Uploaded April 2017 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
In this excerpt from the interview, “Tending Soul with Military, Veterans, and First Responders: A Depth Psychological Approach,” for Discussions in Depth Psychology™, Ed Tick, Ph.D. and John Becknell Ph.D. discuss PTSD in Military, Veterans, and First Responders as an archetypal condition.
It is possible to view the condition commonly called PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) as an interrupted and incomplete initiation on the warrior’s journey—a process that needs to be extended in order to provide context and complete the initiation, so those who have suffered because of the experiences they have encountered during their service can make meaning of it.
What we call PTSD today has always existed as part of humanity, Tick states. It appears in the Bible, in mythology, and in historical records from ancient times. However, until relatively recently, it was not considered a psychological disability that required an individual to be separated from the rest of society and treated by specialists. Indigenous cultures from around the gave this kind of wounding spiritual names, for example. The condition, translated from the Lakota language, means “The spirits left him,” Tick reveals. When Lakota warriors experienced this condition, they were considered spiritually bereft, and so the medicine people conducted spiritual intervention and offered support from both an individual and community standpoint so the spirit of the warrior could be restored.
In their work, Tick and Becknell treat this wounding as an archetypal condition—as a portal or doorway into cosmic dimensions whether one is in a war zone, fighting a fire, or in the inner cities combatting violence. They teach that the traumatic situation itself is a cosmic, archetypal condition, and whenever an ordinary human being enters into it, he or she is inevitably and irrevocably transformed.
Listen to the full interview or read an in-depth summary at pacificapost.com/tending-soul-with-military-veterans-and-first-responders-a-depth-psychological-approach
Learn more about the upcoming program, “Holistic Tending for Military, Veterans, and First Responders—Psycho-spiritual and Communal Support and Healing of Violent Trauma, Moral Injury and Stress” starting May 11, 2017, at Pacifica Graduate Institute: https://retreat.pacifica.edu/holistic-tending/
In this excerpt from the interview, “Tending Soul with Military, Veterans, and First Responders: A Depth Psychological Approach,” for Discussions in Depth Psychology™, Ed Tick, Ph.D. and John Becknell Ph.D. discuss PTSD in Military, Veterans, and First Responders as an archetypal condition.
It is possible to view the condition commonly called PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) as an interrupted and incomplete initiation on the warrior’s journey—a process that needs to be extended in order to provide context and complete the initiation, so those who have suffered because of the experiences they have encountered during their service can make meaning of it.
What we call PTSD today has always existed as part of humanity, Tick states. It appears in the Bible, in mythology, and in historical records from ancient times. However, until relatively recently, it was not considered a psychological disability that required an individual to be separated from the rest of society and treated by specialists. Indigenous cultures from around the gave this kind of wounding spiritual names, for example. The condition, translated from the Lakota language, means “The spirits left him,” Tick reveals. When Lakota warriors experienced this condition, they were considered spiritually bereft, and so the medicine people conducted spiritual intervention and offered support from both an individual and community standpoint so the spirit of the warrior could be restored.
In their work, Tick and Becknell treat this wounding as an archetypal condition—as a portal or doorway into cosmic dimensions whether one is in a war zone, fighting a fire, or in the inner cities combatting violence. They teach that the traumatic situation itself is a cosmic, archetypal condition, and whenever an ordinary human being enters into it, he or she is inevitably and irrevocably transformed.
Listen to the full interview or read an in-depth summary at pacificapost.com/tending-soul-with-military-veterans-and-first-responders-a-depth-psychological-approach
Learn more about the upcoming program, “Holistic Tending for Military, Veterans, and First Responders—Psycho-spiritual and Communal Support and Healing of Violent Trauma, Moral Injury and Stress” starting May 11, 2017, at Pacifica Graduate Institute: https://retreat.pacifica.edu/holistic-tending/
