Hooah Am I?
Exploring how confusion of the term "veteran" impacts identity and leads to unnecessary suffering, increased shame, and suicide
Virtual via Zoom
Fee: $10 full members; $25 partial members and nonmembers
Continuing Education Hours: 2.0
Course Description
The following presentation will provide education, a conceptual framework, and strategies to develop an integrated sense of military identity; one in which a service member feels like they belong both in the Veteran community and within the population as a whole. Overidentification with other Veterans can lead to isolation from the world as a whole (e.g., family, work, and spirituality) whereas avoidance of one’s own military identity can limit access to pride in service, camaraderie with other Veterans, and access to Veteran resources. Even worse, a Veteran can feel like they do not belong within either community, Veteran or civilian, leading to a sense of marginalization, feeling left out, and being lost. This is the greatest risk for distress and suicide. This presentation highlights an often-overlooked aspect for suicide risk, which is a sense of belonging in community.
Learning Objectives:
- Better define the word “Veteran” and discuss the implications of using varying definitions across time.
- Relate the preexisting literature of bi-cultural identity models to the proposed conceptual framework for a model between Veteran and civilian identity.
- Understand how the sense of one’s own military identity can influence the risk for suicide, both positively and negatively.
- Explore interventions for individuals, treatment facilities, Veteran organizations, and government institutions to develop integration between military and civilian identity, thus lowering psychological distress.
About the Trainer
Erich Roush, Psy.D.
Erich A. Roush, Psy.D. is an assistant professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin and is the Director of Clinical Services for the Wisconsin Institute of Neuroscience’s BRAVE (Building Resilience through Action in Veterans and First Responders) Program. He is responsible for overseeing all clinical services in the BRAVE program, guiding the program into trauma-informed care, providing direct assessment/treatment with an emphasis on group and trauma therapy, and providing education to staff, students, the public, and outside organizations about Veteran mental health care issues. He is currently a Major in the US Army Reserves with 17 years of service including deployments to Iraq in 2009-2010 and Honduras in 2023. Dr. Roush earned his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the Wisconsin School of Professional Psychology in 2017, is a certified Brainspotting Consultant, and recently obtained board certification from the American Board of Professional Psychologists (ABPP) in group therapy.