Local psychiatrist puzzled by Fort Hood rampage

Psychiatrists are arguably the most unlikely group among us to snap.

As physicians, they are well acquainted with stress, from the demands of getting accepted to medical school to the burden of caring for others. As counselors, they’ve been trained how to deal with it.

That makes Nidal Malik Hasan’s alleged attack on fellow soldiers all the more puzzling, said Dr. Fred Michel, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer at Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group.

“I’m going to guess there are a lot of things we’re going to scratch our heads on for a long time,” he said Friday.

Hasan, it appears, was dealing with a number of stressful issues. For one, he counseled soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, one of the most challenging and emotionally draining tasks for a mental health care provider.

“This war is so much more emotionally devastating than anybody realizes in the civilian world,” Michel said. “We can’t imagine it in many ways.”

Many counselors have sought help from peers to cope, and some have limited how many PTSD patients they’ll treat at any given time.

Hasan also was facing deployment and possibly religious tensions.

But stressed is one thing. A shooting rampage is another.

Michel said psychiatrists, like anyone, handle stress in different ways. Some turn to colleagues. Some work through it in private. Some might even abuse drugs and alcohol or fall into depression. He was left wondering what made Hasan’s response so different.

“It’s one of those things where I don’t know we’ll get an answer,” Michel said.