Mental care called sorely lacking for Iraq vets, families

WASHINGTON — Many Iraq war soldiers, veterans and their families are not getting needed psychological help because a stressed military's mental-health system is overwhelmed and understaffed, a task force of psychologists has found.

The panel's 67-page report calls for the immediate strengthening of the military mental-health system. It cites a 40 percent vacancy rate in active-duty psychologists in the Army and Navy, resources diverted from family counselors and a weak transition for veterans leaving the military.

The American Psychological Association released the findings Sunday.

More than three out of 10 soldiers met the criteria for a "mental disorder" but far less than half of those in need sought help, the report found. Sometimes that's because of the stigma of having mental-health problems; other times the help simply wasn't available, according to the task force.

And there are special difficulties in getting help to National Guard and Reserve troops, who have been used heavily in Iraq, the report said.

The special task force found no evidence of a "well-coordinated or well-disseminated approach to providing behavioral health care to service members and their families."

The study, chaired by an active military psychologist and comprising psychologists working for the military or Veterans Administration, said "relatively few high-quality" mental-health programs exist in the military.

"There are tremendous needs; the system is stressed by these needs," said pediatric psychologist Jeanne Hoffman, a task-force member and a civilian pediatric psychologist at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu.

The Defense Department's mental-health experts hadn't read the report. Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said the military is proud of its mental-health-services record, including a new program this year that checks up on service members after they return home to their families.

The report said one of the major problems is that four out of 10 "active-duty licensed clinical psychologist" slots in the Army and Navy are not filled, a problem worsened by the dire need to send mental-health experts into war zones.

That high vacancy rate has several side effects. One is that the psychologists left are overwhelmed, the report said. It found that one-third of Army mental-health personnel reported "high burnout" and 27 percent reported "low motivation for their work."

Because of the shortage, there are even fewer stateside therapists to help families of those deployed and to help returning soldiers readjust, the report found.

And for soldiers and veterans returning home, only 10 percent to 20 percent of the military's mental-health experts are trained to help those with post-traumatic stress disorder, the report found.