Abstract
While clinical health services exist for service members with existing mental health conditions like posttraumatic stress, they are not stemming the rising tide of service suicides. A new approach to mental health intervention and suicide prevention in military-connected personnel is required, one that speaks to the participatory, hardworking ethos of military culture. Social work and health promotion professionals working to prevent and treat mental health problems like depression and stress injuries must understand the confluence of warrior culture and mental health issues in the veteran community. While the research literature does not yet address this confluence issue directly, programs exist that provide guidance, and a mindfulness-based training protocol may provide the answer. The purpose of this review is to provide programming recommendations based on a review of successful exemplars in treatment settings, the limited evaluation of best practices currently available when working with this priority population in prevention settings, and a cultural analysis of the military veteran community.
Highlights
In 2011, the number of suicide deaths among active duty military personnel eclipsed the number of combat deaths
Stress and anxiety are symptoms of depression, and depressive conditions are closely related to trauma and stress-related disorders like Posttraumatic Stress (PTS); the two often co-occur (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)
Diagnosed depression is subject to semantic debate in the military community, and symptom overlap between depressive conditions and stress injuries often leads to misdiagnosis or confusion about co-occurring conditions (US Department of Veterans Affairs, 2014)
Summary
Mindfulness interventions teach participants unique methods for improving their own ability to regulate their nervous system and calm the body’s fear receptors (Nassif, Norris, Gomez, Karch, & Chapman, 2013). The term has become in vogue, and many branded phrases are used to describe the sorts of mindfulness interventions used to treat patients (Meredith et al, 2011). Such interventions involve still, seated meditation, physical movements of varying difficulty levels, and instructional seminars on individual peace, spirituality, and stress management (Hendricks, Turner, & Hunt, 2014; Seaward, 2004). Interventions using mindfulness have met with tremendous success and have been used to improve mental health outcomes in a variety of populations (van der Kolk, 2014)
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