CombatCounselor Explains Combat Stress to KMBC Anchor Maria Antonia (KMBC News, Kansas City)

Chris Sorrentino, a.k.a. CombatCounselor, is interviewed by Maria Antonia of ABC News affiliate KMBC in Kansas City, Missouri regarding combat stress, multiple deployments, and the effects of battle on our military after an Army staff sergeant allegedly killed 17 Afghanis earlier this month.

LtCol Sorrentino, USAF (Ret) is a retired military officer, veteran of four wars, disabled veteran, and owner/executive director of Kansas City Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and President of the Board, Help4VetsPTSD, Inc., a non-profit helping veterans and military with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Get Of Your "But" And Live A Value Driven Life ... That's A Freakin' Order!

What if I told you that I have the key to controlling anxiety, or depression, or anger, or whatever might be ailing you, psychologically speaking?  What if I told you that after 30 years of searching, I finally figured it out, this “psychotherapy” business?  There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of self-help psychology books out there, and they all claim to have “the answer”. What if I told you that controlling anxiety is not the answer to your troubles, but the problem?  What if I told you that the answer to controlling your anxiety is to give up the struggle and simply accept the anxiety?  Would you think I am crazy? Yes, probably. Would you be right? Well, maybe. But, what do you have to lose by reading a little further and finding out if what I am saying makes sense, then deciding if you want to keep reading and, possibly, changing your life forever? If you are looking for a quick fix, you have come to the wrong place. If you are looking for an exciting new way of living and are willing to do some work to get wherever you want to be, psychologically, this is the book for you. But first, a little background about me. 

I am a combat and disabled veteran, retired military officer, and licensed professional counselor with over 30 years of experience and education in clinical psychology and cognitive-behavioral therapy.  I was an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership and counselor at the United States Air Force Academy from 1988 to 1993 and  am author of the future New York Times Best Seller: You Think, You Are…Anxious: A Journey from Avoidance to Acceptance, the first installment in the You Think, You Are series.  I will bestow my knowledge and wisdom, a proprietary approach to cognitive-behavioral therapy known as Body-Mind-Behavior Therapy (BMBT), in the first of the series, which follows forthwith.

The earliest cognitive-behavioral therapists lived thousands of years ago and the origins of cognitive-behavioral psychology go back as far as Buddha (563-483 BC) who said, “We are what we think; we are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.” Actually, he said it in Chinese, because his English was not great.  Confucius (551-479 BC) also pointed out (in Chinese, of course) the importance of thoughts and mindfulness in behavior, when he said, “The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.”  How about that!  Those two guys were pretty smart because, here we are two thousand five hundred years later and, we have only recently rediscovered the validity and usefulness of these profound statements.  

Wait a minute; did he say he was a future New York Times bestselling author?  Bestow his knowledge and wisdom?  What? Is he nuts?  Some might think so, but I prefer to think of myself as mildly eccentric.  But, think about what Buddha said for a minute: “We are what we think” (hence, the title of this book and series).  It is so true, but we take it for granted that sometimes, many times, in fact, that what our minds tell us is far from reality, yet the majority of the time we believe exactly what our thoughts tell us, even though our thoughts may not be, and probably are not, true.  Scientists say that we have as many as 50,000 thoughts a day. If we knew how accurate our memories actually are at remembering things correctly, we would be hesitant to believe anything that goes through our minds.  The mind is a very funny thing as we shall see as we progress in our “Journey from Avoidance to Acceptance”.

