Welcome to this week’s edition of CDP News! We like to use this space to review recent happenings in and around the Center for Deployment Psychology, while also looking ahead to upcoming events. April is shaping up to be another busy month for us!
The CDP's weekly research update contains the latest news, journal articles and useful links from around the web. Some of this week's topics include:
● Where Do Soldiers Really Come From? A Faculty Development Workshop on Veteran Centered Care.
● Sleep, Sleep Disorders, and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. What We Know and What We Need to Know: Findings from a National Working Group.
Recently there was a big discussion in a military spouse Facebook group that I am a member of over a new series in the Military Times called the “Mom-to-Mom Guide for Military Families,” which is a collection of Q&A contributions from military moms. I haven’t read the entire series, but the first entry incudes a spouse’s answers to questions about the challenges of maintaining her career as a military spouse, her children’s educational experiences, and the challenges of moving her children into new schools during a PCS move … none of which are experiences that are limited to military moms. One of the few male spouses who is a part of the group expressed his frustration at the title of the series, noting that it is just one example of how male military spouses are often marginalized and can be invisible to many within the military community.
When I was finishing up my clinical training on internship, I was co-leading a therapy group for WWII Veterans who had all been POWs while in theater. Here it was over 50 years since their military service and they all had the same complaint; they had not been able to get a good night of sleep since that time. This is unfortunately a common problem for Veterans and active duty Service members. There have now been several studies reporting high rates of sleep problems, in particular insomnia and nightmares.
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The number of national Veterans cemeteries in existence today, along with "33 soldiers’ lots and monument sites, under the VA’s jurisdiction," according to a newly updated Congressional Research Service report -- Veterans’ Benefits: Burial Benefits and National Cemeteries (PDF)