On July 18, the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Health held a hearing, “Safety for Survivors: Care and Treatment for Military Sexual Trauma.” Chair Dan Benishek (R-MI), Ranking Member Julia Brownley (D-CA), and other members of the committee heard testimony regarding care and treatment for survivors of military sexual assault (MST).
Brian Lewis, a veteran, said, “Currently the Veterans Health Administration operates about 24 residential treatment programs for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Only about 12 are designed specifically for the treatment of military sexual trauma. Of the 12 designed specifically for victims of sexual trauma, only one accepts male patients. That facility, the Center for Sexual Trauma Services at VAMC [Veterans Affairs Medical Center] Bay Pines, is coeducational. Put simply, male survivors have no single gender residential program designed specifically for survivors of military sexual trauma…The Veterans Health Administration should not officially sanction gender discrimination. Information on these programs is very hard to obtain. Three days before this hearing, I used the PTSD Locator on the National Center for PTSD’s webpage to find programs treating exclusively military sexual trauma. I used Bay Pines’ PTSD program as a baseline because I knew where it was and its mission. I was not able to access a separate listing for programs dealing exclusively with military sexual trauma. In fact, when I clicked on the state of Florida, the Bay Pines program is listed as a Women’s Trauma Recovery Program (Inpatient). For a male survivor, knowing his services are received through a women’s program is very demoralizing and discriminatory.”
Rajiv Jain M.D., assistant deputy undersecretary for Patient Care Services, Office of Patient Care Services, Veterans Health Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said, “VA monitors its capacity to provide MST-related mental health care among all veterans utilizing VA care. The monitoring data shows that all VA facilities provide MST-related care to both female and male veterans and all facilities have mental health providers knowledgeable in the treatment of MST-related mental health conditions…VA’s Uniform Mental Health Services Handbook specifies that evidence-based mental health care must be available to all veterans diagnosed with mental health conditions related to MST. The Office of Mental Health Services is currently conducting national initiatives to train VA clinicians in a number of evidence-based practices for mental health treatment. Two of the therapies that are being disseminated, Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure (PE), are treatments for PTSD. There are also national training initiatives in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which are evidence-based psychotherapies for anxiety and depression, two mental health conditions that can result from the experience of sexual trauma. The training initiatives consist of experiential workshop training followed by ongoing clinical case consultation.”
The following witnesses also testified: