interviewsWar

What a Head Strong Military Looks Like

Head Strong: How Psychology is Revolutionizing War
by Michael D. Matthews, PhD
Oxford University Press, 288 pages, $29,95

Can you walk us through a field most readers are unfamiliar with military psychology and explain how it is different from traditional cognitive-behavioral psychology?

Military psychology is the application of psychological theory, research, and practice to military settings. Thus, it includes all of the areas of traditional psychology, both applied and experimental.  Most people are aware of the need for clinical psychologists to provide mental health services to military personnel.  But psychologists also are intimately involved in the selection and training of military personnel, resilience building, human factors engineering (building military systems that personnel can use effectively and efficiently), and leader development, just to name a few specialties.

When we think of psychology and warfare we tend to think of trauma, PTSD, and whatnot. What is the main takeaway from your new book, and how do you define the title, “head strong”?

The main message is that while trauma, PTSD, and related disorders are indeed an occupational hazard of combat, military personnel tend to be remarkably resilient, considering the adversity of combat.  Indeed, pathologic responses may account for about 15 percent of the psychological consequences of combat.  The other 85 percent or so show varying degrees of resilience, and many show evidence of post-traumatic growth (PTG).  The latter is especially interesting, but not at all uncommon.  People who survive cancer or other serious diseases often maintain that they derive more positive meaning from life following their ordeal than before.  Soldiers are no different. So again, the emphasis is not so much on pathology and PTSD but rather using positive psychology to build resilience and strength in our soldiers. We need to empower soldiers and families with psychological and personal skills to survive and cope effectively – even the so-called “Bob on the FOB” who doesn’t go outside the wire because of his job, and yet often suffers psychologically.

So you would argue that, say, a UAV pilot can suffer emotional stress as readily as troops in direct combat.

If I’m sitting in the desert in Nevada – and am flying aircraft across the world and blow somebody up, it’s obviously stressful. But is it trauma? There’s an emerging area of psychology called “moral trauma.” As opposed to seeing someone run over and mutilated, you can understand the psychological consequences to that, but moral trauma occurs because it is our human nature to value life. If you take out a warlord and his family, then that sort of trauma is every bit as real in its impact for a UAV operator as if he were standing 200 meters away and pulling the trigger. Closely related to that is the idea of an existential crisis which involves the loss of a sense of meaning in life.  This may result in depression.

Do you think these pilots deserve Purple Hearts?

That’s kind of a political issue. Usually you are awarded a Purple Heart if you are physically injured. I had a colleague who had piece of shrapnel in his neck and he got a Purple Heart and that’s justified. Psychological injuries may be far more devastating and have lifetime consequences, however if we look at that person we see them intact then we infer they are normal. And so I think some of the pushback is from people who don’t understand psychology. One other thing: Between 80,000 and 400,000 soldiers have m-TBI (minimal traumatic brain injury), and CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). PTSD, m-TBI, and CTE sha