Military Psychology Research Paper

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF COMBAT

Introduction

1. Psychology at the beginning of the twenty-first century has become a highly diverse field of scientific study and applied technology. The pursuits of behavioral scientists range from the natural sciences to the social sciences and embrace a wide variety of objects of investigation. As a subject of psychology, the psychological phenomenon is also called as mental activity, which falls in the domain of human mentality. It reveals the basic laws on the mentality of an ordinary man such as cognitive, emotion, will and personality and individual psychology. The field can encompass every aspect of the human mind that interests the military, but researchers focus on the psychology of military organization, military life, and the psychology of combat.

2. Military life places unique stresses on individuals and their families. Aside from the
Early military psychologists suspected that Combat Stress Reaction (CRS)-a progressive psychological breakdown in response to combat-was a matter of psychological "weakness." Today, most agree that any human being will break down if exposed for long enough to enough death, fear, and violence. Some soldiers who have experienced battle-as well as some victims of disasters or violent crime-suffer from a lingering version of CSR called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A person with PTSD may chronically re-experience traumatic events, in nightmares or even in waking hallucinations. Other PTSD sufferers "close up," refusing to confront their emotional trauma but expressing it in substance abuse, depression, or chronic unemployment. PTSD has proved possible but difficult to treat successfully-hence the military's focus on preventing PTSD through proper CSR treatment. During and after every war this nation has fought, members of its armed forces have suffered ill effects from combat-related stress, and the Persian Gulf War, the Vietnam War are no