Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic. LI, 1987: The Survivor Syndrome: Massive Psychic Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Bruce I. Goderez. Pp. 96-113.

Many Vietnam veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder exhibit severe symptoms related to feelings of guilt, which appear similar to those presented by survivors of the Holocaust and other catastrophes. The author believes

that this disorder in combat veterans has a specific origin in military training, when the recruit's adolescent personality is transformed into a "warrior personality" which is often in conflict with the individual's prior standards and values but is adaptive for survival in combat. Upon return to civilian life, the veteran may find that this warrior stance is both ego-dystonic and part of the self; this gives rise to a clinical situation in which the individual contains two warring part-personalities. This syndrome is structurally similar to a multiple personality disorder. The author cautions, however, against a therapeutic stance in which the veteran is allowed to condemn his killer part-personality. The psychiatrist ought, rather, to treat it as an effecitve and valued aspect of the patient's self which arose at a critical time of life and will remain with him always.