Helping Our Vets on the Long Road Home from War

Every week, through print and broadcast media, our nation becomes more aware of the terrible cost of war to the young people sent to fight it. Never have we seen such high rates of mental illness, substance abuse, family discord, and violence. The Army estimates that one-third of our returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD. Suicide is rampant in combat and on return.  By all accounts, this issue isn’t going away any time soon, and in fact may become worse in the years ahead as more troops are sent to Afghanistan.

The Open Center is pleased to bring our unique holistic resources to the critical effort to support our veterans and their families. We’re presenting an upcoming conference, “A Warrior Returns: Integrative Therapeutic Approaches to Support Transition from Battlefield to Community” on Sunday, November 8, 2009, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The URL for this conference is www.opencenter.org/a-warrior.

This conference is for military and civilian therapists, chaplains, clergy, nurse practitioners, creative arts therapists, other healthcare professionals and holistic practitioners who are working with veterans and their families, or who want to do so.

The morning session will address some of the most difficult issues mental health professionals face when working with veterans, including:

•  Establishing trust; holding without judgment what the veteran may tell you;
• Understanding the special nature of combat PTSD in contrast to more generalized trauma, including damage to the nervous system, attachment system, and belief system;
• Integrative therapies such as EMDR, TFT, somatic approaches used to reduce anguish so that recovery can begin;
• Rebuilding the attachment system through equine assisted psychotherapy;
• The warrior as a spiritual being and the meaning of faith in war;
• Issues of return and reintegration with self, family, and community;
• The impact of deployment on the children of military families.

 The afternoon session will feature:

•  An experiential presentation that includes an overview of mind/body approaches such as meditation, movement, and simple biofeedback techniques, and why they are effective in healing trauma.
• A group trauma relief model from the Center for Mind/Body Medicine in Washington, DC that has been used successfully in areas of armed conflict around the world, is now being used with veterans and taught to caregiving professionals, and is currently under study by the Dept. of Defense;
• Instruction in several techniques that can be immediately applied in your group or private practice.

The conference is co-sponsored by the Metropolitan Chapter of the New York Association of Marriage and Family Therapists.

If you want to be part of the effort to heal broken lives and reweave the bonds of family and community, you can register online at www.opencenter.org/a-warrior. For student and group rates, call 212.219.2527, ext. 2.

Juliet Bruce, Ph.D.