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Could Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Have Iatrogenic Consequences? A Commentary

  • Stephanie L. SmithEmail author
Article
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Abstract

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a public health program intended to improve US Army service personnels’ resilience to military stressors including combat and operational experiences. The program uses psychological and behavioral strategies that have been shown to enhance resilience in children and adolescents. CSF has many modules that target a variety of dimensions of wellness. One of the core themes to CSF is the promotion of optimism and positive reframing of challenging situations. To date, the CSF program has not been critically and independently evaluated. This commentary argues that an emphasis on positive emotions and optimism could be maladaptive for post-combat recovery. Clinical and public behavioral health practitioners and researchers can play an important role in evaluating CSF psychological strategies.

Keywords

Positive Emotion Behavioral Health Service Member Posttraumatic Growth Operation Iraqi Freedom 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

Conflict of Interest

None.

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Copyright information

© National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Research Fellow in Global Mental Health Delivery, Department of Global Health and Social MedicineHarvard Medical SchoolBostonUSA

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