Military Psychology

Running Head: Military Psych

Applied Areas of Psychology: Military Psychology Drew University Keira M. Driscoll 11/30/08

Military psychology is an area of applied psychology that is somewhat difficult to define due to the large area of activities in its field that it covers. Military psychology covers psychological research, assessment, and treatment. The field of military psychology is used not only with soldiers but with civilians (Strickland & Cengage, 2001). Military psychology is the research, design and application of psychological theories and experimental data towards reaching the goal of understanding, predicting, and contradicting behaviors either in own, friendly, or enemy forces. These psychologists help situations that have potential to be dangerous or threatening to military operations. Researchers in this field tend to maintain their attention on the psychology of combat, military life, and the psychology of military organization (Strickland & Cengage, 2001). Military psychology is important in its field because it allows for countries to be able to assess the people who apply to be apart of their defense systems. Through personality tests, aptitude, and intelligence tests they are then able to hand select those who they think would be best suited to perform in certain positions, and be able to handle the amount of pressure and stress that comes along with their position, this is particularly important for those who serve in extremely intense positions such as Special Forces units (Strickland & Cengage, 2001). Military psychology is also applied through counseling, the treatment of stress, and fatigue of military workforce as well as management of psychological trauma caused by the participation in military operation (Strickland & Cengage, 2001). Military psychology is also used during the interrogation of prisoners in order to gain information that can increase the chances of friendly military operations that will decrease the risk of casualties. When looking into the history of military psychology it is actually quite interesting because as we all know, the military has been around for years, but military psychology is actually a very recent development, not even a century old (Kennedy & Zillmer, 2006). Different sections of military psychology were entangled with the historical developments of war over the years through organizational, clinical, and operational psychological concepts. For example, the psychological screening of soldiers has been in effect since the 1800’s and this initial screening has consequently lead to the development of a number of different aptitude and intelligence tests (Kennedy & Zillmer, 2006). It is obvious that with each war there were great developments in the field of psychology, especially in the United States. With every war there seemed to be new motive to make developments in military psychology. For example in World War II, the APA went through substantial reform when it collaborated with American Association for Applied Psychology (AAAP) in order to include Division 19, which is the division of Military Psychology (Kennedy & Zillmer, 2006). World War II also introduced clinical psychology practice to military psychologists. For the first time psychologists were assigned to hospitals (Kennedy & Zillmer, 2006). This was important because WWII was this was important because WWII was the first war to turn out survivors who had to deal with the trauma of nuclear weapons, which resulted in soldiers suffering with acute and chronic psychological reactions such as withdrawal, fear reactions, guilt, and posttraumatic stress disorder (Kennedy & Zillmer, 2006). The most competitive option concerning training found for military psychologists is the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, which produces PhDs for the Army the Navy and the Air Force every year, however the most popular training opportunity for military psychologists through specialized pre-doctoral clinical psychology internship training programs where soldiers participate in APA internships that last 12 months. Each internship provides intense training academically, as well as in the clinical experiences. The soldiers also have in depth clinical experiences that allow for multiple rotations into contrasting fields within military psychology, such as experiences in inpatient and out patient mental health, psychological/neuropsychological assessment, child psychology, substance abuse services, clinical health psychology, aviation psychology, and forensic psychology. The rotations in the more intensive fields last approximately 3 months a piece and were developed so that when the military psychologist is finished with the program, they will be able to enter any job they are placed in at the end of their internship. In many of the classes in history of psychology we have discussed how Wars have influences the developments made in psychology. Through the texts researched through this paper there has been substantial evidence provided to show the developments made in psychology. In some ways it shows how war has helped the many applied fields of psychology, especially in military psychology. All fields of psychology have helped to develop this particular field further because of the broad spectrum of people, and problems that military psychology addresses.
References:

"Military Psychology." Encyclopedia of Psychology. 2nd ed. Ed. Bonnie R. Strickland. Gale Cengage, 2001. eNotes.com. 2006. 30 Nov, 2008 http://www.enotes.com/gale-psychology-encyclopedia/military-psychology
Kennedy, C. & Zillmer, E. (2006). Military Psychology: Clinical and Operational Applications. New York: Guilford Press.

We have been reading and talking about the development of specific applied fields, most notably clinical, counseling, forensic, I/O, and school psychology. There are numerous other applied fields however including: sport psychology, military psychology, consumer psychology, engineering psychology, rehabilitation psychology, media psychology. Choose any applied field that we have not read about thus far and learn what you can about it: How did the field develop? What exactly does this type of psychologist do? What kind of training is required? What types of infra-structure supports are there (e.g., journals, professional associations or organizations)? From what you’ve been able to find out, do you think the field has been most influenced by behavioral psychology? Psychoanalytic psychology? Cognitive psychology? Other influences?

For the paper, discuss your findings vis-à-vis the readings we have done for this course. Make sure to include how the development of your chosen applied field illustrates—or does not illustrate—the dynamics which have influenced the development of other applied fields we have studied thus far, as described in both the text and S to S.

References: "Military Psychology." Encyclopedia of Psychology. 2nd ed. Ed. Bonnie R. Strickland. Gale Cengage, 2001. eNotes.com. 2006. 30 Nov, 2008 http://www.enotes.com/gale-psychology-encyclopedia/military-psychology Kennedy, C. & Zillmer, E. (2006). Military Psychology: Clinical and Operational Applications. New York: Guilford Press. We have been reading and talking about the development of specific applied fields, most notably clinical, counseling, forensic, I/O, and school psychology. There are numerous other applied fields however including: sport psychology, military psychology, consumer psychology, engineering psychology, rehabilitation psychology, media psychology. Choose any applied field that we have not read about thus far and learn what you can about it: How did the field develop? What exactly does this type of psychologist do? What kind of training is required? What types of infra-structure supports are there (e.g., journals, professional associations or organizations)? From what you’ve been able to find out, do you think the field has been most influenced by behavioral psychology? Psychoanalytic psychology? Cognitive psychology? Other influences? For the paper, discuss your findings vis-à-vis the readings we have done for this course. Make sure to include how the development of your chosen applied field illustrates—or does not illustrate—the dynamics which have influenced the development of other applied fields we have studied thus far, as described in both the text and S to S.