Dr. John Oldham is president of the American Psychiatric Association and chief of staff at the Menninger Clinic in Houston.
Last week, Oldham participated in a roundtable discussion at the White House on raising awareness among civilian health care providers of combat-related mental health conditions, and to better coordinate care among civilian, military and veterans health care systems.
Chronicle reporter Lindsay Wise interviewed Oldham about the national effort to reduce the stigma surrounding post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, and to help military personnel and their families transition smoothly to civilian life.
Q: What did you discuss Tuesday at the White House?
A: This is in connection with this initiative that was launched by Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden called Joining Forces, and what that entails is really to try to address some of the needs of the returning military from overseas and combat, and help them even beyond the regular channels that they would normally be using to get help. … They want not only to provide educational information for the families and the public, they also want to facilitate access to appropriate mental health care, and the third thing they want to do is help returning veterans with obtaining meaningful employment. And so what the Joining Forces initiative has done is, it's pulled together key officials from the Department of Defense and from Veterans Affairs and is trying to link and bridge all of their efforts with leaders from all of the civilian organizations that would be pertinent in a comprehensive program of care. What they want to do is build a strong bridge between the military help that they receive immediately on returning from deployment and continuing care as they re-enter society.
Q: Why is it important to raise awareness among civilian health care providers about neurological and psychological issues affecting military service members and their families?
A: It's estimated that about 50 percent of military personnel who need mental health care do not get it, and one of the big reasons is the tremendous stigma that's associated with seeking help for mental problems. Part of the goal here is to heighten awareness among the public to what they call the military culture, so part of the educational materials that this effort is putting together include trying to help people understand the military culture, which really doesn't make it comfortable for these people to seek help for psychiatric problems. Sometimes there are soldiers who are coming back and want to go back for another tour of duty, so there has to be a careful evaluation as to whether that's safe for the soldiers and whether they're fully recovered or can become fully recovered to do that. An analogy is the stories you see in the news about professional football players who have concussions and don't want people to know it because they want to be able to go back in the game.
Q: I've spoken to troops and their families who said they don't want to see a military doctor or therapist for mental health issues because they're worried it will affect their security clearances or damage their careers.
A: That's not uncommon because there's a real perception that you're going to jeopardize your military career if you're known to be seeing mental health care providers, and that's part of what this whole effort wants to work against, and help people get over and get past.
Q: What can civilians do that the military isn't already doing?
A: We hope that we can also encourage civilian employers to become a little more proactive in reaching out to returning soldiers to make employment opportunities available to them. Employers would benefit from availing themselves of a lot of this educational material to understand what the re-entry process is like and the experience is like for soldiers returning from combat. … Over the next four years there will be about a million military personnel coming off of active duty as the military downsizes. So that's a lot of people who are going to be looking for alternative occupational situations and having to make pretty remarkable changes because a lot of these are career military who haven't known a whole lot else.
lindsay.wise@chron.com
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