Combat Trauma and The Undoing of Character
Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D
PISSING CONTESTS
One would think that severe psychological injury would give rise naturally to shared compassion and mutual respect among the many diverse groups of trauma survivors, as have lived through genocide, political torture, domestic battering, incest, abusive religious cults, and coerced prostitution. Unfortunately it has not. Veterans call it “pissing contests” when one veteran denies the validity of another veteran’s war trauma.