‘Twas The New York Post, (ah, venerable news source), that published the review of Demon Camp, the story of a combat veteran who sought to rid himself of War’s demons—the “Destroyer,” shadow of Death—via a husband-wife exorcism team in eastern Georgia. The book’s author postulates that whatever good the soldier experienced must have resulted from a mental “virtual exposure therapy” that still allows him to fight his demons and “always win.”

Perhaps.

I write with no interest in exorcisms. In an age of statistics, pills, and cognitive techniques, though, I sometimes wonder how many of my colleagues believe that their words, printed or spoken, adequately contain the horror of even the metaphorically demonic, confident that by exclaiming “Prefrontal Cortex!” in lieu of “Be Healed!” they have given superior succor to a war-tortured soul.

How many, I can only wonder, have abandoned words long enough to allow their own prefrontal cortices to absorb the limbic horrors of the veterans before them, enough so that the dark shadows of soldiers’ nights invade them just enough to feel in their depths, even momentarily, one whispered word: “Die!”

Talk about cognitive restructuring.