HUFFINGTON
09.01-08.13
INVISIBLE CASUALTIES
It was ... in Iraq that I first stood over the
body of someone who had died by suicide, feeling
a mixture of helplessness, grief, and anger;
an experience that had, for me as a suicidologist,
been merely an intellectualized concept.
by suicide, feeling a mixture of
helplessness, grief, and anger; an
experience that had, for me as a
suicidologist, been merely an intellectualized concept. Four years
ago, psychiatric disorders and suicide became personal to me.
Suicide is the fatal outcome
of psychological injury. I should
stress, however, that not all psychological injuries sustained by
military personnel and veterans
occur during deployments. For
many of the service members and
veterans I’ve worked with, the psychological injuries occurred during childhood at the hands of an
abusive or demeaning parent; for
others it was sustained within the
context of a recent breakup or a
financial crisis. Indeed, more than
half of service members who die
by suicide never deployed or saw
combat. The good news is that we
have very effective treatments for
the full range of psychological injuries that lead to suicide. The bad
news is that very few service members or veterans will receive them.
Clinic-based mental health services have been expanded dramatically for service members
and veterans over the past decade
across both the public and private
sectors. Mental health treatment
is arguably more accessible and affordable for service members and
veterans now more than ever, due
in large part to community mental health professionals and agencies offering free or significantly
reduced-cost services. Although
admirable, these efforts are not
enough, and too many psychological injuries remain untreated.
One of the primary problems
is that the expansion of mental
health services has largely occurred
in traditional, clinic-based settings
★