DoD Launches New Video to Encourage Help-Seeking

Department of Defense Launches New Video to Encourage Help-Seeking for Psychological Health 
 
A Different Kind of Courage: Safeguarding and Enhancing Your Psychological Health is a new educational video depicting how service members and their families may be affected by combat and deployment stress. Featuring interviews with military mental health experts and chaplains, as well as personal stories by service and family members, the video explores issues of concern such as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), alcohol abuse, nightmares, hypervigilance, exposure to violence, emotional numbness, and difficulties faced when a loved one is deployed.

The video is a new component of the Mental Health Self-Assessment Program (MHSAP), a DoD funded initiative that offers service personnel and their family members the opportunity to take anonymous mental health and alcohol self-assessments online, via telephone, and at special events held at installations worldwide. The program is designed to help individuals identify their own symptoms and access assistance before a problem becomes serious. The self-assessments are available 24/7 online or via the telephone at www.MilitaryMentalHealth.org and 1-877-877-3647.

Through the use of real stories and dramatized vignettes, A Different Kind of Courage addresses the symptoms of mental health and alcohol disorders among military service members and families, and the importance of early help-seeking to protect one’s career, family and health. It also provides useful information on how to convince a family member or friend to seek professional help.

In a segment of the video, Air Force CMSgt Manny Sarmina, Senior Enlisted Advisor in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs), emphasizes the importance of having leaders discuss their own struggles in order to encourage others to seek help. “I don’t walk up to somebody and say, ‘Hey, my name’s Chief, I sought help in the mental health system.’ It’s not natural to do that. But when you see somebody struggling, and they give you this, ‘Oh, you don’t know what I’m going through.’ Then that’s when you pull out that ace, and you say, ‘Yes, I do know what you’re going through,’” said Sarmina.

The video will be distributed to military behavioral health clinicians, unit commanders, Reserve unit leaders, chaplains, Family Readiness Group leaders, as well as other military groups who want to raise awareness and encourage help-seeking as an act of strength.

“The video is a vehicle to promote discussion about mental health and alcohol disorders. By hearing service members and their families speak honestly about their struggles and how awareness and treatment helped, we hope it will encourage others to get help,” said CAPT Mark Paris, Ph.D., Deputy Director for Psychological Health Operations in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Force Health Protection Readiness).

A Different Kind of Courage runs approximately 25 minutes. To view the video, visit www.MentalHealthScreening.org/Military/. To order a free DVD, download the registration form (for military installations, family groups and veteran's organizations only).