From soldier to "unordered". From the warrior to the "outpatient". From the hero to the "discharge". Too many of our military people, our prominent citizens of Canada, and role models of patriotism and sacrifices return to us from abroad in different ways, which warns of labels such as "mentally ill" or "mentally disordered." Psychologists call them, speaking about their depression, anxiety and their PTSD. They take medicine and hope that they can rise from the depths of their memories, close the fury of their recent horrific experiences, and sometimes descend into a peaceful sleep routine in the near future.
Most of the military in Canada did not ask to go abroad to fight an alien war, and none of them planned to return with a haunting memory of this, adversely affecting their lives. Are they “disordered, clinical, diagnosable”? Many studies confirm the fact that the human brain, like the brain of a horse and any other animal brain, has a universal response to life-threatening circumstances. The “different” way of returning veterans can be “normal,” considering where they were.
During the threat, the human brain reacts in the same way as the “animal-victim”. Neuroscientist Mobbs (2007) conducted an experimental experiment at the Medical Research Center in Cambridge, England. Mobbs (2007) had items that were playing a video game that a predator was hunting when they were in the fMRI scanner. Mobbs discovered that people experienced a “freezing” of the response when they first saw the threat, and at that time the frontal lobes of their brain showed the most activity. Forebrain activity prepares our bodies for action, thoughts and strategies to avoid harm. It also keeps our average brains inactive, which prevents us from moving so that we can remain still and think.
In the experiment, when the predator came closer, the forebrain functions were turned off, and the functions of the midbrain were activated. The midbrain activates our “flight or fight” responses. Our fight / flight response is also controlled by the Sympathetic Nervous System, which causes more than 1,400 different physiological and biochemical changes in the brain when we perceive a threat, real or imagined. Psychological changes include feeling more aggressive, angry and scary, and long-term struggle / flight response keeps us in a heightened state of fear and anxiety.
In the horse's brain, we see the same brain patterns in the game. Horses are victims of animals and were forced to survive in the wild. Whenever a horse experiences everything that it perceives as threatening, it causes a “freeze” reaction. It can be anything: from a piece of flying plastic to a bicycle on the road. Their ancient brain circuitry causes them to run easily, and when they do, their head rises high into the air, which causes a chemical rush to their brains. Horses are frozen, and their synapses stop firing. They react either by running or by feet, by biting or stomping an object. They fight. They are acutely "experienced survival", and this has served their species in the last few hundred thousand years.
A highly trained veterinarian and instinctive horses are actively involved in their primitive survival minds. They are on high alert and share a common understanding of the need for security. Horses are great mirrors for human emotions. A sensitive horse will respond to feelings of fear, anxiety, sadness or anger in their body posture, movements, position of their heads, breathing, licking and chewing, and much more. If people hide their true emotions or are not able to understand them, then the horses will react to what is really happening, and with the right informed and sensitive human assistant, people can be helped to cope with what is really happening inside their bodies. The process is not easy, reliable or immediate, but, working with horses, people in the "military brain" mode can learn to understand that their condition is a normal response that requires understanding, understanding and returning to peacetime.
Since 2007, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs has provided grants to qualified professionals to implement horse assistance programs for the return of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. Preliminary results indicate that there are statistically significant indicators of positive change for those participating in these programs (Wassom, nd). The Association for the Advancement of Growth and Training of Horses evaluated the treatment of members of the National Guard of Georgia, where deployments averaged two years or more. The study showed that 100% of soldiers who completed therapy with horses, dramatically reduced stress levels. There are many reasons why horses are effective in helping veterans gain understanding and understanding, reducing the negative symptoms caused by the experience of the combat zone. This topic will be discussed in a subsequent article.
Another alternative method to help soldiers deal with the effects of war is dog therapy. Dogs are recognized as comfort and support for warriors who have trouble sleeping, nightmares and other fear-based reactions that have helped them survive the war zone. The US Department of Defense funded a $ 300,000 study at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington in 2009, which was attended by military personnel and female partners who still demonstrated survival interaction with trained service dogs. 39 people who showed "symptoms of survival" received service dogs, and 82 percent reported a decrease in symptoms (Love & Esnayra, 2009).
In the United States, there are currently more than 100,000 service dogs, some of which assist the nation’s warriors, pushing them when they begin to show signs of panic attacks, calming them down, calmly reacting to what a person perceives as a threat or a confidence check if there is a real threat. Dogs' natural reactions to the environment help the surviving fighters clarify how to interpret the real ones from imaginary threats and give him or her immediate feedback / they need to either relax, calm down, or fight / run.
Pacele (2010), describing the specific benefits of service dogs for veterans. as it allows to reduce medicine, increases sleep and increases social integration. Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) is recognized as an effective therapeutic method, helping veterans to positively adjust peacetime so that the first AAT symposium was held at the Fort Myer military base in Virginia in late 2009.
The healing methods supported by animals are not intrusive, non-medicated, natural ways to help our human brain return to balance. It is a fact that when some veterans return home from extended touring, there are sometimes unexpected feelings of isolation, anger, fear, or grief. Their brains are soaked in a hormone bath for several months, keeping them “on tiptoe” and in “high readiness” to ensure their survival. There are many people in Alberta who are assisted by qualified specialists. There are at least 25 such programs that have existed for 15 years. If conventional animal and horse therapies were searched and found to be non-intrusive, effective methods of assistance in the United States, then it is sometimes time to realize that this assistance helps us to provide further assistance to our Canadian soldiers.
