Counterintuitive Spring 2023

22

With a half million disability cases stuck in a VA backlog, and an estimated 25 percent of Iraq/Afghanistan troops with PTSD not seeking treatment

The author uses a factual claim. It is a factual claim because it talks about the percentage of people who do not end up getting treatment.

They will hang in there until the last dog is dead

The author uses an Analogy Claim here. This makes a connection saying that military spouses will hang in there by their husbands side until they pass.

 And the vet who got fired from his job for being unstable and is now homeless, like 13,000 other vets under 30, who now lives with his wife and teenager in his car.

This is a Comparative Claim, the author uses this type of claim when comparing this vet to 13,000 others who are out of work and the same age group.

The whole point of FOV is trying to give people hope,” Brannan says. “Give people the tools to not give up.

This is a Casual Claim because it is stating that FOV will help give people hope and also give them the tools to help them have a better conscience and not give up.

“Brannan sent Katie to the school therapist, once.”

This is a factual claim about Brannan’s past related to her previous employment

“She hasn’t seen any other therapist, or a therapist trained to deal with PTSD – Brannan knows what a difference that makes, since the volunteer therapist she tried briefly herself spent more time asking her to explain a “bad PTSD day” than how Caleb’s symptoms were affecting the family.”

This is an evaluative claim of the general use of therapy for cases of PTSD by Brannan based on her past stated position as a school therapist.

“Certainly she seems better than some other PTSD vets’ kids Brannan knows, who scream and sob and rock back and forth at the sound of a single loud noise, or who try to commit suicide even before they’re out of middle school. Caleb spends enough time worrying that he’s messing up his kid without a doctor saying so.”

This is a comparative claim of a case of PTSD by association to other more extreme cases of what it Brannan has seen the effects of PTSD do to other kids

“Brannan is a force of keeping her family together. She sleeps a maximum of five hours a night, keeps herself going with fast food and energy drinks, gets Katie to and from school and to tap dance and art, where Katie produces some startlingly impressive canvases, bright swirling shapes bisected by and intersected with other swaths of color, bold, intricate.”

This is an evaluative claim about Brannan’s role in her family and what she does to assist in her family’s wellbeing, as well as an evaluative claim of Katie’s canvases in school

“his regimen of 12 pills—antidepressants, anti-anxiety, sleep aids, pain meds, nerve meds, stomach meds”

A categorical claim of some examples of the 12 pills he takes

“She used the skills she learned as an assistant to a state Supreme Court justice and running a small newspaper to navigate Caleb’s maze of paperwork with the VA, and the paperwork for the bankruptcy they had to declare while they were waiting years for his disability benefits to come through. She also works for the VA now, essentially, having been—after a good deal more complicated paperwork, visits, and assessments—enrolled in its new caregiver program, which can pay spouses or other family members of disabled vets who have to take care of them full time, in Brannan’s case $400 a week.”

Both a factual claim of Brannan’s positions and work she has done as well as evaluative claims on what that work has helped with and what her consist of

C1 The amount of progress in Caleb’s six years of therapy has been frustrating for everyone. 

This is an evaluative claim because it is a judgement that every single person has been frustrated by Caleb’s six years of therapy. This is not known and it is not a fact. It’s a judgement that everyone has been frustrated with. 

C2 But ultimately, says Alain Brunet, vice president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and director of the Traumatic Stress Laboratory at McGill University in Canada, “we have reason to be reasonably optimistic. Psychotherapy does work for typical PTSD.” 

This is an evaluative claim because it is optimistic that Psychotherapy does work for typical PTSD. It is a judgement that it works so it is a evaluative claim. 

C3  The VA tends to favor cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure therapy—whereby traumatic events are hashed out and rehashed until they become, theoretically, less consuming. 

This is a definition and categorical claim. It defines cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure therapy and how they are traumatic events that are hashed out and rehashed until they become less consuming. It can be considered categorical too because it gives examples of behavioral therapy and exposure therapy. These belong to what the VA favors category. This is also causal because it has cause and effect. The cause is the VA tends to favor cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure therapy, the effect is the traumatic events are hashed out and rehashed until they become, theoretically, less consuming. 

C4 Some state VA offices also offer group therapy.

This is an evaluative claim because it is a judgement on a situation. The judgement on the situation of PTSD got offices to off group therapy. 

