From Front Line to Home Front: A Study of Secondary Traumatization

ZAHAVA SOLOMON*, MARK WAYSMAN, GABY LEVY, BATIA FRIED, MARIO MIKULINCER, RAMI BENBENISHTY, VICTOR FLORIAN, AVI BLEICH

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

169 Scopus citations

Abstract

While the long‐term effects of combat trauma on veterans have been studied extensively, its impact on veterans' wives has yet to be investigated. This study examined the implications of combat‐induced psychopathology — wartime combat stress reaction (CSR) and current posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — in a sample of 205 wives of Israeli combat veterans of the 1982 Lebanon war. Results show that both CSR and PTSD were associated with increased psychiatric symptoms in the wives. In addition, current PTSD was particularly found to contribute to impaired social relations among veterans' wives in a broad range of contexts, from inner feelings of loneliness, through impaired marital and family relations, and extending to the wider social network. Implications of these findings for treatment and further research are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)289-302
Number of pages14
JournalFamily Process
Volume31
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1992

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'From Front Line to Home Front: A Study of Secondary Traumatization'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this