How many times have you been absolutely sure something was true, but it turned out not to be the case (or vice versa)? “I’m going to get really nervous during that upcoming presentation and forget what I’m supposed to say.”  “What an idiot I am.”  “Those people are laughing at me because I’m fat.”  Is what you think is reality or are they just thoughts?  What goes through your mind could possibly be true, you could get nervous, freeze, and forget what to say in front of a bunch of people, but it most likely would not happen, had you not given those doubts credibility in the first place.  Nevertheless, you believe the thoughts anyway, making yourself more nervous than you probably need to be, a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.  Because you think you will get nervous, you, in fact, become nervous which, in turn, negatively affects your performance, making you even more nervous. That is what we call “meta-cognition”, which can be defined as “thinking about thinking” (cognition originates from the Latin verb cognoscere, literally meaning "to know") or, in this case, getting nervous about getting nervous, and it is ruining your life! It is also an excellent example of a vicious cycle, a cycle which, if not interrupted or broken, can escalate out of control into severe anxiety or full-blown panic.

So what are you going to do about it?  Well, you can do nothing about it and be miserable for the rest of your life, or, you could try to sort things out on your own, maybe read a self-help book (like this one), or you can get some help from a professional counselor.  Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most widely researched mode of psychotherapy and efficacious (that is scientist talk for “effective”), particularly when it comes to anxiety and depression.  But, what exactly is CBT?  Well, I am going to tell you, the way I understand it, and introduce you to my approach to cognitive behavioral therapy, what I call Body-Mind-Behavior Therapy or BMBT, for short.

BMBT is a cognitive behavioral approach, in that we focus on thoughts and behaviors, but is different to traditional CBT, in that with BMBT, we focus on changing the context of thought rather than the content. That might not make much sense right now, but I am going to explain it to you in simple English (not Chinese) and in “un-”scientific terms, but first we need to know how we got here . . . a little history perhaps.

Behavior therapy got its start in the 1920s and 1930s, but really took off in the 50s when Joseph Wolpe designed a method called systematic desensitization.  In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck began what we call cognitive therapy today, a therapy where negative automatic thoughts (aka NATS – like those annoying little buggers that swarm around your head on a hot summer day and drive you nuts, but spelled slightly differently) are analyzed, challenged, and tested. Because their methods contained behavioral elements as well (exposure, activity scheduling, and so on), the therapy has commonly become known as cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT for short.  In the 1980s, along came the "third wave" (as Steven Hayes and others have called it) of cognitive behavioral therapy.  Dr. Marsha Linehan developed a therapy called Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for the treatment of borderline personality disorder at the University of Washington and Steven Hayes developed what is now known as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT - pronounced like the word, not as an acronym) at the University of Nevada in Reno.  Both DBT and ACT incorporate "mindfulness" and "acceptance" into CBT, hence the tag "third wave" which has become associated with these evolutionary and revolutionary new treatments.  MBMT (BMBT??)incorporates the best of CBT, DBT, and ACT into a powerful, yet extremely simple package, a package that is deceptively basic and drastically different than anything you have ever tried before.  Are you getting excited yet?

Well, don’t get too excited just yet because here is the bad news. People in general, and Americans in particular, spend a lot of time (and money) being anxious and depressed.  According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), some 40 million American adults, 18 percent (nearly two (2) out of every ten (10) people), suffer from an anxiety disorder in any given year.  The anxiety disorders include specific phobias (like acrophobia – fear of heights – accounting for 8.7%), social anxiety disorder (fear of people and being evaluated – public speaking anxiety is an example - 6.8%), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD – a devastating disorder, resulting from a severe trauma – making up another 3.5%), generalized anxiety disorder (excessive worry - 3.1%), panic disorder (strong, urgent anxiety attacks that come out of the blue - 2.7%), obsessive-compulsive disorder (or OCD – hoarding, excessive checking, or fear of contamination are examples - 1%), and, finally, agoraphobia (fear of open spaces – more accurately, the fear of having a panic attack when away from home - often found with panic disorder -  coming in at .8%).  If that were not bad enough, another 9.5 percent of the U.S. population, age 18 and older, (nearly one out of every ten people), has a mood disorder, like depression or bi-polar disorder, in any given year according to the NIMH.  These disorders (illnesses, problems…pick a label) cost millions, if not billions, of dollars each year in therapy, visits to general practitioners, medications (can you say Zoloft?), and lost productivity, including missing work.

