CHARLESTON, SC NEWS - LIVE 5 WCSC Breaking News, Weather, SportsDid Fort Hood psychiatrist need therapy?
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NORTH CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - Details continue to emerge about the man who went on a rampage at Fort Hood killing 13 and injuring 30 others.
Friday one question remains - did his work as a psychiatrist affect his mental state?
"The brain does not do well with the heightened level of stress all the time," said psychiatrist Dr. Peter Sukin.
He knows that well.
He's worked in the mental health field for nearly 30 years.
He thinks more psychiatrists should practice what they preach.
"I think there's probably a certain number of people in the mental health field who are wise enough to seek help but I suspect there are quite a few that really don't," said Sukin.
We may never know if Major Nidal Hasan's work with soldiers dealing with post traumatic stress disorder affected his mindset.
Nor is there any clear way to know if he in fact developed PTSD himself.
"That's a hard one to know, in truth you have to be experiencing one extreme trauma or trauma over and over again," said Sukin.
That said, the business of helping solve other people's problems and hearing their most dark and sometimes disturbing secrets is a tough one.
"You really have to not allow it to haunt you then otherwise you're not going to be able to do the job you need to do," said Sukin.
Hasan may have heard some very bad things during his work.
While it may not be an excuse for what he did, it may have been a mistake not seeking the counsel of another psychiatrist.
"I think a lot of times we in this profession in particular like to see ourselves as being invulnerable," said Sukin.
"There's an old adage that the doctor that treats himself has a fool as a patient," said Sukin.
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