Peace of mind: Promoting psychological growth and reducing the suffering of combat veteransABSTRACT: The Peace of Mind (POM) program was designed to enable combat veterans in Israel to process their combat experience, address difficulties in the transition to civilian life and facilitate psychological growth as a result of their military experience. During the course of the program, 1068 participants were studied at four time points. Post-traumatic symptoms were measured using the PTSD checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), and post-traumatic growth (PTG) was measured using the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). Multilevel Modeling (MLM) was used to assess symptom and psychological trajectories for all participants and for those who began with and without PTSD symptoms, respectively. The results demonstrated that those who began the program with elevated PTSD symptoms experienced a significant reduction in PTSD symptoms following the completion of the intensive element of the program. Additionally, all participants demonstrated an increase in PTG following the intensive section of the program and this was maintained throughout follow-up.
The Israel Psychotrauma Center, known as Metiv, has built this program.
A unique and key part of the program has entire groups of soldiers visit a US Jewish community:
The team and their facilitators travel to a Jewish community outside of Israel. This eight day workshop is the core of the program and includes intensive group sessions from 8 AM to 4 PM every day, followed by varied evening activities after an intensive day as well as quality time with each other and the host families. The distance from Israel during this phase of the therapeutic process plays a crucial role in creating a safe, quiet and supportive environment.
In a sense, the diaspora Jews help the Jewish soldiers get whole again.
This is just one small example of how Israel and the larger Jewish world, thrust into a position of constant battle readiness that they never sought, manage to come up with innovative and creative ways to help everyone, including soldiers, who are forced by circumstances to move between the military world and everyday life.
