The Warrior’s JourneySupporting Transition and Transformation through Humanities Studies

Barton Buechner, PhDAdjunct Professor, Military Psychology MA program, Adler University

bbuechner@adler.edu(707) 812-0204

Key Points(1) Veterans are oriented by culture and training to value and embody Warrior Strengths(2) These strengths are enacted archetypally through the stories veterans tell – or cannot tell(3) The stories veterans tell about combat stress (including “PTSD”) are often confused and conflated – these can become self-fulfilling prophecies(4) Forms of reflective learning – particularly those involving mentors – can help veterans make meaning of difficult experiences, leading to personal growthThis is the project of Transformative Learning and reconnects veterans to the social world

“Better than any other kind of experience, schooling can restore the veteran to the communicative system of society”

- (Waller, 1944)

Communication and Education in Veterans’ Transitions

READJUSTMENT:“Better than any other kind of experience, schooling can restore the veteran to the communicative system of society” (Waller, 1944)HEALTH AND GROWTH:From the Harvard Grant Longitudinal study: Education was the single best predictor of overall future health (Vaillant, 2012)

Significance of Education over lifecourse

Source: G. Vaillant (2013)

Warrior Quests

The Universal Mono-Myth:•Hero Leaves home•Departs on a quest•Defeats a strong adversary•Returns by a perilous journey•Brings back a “boon” or gift to humanity

Warrior Quests

The American Mono-Myth:• A peaceful town is threatened by great evil• The local authorities are powerless to stop it• A mysterious hero comes and saves the town• The hero cannot stay, and leaves alone

The HumanitiesA Liberal Education is a process of “liberating” us … from our limitations, ignorance, dogma, and so on… to thereby become free human beings, participating in civil society. A liberal education includes humanities studies such as:•Communication•The Fine Arts •Literature•Drama•Music•Languages, culture, etc…

The Human SciencesA philosophy and approach to science that seeks to understand human experience in deeply subjective, personal, historical, contextual, cross-cultural, political, and spiritual terms.•Phenomenology (Husserl, Schutz)•Somatics (Merleau-Ponty)•Hermeneutics (Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Ricouer)•Social Construction (Berger & Luckmann, Pearce)•Moral Science (Hume)•Philosophy (Various)

- Valerie Bentz

Sequence of Knowing Realitythrough the Human Sciences

“Lived Experience”

ResearchAnd Scholarship

The Significance of Context

The “Post-Traditional” Student Veteran:Cultural Disconnect in the Classroom

Androgogy vs. Pedagogy(Malcolm Knowles)

•Mentor-led•Cohort-driven•Collegial and individual•Diversity and Social JusticePROGRAMS: Clinical Psychology, Human and Organizational Development, Media Psychology, Educational Leadership

Philosophical Alignments around growthIn the evolution of forms of meaning-constructing and consciousness

“the Educational line of thought is Transformational Learning – the Psychological line of thought is Constructive Developmentalism –

the Communication line of thought is The Coordinated Management of Meaning

-Robert Kegan

Transformative Learning Concepts• “Disorienting Dilemmas”• Reframing of Narratives• Interpersonal relations (with Mentors)• Individual and social implications and meanings

• Communicative learning• Values of freedom, equality, tolerance, social justice, civic responsibility, and education

Mezirow (1991)

The Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) Theory

“How can we structure our Institutions so they support the evolution of consciousness?”

- W. Barnett Pearce

Understanding that we:• Live in multiple social worlds • Can draw resources from several social worlds in constructing new ones• Are able to make conscious choices about what forms of life we wish to enact in given situations.

Social Construction of Reality

Pearce (2007)

As humans, we all have stories and tell stories

Our relationships and social worlds are built in communication

This Model helps parse out the different levels and types of stories that co-exist

CMM “Storytelling” Modelstories told

storytelling

stories lived

untold stories

unheard stories

unknown stories

untellable stories

Maps out what you know, and still need to know

Changing the Context

“Catch 22” situations are common experiences for veterans. The Strange Loop” model of CMM Theory helps reveal the contextual factors and assumptions underlying them

Invisible wounds of war….

“The Marine Corps is like a machine. People are like spark plugs, and the plug has one purpose. Nobody cares about it anymore when you take it out of the machine. People who were my friends now do not care, because I am not able to be a part of that. Marines are all about being the ‘first to fight,’ but now I can’t. It’s like after all of this, I am once more “not one of the cool kids” … People ask how you are, and how you are is that you are dying….not physically, but mentally.”

- Rocky

Moral Injury: Betrayal or Failure

PTSD, Moral Injury, or Both?

Source: David Wood: http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/moral-injury

BOTH Anger Depression Anxiety Insomnia Nightmares Self-medication with alcohol or drugs

PTSD“Startle” reflex Memory loss Fear Flashbacks

Moral InjurySorrow Grief Regret Shame Alienation

Moral Injury is not the same as value Judgment – but the term is still problematic

“Re-examine all you have been told...

Dismiss what insults your Soul”- Walt Whitman

Moral Code “A Theory by which a group understands its experience and makes judgments about proper and improper actions”

• A set of concepts and system of rules• A tradition of truth and propriety• The basis of “common sense”

(“Moral Conflict” - Pearce and Littlejohn, 1997)

CMM “Serpentine” ModelHelps to reveal how reality is costructed or meaning is made in episodes of communicationConstituted in at least three ”turns,” or conversational triplets

Posttraumatic GROWTH“What Does not Destroy me Makes Me Stronger”

- F. Nietsche (1888) Twilight of the Idols

ENABLING FACTORS:•Social Support•Deliberative Cognitive Processing (Mental Discipline)•Positive meaning-making (vision and hope for future)

OPPOSITE:•Social Isolation•Perceived Burdonsomeness•Loss of power, Identity and self efficacy

SOURCES: Kanako Taku, Oakland University; Tedeschi & Calhoun,

Transformative Learning:Interpersonal relations, Reframed Narratives, Values of freedom, equality, tolerance, social justice, civic responsibility, and education

Mezirow (

An Interpersonal Theory of Suicide

- Jeffrey Bird USMC, GVSU

Identity formation and re-individuation…

When you’ve met one veteran,You’ve met one veteran…

- Mike Carrell, Ohio State University

CMM “Daisy” ModelUsed to analyze groupings of mentors over different lifeworld contexts and their level of influence at various times.

