Suicide - Poster series

Graffiti

Desensitization in the military

I heard a recent news report on the radio which stated that in the Australian military the number of people returning from combat with PTSD has doubled in the last three years. One possible explanation for this is the soldiers are no longer being properly psychologically prepared before they go into war.

One is reminded of the stereotypical image of the drill Sargent. His face one inch from the trainee soldier with spittle coming out his mouth, shouting that the soldier’s mother is a whore and his father is a faggot. Why would he do such a thing? He is not really talking about the mother’s occupational history nor the father’s sexual orientation. He is brutalizing the young soldier because he knows if he does that then the soldier will desensitize and therefore be more psychologically prepared to go into a war zone. He is less likely to come back with PTSD.

In Australia at the moment the Defence department is undergoing considerable public scrutiny. Some of its members have been doing things like having sex with female members and then streaming it live onto the internet. Emailing pornographic pictures of female soldiers and so forth. Clearly these are very wrong things to do but we need to be careful.

The department of defence is a special case in terms of government organizations. It is not like the department of transportation nor the education department. The defence department is about training people to kill others. It is about training mainly men to go into a war zone and be able to walk around knowing the next step they take may be onto a mine which will blow of his leg and his genitals. This type of thing is not required in the department of transportation whose biggest task is to make sure the trains run on time.

The department of defence must be a brutalizing organization. It must in some way assault the soldiers as there is no other way to get them to psychologically desensitize. People just will not go through the psychological process of desensitization unless they are being faced with some form of repugnant abuse.

This is what war is.

As it officially sanctions brutal treatment of the training soldiers it is inevitable that some of its members will then start brutalizing each other. That’s what happens in human groups. The culture of the group is defined by the leadership and then its members will inevitably behave the same way. That can be in a family of four or an organization of thousands. The leadership defines the acceptable behaviour by their actions (not words!) and then the membership will sooner or later display that behaviour to those outside the organization but internally to each other as well.

I don’t know of an answer to this dilemma. It is very wrong for people to send offensive internet images of others or behave in any abusive form to another person. At the same time we have to have a military that has a culture of brutality and therefore it is inevitable some of the membership will do the same to those they live with.

The danger is that the military will become a more ‘sensitive’ organization. If they do not maintain the level of abuse of the soldiers then there will not be the necessary desensitization occurring. Therefore they are going to be sent into war psychologically under prepared and more will develop PTSD. This is an abomination. Not only do we send off these young men to fight our wars and possibly die but we under prepare them so they can come home further damaged for years afterwards with PTSD.

What the politicians will probably say is that we can brutalize them in their training but then teach them not to brutalize each other. I have my doubts if that is possible because human group psychology just does not work that way.

It’s like the mother who smacks her son for hitting his sister. In human psychology actions speak far far louder than words.

I can’t see a realistic solution. The politically correct solution is clear but as I said I have my doubts if that is possible. May be the military is already becoming more sensitive and we are beginning to see the consequences of that with a dramatic increase in PTSD.

Graffiti

Suicidality and war

“Female soldiers' suicide rate triples when at war”.

Recent research reported in the magazine USA TODAY (March 2011) Gregg Zoroya

(http://www.usatoday.com/) 

This research on US military found

1. When female soldiers deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq the suicide rate triples from 5/100,000 to 15/100,000.

2. When male soldiers deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq there is a 30% increase in the suicide rate from 15/100,000 to 21/100,000.

This could be seen to support the contention that going into a war zone can be used as a way to fulfil the suicide decision:

I will get you to kill me.

Obviously in a war zone there are plenty of people trying to kill you.

Or at least those who have made some kind of suicide decision

Those who are actually deployed may be a self selecting group to some extent. Those who have made this suicide decision will get themselves into the circumstances where they are more likely to be deployed than other non suicidal people in the military. One reason why the suicide rate increases is because the group has selected in more suicidal people.

In the report the researches say the usual stuff. People deployed to such war zones are more stressed and so forth and this maybe the cause of such statistics. 

There is an alternate explanation. Stress has never made anyone suicidal. What stress can do is make an already suicidal person more likely to act on their self destructive urges. Thus a person who has made the suicide decision is more likely to end up in a war zone and when stressed is more likely to act on that decision. Hence the rate of suicide goes up.

