Mental health stigma the focus of Armed Forces campaign

The Army stands firmly alongside care sector initiatives to tackle the stigma surrounding mental health conditions, having launched phase two of its ‘Don’t Bottle It Up’ campaign in order to convince soldiers and ex-soldiers who experience mental anxiety to seek treatment, rather than worrying there is any shame involved in doing so.

Lieutenant Colonel Tony Rock, a spokesperson for the Army’s Health Promotion Team comments: “There is a common misconception that mental health problems in the Army all relate to PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], but that is a very small percentage of the reported mental health complaints.

“The first phase of the campaign last year was very much about trying to break the stigma around combat stress, which we will continue to do, but in phase two we also want to bring awareness to the occupational and emotional factors that cause stress and can lead to depression.

“Hopefully, by making people aware of how normal it is for these factors to affect their mental health, we can break down the stigma associated with it.”

The Don’t Bottle It Up campaign was launched in October 2011 by the Ministry of Defence, after the survey found that an alarming 85% of veterans are embarrassed to admit if they have mental health problems when adjusting to civilian life. Phase two of the campaign will include the addition of case studies on the mod.co.uk website, gathered from personal experiences to relate some of the challenges other individuals have faced.

Lieutenant Colonel Rock continues: “Soldiers still consider a mental health problem a sign of weakness, which it isn't. Being affected by a traumatic event or personal concern is a natural reaction to an unnatural situation.

“That's not a weakness, but you do need to treat it so it doesn't become worse. Mental health is like any illness, you need to treat it.”

Image: credited to MoD/Crown Copyright.