“...Engage the Whole Human Critter……Brain, Mind, Society, Culture, And Dynamics of Mental Health ….”

-Jonathan Shay, MD, PhD

Four Domains of Human Experience

HOW is a Worldview Constructed?• Consider communication as a “primary” social force• How we “make” and “remake” our social worlds

• Looking at communication, and what gets “made?” - relationships, selves, groups, cultures, etc.

• When communicating, we engage simultaneously in:• COORDINATION (of joint actions)• COHERENCE (sense-making, intentions, interpretations)

• MYSTERY as an important reminder (that we could have DONE otherwise; TOLD ourselves different stories)

• COSMOPOLITAN COMMUNICATION offers a way to communication between cultures while respecting difference

Integrating Meaning-MakingMentoringAcross Four Quadrants “All Quadrants, All Lines” (AQAL) model from Integral theory(Wilber, 2006) and Cosmopolitan Communication model from CMM theory (Pearce, 1989)

Source: Arthur Jensen, Ph.D. Syracuse University - SIETAR Berlin, Sept. 2012

“System” Mentoring

“…if you change one person’s viewpoint, save one life, it’s kind of worth it in the end. You can't change the big things in life if you don’t tackle the little things: that’s how they got big in the first place.”

- TJ

“Culture” Mentoring

(CMM and ACT therapy are) very much based around constructing meaning for oneself, figuring out what your values are, and then constructing a life that very much adheres and moves forward with those values……I’m more comfortable with the spirituality that resonates with me, and it is starting to integrate my experience. That is particularly interesting to me, combined with the spiritual focus I have had which is a self-directed, personal gnosis…

- AJ

“Mind” Mentoring

“Brain” Mentoring“I have never had a bad experience with a psychiatrist or anything, but it seems like they just ask one question after another after another, and then saying things like, ‘well, it sounds like you keep mentioning this, or it sounds like this is what’s really bothering you.’ But it seems like they are too passive. Being passive limits your effectiveness, especially when you are having a conversation with someone, especially about something they are struggling with.

- TJ

Constructing a CultureCoordinated System of theInspector General •Teach and Train•Inspect•Fact-finding•Assist (Social Justice)

Emergent Properties:•Self-confidence•Loyalty to each other•Acountability•Leadership by example

Sharing the Moral Code

Super Integral - witness self, being-centric view, (emergent)Integral - holistic, autonomous, worldcentric, “Cosmopolitan” 4% of US pop, evolved 50 years agoPluralistic - sensitive self, individualistic, idealistic, 10% of US pop, 100 years agoRational - scientists, data-driven decision-making, logic, reason, 25% of pop, 300 years agoMythical - hierarchical religions, conformist, good/bad, ethnocentric, 40% of US pop, 5000 years agoEgocentric - 'me'/'I want it now', evolved 10,000 years ago, 20% of US pop.Magic - tribes, clans, gangs, superstitious, safety/survival, 10% of US pop.Archaic - Basic survival, <1% of US population

Loevinger’s (Integral) Stages of Development

Development and our Organizations

CMM “Hierarchy” Model

Helps to reveal the “logical forces” that lead us to “act into” situations in our lifeworlds in different ways, depending upon frame of reference or context

How do you fix a “worldview”?

“PTSD isn’t a disease, it’s a worldview. War, disaster response, police work, these things force a person to live in the spaces where trauma happens, to spend most of their time there, until that world becomes yours, seeps through your skin and runs in your blood. Diseases are discrete things. But how do you treat a change in perspective?”

- AJ (Blog post)

Contextual Mentoring• Coordinated effort, led by someone who “gets” veterans’ experience, and cares (empathic) at the personal level

• Builds bridges between military social and future worlds.

• Brokers “loose-tie” connections to others outside current lifeworld

• Integrates elements of family values (primary socialization), peer support, positive mental health principles, and role models

• Orchestrates existing lifeworld resources and aspects of advising, counseling, coaching, tutoring, social support - with intention

• Individual attention and support to help veterans find their own path or “quest” and new identity or “tribe”Re-builds moral codes through structured and guided mentor communication in a supportive context

• Organizations can develop everyone every day. • They can turn struggles into growth opportunities to create a new kind of competitive advantage.

• A new way of working that can be transformational for organizations and all of their people.

• Enacted in partnerships between employers and higher education

Deliberately Developmental Learning Communities:

- Robert Kegan, Lisa Lahey, Andy Fleming, and Claire LeeSOME IMPLICATIONS:•Shift from standardized performance measures and “degree-centric” thinking•Focus on continuous personal growth and collective capacity-building•New ways to measure outcomes in Higher education?

•Engage with humanities faculty•Support Veterans writing courses, etc.

•Identify and connect with veteran-scholars and their research

•Include Veteran-related topics in academic events and seminars (book discussions, film showings, etc)

•Include the broader veterans community in veterans’ scholarship initiatives

Some Practical Next Steps:

The Warrior’s JourneySupporting Transition and Transformation through Humanities Studies

Barton Buechner, PhDAdjunct Professor, Military Psychology MA program, Adler University

bbuechner@adler.edu(707) 812-0204