Bye Bye Trauma?

40 % der US-amerikanischen Soldaten, ein Drittel der Marine sowie die Hälfte der Mitglieder der Nationalgarde weisen Symptome schwerwiegender psychischer Störungen auf. Nun denkt die amerikanische Regierung darüber nach, schon präventiv an die Soldaten im Einsatz Psychopharmaka zu verabreichen, die ihre Traumatisierung (der Soldaten) durch ihre Tätigkeit verhindern oder einschränken sollen. Im amerikanischen Online-Magazin AlterNet ist ein kritischer Artikel von Penny Coleman zum Thema zu finden, den ich zur Lektüre empfehle: "I cannot imagine what aspects of selfhood will have to be excised or paralyzed so soldiers will no longer be troubled by what they, not to mention we, would otherwise consider morally repugnant. A soldier who has lost an arm can be welcomed home because he or she still shares fundamental societal values. But the soldier who sees her friend emulsified by a bomb, or who is ordered to run over children in the road rather than slow down the convoy, or who realizes too late that the woman was carrying a baby, not a bomb -- if that soldier's ability to feel terror and horror has been amputated, if he or she can no longer be appalled or haunted, something far more precious has been lost. I am afraid that the training or conditioning or drug that will be developed to protect soldiers from such injuries will leave an indifference to violence that will make them unrecognizable to themselves and to those who love them. They will be alienated and isolated, and finally unable to come home."
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