Join us for a stunning interview with American psychologist Jonathan Shedler, PhD with regards to Evidence Based Therapies. With a rising rate of veteran suicides, our government has quadrupled spending for Evidence-Based Therapies: Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy...
By Sherman Gillums Jr., Chief Strategy Officer, AMVETS, published in thehill.com A “goat” was the unexpected star of Sept. 10, 2020, House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on a batch of proposed veteran suicide prevention legislation. Not the kind of “goat” you’d see in a sports hall of fame or on...
By Ken Falke, Founder, Boulder Crest Foundation, and Josh Goldberg, Executive Director, Boulder Crest Institute for Posttraumatic Growth Experts predict that an inevitable result of the COVID-19 pandemic will be a mental health crisis. One recent article projects that we could see 75,000 deaths of despair in the coming months. We concur with...
By Sherman Gillums, Chief Advocacy Officer, AMVETS, published in americanmilitarynews.com These are poignant words that speak to our connectedness, or lack thereof, as human beings facing hardship. During the current coronavirus pandemic, or any national emergency for that matter, this sentiment perhaps carries less relevance in times when the “battle”...
By Sherman Gillums, Chief Advocacy Officer, AMVETS, published in libertynation.com As anxieties intensify in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, the nation appears ready, once again, to tap the 1% of Americans who volunteer to protect the remaining 99%. President Donald Trump authorized the Pentagon to activate National Guard and Reserve units, as well...
By Sherman Gillums, Chief Advocacy Officer, AMVETS, published in connectingvets.com As our nation deals with the unprecedented coronavirus epidemic, AMVETS has taken every effort to ensure veterans and their families have access to the life-essential services we offer, such as providing benefits assistance and facilitating timely healthcare access. This has...
By Ken Falke, Founder, Boulder Crest, published in militarytimes.com The Journal of the American Medical Association published a report that confirmed what we have known for some time: so-called “evidence-based treatments” are not working for the vast majority of service members and veterans struggling with PTSD. Put simply, the mental health community...
By Justin Brown, CEO, The Nimitz Group, published in thehill.com When 2,977 Americans were killed on 9/11, we went to war. Yet, year after year, more than 6,000 veterans die by suicide. Since 2006 we have lost more than 79,000 veterans by suicide — a number that eclipses the 10-year American death toll in Vietnam....
By Joe Chenelley, Executive Director, AMVETS, published in militarytimes.com Partisanship is nothing new to D.C. politics. But historically, veterans issues, particularly in times when Americans were serving and dying on foreign soil, were spared of the general bickering in lieu of a shared commitment to do right by our nation’s...
By Jan Brown, National Commander, AMVETS, published in connectingvets.com Congress continues to fail to comprehend that existing options for mental health are generally insufficient and ineffective for veterans. AMVETS has observed Congress struggle with VA mental healthcare this year with mixed emotions. As a grandmother, and female veteran, their approach...