Masters Resiliency Training and positive psychology for veteran suicide prevention

Veteran Suicide
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to test whether positive psychology, as utilized for example in Masters Resiliency Training (MRT) and recommended by Reivich, Seligman and McBride (2011) can be can be effective in reducing the risk of suicide among the veterans of foreign wars population. MRT and positive psychology are currently taught to Sergeants Major in the Army to assist them in supporting soldiers under them struggling with emotional issues (Griffith & West, 2013). Hendin (2014) recommends an innovative short-term psychodynamic therapeutic approach to helping veterans suffering from PTSD by way of relieving them of their guilt. MRT and positive psychology could be seen as another effective approach to treating veterans and reducing the rate of suicide and suicide ideation among veterans. This study aims to test the hypothesis that counselors who use positive psychology and the lessons of MRT can effectively treat veterans at risk of suicide and help to reduce the risk of suicide among the veteran population.
Literature Review
Positive psychology is important because it offers leaders a way to help out struggling soldiers, who may be suffering from some emotional or mental trauma that is pushing them towards self-harm. Suicide prevention is a real issue that many in the military issue have to face (Bower, 2016)—and the use of MRT is one way to face it effectively. Positive psychology works by focusing on the strengths and virtues of ordinary people and assumes that people have something within themselves—some good potential—that they can tap into to use as an aid in overcoming challenges (Sheldon & King, 2001).
Both Bower (2016) and Hendin (2014) recommend an approach to counseling that focuses on relieving veterans of the guilt that they harbor from their time in service. This guilt is often what keeps their emotions negative, the two researchers show. The guilt has to be relieved in order for the veteran to get over the negative emotions and to begin to focus on positive thoughts and feelings. The longer the veteran festers in a negative mental and emotional place, the more at risk the veteran becomes for suicide. Positive psychology is one way that the negativity can be relieved (Griffith & West, 2013).
Veterans have to be strong, mentally, physically and emotionally when they re-enter civilian life because the stress from adjusting to a new culture can be overwhelming, especially if the veteran is struggling with PTSD (Kang et al., 2015). Stress can wear them out, however, by draining their mental energy, depleting their emotional reserves, and running their bodies into the ground physically. If the stress is particularly traumatic, it can overtake their minds to such an extent that they feel out of control of their actions and unable to stem rising tides of anger or to fight off thoughts of suicide (Kang et al., 2015). A suicidal veteran is one who is on the brink—one who needs to be pulled back from the edge by a counselor with the capacity to empathize and act in a positive manner so that the veteran feels hope whereas before there was just despair (Vogt et al., 2017). Unless veterans have a network of support or someone in their life who can help them to address their struggles, they will not receive the help they need to combat suicide ideation.
When struggling with suicide ideation, veterans need a strong source of support, someone who can lead them the way Virgil led Dante out of the Inferno. That support must come from a fellow human being who understands what they are going through and can provide the soldier with a reason to stay strong and a vision of hope that the veteran can use to climb out of the pit of despair. Veterans who are so stressed that they think about suicide are ones who are in serious need of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2001). The development of positive emotions in a person’s life can be all the difference between hope and despair.
MRT has been shown to be an effective tool at spreading positivity to soldiers, as Reivich et al. (2011) have shown. Their study focuses on teaching the counselor or leader in charge of those who have served in the military a range of competencies, including: 1) Self-awareness, 2) Self-regulation, 3) Optimism, 4) Mental Agility, 5) Strength of Character, and 6) Connection. In MRT training, the competencies allow the Sergeant Major to in turn use his own strengths to connect with his soldiers, bring them into his confidence, and provide them with the mental, social, emotional and even spiritual support they need to keep from sinking down into a terrible abyss from which they otherwise might never emerge. First, however, it starts with the Sergeant Major going through MRT to understand how to unlock his own potential (Reivich et al., 2011). This approach should be able to be used by a counselor who is working with veterans, as the veteran will be familiar with the military style of thinking and thus MRT could be a natural fit as an approach in effective counseling. That is the finding of Hendin (2014) who showed that veterans have to be relieved of the guilt that keeps them locked in their PTSD in order for therapy to be effective—and positive psychology could be a way to do that.
The way it works is this: Masters Sergeant have to learn to unlock their own emotions and examine patterns in their own attitudes and behaviors “that are counterproductive” (Reivich et al., 2011, p. 27) before they can actually be of any use to others. A leader who has not been trained in MRT may be more of a risk than a help for a suicidal soldier: the reason is that the leader may not be aware of his own shortcomings, which the soldier in need is likely to immediately pick up on, and which could cause the suffering individual to fall further especially if he thinks that there is no hope if even his own Master Sergeant is no help.
For that reason, MRT focuses on helping the Master Sergeant to confront his own issues and shortcomings first and then to identify his strengths so that, ultimately, he can connect with his soldiers in a meaningful way when they need help. As Griffith and West (2013) note, the first step is for the Master Sergeant to acquire self-awareness. Self-awareness is important because it allows the leader to see his own strengths and weaknesses. He can then tap into his own strengths and work on developing or controlling for his own weaknesses. This is what it means to self-regulate: by controlling for those weaknesses and developing one’s ability to control one’s own emotions, the person can be better situated to help another control theirs. For example, if a Master Sergeant finds that he loses patience with people when they start talking about their emotions, he can recognize this as a weakness and engage in self-regulation by being alert to one’s triggers and either directing the conversation towards a more wholesome ideal—such as the vision of hope and optimism—or else find a way to be more sympathetic to a person’s description of his emotions. At the end of the day, the idea is to self-regulate because this puts the leader in a position to be a firm source of support.
