HUFFINGTON
09.01-08.13
DANIEL BENDJY/GETTY IMAGES
INVISIBLE CASUALTIES
that are unlikely to be accessed by
most service members and veterans due to pervasive mental health
stigma. Only a very small proportion of service members who die by
suicide (16 percent) visited a mental health care professional within
the month preceding their deaths.
Despite our decades-long battle
with mental health stigma among
service members and veterans, we
have yet to see much success, primarily because we have failed to
consider the issue of mental health
treatment and stigma from within
the context of the military culture.
In the military, we value strength,
mental toughness, elitism, and
self-sufficiency, but the culture
of mental health is deficiencyoriented and values emotional
vulnerability, which contradicts
the core identity of many service
members and veterans. We mental
health professionals need to adopt
a mult