The Vietnam veteran: the task is re-integration

The Vietnam veteran is re-integrating into the Community. Some veterans are experiencing special difficulties, and tend to cluster inot groups which are cemented by common needs, common symptoms or ideologies. At Brentwood V.A.H., the Vietnam veterans show serious psychiatric illness. The contributing factors are often complex, and include personality and social maladjustments, traumatic experiences and an impoverished family and social structure. The full range of psychiatric therapies may be appropriate, depending upon the individual problem constellation. In addition to empathic professional treatment, there is a need for community support and for a continuing open-minded clinical inquiry about both the defined and as yet unmet needs of the Vietnam veteran. Some veterans are in need of help but reject V.A. facilities. Answers to this problem are not easy. As the adolescent veteran ages, some maturation may spark a greater flexibility in attitudes and viewpoints. The V.A. as an institution is obligated to exercise its own strugles to attain a broader community base for its services. Other non-V.A. agencies have this responsibility as well. Veterans are also citizens in a wider sense. Everywhere, helping professionals have many tasks. One of these is to recognize the dangers of blurring the boundary between advocacy and therapy. The failure to attend to this confusion risks sacrificing the patient in advancing the cause.