Page 103 - Biobehavioral Resilence to Stress

80 Biobehavioral Resilience to Stress

who cope with stress by employing approach-based coping strategies, that is,
thinking about problems, devising plans and sticking to them, and talking
to others about problems and plans. By contrast, soldiers who use avoidance-
based coping strategies (ignore the problem) are more likely to suff er nega-
tive effects of stress. Similarly, a study by Berk (1998) found that UNICEF

employees and the children they served (in Bosnia) were more resilient to
trauma when they employed coping strategies that involved acceptance of
social support and thought-stopping techniques to distance themselves from
circumstances beyond their control.

Support for Soldiers
In recognition of the need for psychological support, the U.S. Army now pro-
vides a 48 h reprieve to soldiers who are overwhelmed by the strain of combat.
These soldiers are permitted to move to a safer area where they can shower,

sleep, eat hot meals, and talk with mental health professionals if desired. Th e
Army now also provides predeployment training aimed at improving soldier
resilience and has improved the availability and the accessibility of mental
health professionals to deployed troops. Finally, soldiers and their families
receive psychological and social support when military personnel return

home from deployment (e.g., NATO RTO, 2007). The American Psychologi-

cal Association offers additional informative support materials, such as its
brochure entitled “Homecoming: Resilience aft er Wartime.”

The U.S. Navy provides dedicated mental health services to Marines.
Navy psychologists are matched with Marine regiments months prior to
their deployment, during deployment, and back at home. Mental health
professionals assigned to support U.S. troops in Iraq work to foster psycho-
logical resilience so that troops will be better able to capitalize on individual
and unit strengths. Thus, it certainly appears that military policymakers and

military organizational leaders are implicitly aware of the need for psycho-
logical resilience as a matter of operational performance and survivability
and that the modern U.S. military is taking steps to build resilience in its
troops before and throughout the deployment cycle. We expect and certainly
hope that the benefits of these efforts will be evident in future analyses of

long-term mental health and well-being among U.S. military personnel.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Although effective leadership can certainly have a potentially substantial
impact upon psychological resilience, we remain limited in our ability to
transform current knowledge into formalized and applied leadership train-

ing and development programs. Th is difficulty is due in large part to the

1/21/2008 4:49:27 PM
CRC_71777_Ch004.indd 80 1/21/2008 4:49:27 PM
CRC_71777_Ch004.indd 80