Optimism is important to cultivate, too, because it provides the Sergeant Major with the ability to project hopefulness and to see the silver lining in situations. For example, a leader may come across a soldier who cannot think of a single reason to go on living. Unless that leader can project optimism and actually have a good reason to give the soldier, he will not be any good to him. MRT teaches the Sergeant Major how to develop a sense of optimism, to find, see and hold true to the good in life and to project that ideal vision to others so that they can see it too.
Mental agility, strength of character and the ability to connect are the three other skills and tools that MRT teaches the Sergeant Master how to use. The leader has to be quick thinking and able to avoid thinking traps, which occur when one jumps to conclusions and makes over-generalizations that hurt more than they help. The leader should not be in a rush to judgment but should be able to patiently hear the other out so that the other feels comfortable enough to begin to trust the leader (Reivich et al., 2011). This feeds into the leader displaying a strength of character that can then be used as a rope to bring the struggling other out of himself and into the light of positive thoughts, feelings and ways forward.
If the leader lacks MRT, he will lack the subtle nuanced approach that this skill of connectivity requires (Griffith & West, 2013). The leader who has received MRT will be able to spot trouble areas ahead—what are called icebergs (little signals that protrude a bit above the surface but that indicate big problems below). These are typically deeply held beliefs that leaders often possess that are actually counter to what being a good leader is all about—ideas like, “It is my way or the highway” (Reivich et al., 2011). The leader needs to realize that a suicidal soldier is not going to be interested in anyone’s way. He wants to know why he doesn’t just jump off the highway all together and disappear forever. The Sergeant Major who thinks a gruff exterior is all it takes to snap people into line is mistaken. Troubled sergeants need a firm source of support—one who is willing to listen, not judge and offer a ray of positive light and positive thinking.
Hypothesis and Method
The problem that I would like to address is how to help veterans deal with the risk of suicide and provide counselors with an effective method of giving therapy to veterans struggling with stress, negative emotions and suicide ideation. The literature among researchers who have looked at the effect of positive psychology for soldiers in the military suggests that this could be an effective approach for civilian counselors treating veterans. If MRT works in the military, surely it could be used to help counselors prevent veteran suicide in civilian life. The same positive psychology principles should apply. I believe that positive psychology and MRT training for counselors could be an effective way to treat veterans and reduce the risk of suicide for veterans.
To test my hypothesis, I would use a test group of veterans who receive positive psychology therapy and/or work with counselors trained in MRT to address their risk of suicide. I would use the interview method to obtain data from the patients. The interview questions I would ask would be: Did you find the counselor’s approach effective? Did the usage of positive psychology allow you to see a better way forward for yourself? Were you able to work with the counselor to overcome negative thoughts and feelings? Have the recommended steps of the counselor helped you to resist the thought of suicide? How long has it been since your last suicidal thought or experience? What do you do when faced with negative feelings now that you have received counseling from the positive psychology method? Does the positive psychology method work to help you maintain a positive frame of mind? Would you recommend that other veterans receive positive psychology treatment or work with counselors trained in MRT to help with thoughts of suicide? Results
I expect that the results would show that the veterans respond favorably to positive psychology and to working with counselors who have received training in MRT. The evidence from military researchers suggests that this type of counseling can be effective in treating soldiers struggling with negative emotions, and so it should also be helpful for veterans at risk of suicide. The answers to the interview questions should show that the veterans are aided by the counselor’s use of positive psychology and that the veteran is able to have more positive feelings towards life as a result.
Discussion
The suicidal person is one who is out of happiness. Happiness is so important to people: it is like the fuel that keeps everyone moving forward. When one is unhappy, the whole world feels like a burden and the easiest or only way out at times can seem like the need to end it all. The counselor who has gone through MRT or who can use positive psychology can help the veteran in this situation by, first of all, showing the veteran that there are a lot of reasons to live.
A veteran thinking about suicide is one who is demoralized and in need of support. The counselor must therefore be realistic when providing those reasons to live. He has to start off small and personal. If he says something like, “Your family needs you—it wouldn’t be able to function without you,” he will see through that because in that state he is feeling unneeded and easily replaceable. The counselor has to show him why it is better to live on a personal level. In many cases, simply talking about God can help and mentioning how God wants you to live because He gave you life and He wants you to use it for a good purpose. From that small little kernel, the leader can start talking about options—how the soldier could use his skills or traits that he has been given for a good purpose. This gets the veteran thinking about his own talents and his own strengths. The idea is to keep it positive and to get the veteran away from emphasizing and obsessing over all the negative things in his life.
Conclusion
MRT is an effective tool that potentially civilian counselors can use to help veterans through extremely stressful situations. Stress can really lead a veteran, especially one suffering from PTSD, to experience deep down trauma that impacts the soldier’s ability to function or to stay positive. The veteran may even become suicidal. In these situations, the counselor should use positive psychology to help the veteran find a source of goodness that he can make his own and hold onto while he overcomes his personal issues.


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