My Support Forums - View Single Post - Moe Armstrong: Vet-to-Vet Counselling

spiritual_emergency · Nov 29, 2008, 01:58 PM

My apologies if this story has already been shared in this space. I just came across it this morning and thought others might benefit from hearing it.

Quote:

Vet-to-vet counseling heals new and old soldiers

By Rachel Straus

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Vet-to-Vet founder Moe Armstrong crisscrosses the country establishing peer support centers for veterans. At his Cambridge, MA home, he takes a momentary rest. (Courtesy of Matt Stone)

Moe Armstrong came back from the Vietnam War a changed man. Diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and schizophrenia, Armstrong considered himself doomed.

Upon reading Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” about the horrors of a Veterans Administration psychiatric ward, he abandoned any hope of receiving adequate medical care from the government--especially when he learned that he was being transferred to the very same institution described in Kesey’s book.

From 1966 to 1984 Armstrong, a former high school football captain, wandered the West Coast, addicted to alcohol and drugs. At a New Mexico social services center, he started sharing his history with other mentally disabled people. By disclosing his experiences to his peers, Armstrong realized that he felt better. He also imagined a more hopeful future.

Today, Armstrong, 61, crisscrosses the country in support of an organization called Vet-to-Vet. His goal is to give veterans an independent forum where they can talk together about their mental and emotional scars. Because no social workers or doctors attend the veteran-run meetings, Armstrong’s Vet-to-Vet is unique.

Working with Dr. Robert Rosenheck, director of the VA Northeast Program Evaluation Center, whose published papers demonstrate the advantages of receiving peer support, Armstrong has become a national figure in the mental health field. Despite speaking engagements and network news coverage of his efforts to destigmatize mental illness, Armstrong sees himself first and foremost as a war survivor.

“I refuse to forget that part of myself,” said Armstrong, a man with a positive outlook despite all the pain he deals with. “I’m nuts. It’s part of who I am, and what makes me good at what I do.”

As a new generation of veterans return from a new war, the psychological traumas incurred from military service present a major obstacle for those re-entering civilian life. In the July 2004 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, a study found that out of 6,000 surveyed soldiers returning from Iraq, 1,000 reported symptoms of depression, anxiety or PTSD. In February, a Government Accountability Office study found that one out of seven VA medical centers surveyed reported being unprepared to care for the mental health of more veterans.

In the hope that overburdened VA hospitals will begin referring veterans to Vet-to-Vet, 26 centers have been established, from Albuquerque, N.M. to Madison, Wis. “There is going to be a boomerang effect,” said Armstrong of the coming wave of Iraq war vets. The aggression, hyper-vigilance and de-sensitivity that helped them survive the war will become liabilities, Armstrong said. Vet-to-Vet can be the balm for their trauma. “Moe has given a model of how to be at peace with yourself,” Rosenheck said.

In the next six months, Armstrong will travel to 13 states and more than 35 cities to jumpstart Vet-to-Vet centers and to strengthen pre-established ones. With grants written by Rosenheck and others, the fledgling organization is offering training programs, where vets learn how to facilitate Vet-to-Vet’s hour-long group meetings. “It’s a rowdy session,” said Rebecca Clark, a social worker who has assisted the Vet-to-Vet group in Albuquerque.

The group meetings are egalitarian, with conversations loosely organized around books written by mental health experts, including Armstrong. Last September, at a West Haven, Conn., Vet-to-Vet meeting, 12 veterans read aloud from a book about taking responsibility for mental illness, instead of relying solely on disability benefits and medication. They also discussed ways of combating depressive cycles, which are marked by anger, self-destructive activity and isolation from society.

Roy Brown, director of the West Los Angeles Vet-to-Vet and a veteran with a diagnosis of manic depression, said of his first Vet-to-Vet meetings, “What I found out there within a week and a half’s time was about as much information as I got in 20 years of being in the VA system.” Brown also gave an example of how Vet-to-Vet differs from the VA. “I have a couple of people,” Brown said, “who were given up by the VA because they are murderers.” In Vet-to-Vet, “these same people developed self-esteem and found hope.”

Although Vet-to-Vet is run by mentally disabled veterans, Sandra Resnick, associate director of the VA Northeast Program Evaluation Center, explained that “it is not trying to replace professionals” like doctors and social workers. Resnick, the lead author of a paper about Vet-to-Vet recently published in the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, said that Vet-to-Vet’s aim is to be financially separate but structurally connected to the VA. “We are trying to be partners with the VA,” she said.

Though Vet-to-Vet primarily serves Vietnam veterans, it will provide a non-judgmental and supportive environment “for the next wave of veterans,” Armstrong said. “It may take several years” for young veterans “to notice or need Vet-to-Vet,” he added.

Source: Moe Armstrong: Vet-to-Vet Counselling

See also: Hugh Massengil: Madness is a Doorway

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