Because the war was relatively brief, casualties relatively light, and the Nation sanctioned the war socially, veterans of Desert Shield/Storm and their families were not anticipated to suffer symptoms of trauma or re-entry stress beyond that expected in routine peacetime military deployments. However, the authors argue that the stress imposed on families by Desert Shield/Storm was not analogous to that of routine deployments. The call to duty was unexpected, disruptive, and "hazardous" (i.e., highly dangerous) which places it in the category of a "catastrophic" stressor as defined by McCubbin and Figley (1983). The deployment was a call to war, which creates unique stress beyond those experienced during peacetime deployments. The deployment also carried with it prolonged "anticipation of trauma." For these reasons, the authors argue, the deployment to Desert Shield/Storm created a situation of "family trauma" for veterans and their families. Suggestions are offered for education, prevention and treatment for families undergoing unexpected wartime military deployments.
Although not the only way to approach the interpretation of Rorschach test data, the Comprehensive System (Exner, 1991) search strategy is the most systematized and empirically informed to date. Within that search strategy, a role for sequence analysis remains (Weiner, 1998). Sequence analysis adds a specificity of nuance useful in bringing personal meaning to, answering more difficult test questions about, or explaining apparent incongruities in the data. In this article, I elaborate a few aspects of some particular sequence analysis strategies as a way of supplementing Weiner's (1998) description. I discuss and expand the following ideas: (a) conjoint (configurational) examination of individual responses, (b) specifics about patient concerns, (c) specifics about response deterioration and their treatment implications, (d) specifics about response recovery and their treatment implications, (e) contribution of attitude toward the response, (f) minisequence and configurational analysis strategies for particular test questions, and (g) guidelines for establishing level of confidence in sequence analysis inferences.
The article describes the usefulness of concepts of projective identification and the relational/structure model of countertransference in the treatment of trauma victims. Case examples are presented to illustrate how concordant, complementary, and indirect countertransference may be useful diagnostically and therapeutically.
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