Master Resiliency Training in Army

Positive Psychology and Master Resiliency Training
Sheldon and King (2001) state that positive psychology is “nothing more than the scientific study of ordinary human strengths and virtues” (p. 216). In other words, it is the science how people can live well and be strong. For that reason, positive psychology serves as the core of Master Resiliency Training (MRT) in the U.S. Army. Just as positive psychology focuses on identifying the elements that enable individuals to flourish (Fredrickson, 2001), MRT enables leaders in the Army to demonstrate and teach the skills that soldiers need to overcome obstacles and face challenges with determination, commitment and the ability to succeed. As Gen. Casey (2011) puts it, “the Army is leveraging the science of psychology in order to improve our force’s resilience” (p. 1). This paper will show that Sergeants Major can use positive psychology in general and MRT in particular to teach mental and emotional toughness to the soldiers in their units so that they in turn can face a variety of difficulties that may affect them (from substance abuse to dealing with sexual assault) with grace, determination and focus, surmounting them to maintain a good life.
What is Positive Psychology?
Positive psychology focuses on what motivates people to succeed. It looks at the sources of inspiration that make individuals want to reach up toward the light and hold onto the good. Positive psychology is the essence of the concept of “chicken soup for the soul”—it is the idea that people need to surround themselves with positive inputs to resist the negative distractions and oppressive feedback that can stymie their potential. It is the approach of basic psychology, in so far as psychology focuses on how to help human beings be happy and at peace (Sheldon & King, 2001).
The way to achieve this happiness and peace is through the cultivation of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2001). And the way to cultivate positive emotions is through the development and cultivation of resources that people can use to ward off anxiety, stress, depression, anger—anything that can come along to hold one back. The resources most commonly utilized to assist in this process are mental toughness, which comes by way of conditioning; commitment to an ideal, which can be fostered through habit and virtue; and mindfulness, which can come by way of meditation (Fredrickson, Cohn, Coffey, Pek & Finkel, 2008). Sergeants Master can help soldiers develop their mental toughness, commit to an ideal, and strengthen their mindfulness by implementing MRT.
MRT
Through MRT Sergeants Master learn the skills and methods needed to train their soldiers how to be resilient. The life of an ordinary civilian is difficult enough; the life of a soldier is doubly demanding. The soldier is not only responsible for tending to himself and making sure his life is in order; he is also responsible for tending to his unit and making sure he is supporting his brothers in arms at all times. The soldier in the Army is the member of a family that is tasked with defending the homeland at great risk to one’s own personal safety. The soldier is expected to live up to the demands of this task and serve honorably in the capacity that is allotted to him.
Unfortunately, leaders in the Army are often confronted with the baggage that many soldiers bring with them into the military or that they collect along the way of their service. Leaders have to know how to help soldiers deal effectively with this baggage so that it does not weigh them down mentally and lead them into collapse. Too many soldiers suffer from PTSD because they lacked resilience. The Sergeant Major who has gone through MRT is better equipped to help his soldiers obtain that resilience so that they can in turn deal with whatever issues are impacting them, whether it is depression, anxiety or fear. MRT provides the framework for developing a successful and positive approach to life.
Overcoming Leadership Challenges
One of the biggest challenges that a leader in the Army will face is a unit of soldiers who lack mental and emotional toughness. Grit and determination are some of the fundamental qualities that every soldier must possess. If soldiers do not already possess them coming into the unit, how can they acquire them? The leader has to know the answer to this question—otherwise his soldiers will be like sitting ducks waiting to be picked off by the least disruption to the moods, minds and emotions. The leader has to know how to inspire toughness.
To do that, the leader has to know what does not inspire resilience—and that is the first key lesson taught in MRT: misconceptions about resilience are identified and true concepts of resilience are discussed by focusing on six key areas:
1. Self-awareness
2. Self-regulation
3. Optimism
4. Mental agility
5. Character strengths
6. Connections
The first key area is crucial: unless one is aware of one’s own “thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and patterns in each that are counterproductive,” one is going to be blocked at the gate (Reivich, Seligman & McBride, 2011, p. 27). Awareness is necessary for the second key—self-regulation, which involves both monitoring and regulation emotions and thoughts but also being willing to express oneself in a healthy way. Third, one has to be able to see the good in things while being realistic about what one is able to actually control, and this is what is meant by optimism. Mental agility is also required, and it refers to the ability to be flexible and follows from one’s ability to be optimistic. One requires the character strength to overcome obstacles and one requires the ability to build relationships and make connections with people by putting himself in another’s shoes (Reivich et al., 2011).