C5  For severe cases, the agency offers inpatient programs, one of which Caleb resided in for three months in 2010. 

This is a factual claim because there’s no doubt that Caleb didn’t reside in a program for three months in 2010. It can also be considered a causal claim because of the cause and effect. If there is a severe case, agencies will offer inpatient programs.

C6 The VA also endorses eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR), which is based on the theory that memories of traumatic events are, in effect, improperly stored, and tries to refile them by discussing those memories while providing visual or auditory stimulus. 

This is a factual claim because it explains the theory and how memories of traumatic events are, in effect, improperly stored, and tries to refine them by discussing those memories while providing visual or auditory stimulus. It is factual. This can be proven by evidence. It is also definitional because it defines EDMR. It describes the results of the treatment so it’s causal, and because it’s “based on the theory,” it’s also evaluative.

C7 “There’s a fairly strong consensus around CBT and EMDR,” Brunet says. While veterans are waiting for those to work, they’re often prescribed complicated antidepressant-based pharmacological cocktails.

This is a causal claim because it is cause and effect. The cause would be veterans waiting for those to work and the effect would be they are prescribed complicated antidepressants-based pharmacological cocktails. This can also be an evaluative claim due to the judgement of the veterans waiting for work and what they can be prescribed.

C8 To stay up to date on the latest advances in PTSD treatment, the VA collaborates with outside entities through its Intramural Research Program.

This is an ethical claim because it is placing a judgement on the latest advances in PTSD treatment. It is saying that the VA collaborates with outside entities through its Intramural Research Program. It can also be considered a factual claim because the treatment is without a doubt collaborating in the outside entities through its Intramural Research Program.

C9  Currently, the agency is funding 130 PTSD-related studies, from testing whether hypertension drugs might help to examining the effectiveness of meditation therapy, or providing veterans with trauma-sensitive service dogs, like Caleb’s. 

This is a numerical claim because it is a measurement of how many PTSD related studies are being tested from hypertension drugs that might help to examine the effectiveness of meditation therapy or veterans with trauma sensitive service dogs. It is a measurement to see how effective service dogs are. This is a continue of the ethical claim and its judgement being placed. 

C10 The Mental Health Research Portfolio manager says the organization is “highly concerned and highly supportive” of PTSD research.

This is an evaluative claim because it is coming from a manager and it is not factual what he says. The organization is highlight concerned and highly supportive can be argued therefore it is an evaluative claim. 

C11 But a lot of FOV members and users are impatient with the progress.

This is also an evaluative claim because the point of FOV members and users being impatient with progress can also be argued because not all FOV members are the same. Not all of them are impatient with the progress and that can be argued. 

C12 Up until 2006, the VA was spending $9.9 million, just 2.5 percent of its medical and prosthetic research budget, on PTSD studies.

This is a numerical and factual claim because it is a real stated fact and it also depends on the reliability of the measurements by using prices of budgets. This can also be evaluative because it includes judgement of how much the VA was spending.

C13 In 2009, funding was upped to $24.5 million.

This is a quantitative Claim because it is based on the measurements of the funding and how it was raised to 24.5 million dollars. It can show whether a statement is factual or not. It helps provide background information to see how much the claim is realistic or not. This is also evaluative because it is a judgement of the funding that was upped to 24.5 million dollars. 

C14 But studies take a long time, and any resulting new directives take even longer to be implemented.

This is a comparative claim because it is comparing studies back then to now and how any resulting directives take even longer now to be implemented. This can help readers understand how much something has changed and whether to believe if it is factual or not. The author is stating that it could take a very long time for any new results and we shouldn’t be expecting any success any time soon.

Section 14

“Meanwhile people like James Peterson, husband of Kateri of the Olive Garden breakdown,”

This is a categorical claim, putting James in a category with other veterans whose PTSD has not only damaged their own mental health, but also caused suffering to emerge in the minds of their family members. It’s also in a sense a definition claim, defining James as Kateri’s husband.

“James was so anxious and so suicidal that he couldn’t even muster the self-preservation to get into inpatient treatment.”

This categorical claim categorizes anxiety and suicidality as symptoms of PTSD which hinders James’ impetus to self-preserve, as well as categorizing inpatient treatment as a means of self-preservation.

“With three kids, eight, five, and two, and Kateri’s full-time job”

A categorical claim, not only putting the three children in a category as being the children of the couple, but also categorizing them and Kateri’s job as Kateri’s responsibilites outside of managing her husband’s various challenges. It also categorizes Kateri’s job as full-time.

