TBI (traumatic brain injury) and Vets

Good piece in the Washington Post about TBI, the extent of the injuries, and the hopes for treatment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/02/AR2010100203969.html

Allentown's Veteran's Sanctuary

Last year, the student body voted without dissent to donate 500 dollars from the student fund to the Veteran's Sanctuary in Allentown, PA. With remarkable speed the organization running it has converted an old Catholic school- a giant one- into a fully accessible treatment center and residence for traumatized and brain injured combat vets, male and female. The program is family and mindfulness based. It is due to open in November.

This Tuesday, we are heading up their to prime and paint a number of dormitory rooms. This is an important relationship...why? Not to get too political about this, but these wars were planned to be mostly hidden. Sure, we have a sense of the financial costs, but the human costs are isolated from us. For those with eyes to see.

Our older students must come to grips with these wars and their costs. Not in the sense of risking overwhelming them and creating helplessness within them, but rather an orientation to life and death, suffering and relief.

My hope is that a few of the many students we have who seem interested in psychology take this injustice on as they grow older.