PTSD in drone operators?

SLAM: debunk creationism, pseudoscience, and superstitions. Discuss logic and morality.

Moderator: Alyrium Denryle

Post Reply
User avatar
Formless
Sith Marauder
Posts: 4139
Joined: 2008-11-10 08:59pm
Location: the beginning and end of the Present

PTSD in drone operators?

Post by Formless »

When I first came across this story I skimmed part of it, thought it was interesting, and bookmarked it for later. Thought it would be an interesting look into what the US drone program was like (and it is). But then when I later went back to read it I came across this part and knew I just had to share it with the forum:
Confessions of a Drone Warrior [url=http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201311/drone-uav-pilot-assassination?currentPage=4]page 4[/url] wrote:At the urging of a Vietnam veteran he met at the local VA office, Bryant finally went to see a therapist. After a few sessions, he just broke down: “I told her I wanted to be a hero, but I don’t feel like a hero. I wanted to do something good, but I feel like I just wasted the last six years of my life.” She diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

It was an unexpected diagnosis. For decades the model for understanding PTSD has been “fear conditioning”: quite literally the lasting psychological ramifications of mortal terror. But a term now gaining wider acceptance is “moral injury.” It represents a tectonic realignment, a shift from a focusing on the violence that has been done to a person in wartime toward his feelings about what he has done to others—or what he’s failed to do for them. The concept is attributed to the clinical psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, who in his book Achilles in Vietnam traces the idea back as far as the Trojan War. The mechanisms of death may change—as intimate as a bayonet or as removed as a Hellfire—but the bloody facts, and their weight on the human conscience, remain the same. Bryant’s diagnosis of PTSD fits neatly into this new understanding. It certainly made sense to Bryant. “I really have no fear,” he says now. “It’s more like I’ve had a soul-crushing experience. An experience that I thought I’d never have. I was never prepared to take a life.”

In 2011, Air Force psychologists completed a mental-health survey of 600 combat drone operators. Forty-two percent of drone crews reported moderate to high stress, and 20 percent reported emotional exhaustion or burnout. The study’s authors attributed their dire results, in part, to “existential conflict.” A later study found that drone operators suffered from the same levels of depression, anxiety, PTSD, alcohol abuse, and suicidal ideation as traditional combat aircrews. These effects appeared to spike at the exact time of Bryant’s deployment, during the surge in Iraq. (Chillingly, to mitigate these effects, researchers have proposed creating a Siri-like user interface, a virtual copilot that anthropomorphizes the drone and lets crews shunt off the blame for whatever happens. Siri, have those people killed.)
Yeah.... always missing the point, the military. :wtf: Somehow, if thousands of miles distance can't change the stress of killing, I doubt some fancy anthropomorphized interface will change anything. In fact, I hope not.
"Still, I would love to see human beings, and their constituent organ systems, trivialized and commercialized to the same extent as damn iPods and other crappy consumer products. It would be absolutely horrific, yet so wonderful." — Shroom Man 777
"To Err is Human; to Arrr is Pirate." — Skallagrim
“I would suggest "Schmuckulating", which is what Futurists do and, by extension, what they are." — Commenter "Rayneau"
The Magic Eight Ball Conspiracy.
Grumman
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 2488
Joined: 2011-12-10 09:13am

Re: PTSD in drone operators?

Post by Grumman »

Formless wrote:
(Chillingly, to mitigate these effects, researchers have proposed creating a Siri-like user interface, a virtual copilot that anthropomorphizes the drone and lets crews shunt off the blame for whatever happens. Siri, have those people killed.)
Yeah.... always missing the point, the military. :wtf: Somehow, if thousands of miles distance can't change the stress of killing, I doubt some fancy anthropomorphized interface will change anything. In fact, I hope not.
Yeah, while it would be a good thing if we found better ways to help people cope with unwarranted guilt, passing the buck like this is bad for the same reason "just following orders" is bad.
User avatar
Starglider
Miles Dyson
Posts: 8709
Joined: 2007-04-05 09:44pm
Location: Isle of Dogs
Contact:

Re: PTSD in drone operators?

Post by Starglider »

Grumman wrote:Yeah, while it would be a good thing if we found better ways to help people cope with unwarranted guilt, passing the buck like this is bad for the same reason "just following orders" is bad.
Noooo, we absolutely need to do this research, Hollywood has shown us that all the best sci-fi machine revolt scenarios require the central AI to have a sexy female avatar with a seductive yet sinister female voice. I for one support an intuitive user interface on the upcoming Skynet killbots.
User avatar
The Grim Squeaker
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 10314
Joined: 2005-06-01 01:44am
Location: A different time-space Continuum
Contact:

Re: PTSD in drone operators?

