Brian G. McCaughey

Role players: A brief, intensive training program to portray acute psychological distress

Role players can be used to help train medical personnel to deal with the victims of psychological trauma. An important aspect of this training process is to make the role player presentations as realistic as possible. A program was developed at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences to teach role players how to portray one kind of psychological distress: battle fatigue. The following is a brief description of the methods that were used to train these role players. Key elements of the program were: (1) identify the psychological syndrome, (2) select role players, (3) educate the role players about the syndrome, (4) role players practice the role, (5) present the role to the medical students.

Clinical Observations Concerning Active Duty Veterans with Post-Vietnam Adjustment Problems

Clinical observations by Navy psychiatrists and psychologists who concurrently conducted therapy groups at three separate military treatment facilities between 1981 and 1984 were recorded. The reasons they returned to active duty or remained in the service, how and why they were referred to therapy, issues that arose in group therapy, and factors that were believed to have influenced the successful outcome are summarized and discussed.