The Spirits Left: An Interview with Edward Tick, Ph.D., Part II

Edward Tick, PhD, is an archetypal psychotherapist, educator, poet, author, and international pilgrimage guide and activist, who has been working to heal the wounds from violent trauma in veterans, families, societies, and our world for over forty years. He is also a co-teacher of Pacifica Extension and International Studies’ upcoming certificate, “A Depth Psychological Approach to Moral Injury and PTSD in Veterans: Restoration and the Returning Warrior,” February 20, 2025 – July 31, 2025. I’m delighted to speak with Ed about his work and the certificate in Part II of a two-part interview.

Angela: For the upcoming PEIS certificate “A Depth Psychological Approach to Moral Injury and PTSD in Veterans,” you’ll be lecturing about “Designing a holistic retreat of a Warrior’s Return.” It used to be that a salute on Veteran’s day might be all that a returning soldier could expect in terms of acknowledgement for what they’d been through. How have things changed in that regard, and what have you observed improving for soldiers when their return is marked by ritual and holistic care?

Ed: When we examine what is inadequate and broken in our culture, and see what works for warrior restoration in others, including the Vietnamese and Native American people, we must conclude that there is a simple yet profound healing formula: Spirituality In Community.

What has changed is that there is significant, yet incomplete, recognition that war and violence cause intractable wounding to body, mind, heart, soul, and need extensive healing responses from the community as well as from professionals, and that it takes all of us. In modern times, PTSD was not recognized as a diagnosis until 1980, in large part due to the efforts of Vietnam vets and Holocaust and sexual abuse survivors. This contrasts with world traditions that have known of this wound for millennia and had more than 80 known names for it.

Now PTSD is a commonly recognized and treated condition, though, as we are saying, often inadequately. When the community gathers around the veteran in rituals, talking and listening circles, at artistic performances, then we practice spirituality in community and the veteran can heal because his or her tribe are honoring, understanding, and serving them and all carry the burdens of the war stories together. They belong to all of us because the veterans were acting in our names.

Angela: Working with soldiers after they return from war is obviously very important, but I wonder if you have opinions about how our current military system cares for soldiers while they are in combat? Is that part of what you consult with the military about? Is there a way to mitigate the trauma before or while it is occurring, given that war by its nature assures that trauma will happen to people on all sides of a conflict?

Ed: We can indeed support active-duty troops in many ways even while they are in the combat zone and engaged in warfare. I currently consult by zoom with military and civilian healers and therapists in both Ukraine and Russia. My book Warrior’s Return is translated into both languages and used there now. We explore the many ways war trauma can be treated or reduced even as it occurs. We could do it for American troops as well. Last year I was consultant to the chaplains of an American army battalion stationed in the Middle East. We discussed, planned, executed significant rituals, religious ceremonies and teachings, interventions with challenged troops, debriefing immediately after critical incidents, relating Bible teachings to what happens in the field. All these helped reduce the traumatic impact of this deployment and we observed many troops coming home better than the ordinary returnees.

This said, the US military, while masterful at treating severe physical combat wounding, does not seem very good at offering care for the invisible wounds during service. There are only a few critical incident debriefing teams. Chaplains have been punished for praying for fallen civilians or enemy combatants. Troops engage in destructive and self-destructive behavior on a grand scale that is compensation for their stress but increases it, and they are not often given healthy alternative ways to decompress. The deep pain and grief occasioned by combat and its losses is hardly touched. All these and more could be effectively addressed even during service and are not.

Angela: You’re a poet with collections that pertain to war and myth, using “poetry extensively in healing and international reconciliation practices and for exploration of the hidden dimensions of psyche and culture.” How does poetry provide healing to traumatized veterans and other people you work with?

Ed: So many ways! Poetry is structured like the psyche—imagistic, relational, associational, emotional, sensual. It is the language of the soul. Poetry works as does the psyche, and when we are engaged in writing or reading it, we are engaged in reconstructing and reordering our psyches.

Of course, writing poetry and any other of the expressive arts is inherently healing because it allows for deep emotional expression, storytelling, catharsis, reframing, reflection, valuing and blessing. And, as with any of the creative and expressive arts, the warrior experiences her or himself as a creator rather than a destroyer. This was recognized in world warrior traditions as well. Native American warriors were dancers, painters, craftsmen, songsters. Samurai warriors had to have an art form. Celtic warriors learned, “No sword without your drum.” These traditions and others balanced the killing arts with art that is life affirming and gave their warriors something creative to retire into.

We have a world literature of war, stretching back thousands of years to our first book, The Epic of Gilgamesh. All these issues are in it! The world war literature tradition is wonderful is demonstrating that these issues of war are eternal, warriors of all times and places have experienced them, our warriors are indeed in a world tradition. War literature is the best source for learning and exploring the world of war and warriorhood for those who have not been initiated.

Writing poetry directly engages the survivor’s emotional and archetypal dimensions. From the archetypal perspective, PTSD is a frozen war consciousness. Poetry and the arts melt, move, remold that consciousness onto a higher, even spiritual plane.

Angela: I’ve learned so much from our replies. Thank you so much for the work that you do, and I am really excited for what will be discussed and learned during the PEIS certificate on this topic.

Part I of this interview is available here.

“A Depth Psychological Approach to Moral Injury and PTSD in Veterans: Restoration and the Returning Warrior” will take place February 20, 2025 – July 31, 2025, and is now open for registration on our website.

Edward Tick, PhD, (www.edwardtick.com) is an archetypal psychotherapist, educator, poet, author, and international pilgrimage guide and activist. He is recognized as a “thought leader” on healing the invisible wounds of war. He has been working to heal these wounds from violent trauma in veterans, families, societies, and our world for over forty years. Ed is the author of five books of nonfiction, including the groundbreaking War and the Soul, and Warrior’s Return, now translated and used in both Ukraine and Russia, as well as three books of poetry and more than 200 articles. He is an editor of the international journal Close Encounters In War. He was chosen by the Pentagon as subject matter expert to train our U. S Military on healing Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Moral Injury. As well as active imagination, archetypal engagement, and the arts, he uses pilgrimage and cultural immersion for holistic healing and has been leading annual healing journeys to both Viet Nam and to Greece since 1995. Since the beginning of the Ukraine War, he has counseled, trained, and supported military and civilian war trauma healers in both Ukraine and Russia. He is a specialist in archetypal psychotherapy and uses the humanities, literature, and worldwide indigenous practices for modern healing. All his work is concerned with restoring the soul and spirit to our wounded warriors and modern world.

Angela_1

Angela Borda is a writer for Pacifica Graduate Institute, as well as the editor of the Santa Barbara Literary Journal. Her work has been published in Food & Home, Peregrine, Hurricanes & Swan Songs, Delirium Corridor, Still Arts Quarterly, Danse Macabre, and is forthcoming in The Tertiary Lodger and Running Wild Anthology of Stories, Vol. 5.