In May, an autoethnographic study about a former Brigham Young University graduate student’s experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder was released for the public to read.
When Warren Price returned home from Iraq for the Utah Army National Guard, he suffered from PTSD, a mental condition in which people suffer high amounts of stress after having experienced a traumatic event.
A lot of veterans are afflicted with the disorder, and Price said when they come home to society, the problems exacerbate.
“We have a hard time going to Wal-Mart because there’s people there,” Price said. “We have a hard time on the freeway because there’s lots of traffic, and that could set off flashbacks or memories.”
Price said a couple years after he started going through therapy, nothing he did gave him much relief until one day when his friend took him fly fishing. He said when he stepped into the water, his life changed.
“For the first time in years, all the bad thoughts that I had, all of the intrusive thoughts, the impulse to commit suicide, all of those negative effects of being in the war, went away,” Price said.
Price recounted his experiences from the war and how recreational therapy helped him with PTSD in an autoethnographic study that was published in the Journal of Leisure Research in April.
Price said a lot of studies have already talked about the benefits of recreation on different disabilities, but not much research has covered how this approach can help people with combat-related PTSD.
“My research shows that their research is correct, that those things that will help people who have mental disorders or physical disabilities, those same activities that help anybody with illness or injury also would apply to people with post-traumatic stress,” Price said.
A link to Price’s study can be found here.
