The mental scars that afflict soldiers who have been exposed to the horrors of war have often defeated doctors and psychiatrists. Now a controversial treatment is being offered at a veterans' centre in Ayrshire where, under controlled conditions, patients are asked to relive the traumas they have suffered so that they can confront and come to terms with them.

For one veteran at least, it is a treatment that has worked. Christopher Nichols, 43, believes he would be “in a box” were it not for the course he has undergone at Hollybush House.

A member of the RAF ground team that helped to clear the wreckage of the Lockerbie air disaster, he has been haunted by mental images of the tragedy for almost 20 years.

In his blackest moments, he punched holes in doors, hit his head on walls, and sliced and burnt his own flesh. Unable to dispel his feelings of rage, guilt and helplessness, he considered taking his own life.

Although those days are behind him, he is by no means cured of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but his condition is manageable.

“I live with a picture of Lockerbie,” said Mr Nichols, who is from Newcastle. “But instead of being the size of a picture on the wall it is now the size of a postage stamp. My second marriage broke up, and I did some nasty things to myself, but I now have a girlfriend, and a relationship with my two kids.”

The therapy that saved Mr Nichols is called rapid eye desensitisation movement and reprocessing (EMDR). Developed by Dr Francine Shapiro in 1987 it combines aspects of cognitive behavioural therapy with controlled exposure to the trauma.

The treatment involves stimulating the brain bilaterally. The theory is that the process replicates the rapid eye movement that takes place during sleep, allowing the brain to file the memory more completely so that positive as well as negative associations are recalled.

EMDR was officially recognised by the British Government three years ago as an effective form of treatment, and in some cases is offered to patients on the NHS.

In addition, it has become the main therapy at Hollybush House, Scotland's only residential rehabilitation centre for ex-service personnel with mental health problems.

The facility is run by Combat Stress, a charity which cares for 3,634 ex-Forces personnel, incuding veterans of the Second World War, the Falklands, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Six out of ten of those who seek treatment are suffering from PTSD, and typically exhibit symptoms that include clinical depression, hyper-vigilance, phobias and substance misuse.“When someone has trauma - feelings of helplessness or horror - it sticks in the brain because it is unprocessed material,” Fiona Manson, a charge nurse at the centre, said.

“What you are doing with EMDR is taking the incident causing the trauma from one memory system and trying to incorporate it into another one.”

The patient is asked to focus on the most disturbing memory of the traumatic event, as well as on the feelings that accompany it. As they summon up the memory, the therapist uses bilateral stimulation.

As the therapy involves recalling disturbing incidents, the technique is not for everyone. “It is not something that we would do in the first admission or even on their second time here, because it is very painful,” Ms Manson said.

“Clients also have a fear of being stuck in the trauma and never coming back but that is never going to happen. We keep them in the present, so they know they are not back in Bosnia, but you have to take it slow.”

For those who can handle the distress, she claims, it is worth it. “The mind can forget things - all you remember is the guilt - but when you play [the incident] back to them through EMDR they see something they'd forgotten about and it can absolve them of that guilt.”

Carl Wilson, 41, from Durham, who was captured and tortured in Kosovo while serving with the Royal Logistics Corps, is uncertain about the benefits of EMDR. He found it made him dwell on the painful memories that he wanted to suppress.

He is ready, however, to give the technique one more go. He will try anything, he says, to alleviate the nightmares that plague not only him but also his wife, who gets little sleep alongside him. “Bad dreams, speaking in foreign languages in my sleep, re-enactment - I have done them all,” he said. “All I want is to feel safe.”

Mr Nichols agrees that the therapy is no walk in the park but insists it is not so bad. “I cry a lot when I do it, but I know there is no pain without gain. If I had kept going down the route I was I would be dead,” he said.

All in the mind

The ancient Greeks were the first to note symptoms in soldiers that today would be recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder

Depression, heightened anxiety, phobias and drink and drug addictions are among the symptoms associated with PTSD

The condition has also been known as shell shock, neuresthenia, war neurosis and battle fatigue

Pioneering work into PTSD

took place during the First World War at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh, where Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were patients

Source: Times database

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