Pentagon: Military Mental Health Care Needs Help
I just noticed an article on CNN.com about military mental health care status. I don’t have personal experience with the military mental health care system (So, why did I need to clarify that? Is it supporting evidence for the findings in the article?); however, as I read down the list of findings published in the CNN article, my perceptions are in 100% accordance with the list.
I would also add for the following: “A Pentagon survey last month that assessed the mental health of troops in Iraq found one-third of soldiers and Marines in high levels of combat report anxiety, depression and acute stress.” One-third of soldiers and Marines are reporting anxiety, depression and acute stress. How many more are not reporting anxiety, depression and acute stress due to the findings listed above the quote in the article? I would surmise the number is significantly higher.
I would posture the reason the military is addressing this issue at all is a significant suicide rate. The desire to stem the suicide tide is greater than the desire to to deny mental health problems in the ranks. Yes, we care about our people, and it’s devastating to have one of your people commit suicide. But we’re still not where we need to be in identifying people at risk and acting effectively upon that identification.
The stigma and the ignorance are so high, people don’t know when to get assistance for things that just take a little working out and won’t count against their career development and when they have true mental health problems that make them a risk to serve on Active Duty. Not only is this a problem for the people who might seek assistance, but the leadership of those people don’t always have a clear and compassionate understanding for what is appropriate to help someone through a difficult time and what is more serious than that.
As a twenty-seven year veteran, I’ve read the articles and seen the video clips where they try to convince people it is ok to get help. I was in Kuwait watching late-night television and saw a friend of mine talking about his experience and convincing people to get help. Shortly after that he retired, but last I heard, he was still working in a job with his security clearance, so maybe getting help did help and not impede his career. But I’m still not convinced.
If I’m not convinced, am I going to be able to recommend something for one of my promising young troops that I’m not confident will help until it becomes a life and death situation? And what would make me think I might be qualified to gauge that? It’s a tough line for supervisors and commanders to walk. They want subordinates to be healthy and happy. They don’t want to recommend something in good faith and then find out it worked to their subordinate’s detriment.
Then there’s the whole “club ’em until they get it” approach when the military wants to show they care about something. I dread what the “education” program will be like. I only hope they contract a computer-based training (CBT) developer who’s more competent than the one who devised the offensive and atrocious “Combating Trafficking in Persons” CBT we had to complete last summer. The going in position of the developer was the audience was 20-something bar hoppers out to pick up whores, and they wanted us to be aware that all whores weren’t willingly selling their wares. Some of them were being held in human slavery roles. For the interactive scenario I had to be going into a bar to pick up a female (presumably I was either male or only females are going to get away with acting out “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell). Once I reached that point, I tuned out the rest of the CBT and clicked through just to finish it for completion credit. Don’t get me wrong, Trafficking in Persons is a bad thing. I should be aware of it. There had to be a better way to educate me.
I implore the DoD to improve their approach to mental health — and give us a meaningful education experience to help us help our peers and subordinates.
Just an observation from an Army brat — you are absolutely right. Something needs to happen to TRULY make it okay for soldiers to get help. My family needed tons of help and I think there were times when at least one of my parents realized it, but did nothing. I could feel the fear coming off of them in those situations. My father was all about the career. He wasn’t willing to ‘risk’ it — but let me tell you, that man needed help in a big-time serious way. Instead of geting help, he tormented his children. There also seemed to be more than the normal amount of silence about child abuse among the ranks. Reporting something was putting a fellow soldier’s career on the line. It’s too bad that the DOD seems to want perfection from soldiers. We are all just human. I don’t think there is anything wrong with having ‘human’ soldiers.
This is a problem on both sides of the Atlantic.
As a therapist in the UK, working in a doctors surgery i get referred anyone who has stress or whatever.
If they happen to be in the armed forces, police,firefighters,ambulance service, they have all without question being scared of their employers finding out and stigmatising them.
We are all human , we can only take so much in stressful situations, whatever our profession. But if you are on the front line of trauma then you likely to loose it quicker.
Is it a sexist thing, big boys don’t cry stuff.
So then I end up counselling their partners and these guys end up having therapy by proxy cause their partners can’t take any more of their behaviour. Mainly cause the women are getting beaten up emotionally and physically.
It is not good enough.
CBT is not the answer, it’s just you an get many more people through your doors and give them all a quick fix. People are going to need proper therapy to help them deal with the PTSD, which is going totake resources and time. The therapists are here waiting…. THEY just need to admit that they have got it wrong and start caring properly for the men and women whose lives are on the line
Both of our countries are going to have many more Vets unable to deal with normal life than after Veitnam.
When will THEY listen. It all as continued echoes of General Haig in the WWI. Who never thought what he was doing was wrong when he sent all those men over the top and the carnage of the Somme and Ypres then transpired.
Thank you for your post ,I feel so passionately about this that it has been really good to find it and let off steam.