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

Starglider wrote:
Grumman wrote:Yeah, while it would be a good thing if we found better ways to help people cope with unwarranted guilt, passing the buck like this is bad for the same reason "just following orders" is bad.
Noooo, we absolutely need to do this research, Hollywood has shown us that all the best sci-fi machine revolt scenarios require the central AI to have a sexy female avatar with a seductive yet sinister female voice. I for one support an intuitive user interface on the upcoming Skynet killbots.
Nod-Nod!
Especially as brain-machine interfaces advance further. We all need a Cortana to let soldiers switch off their brains to become AI controlled killing machines!
I support this notion! Also, I am a Human. I am writing this with appendages made of flesh. I am completely composed of a meatbag.
Go humans!




Sidenote:
I won't comment on the psychology/DSM aspect of the reclassification of PTSD beyond saying that this sounds very...iffy to me.
(Grouping something very different under one umbrella is a superb way to make a diagnosis easier, treatment money more politically achievable, and to make research/treatment useless. Think autism, ánxiety disorders'...

I do know that one theory has it that drone pilots suffer high levels of PTSD due to the lack of a 'seperate' social framework. Shooting up terrorists then picking your kids up from your neighbour Ibrahim involves a lot of cognitive reshuffling on a structural/sytematic level, especially as opposed to being immersed in a social framework where everyone else is doing the same thing as you, and your personality can 'shift' to suit your current roal as a soldier.
Photography
Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
User avatar
Formless
Sith Marauder
Posts: 4139
Joined: 2008-11-10 08:59pm
Location: the beginning and end of the Present

Re: PTSD in drone operators?

Post by Formless »

Grumman wrote:
Formless wrote:
(Chillingly, to mitigate these effects, researchers have proposed creating a Siri-like user interface, a virtual copilot that anthropomorphizes the drone and lets crews shunt off the blame for whatever happens. Siri, have those people killed.)
Yeah.... always missing the point, the military. :wtf: Somehow, if thousands of miles distance can't change the stress of killing, I doubt some fancy anthropomorphized interface will change anything. In fact, I hope not.
Yeah, while it would be a good thing if we found better ways to help people cope with unwarranted guilt, passing the buck like this is bad for the same reason "just following orders" is bad.
The really stupid thing is, the proposal is to create a "virtual co-pilot" that they can blame for actually pulling the trigger: but the article itself is about a guy whose job was to spot targets and do all the aiming, while his actual co-pilot pulled the trigger for the hellfire missiles. The spotter still developed PTSD even with a real human being sitting next to him to shift blame onto.

Frankly, the military is largely responsible for popularizing the diagnosis of PTSD, but veterans aren't the only ones who come down with it. Crime victims, disaster survivors... if a crisis of conscience and guilt complex (say, survivor's guilt instead of "I killed someone" guilt) are a major part of what stresses people out to a pathological degree, then trying to solve it only by making it easier for soldiers to rationalizing violence means others with the problem, or even soldiers whose problem comes from aspects of war, means they aren't solving PTSD for anyone. Its just a bandaid. Besides the fact that, IMO, it shouldn't be easy to take a life on the whim of orders.
The Grim Squeaker wrote:Sidenote:
I won't comment on the psychology/DSM aspect of the reclassification of PTSD beyond saying that this sounds very...iffy to me.
(Grouping something very different under one umbrella is a superb way to make a diagnosis easier, treatment money more politically achievable, and to make research/treatment useless. Think autism, ánxiety disorders'...
There is admittedly some truth to this in that there are as many as 636,120 combinations of symptoms that can mean PTSD. I don't think that diminishes the experience for those that suffer from it-- indeed, I would be surprised if there wasn't a large variety of ways people personally experience mental suffering. Diagnoses are just clinical tools, after all. But since you mention Anxiety disorders, perhaps that is one way to fix the problem? Right now, its classified under the general label of anxiety disorders, but maybe it can be made its own category or subcategory. Something like "Existential Stress" maybe-- has a nice pretentious philosophical ring to it. :P
"Still, I would love to see human beings, and their constituent organ systems, trivialized and commercialized to the same extent as damn iPods and other crappy consumer products. It would be absolutely horrific, yet so wonderful." — Shroom Man 777
"To Err is Human; to Arrr is Pirate." — Skallagrim
“I would suggest "Schmuckulating", which is what Futurists do and, by extension, what they are." — Commenter "Rayneau"
The Magic Eight Ball Conspiracy.
User avatar
Alyrium Denryle
Minister of Sin
Posts: 22224
Joined: 2002-07-11 08:34pm
Location: The Deep Desert
Contact:

Re: PTSD in drone operators?

