Homeric Epic and the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Jonathan Shay
Tuesday 18 June 2013, 5.30 pm
Hogan Lovells Lecture Theatre, Durham Law School, Palatine Centre, Durham University
- Slide from the 2002 Documentary Achilles in Vietnam http://www.achillesinvietnam.com/
Dr Jonathan Shay will talk about the relevance of Homeric epic to his ground-breaking clinical work on the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. A clinical psychiatrist and leading authority on the condition, Dr. Shay is the author of Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (1994) and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming (2002), where he identifies moral injury, and breaches of trust between soldiers and their leaders, as key factors obstructing the acquisition and maintenance of successful treatment for PTSD.
A conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, Dr Shay has served as Chair of Ethics, Leadership, and Personnel Policy in the Office of the U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel; and in 2007 was awarded a Macarthur ‘Genius Grant’ Fellowship in recognition of his life-long work on PTSD.
His talk is sponsored by the Department of Classics and Ancient History, the Institute of Advanced Study, and the Centre for the Medical Humanities.
Please register your attendance via the following link.