Mental Health Advocates comment on First Lady’s initiative to improve veterans' mental health care

Jan. 19, 2012 - PRLog -- The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP) commends First Lady Michelle Obama’s successful effort in obtaining a commitment from American medical schools to increase research and training of doctors on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). ISEPP strongly recommends that such training and research be focused on treatments that have been proven effective and safe.
   
Unfortunately, the treatment approach currently used by the Veterans’ Administration is based on antipsychotic drugs as the primary modality of treatment.  Research has shown that antipsychotic drugs can cause severe physical and mental harm to patients and are not effective over the long term.  Moreover, there is evidence that such drugs are linked to the high suicide rate that is being experienced by returning veterans.

The military’s own leadership, such as Brig. Gen. Richard Thomas, the Army's assistant surgeon general, has spoken about the over-reliance of medications and the need for other therapies. ISEPP believes this new initiative is the perfect opportunity to improve mental health services for our deserving military men and women.  

Treatment of our veterans and active military personal should be grounded in that use of non-drug approaches that have been proven to be effective and safe, such as sensorimotor psychotherapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and other similar approaches to helping the victims of trauma.  

http://youtu.be/g4xsloQQTXA



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ISEPP is an organization of mental health professionals, researchers, consumers of mental health services, families and others that advocates for safe, humane and effective approaches to treating persons diagnosed with mental disorders. Additional information about ISEPP is available at www.psychintegrity.org.