Defense Department leaders are being instructed to "scour through all documents" and policies that use wording that might stigmatize mental health issues.
The movement is intended to encourage more service members to seek help, as suicides have been alarmingly high for years.
"I put out guidance," Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said, Military.com reported, "to remove language that stigmatizes.
"Language that was very normal in those issuances maybe 20 years ago but are not reflective of where the behavioral health community is today."
The Defense Department will review the "issuances" with the undesirable words and potentially changing them, including policies, procedures, regulations, and instructions, according to the report.
Also under review are any documentation that "implies incompetence in persons with mental or behavioral health disorders."
Examples of the softening of words:
- "substance abuse" would become "substance misuse."
- "mental institution" would become "psychiatric treatment facility."
- "irrational behavior" would become "unusual," "impulsive." or "uncharacteristic" behavior.
"Policies should be precise in language in order to maximize clarity and minimize confusion," according to Hicks' guidance. "In general, broad or umbrella terms, such as 'mental,' should be used consistently across policies to avoid confusion or misunderstandings around the word's meaning."
Experts says the stigma of mental health is keeping service members from getting the help they need.
"This kind of shift in mindset is crucial for mobilizing needed resources toward the provision of quality mental health and addiction services and eroding the prejudices that keep people who need those services from seeking or receiving them," National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Dr. Nora Volkow wrote in a report last year, according to Military.com. "It is also crucial to help educate the wider public about conditions that have long been, and continue to be, greatly misunderstood."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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