“she could no longer manage his emotional plus physical problems: rheumatism consults, neuro consults for TBI, plus a burning rash on both feet he got in Fallujah in 2004.”

This categorical claim puts his emotional and physical challenges in a category together, and also lists some of the issues that fall under the category of physical problems.

“Chemical exposure, stress reaction, no one knows”

This is a categorical claim categorizing these two conditions as possible cause of the foot rash.

“Finally they enrolled him in a private clinical trial to get a needleful of anesthetic injected into a bundle of nerves at the top of his collarbone.”

Another definitional claim, defining the private clinical trial by explaining the process.

“Kateri, despite wishing her system hadn’t learned to run at a heightened state, at this point is like a drug addict, needing stimulation to maintain it.”

This categorical claim categorizes both Kateri and drug addicts as people who have developed a dependance on an outside stimulus.

Brannan Vines has never been to war. But she’s got a warrior’s skills: hyperawareness, hypervigilance, adrenaline-sharp quick-scanning for danger, for triggers.

(Analogy Claim) The author is comparing Brannan’s experiences to the awareness of soldiers in war.

 Her nose starts running she’s so pissed, and there she is standing in a CVS, snotty and deaf with rage, like some kind of maniac, because a tiny elderly woman needs an extra minute to pay for her dish soap or whatever.

(Ethical Claim)  The author hints at the severity of how horrible and socially distorted this problem is, as Brnannan doesn’t have enough patience to let a woman pay for items in a store.

She sounds like she might start crying, not because she is, but because that’s how she always sounds, like she’s talking from the top of a clenched throat, tonally shaky and thin

(Evaluative Claim)  The author takes notice of the wavering voice of Brannan and how on edge she is majority of the time.

Now, he’s rounder, heavier, bearded, and long-haired, obviously tough even if he weren’t prone to wearing a COMBAT INFANTRYMAN cap, but still not the guy you picture when you see his “Disabled Veteran” license plates. Not the old ‘Nam guy with a limp, or maybe the young legless Iraq survivor, that you’d expect.

(Analogy Claim)  This is the author’s way of comparing stereotypical veterans to Caleb’s appearance to portray the fact that he isn’t your typical stand out of the crowd type of guy.

Some hypotheses for why PTSD only tortures some trauma victims blame it on unhappily coded proteins, or a misbehaving amygdala. 

(Causal Claim)  This is showing studies of what may contribute to Caleb’s problems with PTSD.

Civil War doctors, who couldn’t think of any other thing that might be unpleasant about fighting the Civil War but homesickness, diagnosed thousands with “nostalgia.” 

(Quantitative Claim)  This is showing the number of people dismissed in a way, as many were not sure what exactly was going on witht these soldiers.  This emphasizes how much of a toll it took on so many and how mistreated it was early in out history.

You can’t see Caleb’s other wound, either. It’s called traumatic brain injury, or TBI, from multiple concussions.

(Definition Claim)  Stating what traumatic brain injury entails.

Section 12

“By this point, you might be wondering, and possibly feeling guilty about wondering, why Brannan doesn’t just get divorced.”

-This quote can be categorized as an Ethical/Moral claim and a Recommendation/Proposal claim. The phrase, “possibly feeling guilty” could be seen as an Ethical or Moral claim because it places a judgment on a social situation, such as divorce. The author assumes that the reader’s judgement regarding divorce is creating a feeling of guilt. It could also be a Recommendation or Proposal Claim because of the phrases “you might be wondering” and “why Brannan doesn’t just get divorced.” These quotes help to convince an audience to of a certain course of action, which in this case is divorce.

“In the wake of Vietnam, 38 percent of marriages failed within the first six months of a veteran’s return stateside; the divorce rate was twice as high for vets with PTSD as for those without. Vietnam vets with severe PTSD are 69 percent more likely to have their marriages fail than other vets.”

-These sentences contain factual, evaluative, and causal claims.  The facts are presented as percentages, which is indisputable evidence, and they are dependent on who defines PTSD. When “severe PTSD” is mentioned, it is an evaluative claim because what qualifies as “severe PTSD” involves judgment of characteristics. PTSD is said to cause divorce rates to increase, which is a causal claim.

