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The social context and meaning of trauma in the readjustment process of Vietnam veterans.
- Format:
- Book
- Thesis/Dissertation
- Author/Creator:
- Everett, Ronald Stephen.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Families--Research.
- Families.
- Sociology--Research.
- Sociology.
- 0626.
- 0628.
- Penn dissertations--Sociology.
- Sociology--Penn dissertations.
- Local Subjects:
- Penn dissertations--Sociology.
- Sociology--Penn dissertations.
- 0626.
- 0628.
- Physical Description:
- 255 pages
- Contained In:
- Dissertation Abstracts International 50-01A.
- System Details:
- Mode of access: World Wide Web.
- text file
- Summary:
- This investigation explores the consequences of traumatic events within the context of the readjustment process of Vietnam veterans. Prior research from a psychological perspective has focused on the objective characteristics of the experience as the critical determining factor and psychological disruption as the most common consequence. Work from a sociological orientation has focused on collective trauma or the mediating structures of the social environment. This work explores the concept of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the psychiatric model that has traditionally underlain research in this area. As a complement the area of undesirable life-events and the social support model of stress is investigated. In both cases the understanding of the traumatic and/or undesirable experience is found to be limited by the theoretical model informing the empirical research. Blending ideas from a structural symbolic interactionist theory of deviance with previous models, a general contextual model of the transition readjustment process is developed. The central dimensions of the contextual model include the veteran's subjective/personal understanding of the traumatic experience, feelings of interpersonal control/mastery, and social support network and resources. The role of the contextual model in understanding the relationship between trauma and PTSD is tested through multivariate regression models. The variables representing the contextual dimensions are included as nonadditive interaction terms to directly test their hypothesized conditioning influence on psychological consequences. Evidence is found in support of the proposed contextual model of transition readjustment. From a social constructionist perspective, the analysis explores the relationship between the contextual model of transition readjustment and the two primary dimensions of PTSD, denial and reexperiencing symptoms. The results are consistent with a medicalization of deviance perspective suggesting that the readjustment difficulties of Vietnam veterans are too narrowly defined by the official diagnostic label of PTSD. In contrast, the contextual model approaches the period of transition and readjustment as a complex social process reflecting a relationship the social structure, to public sentiment and the individual's self-definition.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph.D. in Sociology)--Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, 1988.
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-01, Section: A, page: 0263.
- Supervisor: Paul D. Allison.
- Local Notes:
- School code: 0175.
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
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