Seal Team (tv) on ptsd and combat stress trauma

Seal Team (tv show) Mental Health

Seal Team is an American television show, first shown in 2017, about an elite unit of Navy SEALs, as they plan and execute dangerous missions, and the pressure this places on the individuals and their families.

Many situations that the team deal with could leave them with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which the show touches on.

PTSD may also be referred to as Complex PTSD (CPTSD) or combat stress.

PTSD and trauma are common in front line services, including armed forces (navy, army, air force), police, fire brigade and health workers.

However, PTSD and mental trauma isn't only related to armed combat.

Any significant event or events, that catches people at the wrong time, often when they are unable to escape from the situation, can be encoded deep in the brain as a trauma.

Often, people won't be aware of that encoding, but may find thoughts, feelings or behaviours changing over the coming days, months or years.

PTSD in Seal Team

In the show, the most common reference to mental health concerns relates to Jason Hayes, the team leader.

He is frequently shown to be struggling with feelings, especially in relation to colleagues who have been killed.

More recent episodes show him looking at a list of those dead colleagues in his phone.

Jason Hayes' visible symptoms of PTSD mental health distress include nervous tension, difficulties sleeping, anger and brain fog.

It's clear that Jason doesn't understand these feelings or have a way to resolve them.

This can happen when trauma is encoded in the subconscious brain, which is quite normal.

The subconscious part of the brain accounts for around 95% of the brain neurons and deals with automated thoughts. For example, the highly complex actions that are required to walk, talk or drive a car. It also analyses all of the information coming from our senses, and regulates blood pressure, temperature, pulse rate and normal breathing.

Some people are surprised to hear that subconscious thoughts often happen at least a third of a second before we become consciously aware of them.

This is why those feelings can be hard to control, consciously.

Therapy in Seal Team

Unfortunately, there seems to be very little help available to the team, to deal with these issues.

Standard talking therapies are made available, but are treated with very little respect.

Part of this would be due to the issues not being centered in the conscious mind, so they are hard to talk about.

It is a shame that the show has not picked up on more recent trauma therapy innovations, such as Havening (created in 2013) and BWRT (created in 2011), which can often help the subconscious mind deal with trauma, without the need to extensively talk about and analysis conscious thoughts and feelings.

Learn about PTSD

To find out more about PTSD and trauma, visit our PTSD and Trauma page.

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Seal Team Main Cast

The following people have been in 65 episodes from 2017-2020.

David Boreanaz as Jason Hayes
Max Thieriot as Clay Spenser
Jessica Paré as Mandy Ellis
Neil Brown Jr. as Ray Perry
A.J. Buckley as Sonny Quinn
Toni Trucks as Lisa Davis
Judd Lormand as Eric Blackburn
Tyler Grey as Trent
Justin Melnick as Brock

Seal Team (tv) PTSD, trauma, combat stress