Now for the good news.  The anxiety and mood disorders we have been talking about can be treated quite effectively with CBT, DBT, ACT or, in this case, BMBT.  As a matter of fact, the vast majority (nine out of ten) of the "well-established" empirically supported treatments (according to the American Psychiatric Association) for the anxiety and mood disorders are cognitive-behavioral.  In simple terms, CBT works very well for many problems, anxiety and depression in particular.  Over the next several chapters, I will be describing BMBT in much more depth, taking a lot of the mystery out of psychotherapy and dispelling many of the myths that surround it.  If you have seen the show Obsessed on A&E, a show about OCD and CBT, you have a very rough, and I do mean very rough, idea of how cognitive-behavioral therapy works, at least for people with OCD.  I will now give you a brief glimpse of what is to come in upcoming chapters.

I will start by providing a historical overview of where cognitive behavioral therapy has been, and where it is going, looking at some of the philosophies and theories behind cognitive  behavioral therapy as it has evolved and how it exists today. I will briefly discuss B.F. Skinner, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, Marsha Linehan, Steven Hayes and the tremendous contributions these incredibly talented individuals have made over the past half-century as well as the theories behind their successes. It is important to know where you have been, at times, to have an idea of where you are going, and the people I mentioned, and their theories, are at the forefront of psychotherapy today. Notice I did not say “cognitive behavioral” psychotherapy, I said “psychotherapy” in general, because the cognitive behavioral therapies are the most studied, effective, and widely used of all therapies in existence.

I will then elaborate on mindfulness and acceptance, both of which are the key to successful treatment, particularly for anxiety.  Mindfulness has been integrated into cognitive behavioral therapy by asking clients to focus on the here-and-now, using techniques derived from Zen Buddhism.  Mindfulness is not a spiritual process in the sense that it is associated with any particular religion (as it is used in DBT, ACT, and BMBT anyway ???), it is a state of mind which allows the client to maintain contact with the present, allowing him or her to accept thoughts, memories, and emotions as they are, without judgment.  This is a powerful method of reducing anxiety and other painful psychological problems, and is something I strongly encourage my clients to try.  Personally, I find no conflict between mindfulness, acceptance, and my faith, but that is a judgment you will have to make for yourself.  Cognitive behavioral therapy can work quite well without the mindfulness component, but I believe you will be short-changing yourself if you ignore it. You can find a series of mindfulness exercises on the accompanying CD, along with several other resources we will be talking about later, making this an extremely user-friendly experience and complete package, one-stop shopping for your psyche, if you will.

Next is “dialectical” thinking, the cornerstone of Linehan’s DBT and a philosophy I embrace in BMBT.  The dialectical philosophy is too complex to explain here, but basically entails looking at things in terms of shades of “grey”, getting away from “black and white” or “dichotomous” (all or nothing) thinking many of us tend to gravitate toward.  The primary dialectic Linehan teaches is “acceptance versus change”, where the therapist accepts the client (and the client accepts her/himself) as he/she is in the here-and-now, validating any problems and struggles, while pushing him/herself to change for the better.  It is not the therapist that challenges thoughts or makes the decisions, it is you, the client (or reader), that makes the decisions, with expert assistance from a professional counselor, or in this case,  my book.

There are four primary factors involved in mental health (or mental disorders), factors that can become a “vicious cycle” when they get out of whack and left unattended. The four factors I am talking about are physiology (BODY -biochemical imbalances, diet, sleep, exercise), cognition (MIND – like those nasty, annoying NATS), behavior (BEHAVIOR - smoking, overeating, drinking), and affect (or emotions, a combination of BODY, MIND, and BEHAVIOR).  If any one of these domains becomes unstable, it can throw the whole system out of balance, resulting in anxiety, depression, or some other psychological problem. 

