HUFFINGTON
09.01-08.13
INVISIBLE CASUALTIES
tually diagnosed as a traumatic
brain injury from an IED blast.
In a new survey by the advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan
Veterans of America, 43 percent
of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who responded said they
did not seek mental health care
because of a perceived negative
impact on their careers.
“We have had massive education
campaigns” against the problem of
stigma, said Charles W. Hoge, a staff
psychiatrist at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in
Bethesda, Md. “Has stigma changed
since the start of the war? The answer appears to be no,” he said at
a 2012 conference on traumatic
stress. “We have not seen much of a
dent in stigma over time.”
Others say attitudes within the
ranks about mental health care
have changed. “The overwhelming number of patients I’ve seen for
suicide risk have gotten help and
gone on with their careers,” Navy
Cmdr. Andrew Martin, a clinical
psychologist, said in an interview.
But, he acknowledged, “some of the
people we most want to get help
sometimes don’t.”
National Guard, reservists and
veterans face the additional barrier
of isolation: they often live far from
military health care facilities, are
cut off from peers and mentors, and
are less likely to know about available resources. It’s also more difficult to keep track of them.
Vietnam-era veterans, in particu-
“We can provide the
greatest clinical care,
but if the veteran is
unemployed and living
on the street, he or
she is probably not
going to get better.”
lar, are often distrustful of the VA
— a legacy of that generation’s suspicion and anger at the government
— and many have never sought VA
health care. Tragically, about 90
percent of military service members
and veterans who die by suicide
had some undiagnosed or poorly
diagnosed mental health problem,
according to Caitlin Thompson, the
VA psychologist and cl