Follow-up of Pentagon employees two years after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.

Objective: This study examined probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and probable depression, degree of psychological distress, and rates of mental health treatment in a sample of Pentagon staff two years after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.

Methods: Anonymous surveys were administered to staff at one Pentagon work center. Respondents were asked about exposure to the attack; injuries; exposure to dead bodies or families of the deceased; psychological distress; and use of mental health services.

Psychiatric interventions with returning soldiers at Walter Reed.

War is a malefic force and results in many psychiatric and medical casualties. Psychiatry's involvement with soldiers experiencing psychological stress resulting from combat experience has been reported for many years (Zajtchuk, 1995). It has been demonstrated that a myriad of diagnosis to include depression, anxiety, somatoform, adjustment disorders and psychotic behaviors also emerge (Wain et al.

Returning to the Pentagon: the use of mass desensitization following the September 11, 2001 attack.

Following the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon many fears remained among survivors of the event. As chief of the mental health team assigned to work with the Office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, one of the authors (D.W.

Application of Army Combat Stress Control doctrine in work with Pentagon survivors.

The authors are Army psychiatrists and were members of the mental health team that responded to the Pentagon attack of September 11, 2001. They were assigned to work at the Hoffman Complex in Alexandria, Virginia, with displaced employees from the Office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. Never before had anyone committed an unexpected act of war on a garrison unit within the continental United States, making the appropriate psychiatric interventions difficult to discern.