Figure 1

As a matter of fact, the logo on the front and back covers (Figure 1), which I created for my practice in Kansas City, includes the Greek letter "psi", representing psychology, and the circular blue arrows surrounding the symbol represent the physiological (BODY), cognitive (MIND), behavioral (BEHAVIOR), and emotional (BODY + MIND + BEHAVIOR) components of the human psyche.  As I alluded to earlier, those four components constantly interact to make you sad or anxious, a “vicious cycle”, or happy and serene, what I like to call a “precious cycle”.  I will address each of these factors separately, and in detail, so you understand how they can affect you and what you can do to help them work in harmony.

Life skills are skills that make it easier to navigate life, even when anxious or depressed, and are skills everyone can benefit from understanding and practicing.  We already mentioned one of them and that is mindfulness.  The others are distress tolerance (stuff you can do when things get rough), interpersonal effectiveness (how to get along with others and stand up for yourself at the same time), and emotional regulation (tools you can use to feel less stressed).  These really are very simple tools, but you will be surprised by how easy it is to forget how to use them when you are feeling stressed, anxious, or worried. I will explain how to recognize and use these tools, when appropriate, to help you be more effective in life and content in the present moment.

I will then address the biggest threat to mental health in general, and the crux of the anxiety disorders: avoidance.  Avoidance takes many forms, but some of the most common are smoking, overeating, excessive drinking, drug abuse, and sexual (and other) addictions (can you say video games???).  But are those not behaviors (you are probably asking yourself)?  Yes, they are behaviors, avoidant behaviors, because they help you avoid the things that are really bothering you, like those nasty NATs that are contributing to your anxiety and/or depression.  You can, and do, also avoid thoughts, physical sensations, emotions, and other “internal” behaviors.  In short, avoiding what you are afraid of, or find distressing is what causes and perpetuates anxiety (and depression). 

Now that we have a solid foundation, the real work begins! I will next take you through a series of steps (chapters) using experiential techniques and exercises while explaining the intent of those techniques and exercises in simple terms, something Steven Hayes would probably argue against doing, but that I believe is essential when dealing with intelligent, thoughtful human beings.

We will first review all of the things you have tried, to control anxiety over the years, but have obviously failed at, or you would not be reading this book. As I mentioned earlier, control is the problem, not the solution. It seems somewhat counterintuitive and it is, because, again, as I told you earlier, my approach is unlike anything else you have tried before. What you have been doing does not work, so how about taking a radically different approach? What some might call “thinking outside the box”.

We will then determine how you view yourself and offer some alternatives, giving you a solid foundation on which we can build a totally same you. Same? Not new? That is correct. There is nothing wrong with you, nothing broken. You have simply learned to think the way you do, the way that makes you anxious, and you can learn to think in a way that does not make you anxious.

Next, we will try some things that will give you a new perspective on anxiety and emotions. You will experience a new way of thinking about your thoughts, sensations, behaviors, and emotions, focusing on the context rather than the content, a deceptively complex, yet simple alternative to the way you have been doing it for so long.

The next step in the process will be to look very hard at your values.  Not the values you think you should have because your mother or partner wants you to be a certain way, but the values that are important to you.  To put it simply, those which would be important to you if you knew that nobody else would know what those values are.  Once you determine your true values, and I am not talking about hardware, setting specific goals based on those values and committed actions, is the obvious next step.  By having a clear guide, goals that are based on your values, and making a commitment to yourself (and others if you wish) to live your life every day in accordance with your values, you will find it much easier to face and conquer the fears which have become so debilitating and disabling.

In the final chapter, I will pull it all together, giving you step-by-step assistance in implementing this new way of living, along with some possible pitfalls, those things we therapists call “relapse prevention”.  I will also explain what a typical session and course of treatment might look like for those of you who decide to seek assistance from a trained professional. 

