I recently learned about the Mood Coach app from a participant at one of my recent trainings on CBT for Depression (CBT-D). We’ve tried to include information about pertinent apps in our workshops, as we know that many of the Service members we treat find this type of technology appealing (oftentimes more so than using traditional pencil-and-paper worksheets).
This year, 2016, we celebrate a notable anniversary for the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP). Ten years ago, CDP was established at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) and embarked on the crucial undertaking of training and educating behavioral health professionals to help them better care for our nation’s Service members, Veterans, and their families.
Frequently, in the past couple of years a question has emerged regarding how to handle a very specific situation in mental health treatment. That situation is what to do when a patient appropriate for PTSD treatment is also taking medicinal grade prescription cannabis for other issues such as chronic pain, anxiety or insomnia. What makes this question unique from the issue of any substance use/abuse during mental health treatment is the unknown quality of this substance. For instance, if a patient states they drink 2-3 glasses of wine approximately 3 nights a week, we have a good idea of how this substance use may affect their ability to process cognitions and emotions. However, with cannabis there are many questions.
As part of my job with the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) as a Deployment Behavioral Health Psychologist, I have the privilege of training psychology students in their last year of training—the predoctoral internship. Our faculty have a lot to teach them in that one year: military officership AND military psychology. In addition, we want to make sure that each intern’s skills as a generalist are well-grounded with strong abilities in assessment, consultation, and treatment. Since we carefully select our interns from among the most competitive applicants, we usually have the luxury of “fine-tuning” during the internship year. In other words, as faculty, we get to work with advanced psychology students and hone some special skills.
We all know that suicide among Veterans is a significant problem. The Veteran’s Administration (VA) recently released information that highlights the extent of this problem and showcases the VA’s efforts to combat suicide. The data covers the records of over 50 million Veterans, ranging from 1979 through 2014 across all 50 states.