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PTSD may not fully explain the severe challenges that some veterans experience after retuning from war zones.

Returning home physically after a life-threatening situation does not always mean coming home cognitively.

Cognitive immobility can leave us psychologically anchored to a life that has ended.

Cognitive immobility may help us better understand and support struggling veterans.

… we keep focusing on trauma, PTSD. But for a lot of these people, maybe it’s not trauma. I mean, certainly, soldiers are traumatized and the ones who are have to be treated for that. But a lot of them – maybe what’s bothering them is actually a kind of alienation. (Junger, TED Talk, 2015)

… we keep focusing on trauma, PTSD. But for a lot of these people, maybe it’s not trauma. I mean, certainly, soldiers are traumatized and the ones who are have to be treated for that. But a lot of them – maybe what’s bothering them is actually a kind of alienation. (Junger, TED Talk, 2015)

The quote above is from Sebastian Junger, an American journalist and author who has reported from conflict zones in Afghanistan, Africa, and the Middle East. It comes from his 2015 TED Talk, which has attracted more than 1.4 million views.

Junger's talk is a personal narrative of what he experienced after returning from Afghanistan, which is commonly regarded as PTSD, although he disputes this term. A reader sent it to me, and I was glad she did. I watched the talk several times and although I do not agree with him on every point, I find most of it compelling.

Junger was right to point out that what veterans battle with when they return home from a war zone may extend beyond PTSD or trauma. For many veterans, the resources available to support their PTSD often appear insufficient. This is evident in the high rate of suicide among veterans in both the UK and the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2025 report, 6,398........

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