Previous Traumatic Life Events versus Course and Effectiveness of PTSD Therapy in Veterans of Polish Military Contingents

The goal of the paper is to show that an impasse in PTSD therapy in veterans of combat missions abroad may be connected with the occurrence of previous traumatic events. Symptoms that originally seemed to be those resulting from a war trauma, actually had had their source in personalities of the patients and their previous traumatic experiences, not related to combat stress. Identification, analysis and further processing of those events within the therapy resulted in a breakthrough in the therapy and allowed for further successful work on the PTSD symptoms. Special attention was paid to, among other things, problems of a sexual trauma, attachment trauma and personality disorders in soldiers with PTSD symptoms.