PTSD and the Vietnam veteran: the battle for treatment.

1. Patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often encounter treatment that is complicated by professional bias, personal issues, countertransference, and pathological staff dynamics. 2. Treatment is further complicated by diagnostic confusion, the dual diagnoses of substance abuse or depression, and symptoms that mimic personality disorders or psychosis. 3. The special circumstances of the Vietnam conflict that contributed to the susceptibility and etiology of PTSD are the individual characteristics of those who served, the special nature of the war itself and the military strategies used, and the psychosocial and cultural milieu in which it occurred.