Graffiti

Suicidal ambivalence in war time

It has been noted that during war time there tends to be a significant drop in the suicide rate. This has been reported in many different countries so it seems to be a universal phenomena. One theory is that this decline is due to the social cohesion that war creates. 

An alternative theory can relate to the idea of suicidal ambivalence. All suicidal individuals are ambivalent to some degree - “I do want to die vs I do not want to die”.

All suicidal people have this contradictory set of thoughts and urges inside themselves. The suicidal individual has percentages of both with the levels waxing and waning over time. Sometimes it will be 50/50 and then on other days it might be 60/40.

In war time or when there is an external threat to life the FC aspect of the personality could be stimulated as people tend to think more about how they are going to survive this period of threat. All those around them would be doing the same. This would make the FC part more prominent in the personality and hence the AC urges to die diminish and the suicide rate drops.

This could be further supported by other data as well. In Australia some of the highest rates of suicide were during times of depression and the lowest during the war years. In Serbia the highest rate of suicides recorded were during the hyper-inflation period and the lowest during the NATO bombing in 1999.

It could be argued that during times of economic hardship there is not so much a threat to life but a threat to the standard of living. People have to live with hardship but their lives generally are not under direct threat as can happen in war time. Hence in times of economic depression the FC is not stimulated as it is during war.

Graffiti

Suicide and being killed

In my book I take some time to look at what actually constitutes suicide. A definition of it so to speak. It seems to me that most have quite a simplistic and one dimensional approach to it. One can conceptualise of three groups of people who could be considered suicidal in some form.

Group 1. Those who plan to kill self, have made the suicide decision and the suicidal ambivalence is heavily weighted to AC side. These people typically report feeling depressed, anxiety, despair or some other kind of pervasive angst. This is what most would see as the suicidal group.

Group 2. Those who will never do the act of suicide them self but may have made the suicide decision. It is simply either not in their behavioural repertoire or they have made a special kind of suicide decision.



There are seven different suicide decisions of which two are:

I will get you to kill me

I will kill myself by accident

How does one get to kill self by accident. There are a number of ways

Car or motorbike accidents
Drug overdoses
High risk sports
Working with dangerous animals

How does one get someone else to kill them. There are a number of ways

Domestic violence. Behave in a particular way with a very violent other

Death by cop

Become involved in criminal activity where people kill each other - both as police and the crims.

Get the state kill you with the death penalty

Go voluntarily into a war zone

Refuse treatment for a life threatening illness



Group 3. This is a more contentious definition of suicide. These people present as clearly non suicidal. They will state they feel good and have everything to live for. In addition they consistently place self in circumstances voluntarily where the likelihood of being killed significantly increases. Examples could be Steve Irwin and Peter Brock. They appear quite non suicidal and yet repeatedly place self in circumstances where the risk of death significantly increases. Is this suicidal behaviour or not? This can also apply for someone who smokes 50 cigarettes a day. Is that suicidal behaviour?



However what I wish to discuss at this juncture is a piece of research I came across

“Female soldiers' suicide rate triples when at war”.
Recent research reported in the magazine USA TODAY (March 2011) Gregg Zoroya
(http://www.usatoday.com/)

This research on US military found

1. When female soldiers deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq the suicide rate triples from 5/100,000 to 15/100,000.

2. When male soldiers deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq there is a 30% increase in the suicide rate from 15/100,000 to 21/100,000.

This could be seen to support the contention that going into a war zone can be used as a way to fulfil the suicide decision:

I will get you to kill me.

Obviously in a war zone there are plenty of people trying to kill you.

Or at least those who have made some kind of suicide decision

Those who are actually deployed may be a self selecting group to some extent. Those who have made this suicide decision will get themselves into the circumstances where they are more likely to be deployed than other non suicidal people in the military. One reason why the suicide rate increases is because the group has selected in, more suicidal people.



In the report on the research the researches say the usual stuff. People deployed to such war zones are more stressed and so forth and this maybe the cause of such statistics.

There is an alternate explanation. Stress has never made anyone suicidal. What stress can do is make an already suicidal person more likely to act on their self destructive urges. Thus a person who has made the suicide decision is more likely to end up in a war zone and when stressed is more likely to act on that decision. Hence the rate of suicide goes up.

Graffiti