Clinical Military Counseling provides current research and ethical practice guidelines for the assessment, diagnosis, and mental health treatment of active-duty service members, veterans, and military families in a 21st-century multicultural environment. Author Mark Stebnicki discusses contemporary military culture; the medical and psychosocial aspects of military health, including the neuroscience of military stress and trauma; suicide; chronic illnesses and disability; and blast and traumatic brain injuries. In addition, he offers integrative approaches to healing the mind, body, and spirit of service members and veterans dealing with clinical issues, such as spirituality, moral injury, and trauma; complex posttraumatic stress disorder and co-occurring mental health conditions; the stresses of the deployment cycle; and military career transitions. *Requests for digital versions from ACA can be found on www.wiley.com. *To purchase print copies, please visit the ACA website *Reproduction requests for material from books published by ACA should be directed to [email protected].

Approximately 4 million U.S. service members took part in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shortly after troops started returning from their deployments, some active-duty service members and veterans began experiencing mental health problems. Given the stressors associated with war, it is not surprising that some service members developed such mental health conditions as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance use disorder. Subsequent epidemiologic studies conducted on military and veteran populations that served in the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq provided scientific evidence that those who fought were in fact being diagnosed with mental illnesses and experiencing mental healthâ€"related outcomesâ€"in particular, suicideâ€"at a higher rate than the general population. This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the quality, capacity, and access to mental health care services for veterans who served in the Armed Forces in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn. It includes an analysis of not only the quality and capacity of mental health care services within the Department of Veterans Affairs, but also barriers faced by patients in utilizing those services.

Counseling Veterans: A Practical Guide equips readers with foundational knowledge of military culture and common issues experienced by service men and women. This crucial text helps future and practicing counselors compassionately and competently treat individuals who serve or have served in the United States armed forces. The book opens with chapters that discuss military culture and building a therapeutic alliance, providing readers with rich context for treating service men and women and guidance for relationship-building with this specific population. Additional chapters cover common issues veterans face, including war trauma and PTSD, suicidal ideation, traumatic brain injury, depression, and substance use disorder. Female veteran issues, family issues during deployment, and moral injury are addressed. The final chapter provides guidance for counselors with regard to personal wellness, secondary traumatic stress, and imperative self-care measures. Each chapter features learning objectives, definitions, research-based literature on the topic, treatment options and programs, a clinical vignette, perspectives from veterans, and discussion questions. Designed to help readers build critical competencies, Counseling Veterans is an ideal text for advanced courses in counseling. It can also serve as an essential guide for practicing counselors.

Every veteran has a story. You just have to listen to it. It can be surprising how difficult it is...and also how easy...for a veteran to be able to tell their story. The impacts of combat, deployments, or even just military experience in general are felt long after a veteran leaves the service. The guns do not always go silent when a veteran leaves the military...neither should the veteran. When combat veteran and retired Army Noncommissioned Officer Duane France retired, he knew he wanted to continue to serve his fellow veterans. As a grandson, nephew, and son of combat veterans, he grew up knowing the impact of combat and military service on veterans and their families, and as a leader with five combat and operational deployments, he saw the same things happening in the service members of his generation. After starting to work as a clinical mental health counselor exclusively for veterans and their spouses, Duane started to write his observations and experiences on his blog, Head Space and Timing, located at www.veteranmentalhealth.com. This book is a collection of 52 articles designed to help veterans, those who support them, and those who care for them to understand the military experience and to change the way they think about veteran mental health.

Combining essential information, professional insights, and lived experiences, this book offers a unique overview of the use of music therapy with active-duty service members, veterans, and other military-connected populations in the United States. Contributors include music therapists specializing with the military, as well as military personnel, veterans, and their families, providing an in-depth review of the impact that music therapy can have within this community. Detailing the historical evolution of the approach within a military context, the book explores the integration of music therapy into traditional treatment programs for service members and veterans particularly those with TBI and PTSD. Chapters cover the use of music therapy in both individual and group settings, and the opportunities to facilitate therapy via virtual platforms. Throughout, it emphasises the importance of music in military culture, highlighting the benefits of this approach with military communities. Personal accounts from military families are also included, as well as discussion on continued clinical and research innovation within the field. The first book to address this growing practice, it will inspire, inform and empower therapists and professionals working with and supporting military populations.

The primer is designed primarily for civilian counselors and other human services professionals who encounter this vulnerable group of veterans and their families. A significant portion of this primer is devoted to discuss historical, philosophical, and sociopolitical perspectives of the American armed forces.

How does the military really work? What issues are constants for military families, and what special stresses do they face? Counseling Military Families provides the best available overview of military life, including demographic information and examples of military family issues. Chapters focus on vital issues such as the unique circumstances of reservists, career service personnel, spouses, and children, and present treatment models and targeted interventions tailored for use with military families. Counseling Military Families provides clinicians with the tools they need to make a difference in the lives of families in transition, including those who may have an ingrained resistance to asking for help and who may be available for counseling for a relatively short period of time.