I’m pretty sure that if you just get anyone talking about the details of an event that it will help them put it in context. You were in a car wreck? Information Questions: What time of day? What had you out? Where did it happen? What did you see? What did you hear?
Leave the pyscho-babble alone. “How did you feel in your soul at the sight of blood?” is almost a sure fire way to get people to shut up. Vets might get to that point with each other at spontaneous moments/triggers/reminders, but the odds of that with an outsider is remote.
My theory on the why of PTSD is that it’s the self-talk, internal post-mortem we all can’t quite get through after a crisis event in our lives. It’s a grief process internally by the person about who the person used to be prior to having gone through the crisis.
I’ve often felt that like the old fashioned “battle fatigue” for which the right answer was “3 hots and a cot” and not treating the troop as if they have a mental defect, that we can talk people into thinking there’s something defective and unfixable with them.
A long boat ride home with one’s buddies provides those opportunities.
I remember in the late ‘80s we talked about the 3 hots and a cot method. Take them to the rear, give them a chance to vent, don’t put a diagnosis on it and tell them they will be fine and assure them in a couple days they will be back with their buddies.