling a person a “hero” shuts down the heart’s own
grief. But listening to the warrior’s story and honoring and supporting the
warrior’s journey “home” is what the civilian culture can do to help repair the
wounds of war.

Tick, who
has worked for more than 25 years with veterans, says “healing has to happen at
the deepest levels of the mind, heart and soul. We need public apologies,
public confessions, and public grief for all that we have done to our veterans,
to other nations, and to the earth.” (the Sun
Magazine, June, 2008)

Would that
we could heed his words. A society cannot go to war without at some point
paying a deep moral price…we can pray with the soldier of the trenches: Where
there is injury, pardon; where there is sadness, joy …

* Kayta
Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private
practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments atMindMatters@DrGajdos.com or
(610)388-2888. Past columns are posted towww.drgajdos.com.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.