The Director of the National Institute of Mental Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs predict that 70 percent of soldiers who return from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, many of whom suffer from depression and PTSD, will not seek treatment in either the military health care system or the V.A. hospitals. Suicide in the Army has reached epidemic proportions. A U.S. Court of Appeals has rule the health care at the V.A. hospitals to be unconstitutional. There have been more than 18 mass shooting on military bases since 2008. The combination of these forces on the civilian public mental health system will be catastrophic; and they have been described by the director of NIMH as “the gathering of a storm”. In concert with this dire prognosis it is entirely appropriate to factor in the extremely long delays at the V.A. hospitals and the epidemic problems they have with inadequate staff. One of the most obvious use and benefit of this invention for clinicians and technicians is the accessibility to intervention and care when and where ever the need arises. It can boost the effectiveness of conventional approaches to therapy or function as a stand-alone method of cognitive intervention and behavior modification. The mental health system in the U.S. is broken; and The Pocket Therapist is at least one of the tools, not unlike a valve, that eases pressure off a military and civilian mental health system that is on the verge of failure and collapse.
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