Psyche, Science, and Society

Support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program

For those who would like to  respond to the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, one way is to offer financial support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program. Psychologists for Social Responsibility has issued the following appeal for support for the GCHP. We are also looking for other organizations to join a Coalition to support this effort. So far, Div 39 S9 (Psychoanalysts for Social Responsibility) and the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology have joined.

Here is the PsySR call. Please give generously!

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Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) urges our members and friends to contribute to the Gaza Community Mental Health Project, a new PsySR fundraising campaign to support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), which has suffered extensive damage to its headquarters at a time of escalating demand for its services.

To Donate Now: http://www.psysr.org/gaza

Psychologists for Social Responsibility joins with other advocates of peace, social justice, and human rights in calling for an immediate, concerted, and unrelenting effort to end the devastating violence and the tragic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

As an organization focused on psychology’s contributions to positive social change, PsySR is also painfully aware of the profound psychological impact of the aerial and ground assault on the individuals, families, and communities of Gaza. Several important short-term and long-term psychological consequences of living in a war zone – which undoubtedly describes Gaza today – are now well-documented. They include the following:

*       Psychological distress in war zones is often as great as the physical suffering that receives more widespread attention. For some, including children, coping with issues of family separation, multiple losses, and bereavement can be even more unbearable than other health-related concerns.

*       The adverse psychological effects of first-hand exposure to the horrors of war are often exacerbated by pre-existing conditions. People already under stress before an attack -from severe poverty, chronic exposure to harsh imposed restrictions, and past bloodshed – are likely to have stronger and more overwhelming reactions to violence.

*       Prolonged fears of attack, powerful feelings of helplessness, and deep worries about family and community heighten the damaging psychological effects – such as depression and PTSD – of life-threatening events and can contribute to ongoing cycles of violence.

*       The magnitude of psychological suffering in war zones is determined not only by exposure to life-threatening events but also by people’s immediate and continuing access to individual and family supports, along with broader efforts that are locally, culturally, and psychologically-informed.

Ultimately, a just and lasting peace and a brighter future for Palestinians and Israelis alike will require that these psychological consequences and considerations also receive serious and sustained attention.

It is within this context that the recently reported massive damage to the headquarters of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program is particularly distressing. With a special emphasis on vulnerable groups such as children, women, and victims of torture and human rights violations, the GCMHP’s staff provides crucial and irreplaceable mental health services to thousands of Gaza residents. These services will be even more broadly and desperately needed in the days and months immediately ahead. Throughout its history, the GCMHP has also been firmly committed to nonviolent resistance and to working for a world where Palestinians and Israelis can live together in peace.

In recognition of these urgent circumstances, PsySR has initiated a fundraising campaign to provide support to the Gaza Community Mental Health Program as it rebuilds and adapts to meet escalating needs. The GCMHP receives funding from a consortium of the Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish governments, but that funding is specifically targeted for programs favored by the consortium. For years, independent groups such as the Gaza Mental Health Foundation in the U.S. and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel , have provided independent funding that can be used more flexibly. Our initiative will supplement these efforts in this time of heightened need.

Organizing help for the GCMHP is one way that we, as psychologists and mental health providers, can counter the despair and hopelessness bred in all parties by this renewed outbreak of seemingly irresolvable violence. In so doing, we make a statement in support of human rights, mutual recognition and security, and pathway to the reconciliation that must underlie a sustainable peace in this region.

We strongly encourage other organizations and individuals to join us in this effort. Today through March 1st, tax-deductible contributions can be made online through our website at http://www.psysr.org/gaza or by check made out to “Grassroots International” (please write “GCMHP” in the memo line) and mailed to PsySR’s national headquarters: PsySR, 208 “I” Street NE, Washington, DC 20002.

All donations will be processed through Grassroots International, which has received a four-star rating from independent charity evaluator Charity Navigator, and its online partner Democracy in Action. For more information, please email our Project Coordinators at gazamentalhealth@psysr.org or contact PsySR’s executive director Colleen Cordes by phone at 202-543-5347.

PsySR gratefully acknowledges Psychoanalysts for Social Responsibility and our other coalition partners in this fundraising campaign.

To Donate Now: http://www.psysr.org/gaza

January 21st, 2009

Editorial: Personality disorder discharges save money, sacrifice soldiers

I have reported previously on the military’s use of personality disorder diagnoses to deny claims from disabled soldiers who served years before their “preexisting” diagnosis was “discovered.” The Anchorage Daily News has editorialized against this disgusting practice:

This is betrayal
Personality disorder discharges save money, sacrifice soldiers

(Published: October 2, 2007)

Let’s put ourselves in these shoes for a moment, if we can:

You’ve honorably served in the Army for seven years. You’ve won commendations. You re-enlisted after your first hitch. You’re in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2004 when a rocket hits the building you’re in and leaves you unconscious in rubble. Eventually doctors pull shrapnel from your neck and ear canals. You lose 75 percent of your hearing, suffer depression and nightmares.

You try to kill yourself by dropping a hair dryer in your bath water. The dryer short-circuits. You seek medical help at your Army post.

Eventually, the Army discharges you because you had a “pre-existing personality disorder” before you joined the service.

And what does that mean?

• You can’t get disability pay. That requires a medical board evaluation, and a soldier who signs a personality disorder discharge gets no medical board.

• You can’t get VA medical care — you can’t be treated for post-traumatic stress syndrome — because the VA treats only those wounds and conditions suffered in service. “Pre-existing condition” is the Pentagon’s way of saying the Ramadi rocket had nothing to do with the soldier’s troubles.

• You must pay back part of your re-enlistment bonus for the time you won’t serve because of the personality-disorder discharge.

All of this happened to former Spc. Jon Town of Findlay, Ohio. This spring and summer, with reports in The Nation and ABC News, Mr. Town became a symbol for veterans groups, because he’s not alone.

The military has mustered out about 22,000 service people in the last six years with personality-disorder discharges. It appears that a lot of them were flat-out bogus, as in the case of Mr. Town, or at least contestable.

There’s a gut-reaction word for what happened to Mr. Town, but we can’t use it in a family newspaper.

Why are the services doing this?

Money.

The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs save money if they don’t have to pay benefits.

God almighty, let us take a deep breath.

A bipartisan group of senators led by Barack Obama of Illinois and Christopher Bond of Missouri has introduced a provision in the defense bill to stop the personality-disorder discharges pending investigations by the General Accountability Office (the GAO already is looking into the practice at Fort Carson, Kan.) and impose tougher standards and limits on such discharges.

Good for the senators.

Where’s the commander in chief? A few words from the White House lawn — strong words, Mr. President, leader’s words — would go far to end this kind of nonsense.

Some personality-disorder discharges are no doubt valid, and those no longer able to function in a theater of war shouldn’t be there. But any soldier who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan should get the benefit of the doubt. Soldiers subject to personality-disorder discharges must be fully informed of their rights and all the consequences of such a discharge before signing one.

You don’t have to be a psychiatrist or a soldier to understand that rockets, IEDs and sniper rounds are not pre-existing conditions. One god-awful argument to justify personality-disorder discharges was that dormant pre-existing conditions surface under the stress of combat; hence such soldiers don’t qualify for treatment of post traumatic stress disorder.

In response, we refer to that word we can’t print in a family newspaper.

The United States has a solemn obligation to those among us who were asked to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let’s keep it.

BOTTOM LINE: Let’s take care of our wounded troops — not look for ways to deny care.

1 comment October 5th, 2007