Body-Mind-Behavior Therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy are really very simple and straightforward, and all we as therapists do is teach you and coach you along until you know how to help yourself.  If you listen intently, are motivated to change and face your fears, and work collaboratively with your therapist, you too can live a long, happy, and fulfilling life. 

Finally, I will explain everything you ever wanted to know about psychotherapists, but were afraid to ask. Do you know the difference between a psychologist, a life coach, a licensed professional counselor, a spiritual healer, and a psychiatrist?  Well, if you do not know, and are planning on seeking treatment at some point, it could be the most important information you ever learned.  The differences are HUGE and the cost to you could be enormous, not only in terms of money thrown out the window, but in your emotional well-being as well. 

Are you ready to start your journey from avoidance to acceptance? Well hold onto your seat, because here we go....

Get Off Your Buts and Live a Value-Driven Life ... THAT'S A FREAKIN' ORDER!

What if I told you that I have the key to controlling anxiety, or depression, or anger, or whatever might be ailing you, psychologically speaking?  What if I told you that after 30 years of searching, I finally figured it out, this “psychotherapy” business?  There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of self-help psychology books out there, and they all claim to have “the answer”. What if I told you that controlling anxiety is not the answer to your troubles, but the problem?  What if I told you that the answer to controlling your anxiety is to give up the struggle and simply accept the anxiety?  Would you think I am crazy? Yes, probably. Would you be right? Well, maybe. But, what do you have to lose by reading a little further and finding out if what I am saying makes sense, then deciding if you want to keep reading and, possibly, changing your life forever? If you are looking for a quick fix, you have come to the wrong place. If you are looking for an exciting new way of living and are willing to do some work to get wherever you want to be, psychologically, this is the book for you. But first, a little background about me. 

I am a combat and disabled veteran, retired military officer, and licensed professional counselor with over 30 years of experience and education in clinical psychology and cognitive-behavioral therapy.  I was an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership and counselor at the United States Air Force Academy from 1988 to 1993 and  am author of the future New York Times Best Seller: You Think, You Are…Anxious: A Journey from Avoidance to Acceptance, the first installment in the You Think, You Are series.  I will bestow my knowledge and wisdom, a proprietary approach to cognitive-behavioral therapy known as Body-Mind-Behavior Therapy (BMBT), in the first of the series, which follows forthwith.

The earliest cognitive-behavioral therapists lived thousands of years ago and the origins of cognitive-behavioral psychology go back as far as Buddha (563-483 BC) who said, “We are what we think; we are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.” Actually, he said it in Chinese, because his English was not great.  Confucius (551-479 BC) also pointed out (in Chinese, of course) the importance of thoughts and mindfulness in behavior, when he said, “The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.”  How about that!  Those two guys were pretty smart because, here we are two thousand five hundred years later and, we have only recently rediscovered the validity and usefulness of these profound statements.  

Wait a minute; did he say he was a future New York Times bestselling author?  Bestow his knowledge and wisdom?  What? Is he nuts?  Some might think so, but I prefer to think of myself as mildly eccentric.  But, think about what Buddha said for a minute: “We are what we think” (hence, the title of this book and series).  It is so true, but we take it for granted that sometimes, many times, in fact, that what our minds tell us is far from reality, yet the majority of the time we believe exactly what our thoughts tell us, even though our thoughts may not be, and probably are not, true.  Scientists say that we have as many as 50,000 thoughts a day. If we knew how accurate our memories actually are at remembering things correctly, we would be hesitant to believe anything that goes through our minds.  The mind is a very funny thing as we shall see as we progress in our “Journey from Avoidance to Acceptance”.