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

Grumman wrote:
Formless wrote:
(Chillingly, to mitigate these effects, researchers have proposed creating a Siri-like user interface, a virtual copilot that anthropomorphizes the drone and lets crews shunt off the blame for whatever happens. Siri, have those people killed.)
Yeah.... always missing the point, the military. :wtf: Somehow, if thousands of miles distance can't change the stress of killing, I doubt some fancy anthropomorphized interface will change anything. In fact, I hope not.
Yeah, while it would be a good thing if we found better ways to help people cope with unwarranted guilt, passing the buck like this is bad for the same reason "just following orders" is bad.
The problem is, it is not exactly unwarranted guilt. Those drones DO kill civilians, and often not by accident. The guys doing the aiming dont necessarily know they are killing non-combatants, but they know they CAN be, if not intentionally then as collateral damage.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences


There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Factio republicanum delenda est
User avatar
Nephtys
Sith Acolyte
Posts: 6227
Joined: 2005-04-02 10:54pm
Location: South Cali... where life is cheap!

Re: PTSD in drone operators?

Post by Nephtys »

This has been floating around for a while. PTSD or similar sorts of issues for UAV Operators is surprisingly common. Studies are currently underway to better understand how living stateside while doing this as a dayjob affects them. In a combat theater, you're never 'out' of the environment. But when you can go home and have dinner with the family, I can imagine that being a LOT harder, to have that sort of emotional context switch.
User avatar
Formless
Sith Marauder
Posts: 4139
Joined: 2008-11-10 08:59pm
Location: the beginning and end of the Present

Re: PTSD in drone operators?

Post by Formless »

I imagine that being stateside also means being exposed to a lot more criticism of the war and of drone strikes in particular than an infantryman who goes on patrol from the instant he wakes up and goes to sleep in a barracks surrounded by colleges.
"Still, I would love to see human beings, and their constituent organ systems, trivialized and commercialized to the same extent as damn iPods and other crappy consumer products. It would be absolutely horrific, yet so wonderful." — Shroom Man 777
"To Err is Human; to Arrr is Pirate." — Skallagrim
“I would suggest "Schmuckulating", which is what Futurists do and, by extension, what they are." — Commenter "Rayneau"
The Magic Eight Ball Conspiracy.
User avatar
Sea Skimmer
Yankee Capitalist Air Pirate
Posts: 37389
Joined: 2002-07-03 11:49pm
Location: Passchendaele City, HAB

Re: PTSD in drone operators?

Post by Sea Skimmer »

PTSD in drone operators was first being reported in IIRC 2006. It need not involve civilians, some people, maybe and probably a lot of people, just don't respond well to high resolution thermal imaged blood splatter and body parts flying a hundred feet, all the more so from someone who could not possibly threaten them. Plenty of people get PTSD without ever killing a civilian or even shooting at one. It is hardly a requirement. See WW1 and WW2 where much fighting took place with no civilians at all present, and yet cases numbered in the hundreds of thousands if not realistically millions (the standard was set high to be counted) for the US alone.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
User avatar
Alyeska
Federation Ambassador
Posts: 17496
Joined: 2002-08-11 07:28pm
Location: Montana, USA

Re: PTSD in drone operators?

Post by Alyeska »

This type of issue was covered in my Vietnam Lit class back in college. Bomber Crew members developed PTSD in Vietnam. People who were relatively removed from combat and the immediate experience of killing people. It does not surprise me in the least that UAV operators are developing PTSD.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."

"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
User avatar
Ritterin Sophia
Sith Acolyte
Posts: 5496
Joined: 2006-07-25 09:32am

Re: PTSD in drone operators?

Post by Ritterin Sophia »

Sea Skimmer wrote:PTSD in drone operators was first being reported in IIRC 2006. It need not involve civilians, some people, maybe and probably a lot of people, just don't respond well to high resolution thermal imaged blood splatter and body parts flying a hundred feet, all the more so from someone who could not possibly threaten them. Plenty of people get PTSD without ever killing a civilian or even shooting at one. It is hardly a requirement. See WW1 and WW2 where much fighting took place with no civilians at all present, and yet cases numbered in the hundreds of thousands if not realistically millions (the standard was set high to be counted) for the US alone.
It needn't even be civilian casualties that causes it, think about those guys who have to sit there and are forced to watch other soldiers die because lag and unreliable comms means they can't warn them or the necessary assets to help them can't be called in to help, that drone operator still has to sit there and watch half a dozen of what he assumes to be good people drive right into an IED or get gunned down in a firefight after being ambushed and the entire time he sits there he's completely helpless to do anything.
A Certain Clique, HAB, The Chroniclers
Post Reply