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With the rise of faulty social media news sharing practices, equating followership with scholarship, and the replicability crisis, it remains paramount that good science and genuine expertise are venerated.
In acknowledgment of this necessity, the Association for Psychological Science annually awards the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award to those with an established lifetime of outstanding contributions to a crucial area of applied psychological research. The honored research typically addresses a critical societal problem and makes strides towards bridging the gap between science and policy. However, occasionally this gap becomes a rubicon we fail or are reluctant, to cross.
As humans, there are many “truths” we are desperate to hold on to. We hold these truths deeply and with conviction for any number of reasons and once they take root, divorcing fact from fiction moves from challenging to near impossible. It takes superhuman effort to peel away the decades, sometimes centuries, of misinformation and misapplication.
One such belief was the long-held supposition that recovery from loss or exposure to trauma necessitates a prolonged period of emotional distress. For much of the history of psychology, this framework dominated bereavement and trauma research and treatment, implicitly reinforcing the notion that suffering is inevitable and protracted anguish is the most common response to life's vagaries.
Entire labs, clinics, and policies were developed and established based on this understanding. To this day, suffering and the treatment of suffering is a booming industry. They seem to say, bad things happen, you will always need our help.
Yet, one of this year’s Cattell Fellow Awardees is a clinical scientist who turned the entire paradigm on its head. Dr. George Bonanno uses rigorous, scientific methodology and sophisticated data analytics to consistently demonstrate the natural, human capacity for resilience. In short, he shows that bad things happen, you will likely be just fine.
However, there are still many that refuse to accept that resilience is the most common response to loss and trauma and it is this same misguided thinking that has led to a narrow, hyper-focus on PTSD and military service. While an unquestionably devastating condition, it nevertheless chronically afflicts about 7 percent of all veterans, according to data from several major studies.
Meanwhile, we are failing to engage a different enemy on a much bigger front: the “transition stress” of returning to the dramatically different circumstances of civilian life after service, which significantly affect between 44 percent and 72 percent of all veterans.
How can coming home cause more problems than war itself? Many soldiers join the military between the ages of 18 and 26, a period psychologists refer to as “emerging adulthood.” They form their adult identity in the context of a highly structured, collectivistic lifestyle, often while traveling for the first time to a new and dramatically different country.
Men and women who see combat experience extreme danger, intense excitement and a sense of powerful kinship with comrades who, quite literally, are prepared to die on their behalf – all couched in a sense of duty and lofty purpose. Many veterans describe their military service as the most meaningful and fulfilling periods of their lives.
In stark contrast, the return to civilian life can feel disappointing. Combat veterans in particular often struggle with the seemingly mundane but equally demanding pressures of finding and keeping a job, adapting or re-adapting to civilian roles as a life partner, parent or friend, and carving out a new direction and purpose. Many have disproportionate transferrable skills related to their experience and subsequently face employment opportunities that do not seem to match up with their expectations. Their sense of self-worth diminishes as they struggle to adapt to a world that has little understanding of and even less interest in their wartime or military experience. The rules no longer seem to make sense, and those in charge may seem unworthy of their station.
While transition stress may lack the movie-driven drama that seems to both pedestalize and demonize PTSD, we know that those who wrestle with it often seek treatment later on and develop mental and physical health problems, including suicidal ideation.
There is no panacea for transition stress. Rather, we must begin by recognizing that treatments and supports for veterans need to move beyond their nearly exclusive focus on PTSD. The government needs to fund more and different research to understand precisely how transition stresses play out for different kinds of individuals.
Certainly, PTSD merits continued research as well. But a narrow focus on that single condition reinforces the common stereotype of veterans – especially those who have seen combat – as severely traumatized, unstable individuals. That stereotype, in turn, creates a stigma that prevents many veterans who do have PTSD from seeking treatments. Others fear they will not meet treatment criteria, and still, others may be turned off by the narrow choice of treatments that are typically offered for PTSD. Indeed, a majority of veterans who are clinically treated for PTSD continue to suffer elevated symptom levels, and many discontinue treatment.
Our veterans deserve the best we can offer. War trauma is real, but it’s far from the whole story. Now is the time to take bold steps to move beyond the traditional trauma-oriented mindset, and to support the innovations necessary. Otherwise, we’re fighting the wrong battle.
