Week 4 Blog Post

As we learned in week 1, western biomedicine is good at fixing single issue problems and not good at addressing chronic issues. Biomedicine struggles to look at the whole and very often ends up focusing, instead, on parts of the whole.  For example, there are pulmonologists that are concerned with the pulmonary system and cardiologists that are focused on the systems of the heart.  However, you may have a difficult time with a cardiologist when it is found that mental health issues that may be causing a patient to have panic attacks that are mimicking physiological symptoms that are in line with having a heart attack.  Remembering this example, if reframing violence against women and trauma as a health issue may prove to have mixed outcomes.   

If a woman goes to the Emergency Room as a result of trauma or violence – viewed through the lens of an issue that needs to be “fixed”, any immediate physical injuries will be addressed and “fixed”.  However, it would not be addressing the long-term issues associated with continued abuse.  If rape, specifically, is viewed through the biomedical lens as a health issue and a woman goes to an Emergency Room for help – again, she will receive assistance for any physical injuries. Once those injuries are addressed, the staff would be discharging a woman with a few numbers for support groups or counseling centers. The nature of Emergency Rooms is to provide immediate care for physically traumatic issues – there is very little (if any) follow up for women that have suffered the trauma of rape.  Additionally, if a woman does seek and is able to obtain successful (which is a subjective term, I realize) supportive mental health assistance – there is no assurance that that woman won’t be triggered in the future.  We saw examples of this in the excerpts from the book, “Survivor Moms Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse”. Elaine’s story showed how pregnancy was a trigger for her years after the abuse took place (Sperlich 2008, 43-45).

Additionally, when looking at framing violence against women or trauma as medical issues – in our biomedical framework, there would need to be broader definitions of trauma and violence in place in order to fully address any issues that would be presented as a medical issue.  The biomedical field would need to learn to be better equipped to handle the whole person instead of the parts of the whole.  That would include extensive access to continued and monitored mental health care.  Women should not be expected to “get over it and move on”.  What is needed to be implemented to have life-long care?  In looking at examples of PTSD and our military veterans – we are not providing services for these women (and men).  My daughter-in-law was on the front lines in Iraq and currently suffers from PTSD.  My son also has PTSD from his two tours in the Middle East.  What is unique to the women in the military is that it is rarely acknowledged that women are actually on the front lines.  She was there, but not “officially”.  That has been limiting in the scope of help she is able to receive.  There is still a stigma, for our soldiers, attached to asking for help in dealing with the fallout of living in a war zone. My son did not want to go to a military psychologist for services because it becomes part of his military record.  If he seeks civilian help, he must pay for it out of pocket.  As we know, therapy is expensive.  He is career Army, so he wants to protect his ability to be deployed in the future.  In my opinion, that is a very backward way to have to seek help.  For many soldiers that he knows, they simply don’t seek help.   And for women, it can be even more difficult.  One of my daughter-in-law’s issues is that she has been judged as a mother that also suffers from PTSD.  It was said to her that she should not have chosen to have children if she knew she had PTSD.  Comments like those continue to trigger the PTSD as well.  We need to do better for our military service members in helping them receive the care they deserve. 

Sperlich, Mickey, and Julia S. Seng. Survivor Moms Womens Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse. Eugene, OR, USA: Motherbaby Press, 2008.

One thought on “Week 4 Blog Post

  1. The services that the VA provides for our men and women who’ve served disgusts me on so many levels. My own family has had experiences with the VA since my dad is a Marine Corp veteran and served in Desert Storm and was stationed in Liberia during one of their civil wars. The military is a bureaucratic nightmare and they often refuse to deal with problems that their soldiers have because of technicalities. Soldiers that served in Vietnam with PTSD cannot receive psychological services for PTSD through the VA because PTSD was not a psychological condition at the time of their services. The same for women who are serving in non-combat roles, but are basically serving in combat roles, they will not get the treatment they need nor will they be recognized for that part of their service. I’m sorry your family is dealing with that.

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