Sailors Mental Health Problem

936 Words2 Pages

Health and wellness programs vary greatly in implication and practical application across the spectrum of available jobs, the same is true for the Navy as one plan would not be able to address all the possibilities that would fall under this umbrella. The Navy does an exceptional job with safety, supervisor involvement, training, standards, tools, and so on. The Navy has implemented rigorous method call ORM, (Operational Risk Management), where levels are determined to establish potential risks, ways to circumvent them and a methodology to decide if the risk outweighs the benefit. Ultimately it is the constant training that keeps the Navy safe, constant training for all the possibilities allow Sailors to act quickly and naturally when …show more content…

When Sailors hide these health problems it degrades the entirety of the military and puts lives in damage. For some Sailors a discharge for a medical issue after the ten year hump isn’t an option if avoidable, and these men and women are going to hide their symptoms, bury their nightmares, bear their stress and in some cases ultimately pay the ultimate price. The first step to solving this issue could be to reduce stress, and there is an assortment of methods to reduce the burdens of stress to include, more sleep, mediation, counseling, and so on (Dessler, 2017). The Navy should bring in experts to examine Sailors in their day to day environments to help identify high risk situations that could result in increased stressed, situations that should be regulated, limited, or require counseling after a certain amount of exposure. To compliment this training should be incorporated to help remove the stigma associated with anxiety, stress, and depression, a path to wellness that doesn’t involve separation should be provided in all possible cases except the most …show more content…

This creates inferiority in the junior Sailors who simply can’t do what their senior counterparts did and creates an environment were failure is simply not tolerated. In these scenarios seeking help or advice often leads the Sailor to their supervisor who can be non-supportive and unable to accept that there could be an underling issue focused around stress or depression. Ultimately when the Sailor fails he or she is disciplined for the failure, the underlying reason isn’t factored in even if the direct cause. These Sailors are now forced with dealing with the consequences, the label or stigma, not being rated fairly and a possibly being prosecuted for a UCMJ crime that leads to a discharge. To resolve this, top down training is needed; handed military leadership needs to understand both empathy and sympathy when dealing with their Sailors. Sailors shouldn’t be punished for mental health related short comings and they definitely should not be judged or ranked based on

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