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Chapter 19 - The Mental Health of Veterans: Ticking Time Bomb or Business as Usual?

from Section 3 - Sourcing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2019

By
Deirdre MacManus ,
Anna F. Taylor  and
Neil Greenberg
Edited by
Richard Williams ,
Verity Kemp ,
S. Alexander Haslam ,
Catherine Haslam ,
Kamaldeep S. Bhui  and
Susan Bailey
Edited in association with
Daniel Maughan
Richard Williams
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
Verity Kemp
Affiliation:
Healthplanning Ltd.
S. Alexander Haslam
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Catherine Haslam
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Kamaldeep S. Bhui
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
Susan Bailey
Affiliation:
Centre for Mental Health
Daniel Maughan
Affiliation:
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
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Summary

Military personnel operate within the relatively closed environment of the Armed Forces (AF), which has a distinct culture that is broadly separate from the rest of society (Bergman et al., 2014). They are required to carry out duties that may lead to them being injured or killed and, often, the decision about whether to risk one’s life is not in the hands of the individual whose life is being risked. The social bonds between military personnel and their colleagues and their families, and with wider society, are worthy of some scrutiny. There is plenty of evidence that slightly less than 200,000 UK regular and reserve personnel are able to carry out the most arduous and dangerous of duties at least in part because of the close-knit and, in the main, supportive social networks that are characteristic of the AF.

Type
Chapter
Information
Social Scaffolding
Applying the Lessons of Contemporary Social Science to Health and Healthcare
 , pp. 172 - 182
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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