At the Robert-Picqué army training hospital in Bordeaux, the head of the psychiatry department Élodie Py-Leroy works closely with Athos.
A place designed and financed by the Ministry of the Armed Forces to support mentally injured soldiers in their psychosocial rehabilitation.
The opportunity to discuss with her about this evil which often progresses quietly...and can have serious psychosocial consequences and even ruin lives.
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Madame Figaro.
– Can you give us the definition of post-traumatic stress?
Élodie Py-Leroy.
– It is a syndrome that has been known in armies since Antiquity, even if it was called something else.
Under Napoleon, there was talk of cannonball syndrome.
Today, it is defined as an organized and lasting state, caused by a situation where the subject may have been exposed to a stressful, catastrophic or inhumane event.
In the case of the military, this may be situations of combat or direct or indirect confrontation with death.
This stress often manifests itself at a distance from the event.
At the moment, either there is no immediate manifestation, or there may be a state of acute stress.
Most often, there is a so-called latency phase, the symptoms are non-existent or evolve quietly.
Then, the first symptoms appear, in particular reliving syndrome.
People see the images of the event again, they relive it and are confronted with the same emotional charge, it can be flashes during the day or nightmares.
Symptoms of hypervigilance, startle at noises, ochlophobia (
fear of crowds, Editor's note
), avoidance behavior can be accompanied by withdrawal, a change in behavior, and sudden changes in mood. mood, anxiety or anger attacks, addictions…
Are there warning signs, and can it be avoided?
The only way to avoid it would be to not be exposed to these events.
However, we cannot know in advance what will be traumatic for one person or another.
The same event in a group of people may cause trauma in one or two people, but not in the entire group.
And we don't know it in advance.
On the other hand, we can identify events with high traumatic potential and try to detect the first clinical signs in the days and months that follow, in particular a change in behavior.
Can we recover from post-traumatic stress?
The psychotherapies recognized by the High Authority for Health are essentially EMDR (eye movement psychotherapy which targets traumatic memories) and CBT (behavioral and cognitive therapies).
But each individual will choose the tools that suit them best.
Within our hospital, we also offer occupational therapy, psychomotor therapy, well-being care, discussion groups, etc.
The main thing is to be able to be treated early enough, and therefore not to hesitate to consult your doctor as soon as the first symptoms appear.
The first step, then, is to restore sleep and refine the diagnosis to offer the most appropriate basic treatment.
There may be a progression towards a stable form, most often with persistence of sleep disorders, hypervigilance, or even social isolation, which are quite disabling.
This is why it is necessary to have this support towards psychosocial rehabilitation and towards retraining or returning to work, possibly in an adapted position.
It’s long-term, networked work.