Heidi Squier Kraft, PhD
Update on Women in the Military: The Combat and Post-Combat Experience ~ Web Lecture ~ 3 hours
Heidi Squier Kraft received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California - San Diego School of Medicine in 1996. She joined the Navy during her internship at Duke University Medical Center, serving as both a flight and clinical psychologist. Her active duty assignments included the Naval Safety Center (clinical time at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth), the Naval Health Research Center (clinical time at Naval Medical Center San Diego), and Naval Hospital Jacksonville, FL.
While on flight status, she flew in nearly every aircraft in the Navy and Marine Corps inventory, including over 100 hours in the F/A-18 Hornet, primarily with Marine Corps squadrons. In February 2004, she deployed to Iraq for seven months with a Marine Corps surgical company, when her boy and girl twins were fifteen months old.
She left active duty in 2005 after nine years in the Navy, and now serves as the deputy coordinator for the US Navy Combat Stress Control program.
Her memoir, "Rule Number Two: Lessons I learned in a Combat Hospital" was written as a form of self-therapy and describes her experience providing comfort amdist the chaos of war. It is available online at Amazon
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Update on Women in the Military: Combat and Post-Combat
In this Web Lecture, Dr Kraft surveys what is known about the unique needs of returning female veterans as well as emerging approaches to facilitate their re-integration -- from her perspective as deputy coordinator for the US Navy Combat Stress Control program.
She will also draw from her experience as a clinical psychologist in the US Navy, where her job was to uncover the wounds of war that a surgeon would never see. She put away thoughts of her children back home, acclimated to the sound of incoming rockets, and learned how to listen to the most traumatic stories a war zone has to offer.
One of the toughest lessons of her deployment was perfectly articulated by the TV show M*A*S*H: "There are two rules of war. Rule number one is that young men die. Rule number two is that doctors can't change rule number one." Some Marines, Kraft realized, and even some of their doctors, would be damaged by war in ways she could not repair. And sometimes, people were repaired in ways she never expected.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will be able to cite at least two research studies which investigate differences between men in women in PTSD predispositions
Participants will accurately describe current research on the role of prior trauma and later PTSD
Participants will be able to state, based on best current evidence, the incidence and impact on PTSD of military sexual trauma
Participants will be able to state current hypothesis on the role of social support in fostering resilience among women
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