Once these key areas are understood, leaders can focus on identifying triggers—events or thoughts that trigger a particular negative reaction. When patterns appear, individuals can begin to see the trend in one’s thoughts or feelings that push one into negative moods or the desire to seek escape in an unhealthy manner. Other areas that leaders can focus on are simple breathing exercises, which can help one to regain composure in a stressful period (Reivich et al., 2011); problem-solving, and developing the ability to show gratitude. Leaders also learn how to recognize counterproductive thoughts by owning them and taking responsibility for them. The errors that people make in trying to stop negative thoughts is that they try to reduce the noise they make by ignoring them—or they might try to justify why they are having them—or they just might simply try to deny they are that at all. A leader knows that reality always has to be dealt with head-on; so if negative thoughts are creeping about, the key to overcoming them is to acknowledge them, own them and assume responsibility for them by addressing them directly.
Getting Soldiers to Support One Another
One way that leaders learn to address challenging instances soldiers may face is to remind soldiers that it is okay to ask for help. In the Army, there is sometimes a stigma that soldiers feel when it comes to asking for assistance: they fear coming across as incapable. Leaders have to show soldiers that challenging situations occur for everyone and it is better to seek advice, assistance, guidance, or support than to try to face one’s troubles alone. They must demonstrate this idea graciously so that soldiers themselves recognize the beauty and grace in asking for assistance instead of attempting to face their problems as though they were the only ones impacted by them. Because a unit is a team, a family, when one member is troubled, the whole unit is troubled.
As Reivich et al. (2011) show, sometimes soldiers simply do not know how to ask for help and it is up to leaders to step forward and summon their individual strengths to help their brother in need. They use the example of the soldier who was always frustrated and angry—to the point where no one wanted to be around him. His presence was bringing a bad spirit to the unit, so one soldier who recognized that within himself he was capable of expressing love and showing wisdom approached the soldier and gave him support and friendliness. The angry soldier gradually opened up and told the friendly soldier about his domestic situation, how his relationship with his wife was rocky, and so on. The friendly soldier listened without judging and then used his wisdom to try to share how the wife was probably struggling with being married to a soldier who was always deployed. Together the two soldiers worked to write a letter home in which the angry soldier was able to express himself and work through his emotions by owning them and taking responsibility for them. In short, the friendly soldier helped get the angry soldier back to a point where could show resilience.
This story gets to the heart of what it means to demonstrate MRT in action. The key is to recognize that all soldiers are part of the same family, and all are going to have times where they are afflicted by some trouble. Leaders have to be willing to step up and show empathy, because it is only through understanding and appreciation that true bridges can be built and true development of resiliency be obtained. Stress can come in so many different ways, and Sergeants Master can use positive psychology and the techniques they learned from MRT give soldiers the guidance and support to cope with their stress. Learning to communicate, how to use body language, how to use develop and use social and emotional intelligence—all of this is part of building resilience among soldiers in a unit. Praise, giving feedback, showing gratitude, offering assistance—each of these actions demonstrates a heart and mind that is in a positive place, which is where positive psychology wants them to be.
Conclusion
Positive psychology is a useful approach to keep soldiers, determined, focused and in pursuit of the good life. Sergeants Major can use MRT, which is rooted in positive psychology, to instill in their soldiers the kind of mental and emotional toughness they will need to overcome stress, challenges, personal issues and any trauma that might be negatively impacting them. The main ways that MRT can be used is through identifying the key areas that help to build resilience: Self-awareness, Self-regulation, Optimism, Mental agility, Character strengths, and Connections. These competencies can help soldiers to provide support for one another and overcome issues that can distract them from giving all to their unit.
Summary
Positive psychology is the study of how to live well. For that reason it is the basis of Master Resiliency Training (MRT) in the U.S. Army. The U.S. Army has recognized the need for its leaders to provide a solid foundation for soldiers to develop resilience to enable them to overcome challenges. MRT gives leaders the training they need to teach resilience to their soldiers. Sergeants Major can use MRT to promote better mental health in their units, especially in the face of leadership challenges stemming from issues that their soldiers may face, such as stress, trauma, sexual assault, substance abuse and so on.
MRT works by focusing on the six elements that support the development of mental toughness: Self-awareness, Self-regulation, Optimism, Mental agility, Character strengths, and Connections. Soldiers learn that in order to be the best version of themselves they have to be mindful and aware of their emotions and thoughts—especially the ones that trigger them towards negative behavior. Once they are mindful of them they can begin to exercise self-control. They also have to stay positive mentally speaking—i.e., look for the good in things, be truthful and honest, and not be afraid to seek help when needed. A degree of mental agility is required and so is some knowledge of one’s strong suits so that one can use them to develop positive relations with others.
The key to MRT’s successful application is to get soldiers to see that they are all part of one big family—one big team—and that if one of them is troubled by something, they are all troubled by something. They have to learn to support one another with empathy and respect and always seek to lead by example, demonstrating that to live well is not only possible but necessary for a soldier and a Sergeant Major in the U.S. Army.
References
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Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., & Finkel, S. M. (2008). Open
hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of personality and social psychology, 95(5), 1045.
Reivich, K. J., Seligman, M. E., & McBride, S. (2011). Master resilience training in the
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Sheldon, K. M., & King, L. (2001). Why positive psychology is necessary. American
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