“Army records also show that 65 percent of active-duty suicides, which now outpace combat deaths, are precipitated by broken relationships. And veterans, well, one of them dies by suicide every 80 minutes.”

– These sentences contain factual, numerical, and causal claims.  The facts are presented as percentages, which is indisputable evidence, and they are dependent on who defines PTSD. A numerical claim is made when the author includes the statistic of a soldier committing suicide every 80 minutes. A causal claim is made when PTSD is said to cause broken relationships, which in turn causes increased suicides.

“But even ignoring that though vets make up 7 percent of the United States, they account for 20 percent of its suicides —or that children and teenagers of a parent who’s committed suicide are three times more likely to kill themselves …”

– These sentences contain factual and causal claims.  The facts are presented as percentages of veterans and suicide rates, which is indisputable evidence, and they are dependent on who defines PTSD. A causal claim is made when PTSD is said to cause veterans to commit suicide, which in turn causes their children and teenagers to commit suicide.

“But she’s also there for those FOV users who, like her, have decided to stay. “I have enormous respect for Caleb,” she explains if you ask her why. ‘He has never stopped fighting for this family. Now, we’ve had little breaks from therapy, but he never stopped going to therapy. I love him,’ she repeats, defensively at times.”

-These sentences contain a causal claim. The author is expressing the reasons and circumstances that caused Brannan to stay with Caleb, instead of divorcing him. It explains that Caleb “never stopped fighting for this family” and that Brannan loves him. Caleb also kept consistent with his therapy.

“Granted, diagnosing PTSD is a tricky thing. The result of a malfunctioning nervous system that fails to normalize after trauma and instead perpetrates memories and misfires life-or-death stress for no practical reason, it comes in a couple of varieties, various complexities, has causes ranging from one lightning-fast event to drawn-out terrors or patterns of abuse—in soldiers, the incidence of PTSD goes up with the number of tours and amount of combat experienced”. 

This is a factual claim since these are characteristics shared by persons who have been diagnosed with PTSD after serving in the military. It is also true that there are many types and patterns of PTSD.

“Kateri’s eight-year-old son now also counts the exits in new spaces he enters, points them out to his loved ones, keeps a mental map of them at the ready, until war or fire fails to break out, and everyone is safely back home.”

This is a causal claim since it demonstrates that Kateri’s son is beginning to acquire PTSD symptoms as a result of Kateri.

“I guess we’re just used to dealing with people with more severe injuries,’ a VA nurse once told Brannan upon seeing Caleb“.

This is a moral claim since it is highly unethical to persuade someone that their difficulties are small in comparison to those of others.

“But studies take a long time, and any resulting new directives take even longer to be implemented“

This is a comparative claim since it compares research from the past to the present and how any ensuing directions take much longer to execute presently.

“Brannan gave the packet to Katie’s kindergarten teacher, but thinks the teacher just saw it as an excuse for bad behavior. Last fall, she switched Katie to a different school, where she hopes more understanding will lead to less anxiety”.

This is an evaluative claim since Katie’s teacher decided to transfer her to a new school owing to her terrible conduct.

Section 11

It’s to help kids like that that Brannan and her volunteers put together an informational packet on secondary trauma for parents to give to teachers, explaining their battle-worthy idiosyncrasies and sensory-processing sensitivities. They’re common enough problems that the Department of Health and Human Services got in touch with Brannan about distributing the packet more widely.

This type of claim is called a causal claim. The author is describing that due to how common that type of trauma is for kids, the Department of Health and Human Services assisted Brannan with distributing the informational packet more widely.

Brannan gave the packet to Katie’s kindergarten teacher, but thinks the teacher just saw it as an excuse for bad behavior. Last fall, she switched Katie to a different school, where she hopes more understanding will lead to less anxiety.

This type of claim is called an evaluative claim. Katie’s teacher made the judgement to switch her to a different school due to the bad behavior that she displayed. This decision was made without giving thoughtful consideration to the informational packet given to the teacher.

Though Brannan hopes Katie will come out of childhood healthy, she still says, “She’s not a normal kid. She does things, and says things. She’s a grown-up in a six-year-old’s body in a lot of ways.” She certainly looks like a normal kid when she comes down from her room dressed for tap class. In a black leotard, pink tights, and shiny black tap shoes, she looks sweet as pie.

Her teacher is making an analogy claim on Katie’s behavior without considering the reasons why she acts the way she does. She is making an analogy on the way Katie acts and comparing it to how an adult acts.

