The percentage of "(s)ervice members who identify as LGB or who do not indicate that they identify as heterosexual" in 2018, according to a recent report by the RAND Corporation -- Sexual Assault of Sexual Minorities in the U.S. Military. And yet they accounted for "approximately 43 percent of all sexually assaulted service members in that year."
The number of service members who "initiated a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine" between December 11, 2020 through March 12, 2021, according to a study in the April issue of Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch journal, Medical Surveillance Monthly Report (MSMR) -- Disparities in COVID-19 Vaccine Initiation and Completion Among Active Component Service Members and Health Care Personnel, 11 December 2020-12 March 2021. This represents 27.2% of total service members.
In a recent blog I wrote about resilience in military couples, and one of the key things that’s consistent in the literature is that communication is one of the fundamental processes in building resilience. We also know that one unique aspect of many military families’ lives is the experience of deployment. Research has shown that one of the best ways for couples and families to maintain a sense of connection during deployments is through communication.
Dr. Rita Brock recently shared her thoughts on moral distress and injury and COVID-19 frontline workers with me. Dr. Brock has spent much of her career as an academic in philosophy and religion, obtaining her doctorate in this field in 1988. Her interests turned toward moral injury after a 2009 article by Dr. Brett Litz “grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go.”
One of the courses that I teach frequently for the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) is “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression: Working with Service Members & Veterans” (CBT-D). At CDP, we update all of our courses regularly to ensure that they’re current and fresh. With the current CBT-D workshop updates, I’m excited to be able to incorporate information from Dr. Judith Beck’s newly released third edition of Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond.