Repeated deployments into harm's way can accumulate unresolved tensions and stress, resulting in post-traumatic stress. On the other hand, Soldiers can learn adaptive techniques that inoculate them against it.
That's what Dr. Elizabeth A. Stanley concludes after years of pre- and post-deployment research with neuroscience and stress researchers and studies on Soldiers and Marines. Stanley pioneered the development of Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training, or MMFT, to optimize the performance of Soldiers during high-stress missions.
The associate professor of Security Studies, Georgetown University, was a featured speaker at the Brain Health Consortium, held at the Office of the Army Surgeon General here, April 11.
Stanley admitted that she herself has had a post-traumatic stress disorder, known as PTSD, diagnosis. Although she served in the Army in Bosnia, Macedonia and elsewhere, she said the stressors of the deployments and combat environments were not the cause. Rather, it was the accumulation of adverse childhood experiences, followed by the deployments that led to the "tipping point."
Her case is fairly typical, she pointed out.
She said many who are attracted to the military have had prior stressors in life. In her research, she found that two-thirds of the Marines she studied and three-fourths of Soldiers had "dysregulations" below the clinical level of PTSD before they even put on their uniforms.
Multiple deployments elevate those pre-existing conditions, she said. And it's not just deployments that worry service members, but also concern about family members back home.
http://www.army.mil/article/124080/Stressors_in_life_can_result_in_greater_resilience/
Photo: Dr. Elizabeth A. Stanley speaks at the Brain Health Consortium, held at the Office of the Army Surgeon General in Falls, Church, Va., Apr. 11, 2014. Credit: Army News Service.
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