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| Sergeant James Cole along with several other soldiers participating in mental training for war. |
The training is the first of its kind, it means improving performance in battle and ward off mental health problems, including depression, post-traumatic stress and suicide, that plague about one-fifth of troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Soldiers to active duty, reserve soldiers, and members of the National Guard will receive the training, which will also be held for family members and civilian employees.
The new program will be introduced on two grounds in October and phased in gradually from a variety of services, begins with basic training. The program was established in the techniques that have been tested in most secondary schools.
Usually the program is taught in classes of 90 minutes, the method is to merge or expose common habits of thinking and false beliefs can lead to anger and frustration, for example, the tendency of the estimates due to the worst (for example: "My wife did not call, he would being with others ").
The Army wants to train 1500 staff sergeant until next summer to teach these techniques.
In an interview, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., Staff chief of the army said that the program is worth $ 117 million in an effort to transform a military culture that has generally considered talk of emotions that is a sign of weakness.
"I'm still not sure if our culture can accept this," Gen. Casey said. "That is what I am most worried about."
In an open exchange at the beginning of the practice session here last week, General Casey asked a group of sergeants what they thought of the training. Is it too lilting?
"I think so, sir," said one of them, stood up to pay their respects to the General's. He said a formal class would be very difficult to attract the attention of young enlisted men "who all he wants is to play his friends and drink beer."
But others said the program is needed. And in an interview, General Casey said the mental effects of repeated placement, increasing suicide rate in the Army, mild brain defects, post traumatic stress, had convinced commanders "that we need a program that can provide soldiers and their families in a more to overcome it. "
The generals agreed to an interview after the New York Times from Dr useful to keep their program. Martin E. P. Seligman, chairman of the Positive Psychology Center University of Pennsylvania, who has consulted with the Pentagon.
In a recent study, a psychologist at Penn and elsewhere have found that the techniques can reduce mental stress for some children and teenagers. However, outside experts have warned that the Army program was an experiment and not a proven solution.
"It is important to note that there is no evidence that any program has made the army more flexible," said George A. Bonanno, a psychologist at Columbia University. But he and others said the program could settle one of the most important questions in psychology: whether mental toughness can be taught in the classroom.
"This is a capability that can be applied broadly, these are the things that are used every person throughout life and what we have to do is apply it to the soldiers," says Karen Reivich, a psychologist at Penn, who helped organize the army program.
In a training session given at a hotel near the university, 48 sergeants in full uniform sitting at tables, notes, role playing and crack jokes when a psychologist to teach them about mental illness. In a role-playing exercise, Sergeant First Class James Cole of Fort Riley and a friend, who acted as Sergeant Cole's thinking in response to a command that comes belakanan to tell people who have exhausted to perform a difficult task anymore.
"Why did he rule us again for this job?" classmate said. "It's not fair."
"Well, maybe," said Cole, "or maybe he told us because he knows we're more reliable."
In another session, Dr. Reivich asked the sergeants to think of this situation as an internal debate can be useful.
A veteran of several deployment to Iraq, said he was eating dinner when a customer at a nearby table said he and his friend being very bad.
"Had I thought to throw him out the window," said the sergeant. However, guided by a new technique, he resisted the temptation and decided to buy the man a beer. "The man came over and apologized," he said.
The training is based on part of the ideas of Dr. Aaron Beck and the late Albert Ellis, who found that an examination of the thinking and assumptions sometimes calm them. It is also interesting recent research suggesting that people can manage stress by thinking.
"Psychology has given us this whole language of pathology, so if a soldier in tears after seeing someone killed thinks, there is something wrong with me: I had post-traumatic stress," said Dr. Seligman.
Many of the sergeants who initially doubts about the technique. "But I think it would probably be like muscle memory, with practice you will start to use them automatically," said Sergeant First Class Darlene Sanders of Fort Jackson, SC.
To track the effects of the program, the Army will require troops of all levels, from new recruits to officers, to fill as many as 170 item questionnaire to evaluate their mental health, along with the strength of their social dukuang, among other things.
The program is not intended to diagnose mental health problems. The results will be kept confidential, General Casey said.
Army will track scores in the unit to see if they have the effect of exercise on mental symptoms and performance, said Gen. Rhonda Cornum, director of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, which oversees the program. General Cornum said that the army had mengkrontak researchers at the University of Michigan to determine whether the training has worked, and added that corrections can be made "if it does not have the desired effect."
"For several years, the military has said O Lord, suicide, what do we do now?" said Col. Darryl Williams, deputy director of the program. "It is very reactive. This is the time to change it."
Source: Reuters
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