Tag: Military Community

A Brief Overview of Military Psychiatry

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Introduction

Military psychiatry covers special aspects of psychiatry and mental disorders within the military context. The aim of military psychiatry is to keep as many serving personnel as possible fit for duty and to treat those disabled by psychiatric conditions. Military psychiatry encompasses counselling individuals and families on a variety of life issues, often from the standpoint of life strategy counselling, as well as counselling for mental health issues, substance abuse prevention and substance abuse treatment; and where called for, medical treatment for biologically based mental illness, among other elements.

A military psychiatrist is a psychiatrist—whether uniformed officer or civilian consultant—specialising in the treatment of military personnel and military family members suffering from mental disorders that occur within the statistical norm for any population, as well as those disorders consequent to warfare and also stresses associated with military life.

By Country

Norway

From the 1960s Arne Sund, the chief psychiatrist of the Norwegian Armed Forces medical service, “established Norwegian military psychiatry as leading within NATO” and became the “founder of the research field of disaster psychiatry,” that evolved from military psychiatry.

United States

Active Duty Members

TRICARE is a health programme offered to uniformed service members, national guard or reserve members, survivors, former spouses, Medal of Honour recipients, and their families through the United States Department of Defence Military Health System. Upon enrolment, active duty members and their families gain access to emergency and non-emergency mental health care. In the case of a mental health emergency, members are advised to go to the nearest hospital emergency department. There is no requirement for prior authorization. Admissions must be reported to your regional contractor within 24 hours or the next business day. For non-emergency situations, active duty members must receive a referral and prior authorisation for all mental health care.

Veterans

The United States Department of Veteran Affairs offers mental health care to veterans through enrolment in VA health care. Benefits include emergency and non-emergency care. Emergency mental health care is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, through VA medical centres and the Veterans Crisis Line. Non-emergency mental health care services provided include inpatient and outpatient care, rehabilitation treatment and residential (live-in) programmes, and supported work settings. Conditions treated by the VA:

  • Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Depression
  • Suicide prevention
  • Issues related to military sexual trauma (MST)
  • Substance use problems
  • Bipolar disease
  • Schizophrenia
  • Anxiety-related conditions

Epidemiology

Psychiatric disorders have been related to the greatest number of casualties and discharges in several wars. Such conditions typically have somatic manifestations. On-site, emergency psychiatric treatment reduces the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity within the military context.

Notable Military Psychiatrists

  • W.H.R. Rivers (1864–1922)
  • Ernst Rüdin (1874–1952)
  • Arne Sund (1925–2012)
  • Simon Wessely (1956–present)
  • Neil Greenberg (1968–present)
  • General William C. Menninger
  • Nidal Hasan perpetrator of 2009 Fort Hood shooting
  • Yagunov George (1997–present)

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_psychiatry >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is Togetherall?

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Formerly called Big White Wall, it is an online mental health platform tool that offers anonymous and immediate peer support to serving personnel, veterans, and families.

It has helped approximately 14,000 members of the military community since it was set up more than nine years ago.

Visit togetherall.com.

New Mental Health Care App for RN Families

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Royal Navy families can now access mental health support online.

The Naval Families Federation has launched a 12-month pilot scheme to provide free access to the Headspace app for families of regular and reserve RN personnel.

Working with support from Navy Command and the Royal Navy Family and People Support organisation, 3,000 licences have been bought.

To access the offer, the family member should visit www.nff.org.uk/headspace where they will be guided through the verification process.

Lockdown Loneliness on Rise for Military Community

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Services’ charity SSAFA says its helpline for Forces personnel past and present – and their families – has seen an 80% increase in calls during the pandemic.

Its free and confidential Forcesline service saw requests for befriending and support from those feeling isolated by lockdown rise dramatically, with more than 300 people turning to the charity for help.

Forcesline acts as a ‘front door’ to the wider support services offered by the charity and beyond. The helpline can act as a telling indicator for the overall well-being of the military community: currently serving (regulars and reserves), veterans and their families.

The Forcesline team say that the other most pressing issues throughout the pandemic have been:

  • Mental health;
  • Urgent assistance with food;
  • Emergency need for housing;
  • Lack of human contact; and
  • The breakdown of relationships.

If you think the helpline could be useful, it is available 9am-5pm Monday to Friday on freephone 0800 731 4880 or via a live webchat service at ssafa.org.uk/forcesline.

Reference

Navy News. (2020) Lockdown Loneliness on the Rise. Navy News. October 2020, pp.27.