Science: The role of traumatic stress in the violent and romanticized Old West [Report]

More than 130 years ago, a small community of settlers in a remote northern Arizona valley erupted into a frenzy of ambushes, murders and massacres. In one five-year period during what has come to be known as the Pleasant Valley War, 18 people were killed and four were wounded by lawmen, Apache raids, vigilantes and their fellow ranchers. The story of the American West is rife with violence, but, until now, no one has delved into the psychological effect of living constantly under the threat of death. Western movies don’t tell us what happens after the sun sets and the story fades to black. In historian Eduardo Obregón Pagán’s new book, “Valley of the Guns: The Pleasant Valley War and the Trauma of Violence,” a character that stands in the shadow of all Westerns finally comes out into the light: traumatic stress disorder. “We never see the messy aftermath,” said Pagán, Bob Stump Endowed Professor of History at Arizona State University. “Everybody involved in this conflict—everybody I could trace—they were indelibly marked by the violence here in tragic ways. Suicides later on. Women took their lives, ended up in insane asylums. Many of the men became alcoholics and died because of that. … We never talk about the aftermath of violence in the West, but everyone was affected, in very negative ways.”...MORE