Veterans Counseling
Learn how veterans counseling is helping service members and their families...
Sometimes the wounds of war don't appear until after a service member returns home, staying buried deep within the thoughts and memories of warriors, surfacing in the form of panic attacks, anxiety (see Anxiety), depression, substance abuse - painful for not only the warriors, but spouses, children, and other family members as well.
Military Mental Health Resources
For those honorably discharged and struggling with the emotional wounds of war, the U. S. Veterans Health Administration (VA) offers counseling services and mental health programs at a number of VA medical centers, hospitals, and community-based outpatient clinics.
These professionals understand the warrior culture, taking additional training to treat the psychological ramifications of war and combat, learning appropriate interventions and treatments. Many of the military's mental health professionals are former warriors themselves, having witnessed firsthand the emotional stress of combat.
Two ongoing wars over the past eight years have created countless trauma-related scars. A study in the "Journal of Traumatic Stress" reported that more than 230,000 Iraqi and Afghanistan war veterans sought treatment for the first time at VA health care facilities nationwide between 2002 and 2008. More than 20 percent of these veterans, almost 50,000, received a new post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis.
And this study didn't account for veterans receiving treatment for trauma and stress outside of the VA system, nor the number of vets seeking PTSD treatment stemming from previous wars.
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website, some veterans have PTSD symptoms right after their war experience, getting better for awhile, but then having symptoms resurface later in life. Still others don't show signs of PTSD until many years after the war experience, some up to 50 years later.
PTSD is an anxiety disorder (see PTSD or Anxiety Disorder), resulting from the witnessing of a traumatic event. Combat is one of the harshest of all human experiences where service members see countless episodes of mutilated bodies - and the death of countless others. Untreated PTSD is highly correlated with physical illness, disrupted family life, and reduced academic and career performance.
The VA has over 200 specialized programs for treating PTSD, according to the National Center for PTSD, whose research and information is located on the VA website. Each medical center has at least some of these programs - but not all have exactly the same programs.
Programs are geared for individual cases. For instance, older vets experiencing late onset stress might receive a different treatment program than those coming back from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
And, the current situation of warriors getting deployed several times within short time spans has alerted the VA to increased, unprecedented stress placed on spouses and families. Forty-three percent of active duty service members have children, children who face a magnitude of issues when a parent deploys.
Children worry about the deployed parent, and also worry about the parent left at home. They often take on more responsibility than children should, taking care of younger siblings, cooking, cleaning, trying to lift the burden on the parent at home.
Children's reactions to deployment vary by child, and by developmental stage, age, and presence of any preexisting psychological or behavioral problems, according to the National Center for PTSD.
Very young children can experience separation anxiety, temper tantrums, and changes in eating habits. The academic performance of school-age children are often affected, accompanied by a child's mood changes or physical complaints.
And teens often exhibit signs of anger, acting out, withdrawing, becoming depressed and showing signs of apathy. The mental health of the at-home parent often determines the children's overall adjustment - especially for younger children.
Recent studies have started to uncover the link between a parent left at home - usually the mother - and that parent's increased issues of mental health problems.
A study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine in January 2010, showed an association between frequent and extended deployments among Army warriors to Iraq and Afghanistan, and a spouse's reported mental health diagnoses.
The study, "Deployment and the Use of Mental Health Services Among U.S. Army Wives," provides a valid snapshot of the types of stress felt by Army wives, which when combined with the stress of returning warriors, creates an almost untenable family situation for many of today's military families.
"Among spouses of military members who were deployed, as compared with spouses of those who were not deployed, the rates of diagnoses associated with one to 11 months, and more than 11 months of deployment were 18% to 24% higher for depressive disorders, 21% to 40% higher for sleep disorders, 25% to 29% higher for anxiety disorders, and 23% to 39% higher for acute stress reaction and adjustment disorders," the article stated.
The VA integrated health care system consists of 153 medical centers, in addition to numerous community based outpatient clinics, community living centers, and Vet Centers, providing care to over 5.5 million veterans each year.
In addition to family counseling services available at some of the medical centers and outpatient clinics, Vet Centers provide readjustment counseling and outreach services to all veterans who served in any combat zone, and to their family members for military related issues. There are 232 community-based Vet Centers located in all fifty states, District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.
Primary care physicians now working at veteran's hospitals and clinics have been trained on performing evaluations for depression and PTSD, and mental health counselors are now located within the same healthcare facility, increasing access for patients to mental health professionals.
VA hospitals, clinics, and Vet Centers hire counseling professionals and therapists, professionals sensitive to issues of trauma and its effects on warriors and their families. If you have a desire to work with veterans and their families, consider entering the mental health field. Get started by requesting information from schools offering psychology-related and counseling degrees.