How many times have you been absolutely sure something was true, but it turned out not to be the case (or vice versa)? “I’m going to get really nervous during that upcoming presentation and forget what I’m supposed to say.”  “What an idiot I am.”  “Those people are laughing at me because I’m fat.”  Is what you think is reality or are they just thoughts?  What goes through your mind could possibly be true, you could get nervous, freeze, and forget what to say in front of a bunch of people, but it most likely would not happen, had you not given those doubts credibility in the first place.  Nevertheless, you believe the thoughts anyway, making yourself more nervous than you probably need to be, a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.  Because you think you will get nervous, you, in fact, become nervous which, in turn, negatively affects your performance, making you even more nervous. That is what we call “meta-cognition”, which can be defined as “thinking about thinking” (cognition originates from the Latin verb cognoscere, literally meaning "to know") or, in this case, getting nervous about getting nervous, and it is ruining your life! It is also an excellent example of a vicious cycle, a cycle which, if not interrupted or broken, can escalate out of control into severe anxiety or full-blown panic.

So what are you going to do about it?  Well, you can do nothing about it and be miserable for the rest of your life, or, you could try to sort things out on your own, maybe read a self-help book (like this one), or you can get some help from a professional counselor.  Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most widely researched mode of psychotherapy and efficacious (that is scientist talk for “effective”), particularly when it comes to anxiety and depression.  But, what exactly is CBT?  Well, I am going to tell you, the way I understand it, and introduce you to my approach to cognitive behavioral therapy, what I call Body-Mind-Behavior Therapy or BMBT, for short.

BMBT is a cognitive behavioral approach, in that we focus on thoughts and behaviors, but is different to traditional CBT, in that with BMBT, we focus on changing the context of thought rather than the content. That might not make much sense right now, but I am going to explain it to you in simple English (not Chinese) and in “un-”scientific terms, but first we need to know how we got here . . . a little history perhaps.

Behavior therapy got its start in the 1920s and 1930s, but really took off in the 50s when Joseph Wolpe designed a method called systematic desensitization.  In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck began what we call cognitive therapy today, a therapy where negative automatic thoughts (aka NATS – like those annoying little buggers that swarm around your head on a hot summer day and drive you nuts, but spelled slightly differently) are analyzed, challenged, and tested. Because their methods contained behavioral elements as well (exposure, activity scheduling, and so on), the therapy has commonly become known as cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT for short.  In the 1980s, along came the "third wave" (as Steven Hayes and others have called it) of cognitive behavioral therapy.  Dr. Marsha Linehan developed a therapy called Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for the treatment of borderline personality disorder at the University of Washington and Steven Hayes developed what is now known as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT - pronounced like the word, not as an acronym) at the University of Nevada in Reno.  Both DBT and ACT incorporate "mindfulness" and "acceptance" into CBT, hence the tag "third wave" which has become associated with these evolutionary and revolutionary new treatments.  MBMT (BMBT??)incorporates the best of CBT, DBT, and ACT into a powerful, yet extremely simple package, a package that is deceptively basic and drastically different than anything you have ever tried before.  Are you getting excited yet?

Well, don’t get too excited just yet because here is the bad news. People in general, and Americans in particular, spend a lot of time (and money) being anxious and depressed.  According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), some 40 million American adults, 18 percent (nearly two (2) out of every ten (10) people), suffer from an anxiety disorder in any given year.  The anxiety disorders include specific phobias (like acrophobia – fear of heights – accounting for 8.7%), social anxiety disorder (fear of people and being evaluated – public speaking anxiety is an example - 6.8%), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD – a devastating disorder, resulting from a severe trauma – making up another 3.5%), generalized anxiety disorder (excessive worry - 3.1%), panic disorder (strong, urgent anxiety attacks that come out of the blue - 2.7%), obsessive-compulsive disorder (or OCD – hoarding, excessive checking, or fear of contamination are examples - 1%), and, finally, agoraphobia (fear of open spaces – more accurately, the fear of having a panic attack when away from home - often found with panic disorder -  coming in at .8%).  If that were not bad enough, another 9.5 percent of the U.S. population, age 18 and older, (nearly one out of every ten people), has a mood disorder, like depression or bi-polar disorder, in any given year according to the NIMH.  These disorders (illnesses, problems…pick a label) cost millions, if not billions, of dollars each year in therapy, visits to general practitioners, medications (can you say Zoloft?), and lost productivity, including missing work.

