The DOI matches its Crossref record; 11 of the 11 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Warring Identities: Identity Conflict and the Mental Distress of American Veterans of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
Abstract
Drawing from 26 life story interviews of recent American veterans, this paper analyzes the identity struggle faced by soldiers returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom and reentering the civilian world. Instead of examining veterans’ problems as a consequence of post-combat mental illnesses such as PTSD and major depression, we analyze the contrast between the participants’ identities as soldiers and their identities as civilians. We find that the postwar transition causes adverse mental health effects that stem from contrasts between the military’s demands for deindividuation, obedience, chain-of-command, and dissociation and the civilian identity expectations of autonomy, self-advocacy, and being relational. Veterans’ reintegration to civilian society is further hindered by a culture that is perceived (by veterans) as having decreased understanding of the soldier/veteran experience itself. These identity conflicts—what we term warring identities—have an important yet understudied effect on veterans’ combat-related mental health problems.
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Cites
Pearlin, L. I., & Schooler, C. (1978) · Journal of Health and Social Behavior · doi:10.2307/2136319 · Cited by 7,791
Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental Health Problems, and Barriers to Care
Hoge, C. W., Castro, C. A., Messer, S. C., McGurk, D., Cotting, D. I., & Koffman, R. L. (2004) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmoa040603 · Cited by 4,778
Stress, Coping, and Social Support Processes: Where Are We? What Next?
Thoits, P. A. (1995) · Journal of Health and Social Behavior · doi:10.2307/2626957 · Cited by 3,496
Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy
Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., & Maguen, S. (2009) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2009.07.003 · Cited by 2,738
Thoits, P. A. (1983) · American Sociological Review · doi:10.2307/2095103 · Cited by 1,361
A critique of seven assumptions behind psychological trauma programmes in war-affected areas
Summerfield, D. (1999) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/s0277-9536(98)00450-x · Cited by 987
Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health
(2013) · Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research · doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4276-5 · Cited by 922 · cited 7×
“As a highly valued identity, the emotional impact of stressors related to this identity is all the stronger (Burke 1991; Thoits 2011).”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialOn Merging Identity Theory and Stress Research
Thoits, P. A. (1991) · Social Psychology Quarterly · doi:10.2307/2786929 · Cited by 918
Sayer, N. A., Noorbaloochi, S., Frazier, P., Carlson, K., Gravely, A., & Murdoch, M. (2010) · Psychiatric Services · doi:10.1176/ps.2010.61.6.589 · Cited by 527
Risk Factors Associated With Suicide in Current and Former US Military Personnel
LeardMann, C. A., Powell, T. M., Smith, T. C., Bell, M. R., Smith, B., Boyko, E. J., Hooper, T. I., Gackstetter, G. D., Ghamsary, M., & Hoge, C. W. (2013) · JAMA · doi:10.1001/jama.2013.65164 · Cited by 395
Cited by
Transition from military to civilian: Identity, social connectedness, and veteran wellbeing
Flack, M., & Kite, L. (2021) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0261634 · Cited by 67
Military-to-civilian transition theories and frameworks
Pedlar, D., Thompson, J. M., & Andrew Castro, C. (2019) · Military Veteran Reintegration · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-815312-3.00003-6 · Cited by 49
Barnett, A., Savic, M., Forbes, D., Best, D., Sandral, E., Bathish, R., Cheetham, A., & Lubman, D. I. (2022) · Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1177/00048674211046894 · Cited by 24
Stein, J. Y., Itzhaky, L., Levi-Belz, Y., & Solomon, Z. (2017) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00281 · Cited by 18
Tarbet, Z., Moore, S., & Alanazi, A. (2021) · The British Journal of Social Work · doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcaa133 · Cited by 8
Metadata
- Authors
- Smith, R. T., & True, G.
- Venue
- Society and Mental Health
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2014-01-09
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 147-161
- ISSN
- 2156-8693 (ISSN-L)
- 2156-8731
- OpenAlex
- W2167953523
- Cited by
- 195
- References
- 11
- FWCI
- 49.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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