Because breathing charts the life rhythms, the way we breathe signals the disposition of our energies. Agitation or excitement causes the breath to be uneven and rapid; but when we are calm and balanced, our breathing is even, slow, and soft. We can also change our mental and physical states by the way we breathe. Even when very upset, we can calm and balance ourselves by breathing slowly and evenly.pp. 40-41
When you are aware of your breath, your whole life becomes balanced. Even when you find yourself in situations which arouse great anger, frustration, or pain, you can dissolve the disturbance by just being aware of your breathing, slightly paying attention and making the breath calm, slow, and rhythmical.” Tarthang Tulku, Kum Nye Relaxation,
Warrior R & R Center - A Prototype for Soldiers-
This announcement is very good for our soldiers who are suffering and great opportunities for them to receive care and treatment. I am very proud to be part of this health care work with our Wounded Warriors. We are currently engaged in research to validate what we do with soldiers every day. Our Warrior Restoration & Resilience Center is one of a kind as Gates describes and we are all hopeful that our prototype becomes available to every soldier returning from war throughout the world. I have posted a couple of logs describing some of my experiences with the soldiers. [link]
Jerry Vest, ACSW/LISW
US Army Social Worker & Professor Emeritus
Warrior Restoration & Resilience Center
Wm. Beaumont Army Medical Center, Ft. Bliss
[link]
[link]
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Gates Works to Reduce Mental Health Stigma
by Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
FORT BLISS, Texas, May 1, 2008 – Seeking mental-health care due to post-traumatic stress will no longer be seen as an obstacle to getting a government security clearance, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced here today. Video
Gates announced the new policy after touring the Restoration and Resilience Center that opened in July to treat combat veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The center, part of Fort Bliss’ Beaumont Army Medical Center, uses treatments ranging from group and individual therapy to yoga, acupuncture, massage, chiropractic and hot-stone therapy.
Its goal, officials at the experimental facility explained, is to help troops recover so they can stay in the Army.
Gates told reporters he had an “extraordinary experience” visiting the new center and seeing work under way to help soldiers deal with combat stress.
“They are doing some amazing things here in terms of helping soldiers who want to remain soldiers but who have been wounded with post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said. “It is a multi-month effort by a lot of caring people, and they are showing some real success in restoring these soldiers.”
Gates said he’ll take the idea of possibly replicating Fort Bliss’ prototype program to other posts.
He also noted other techniques being developed in the combat theater to give troops additional tools to deal with the circumstances they face. “These are clearly worth additional attention as well,” he told reporters.
Gates called additional resources and capabilities to treat troops dealing with PTSD just one aspect of a two-part effort.
“The second, and in some ways equally challenging, is to remove the stigma that is associated with PTSD and to encourage soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen who encounter these problems to seek help,” he said.
But he acknowledged that not every soldier returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is getting the treatment they need. He cited an Army inspector general report’s findings that troops often forgo mental-health care because they’re concerned it could prevent them from getting a security clearance and potentially could damage their careers.
Gates cited “Question 21” on Standard Form 86, the government security-clearance form that specifically asks applicants whether they have ever received treatment for mental-health issues.
The question asks if the person has consulted with a mental-health professional or other health-care provider during the past seven years about a mental-health related condition.
Respondents who answer “yes” must provide dates of treatment and the provider’s name and address.
“For far too long and for far too many, this question has been an obstacle to care,” the secretary said.
The Defense Department has been working with other agencies for eight months to strike a balance that enables troops to get the treatment they need and the intelligence community to get the information it needs, he said.
“It took longer than I would have hoped, but it is done,” Gates said. “Now it is clear to people who answer that question that they can answer ‘no’ if they have sought help to deal with their combat stress in general times.”
New language for “Question 21” asks if the person consulted with a health-care professional during the past seven years regarding an emotional or mental health condition. It specifies, however, that the answer should be “no” if the care was “strictly related to adjustments from service in a military combat environment.”
Gates directed in a policy letter dated April 18 that the revised language be used by anyone completing the SF 86 form.
A letter being distributed throughout the military explains the new policy and its rationale.
“Seeking professional care for these mental health issues should not be perceived to jeopardize an individual’s security clearance,” states the memo, co-signed by Undersecretary for Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness David S.C. Chu.
“On the contrary,” they wrote, “failure to seek care actually increases the likelihood that psychological stress could escalate to a more serious mental condition, which could preclude an individual from performing sensitive duties.”
The letter urges men and women in uniform who are exhibiting symptoms of PTSD to seek help and makes clear that this is not going to put their security clearances or their careers in jeopardy, he said.
“The most important thing for us now is to get the word out as far as we can to every man and woman in uniform to let them know about the change, to let them know the efforts under way, to remove the stigma and to encourage them to seek help when they are in the theater or when they return from the theater,” Gates said. “So this is a very important issue for us.
“We have no higher priority in the Department of Defense, apart from the war itself, than taking care of our men and women in uniform who have been wounded -- who have both visible and unseen wounds,” he said.
Gates called the new Restoration and Resilience Center an example of new approaches the military is taking to provide that care. “This center here is illustrative of what can be done,” he said.
Thirty-six volunteers participating in the program, all diagnosed with PTSD after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, receive care that combines group and individual therapy sessions with meditation, yoga, acupuncture, massage therapy, chiropractic and hot-stone therapy treatments.
“They are all volunteers,” Gates said. “They all come here because they want to.”
Biographies:
Robert M. Gates
Related Articles:
DoD Changes Security Clearance Question on Mental Health
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They tell me I was diagnosed with Asthma around the age of three. I say “they tell me” because I don’t remember. In fact, I don’t remember much about any asthmatic symptoms nor any asthma attacks when I was a child. Although there is a very real possibility that I was a victim of Munchausen by Proxy, it’s far more likely that I may have had mild symptoms of asthma that were exaggerated by my mother. In any case, an aura of sickness and death surrounded me at a very young age. Mortality was something that I contemplated early in my life because along with the asthma I was also regularly ill with respiratory infections and once or twice, pneumonia. This air of death and sickness caused me to see everything, i.e. other people, my environment, my body, “myself,” as being very different than from where I was looking. I saw things as if they were a million miles away. I could see “me,” or my personality so to speak, as some cold distant object. It was a unique type of aloofness, not exactly social in nature because I always had close friends, but psychological or spiritual. Although it bears stating that being ill did force me to be absent quite a bit from school and other social activities. I remember many days spent at home, either with her or when she couldn’t get the time off of work, my grandmother. I felt so out-of-the-flow on these days, like I was outside of life. 
Roy wrote that when he joined The Fanfairs, which was the name Phil Mattson gave his choir, he couldn't read music. This was over 20 years ago at a community college in California called Foothill. Today it is among the most highly credited schools in the country---and though Phil Mattson isn't teaching there anymore, you still can become a Foothill Fanfair. http://www.foothill.edu/index.php In fact the whole Fine Arts & Communication program at Foothill is awesome! http://www.foothill.edu/fa/ The Fanfairs, as with many college groups like this, began to record what they performed, and there must have been 6 volumes or so. Roy said the group of 12 singers became so popular in the area that the number of performances they did interrupted his studies.