By Harry Butler, PhD, MSW
Introduction
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To work with men in the military, a therapist must understand male psychology. Additionally, a therapist must understand and give due attention to the concept of “honor,” that is so central to the psychology of the military. As most therapists know, in therapy, virtue can be as much of an impediment as a vice. This is especially true of honor. The impact of frequent moves for the family can result in fixed and two dimensional roles in military families that can be quite similar to those of alcoholic families. The military man has two families and the military family comes first, not just as duty but emotionally as well. This article does not address issues related to women in the military because the author does not have experience working with women in the military.
The military probably couldn’t do its job without the strongly held beliefs of soldiers and officers regarding the importance of honor. The concept of honor is so ingrained that officers have no need to enforce it because honor is enforced by the men themselves. Without the commitment to honor, the officers and men at Gettysburg would never have engaged in Picket’s charge. No doubt many if not most of Picket’s men could see that their chances of being wounded or killed were quite high. Yet, they enthusiastically marched into the fire lest any faltering be seen by themselves or others as dishonorable. The officers didn’t need to hold a gun to their backs to get them to do what they did. Thus, given the choice between death and dishonor, many military men would choose death and quite frequently, they do make this choice. Thus is the power of honor. I once had a client, a former Marine pilot, whose vision of honor for himself was as he put it, “the ability to fall on a grenade to save his buddies.” He said that if this could be his epitath, it would be an honorable death.
Driven by Honor
Military men are not the only men driven by honor. It is just that the concept of honor is so central and so prevalent in the military that it becomes almost automatic that a therapist dealing with military families will encounter this issue and more often than not, it will present an obstacle to therapy. While feminists have driven the phrase, “love, honor, and obey,” from marriage vows, the military has not. It is as though all military men are bigamists with two families and the military family takes precedence. One client said that “every formation is a family reunion.” I had a Navy Seal tell me that at Christmas time, he and many of his fellow Seals would have rather spent Christmas with each other than with their wives and children. Additionally, with many military men, the concept of honor isn’t extended to their conduct affecting wives and children. A retired military man in a class I taught many years ago said “What I don’t like about civilian life is that “nobody is in charge.”
The movie, “Bridge on the River Kwai” illustrates the limitations and potential blindness of actions driven only by honor. It is obvious to the viewer of this movie that honor, courage, and discipline need to be informed by wisdom. In the case of Colonel Nicholson, patriotism, courage, discipline, and determination lead to the commission of treason by a non-treasonous man.
Commitment Issues
One of the main obstacles that the concept of honor presents in therapy is that many military men believe that because of their military commitments, they should be given a pass when it comes to relationship issues with family and children. With a professional military man, neglect and mistreatment in the name of duty may endure for 20 or more years, the span of time in which children grow to adulthood with an absent and emotionally self-contained father. Everyone loses. The wife doesn’t have a husband; the children don’t have a father; and the man feels misunderstood, neglected, and somewhat martyred.
Additional challenges to working with military men have to do with absences and frequent moves. Children and wives must adjust to a man being away for long periods. The son of a career Naval Officer told me that it took about a month each way, his father leaving and returning, to make the adjustment. The frequent moves work against deep and lasting attachments to friends and community.
The passion for honor and conformity to tradition so typical of military men are at odds with the necessities of therapy for openness and critical examination of a client’s assumptions about life. Wives and children can be seen as support services for the military mission instead of people who have their own needs, values, and life missions. The demands of wives and children can be seen as interfering with the military man’s duty. As a former Marine said, “if the Marines wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one.” A classic case of military single-mindedness is revealed quite dramatically in Pat Conroy’s novel and the movie, “The Great Santini.”
Counseling Soldiers
Especially with military men, direct confrontation questioning their commitments to honor and tradition will usually result in a premature termination of therapy. While a basic rule of psychotherapy is that everything is open to examination, honor and tradition are so integrated into the character structure of a career military man, especially the officer corps, that to question these values is to attack the very core of the person. Obviously, the fictions of honor really represent a defense against a narcissistic wound. The commitment to military life frequently involves hidden but powerful dependency. As with any narcissistically wounded and dependent person, the client must be approached with extreme tact. Therapists can find themselves in a double bind with clients who need a lot of mirroring but only respect a therapist who so-to-speak lays it on the line. The need for therapy itself is often seen by military men as a form of weakness. The uncovering of inner fears and insecurities would be seen by many military men as evidence of their inadequacy as a person. The potential for shaming such individuals is quite high. Any hint of this will result in extreme anger.
While many indirect strategies are available to therapists, a preferred strategy is to co-opt honor such that relationship competence is reframed from weakness to strength. It isn’t so simple as helping a military man see that to care for one’s family is a matter of honor. Many already would agree with that. The problem is more a matter that relationship competence (or emotional intelligence) are not seen or understood to be a father and husband’s duty. As with non-military clients, the man needs to see that emotional understanding and openness are part of masculinity and that to convey one’s inner life and understand the inner lives of one’s family is to acquire an additional honor, the honor of wisdom.
