Effective therapy with military and their families

Many more families are now affected dramatically by military service and combat. War is a disturbing experience for the service member and the family. Yet military culture is something that mental health providers do not receive training on in graduate school. Military medical systems tend to lead military families to expect certain services and knowledge when they seek help from a therapist. If military families are able to utilize military medical facilities they expect they providers to be experts on military culture. It is not neccssary however, for therapists to have served in the military in order to provide high quality service to military individuals and their families. The military community is an entire culture with many honorable customs and traditions. To fail to learn about military culture when working with military families would be tantamount to telling a client that ethnic minority issues were not worthy of therapeutic consideration. It is more critical now for mental health providers to learn about military culture because many Activated Reservists, National Guard and their families will need to receive mental health services outside of the structured military mental health setting. There is no one "central source" for military information needed by a clinician in order to provide the most effective therapy. In this workshop we will include up-todate handouts and referral sources for therapists serving military families. We will also identify how to use military culture knowledge to build rapport and to set up effective targets for EMDR processing.

Conference

English

Beverly Ann Dexter

Dexter, B. A. (2006, September). Effective therapy with military and their families. Presentation at the 11th EMDR International Association Conference, Philadelphia, PA