Comprehensive Soldier Fitness: Building resilience in a challenging institutional context.

Abstract

The Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program is designed to increase psychological strength and positive performance and to reduce the incidence of maladaptive responses of the entire U.S. Army. Based on the principles of positive psychology, CSF is a historically unique approach to behavioral health in a large (1.1 million members) organization. There are four program elements: (a) the assessment of emotional, social, family, and spiritual fitness; (b) individualized learning modules to improve fitness in these domains; (c) formal resilience training; and (d) training of Army master resilience trainers (MRTs) to instill better thinking skills and resilience in their subordinates. In contrast to traditional approaches, CSF is proactive; rather than waiting to see who has a negative outcome following stress, it provides ways of improving resilience for all members of the Army. CSF aims to move the full spectrum of responses to trauma and adversity-ranging from stress-related disorders to ordinary resilience-toward personal growth. This program may provide a model for implementing similar interventions in other very large institutions.

Clinical Virtual Reality tools to advance the prevention, assessment, and treatment of PTSD

“…For example, in an American Psychologist article, Army General George Casey (2011) makes the case that ‘soldiers can “be” better before deploying to combat so they will not have to “get” better after they return’ (p. 1), and he then calls for a shift in the military ‘to a culture in which psychological fitness is recognized as every bit as important as physical fitness’ (p. 2). This level of endorsement can be seen in practice by way of the significant funding and resources applied to a variety of resilience training programmes across all branches of the US Military (Cornum, Matthews, & Seligman, 2011; Hovar, 2010; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000). …”

Effects of Mental Strength Training for Police Officers: a Three-Wave Quasi-experimental Study

“…In contrast to MST, this intervention does show some small to moderate effects on for example sleep quality and mental health (Arnetz et al 2013). The US military, to some extent a comparable population, has implemented the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program (Cornum et al 2011). This continues resilience enhancement and maintenance program consists of tracking, supporting, and training resilience to enhance the mental and social well-being of soldiers and their spouses/family (Cornum et al 2011;Vie et al 2016).…”

“…The US military, to some extent a comparable population, has implemented the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program (Cornum et al 2011). This continues resilience enhancement and maintenance program consists of tracking, supporting, and training resilience to enhance the mental and social well-being of soldiers and their spouses/family (Cornum et al 2011;Vie et al 2016). These two programs share the monitoring of the participants and prolonged efforts in enhancing resilience, and or not limited to a few days.…”

La polémica sobre el entrenamiento psicológico del Comprehensive Soldier Fitness

“…derivado de los despliegues en Irak y Afganistán, condujo a los líderes militares de los Estados Unidos a buscar ayuda en la psicología, encargando a Seligman y su equipo de la Universidad de Pensilvania (UPENN) esta labor 26 . La colaboración del mundo científico-académico y militar se materializó el 1 de octubre de 2008, en el programa CSF 27 .…”

“…De hecho, entre los mismos artículos de los que han extraído esa idea, se encuentran referencias que indican que la prevención del CSF es más primaria que secundaria 26,27,45,46 . Otros autores [47][48][49][50] han explicado como es el modelo de prevención que respalda el CSF.…”