Katie is sorry—God, is she sorry, you can see it in her face and guilty shoulders, but she seems to feel like she can’t help it.

The author is making an evaluative claim. It is being evaluated that Katie is apologetic by the way she is holding and presenting herself.

Brannan sent Katie to the school therapist, once. She hasn’t seen any other therapist, or a therapist trained to deal with PTSD—Brannan knows what a difference that makes, since the volunteer therapist she tried briefly herself spent more time asking her to explain a “bad PTSD day” than how Caleb’s symptoms were affecting the family.

This fragment from the article is a casual claim. The author states that Brannan’s daughter, Katie, was being seen by a school therapist who lacks the training dealing with PTSD. The author claims that Brannan knows the effects of having a therapist trained to deal with PTSD and how it makes a difference- noting her own personal experiences. 

When I visited, Katie was not covered by the VA under Caleb’s disability; actually, she wasn’t covered by any insurance at all half the time, since the Vineses aren’t poor enough for subsidized health care and the Blue Cross gap insurance maxes out at six months a year.

The author makes a factual claim during this segment of the article. Simply, the author is claiming that Katie was not covered by insurance to visit a therapist. In the following sentence, the author affirms that the family is not poor enough to receive any affective aid and asserts that the insurance the family does have maxes out after an extended period of time. The listed claims can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt.

She’s never been diagnosed with anything, and Brannan prefers it that way. “I’m not for taking her somewhere and getting her labeled. I’d rather work on it in softer ways,” like lots of talks about coping skills, and an art class where she can express her feelings, “until we have to. And I’m hoping we won’t have to.” 

Brannan makes a recommendation claim. Brannan comments that her daughter Katie has not been diagnosed with any psychological problems and would prefer to keep it that way, putting her daughter into art classes and keeping her in the loop of how to cope with her personal conflicts. Brennan invites readers to understand her course of action for her daughter by convincing readers with the outlets she provides her daughter.

Certainly she seems better than some other PTSD vets’ kids Brannan knows, who scream and sob and rock back and forth at the sound of a single loud noise, or who try to commit suicide even before they’re out of middle school. Caleb spends enough time worrying that he’s messing up his kid without a doctor saying so.

            Brennan is making a comparative claim by suggesting that her daughter Katie is better than other children also undergoing the same conditions. Brennan compares her daughter to the thousands of other children who suffer much worse.

Brannan is a force of keeping her family together. She sleeps a maximum of five hours a night, keeps herself going with fast food and energy drinks, gets Katie to and from school and to tap dance and art, where Katie produces some startlingly impressive canvases, bright swirling shapes bisected by and intersected with other swaths of color, bold, intricate. That’s typical parent stuff, but Brannan also keeps Caleb on his regimen of 12 pills—antidepressants, anti-anxiety, sleep aids, pain meds, nerve meds, stomach meds—plus weekly therapy, and sometimes weekly physical therapy for a cartilage-lacking knee and the several disintegrating disks in his spine, products of the degenerative joint disease lots of guys are coming back with maybe from enduring all the bomb blasts, and speech therapy for the TBI, and continuing tests for a cyst in his chest and his 48-percent-functional lungs.

            The first sentence of this paragraph is an evaluation claim. The author is making a judgment based off of Brannan’s character- saying she is a force that keeps her family together. The rest of the paragraph are factual claims because there is no doubt that these events occur.

She used the skills she learned as an assistant to a state Supreme Court justice and running a small newspaper to navigate Caleb’s maze of paperwork with the VA, and the paperwork for the bankruptcy they had to declare while they were waiting years for his disability benefits to come through.

The author makes a causal claim. Over the years being an assistant to a state Supreme Court and running a small newspaper, Brennan used those learnt skills to navigate her husband’s paperwork and the paperwork dealing with bankruptcy. This quite provided is a perfect example of cause and effect.

 She also works for the VA now, essentially, having been—after a good deal more complicated paperwork, visits, and assessments—enrolled in its new caregiver program, which can pay spouses or other family members of disabled vets who have to take care of them full time, in Brannan’s case $400 a week.

            This last section is a factual claim. Once again, the author is declaring what is now- the present. The author includes that Brennan is working for the VA and the benefits she receives, also giving a brief explanation of those benefits. The claim in not opinionated. It is simply black and white- painting a picture of what is true.