Published in proceedings of iCi conference conducted in Brisbane, Queensland Australia as part of my PhD publication requirements.

There is little known about the experiences of workers with disabilities in the work environment. There is even less known about the experiences of workers with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a condition which may have far­reaching positive consequences to organisations. The ramifications on operational efficiency and Workplace Health & Safety, Human Resource Management and policy development are extensive, to say the least.  Recent shifts in research are revealing a neglected side to the aftermath of severe trauma by showing that, not only can individuals grow positively as a result, but can develop specific personality and character traits that  fuel and perpetuate those positive changes. Traditionally, mental health has focused on the negative consequences of such disabilities and impairments. Perhaps now we can begin to explore the positive consequences. With appropriate environment, guidance, management and supervision, these altered traits may enable, rather than disable, the individual, organisation,  family, community and society as a whole and force a change in perspective of disabilities from mental health professionals. There is an apparent demand for a unified system that collects data on the experience of PTSD in the workplace to better inform management and policy development  that creates and optimises productivity and safety. This thesis aims to assist in addressing this  situation.

Knowledge is building about the heritability of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the children and grandchildren of Vietnam veterans. These children and grandchildren remain uncounted due to lack of recognition by the medical and social models. This lack of recognition enables them to fall through the gaps in our management systems. Several theorists have made assertions that attempt to explain the heritability of PTSD from genetic, social and environmental perspectives, but simply perpetuate it. Current trends in research are starting to investigate a complex integration of these perspectives that attempt to explain the heritability of a debilitating condition that has plagued humanity for generations past, and, perhaps, generations to come. This issue is discussed in relation to the relatively new perspective of Epigenetics. This paper reviews what we have come to understand as PTSD and debates the dominant paradigms that perpetuate its heritability and enable the existence of gaps in management systems.

Where does Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have its origins? Does it have a genetic basis, or is it a learned psychological response to a severe life endangering experience? If PTSD has genetic origins, then this condition could be passed down from one generation to the next and put the offspring at risk for developing or acquiring related conditions. If PTSD is a learned condition from our environment, then it could be ‘taught’ to our children. In either case, there is an increasing awareness in the behavioural research community that more young people are being diagnosed with PTSD than before. This paper examines a current trend in recent research that proposes a radical, yet rational perspective.

​Little is understood about the intergenerational effects of PTSD from the Vietnam War. Less is understood about the family’s role in ameliorating, mitigating and normalising these heritable symptoms in the process of transmission. This study aims to identify the lived experience of PTSD from a Life-Course perspective, in the context of the family, using an Interaction Order Approach looking at the fine details of the relationships between behaviours and their contexts. Following the Life-Course perspective, various themes in the data are examined across the participants’ accounts of childhood, adolescence, adulthood and parenthood. These themes reveal the reflexive relationships between behaviour and its context within the family. Not only have these themes revealed themselves in the data, but the extra dimension of how these behaviours manifest in context has emerged. The language of PTSD from participants’ perspectives has provided overarching narratives that describe life growing up in a family affected by PTSD as a child of a Vietnam.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has become a commonly used term in mental health with a significant amount of research being conducted on its effects. However little is understood about the secondary symptoms of PTSD on individuals and their families and communities. This article claims that it is these secondary symptoms that are the critical core factors derived from interactions between the primary symptoms and social contexts that generate the problematic we label as PTSD. The family is frequently the environment in which this problematic is both intergenerationally transmitted, and normalised. This paper presents an argument for the inclusion of secondary symptoms in diagnosis, management and treatment of PTSD in family contexts that have intergenerational consequences. It is not intended to provide any answers to this conundrum of quandaries. Rather, this paper intends to ignite conversation and question.