Military Families Top Priority of New First Lady

By Prudence L. Gourguechon on 11/19/2008 4:13 PM

On Veteran's Day APsaA announced its Service Members and Veterans Initiative. I was very pleased to hear Michelle Obama say, in last week's interview on 60 Minutes, that meeting the needs of military and veterans families would be an area of focus for her as First Lady. It's gratifying how many Americans, both as individuals and as activist groups, are trying to make a contribution to the needs of soldiers and their families. They have served in a difficult, frightening and unpopular war. They deserve the best the country can provide. As psychoanalysts we wanted to make our contribution to the public conversation as specifically psychoanalytic as possible. What do we know something about, as psychoanalysts, that might not be the focus of other groups? We decided on two core themes:

• The effect of war trauma on families and children of soldiers, including the transgenerational transmission of trauma
• The need for long term mental health treatment and/or long term access to treatment for soldiers, veterans and their families who are suffering the sequelae of war trauma

We hope to join our efforts with other mental health and veterans groups, and the new first lady.