"Warrior Mind Training": The Right Words for Selling Meditation to the Troops

I’m looking forward to seeing some of you in Salt Lake City (Snowbird, to be exact) the weekend just before Thanksgiving – November 22-23 – for our 9-CE weekend workshop, Reversing Panic Attacks, Acute Stress and PTSD, sponsored by The ConferenceWorks. There’s a nice price break for registering by Oct 24th, so if you’re interested, do check it out. You can get more information and/or register here.

I’ve been getting a kick out of the way we mental health practitioners have finally gotten smart in how we describe our meditation, guided imagery and other critically important, resilience-inducing, mind-body programs to our armed forces. The language is so important, and, sadly, therapists have always thrown around pathologizing jargon, such as symptoms, healing, disorder, etc, without thinking what that sounds like to the person on the other end. It’s just the way most of us were trained to talk, for better or worse. And for most people in the macho – or even not-so-macho - professions, this is a turn-off. My experience has been that soldiers, police officers, EMT’s and firefighters actually like learning these techniques and using them, and they’re good at them. But not if it means they’re sick and this will help them get better.

Using a teaching/training model, as opposed to a healing/fixing model is critical. Look at the popularity of life coaching vs. therapy – a big chunk of its appeal is due to its positive, normative name.

So I smiled broadly as I read last week about the Warrior Mind Training going on at Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg – enlightened bases that order bushel baskets of our guided imagery, by the way – thinking, what a fine choice of words! “Warrior” surely beats “patient”; “mind” connotes strength and control, not a bunch of deficits; and ditto for “training” over “therapy” or “treatment”. The sooner we mental health professionals wise up and start paying attention to the language we use (and along with it the attitudes that language connotes), the more useful we’ll be to the people who can use our services.

If any of you have had experiences with this – either getting stung or encouraged by the language used in proferred services – from either side of the equation, whether you’re a mental health professional or an end-user, please post your story.

All best,

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written by Lisa, October 14, 2008

I had gone through much negativity and emotional abuse in my childhood. I have struggled with anxiety my entire life. Recently I have had to face some traumatic events, and it would have been easy to label myself as a "victim." I was listening to your Healing Trauma (PTSD) disc, and I was being called a "survivor"--that word gave me empowerment and strength. I was able to move forward with courage rather than fear. Thank you Belleruth!

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written by Claire, October 14, 2008

think Warrior WOMAN -- applies to any and all of us as caretakers of society

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written by Mike Wallace, October 14, 2008

I learned this many years ago when I became a civilian police intructor, teaching cops and other law enforcement folks about mental health. As I watched them nod off while listening to our (very competent) psychiatrist I learned that they weren't interested in information that was too technical and they didn't want to be told be scolded for political incorrectness. They wanted to know what they could use, either on the street or in their own lives, and they wanted to hear it in plain English. After several classes they began to open up and even share some of their own experiences. I found the book "In Search of the Warrior Spirit" by Richard Strozzi-Heckler an enlightening resource. It is an account of providing awareness training to Special Forces.

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written by Mark , October 14, 2008

When my Dad was on a stressful rotating shift job in the Cold War days around 1960 he described what were basically ADD symptoms to doctor. Dexedrine was prescribed for "low metabolism"; it was very effective and had no "stigma" attached. Now almost 50 years later my son and I benefit from similar meds but have to endure the stigma of ADD. Knowing my Dad's work history, I think managers back then were better at assigning people like us in slots where their special talents were needed.

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written by Stephanie , October 14, 2008

I work primarily with refugees, a great many of whom suffer from symptoms of PTSD, depression and anxiety due to the things they have experienced in war, refugee camps and resettlement. However, the mere mention of mental health issues or therapy can send many running due to the stigma involved. I have learned that talking about managing stress is much more helpful and acceptable, since experiencing stress is considered normal. Many focus on physical symptoms such as muscular pain or insomnia, which are more acceptable, so talking about these more acceptable symptoms and offering solutions based in therapuetic theory is more successful than trying to engage in traditional therapy.

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written by Belleruth , October 15, 2008

Points taken! This does not only apply to troops. We all could use a break with the pathologizing language!

We got a note from Vera saying, "I loved the latest about the language. And I'd like to see more examples of what we could use."

Here are some samples of language used to describe the mind-body training at Fort Carson in Colorado - by all means, help yourself to any phrase you think might suit:

stress hardiness optimization
maximizing resilience for chaotic, up-tempo situations
training to minimize negative impacts of intense situations
exercises for navigating operational and combat stress while maximizing performance
personal optimization skills for combat environments
individually executable mental and physical exercises for stress mitigation

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written by Jeanette, October 15, 2008

Thank you so much for addressing the problems that still exists in the Military. Your PTSD tape has helped me, and I listen to it every time I rest in the afternoon. I'm glad to see the Military is stepping up and is helping the troops before, during and after their enlistment & deployment's. Being in the military and thinking you are not doing you're job or not giving your all under the most stressful situations compounds the stress that is experienced. I hope with the military being pro-active in their teaching, that other people will be able to adjust much better than I have and not have the stigma that I now Live with and being labeled with PTSD.

I am grateful for the work Belleruth and so many others do, for with out them, I would be just another number & a statistic, to be forgotten. Thank you for leading the way.

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