Veteran defends doctor who helped him control his demons

Former Irish Guard John McClay, who served eight tours of duty, suffered terrible nightmares and flashbacks and even contemplated suicide after he returned from Bosnia and Kosovo where he witnessed mass genocide.

He was helped to cope with his post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), diagnosed in November 2011, using the Rewind Technique which aims to give the sufferer control of his or her traumatic memories, freeing them from involuntary recall.

However, Dr David Muss, director at the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Unit BMI Edgbaston Hospital in Birmingham, who developed the technique, said the charity Combat Stress had prohibited the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA) from referring veterans to him because they claim his treatment does not work.

Mr McClay, aged 45, of Pershore defended the Rewind Technique and said it worked for him, helping him after the army and the NHS failed him. He even recommended Dr Muss's technique to other soldiers, such was his faith in its success. He maintains that conventional treatments, including anti-depressants, do not work on PTSD.

Mr McClay witnessed countless horrors in the Balkans after he began the advance into Kosovo with his battle group in June 1999. The appalling sights included a murdered girl in a village on the edge of Kosovo's capital city Pristina, photograph albums kept in Pristina's police station which showed the severed heads of children and women being raped. He saw homes burned and looted and full of the bodies of ethnic Albanians and came across the bodies of Serbs murdered by Albanian guerillas. Women were raped in front of the soldiers and they had to fish bodies out of the river and saw whole villages massacred from the elderly to newborn babies while the smell of death was everywhere.

Mr McClay said of the Rewind Technique: "Yes, it helped me. It has been two years and I have had no problems. PTSD is in your short term memory which is in the front of your head - that is why you're still living the incident. The Rewind Technique puts it back in your long term memory so you're not reliving it.

"Rewind eradicates the problem. It pushes those things which are permanently on your mind to the back and it works - it worked for me.

"It is very disappointing and frustrating (that Combat Stress is not referring veterans to Dr Muss). There is a person here who can make a difference to people's lives and he's not being supported.

"He's not after financial gain. He's not making any money out of it but some of these consultants are. He actually does it to help you. Within one or two weeks it had made a difference. You feel more relaxed. I would recommend Dr Muss to others. I recommended him to the Army Medical Board. I am now in a different place, a better place. You have a technique, like this, which works and they are spending millions on techniques which don't work."

Dr Muss said: "Combat Stress suddenly prohibited SSAFA Worcester from referring vets to me now,saying my treatment doesn't work. I have, including John McClay, treated eight vets for Worcester SSAFA, ranging from the Falklands to Afghanistan."

Dr Muss now wants to get a message to veterans in the county and organise a meeting to let veterans and their families know he is still willing to support them, free of charge.

He said: "My idea is to get a message out to the vets in the Worcester area and afar, that I wish to hold a meeting in the very near future to inform vets and their spouses what the Rewind Treatment can do to help them bring about closure from the nightmares, flashbacks, irritable behaviour etc.

"No details of the deployment or the horrors that they witnessed or were on the receiving end of, need to be disclosed.

The treatment takes under two minutes to undertake once they are clear what to do. I want to do this entirely for free."

As soon as a date and venue have been confirmed Dr Muss will inform the Worcester News.

Combat Stress was unavailable for comment today.