In a recent Op-Ed published by the Washington Post, Captain Benjamin Summers discussed how "hero worship of the military" and Service members is counter-productive. Dr. Paula Domenici takes a look at this article and examines how some of the same problems can arise during therapy.
This time around we'd like to do something a little different and take a moment to point our users to the excellent piece in the Washington Post, "A Legacy of Pain and Pride" written by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.
Dr. Marjorie Weinstock is the Lead, Military Families & CBT for Depression at the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. This week I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to sit down with her to discuss her background and ask her a variety of questions about military life and its impact on families.
In October 2009, the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) conducted a joint Mental Health Summit that brought together behavioral health experts and leaders from both departments with the goal of developing a strategy that would facilitate coordination for the delivery of mental health services.
For many mental health providers, the focus on providing evidence-based treatments for deployment-related issues allows us to improve treatment outcomes for the patients in front of us. However, what about the patients who never make it to our door? While we know that many Service Members and Veterans are not likely to seek out specialty mental health care, patients do have regular contact with their primary care providers (PCPs).For many Service Members, the primary care clinic is the only contact with medical care, the place where the rubber meets the road, and all health care gets done.