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Exploring Options Including Class Action to Transform Military Mental Healthcare and End the Generational Cycle of Preventable Wartime Behavioral Health Crises

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Abstract

This article examines three major options for transforming military mental healthcare in order to end the pattern of self-inflicted and largely preventable wartime behavioral health crises plaguing American veterans, their families, and broader society since the turn of the twentieth century. Evidence is provided that the first option of maintaining the status quo consisting of internal incremental changes has proven largely ineffectual in addressing the broader issues responsible for perpetuating wartime crises. The second option describes necessary transformative changes required to end the cycle of mental health neglect and preventable crises. However, there are no signs that responsible government agencies are inclined to compel the military to overhaul its system. Lastly, we offer a legal analysis for an unprecedented class action against the Department of Defense to effect change. After reviewing the history of tort law and the US military’s immunity from the Feres Doctrine, we examine legal precedents both domestic and aboard. Legal strategies are described in detail from a landmark class action by British soldiers against the Ministry of Defense (MoD) or Multiple Claimants v. MoD (2003) who sued for failure to properly identify and treat predictable war stress injury like post-traumatic stress disorder. The successful claims from individual military plaintiffs have been instrumental in compelling the MoD to implement necessary reforms of its mental health services and possibly end their cycle of neglect and preventable wartime crises. If successful, the proposed American class action will establish a critical precedent to elevate the importance of mental healthcare on equal footing with physical medicine both within and outside of the military.

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  1. Antioch University Seattle, 2326 Sixth Avenue, Seattle, WA, 98121-1814, USA

    Mark C. Russell & Bonnie Zinn

  2. Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, 70118, USA

    Charles R. Figley

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  1. Mark C. Russell
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Correspondence to Mark C. Russell.

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Russell, M.C., Zinn, B. & Figley, C.R. Exploring Options Including Class Action to Transform Military Mental Healthcare and End the Generational Cycle of Preventable Wartime Behavioral Health Crises. Psychol. Inj. and Law 9, 166–197 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12207-016-9258-2

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