Now for the good news.  The anxiety and mood disorders we have been talking about can be treated quite effectively with CBT, DBT, ACT or, in this case, BMBT.  As a matter of fact, the vast majority (nine out of ten) of the "well-established" empirically supported treatments (according to the American Psychiatric Association) for the anxiety and mood disorders are cognitive-behavioral.  In simple terms, CBT works very well for many problems, anxiety and depression in particular.  Over the next several chapters, I will be describing BMBT in much more depth, taking a lot of the mystery out of psychotherapy and dispelling many of the myths that surround it.  If you have seen the show Obsessed on A&E, a show about OCD and CBT, you have a very rough, and I do mean very rough, idea of how cognitive-behavioral therapy works, at least for people with OCD.  I will now give you a brief glimpse of what is to come in upcoming chapters.

I will start by providing a historical overview of where cognitive behavioral therapy has been, and where it is going, looking at some of the philosophies and theories behind cognitive  behavioral therapy as it has evolved and how it exists today. I will briefly discuss B.F. Skinner, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, Marsha Linehan, Steven Hayes and the tremendous contributions these incredibly talented individuals have made over the past half-century as well as the theories behind their successes. It is important to know where you have been, at times, to have an idea of where you are going, and the people I mentioned, and their theories, are at the forefront of psychotherapy today. Notice I did not say “cognitive behavioral” psychotherapy, I said “psychotherapy” in general, because the cognitive behavioral therapies are the most studied, effective, and widely used of all therapies in existence.

I will then elaborate on mindfulness and acceptance, both of which are the key to successful treatment, particularly for anxiety.  Mindfulness has been integrated into cognitive behavioral therapy by asking clients to focus on the here-and-now, using techniques derived from Zen Buddhism.  Mindfulness is not a spiritual process in the sense that it is associated with any particular religion (as it is used in DBT, ACT, and BMBT anyway ???), it is a state of mind which allows the client to maintain contact with the present, allowing him or her to accept thoughts, memories, and emotions as they are, without judgment.  This is a powerful method of reducing anxiety and other painful psychological problems, and is something I strongly encourage my clients to try.  Personally, I find no conflict between mindfulness, acceptance, and my faith, but that is a judgment you will have to make for yourself.  Cognitive behavioral therapy can work quite well without the mindfulness component, but I believe you will be short-changing yourself if you ignore it. You can find a series of mindfulness exercises on the accompanying CD, along with several other resources we will be talking about later, making this an extremely user-friendly experience and complete package, one-stop shopping for your psyche, if you will.

Next is “dialectical” thinking, the cornerstone of Linehan’s DBT and a philosophy I embrace in BMBT.  The dialectical philosophy is too complex to explain here, but basically entails looking at things in terms of shades of “grey”, getting away from “black and white” or “dichotomous” (all or nothing) thinking many of us tend to gravitate toward.  The primary dialectic Linehan teaches is “acceptance versus change”, where the therapist accepts the client (and the client accepts her/himself) as he/she is in the here-and-now, validating any problems and struggles, while pushing him/herself to change for the better.  It is not the therapist that challenges thoughts or makes the decisions, it is you, the client (or reader), that makes the decisions, with expert assistance from a professional counselor, or in this case,  my book.

There are four primary factors involved in mental health (or mental disorders), factors that can become a “vicious cycle” when they get out of whack and left unattended. The four factors I am talking about are physiology (BODY -biochemical imbalances, diet, sleep, exercise), cognition (MIND – like those nasty, annoying NATS), behavior (BEHAVIOR - smoking, overeating, drinking), and affect (or emotions, a combination of BODY, MIND, and BEHAVIOR).  If any one of these domains becomes unstable, it can throw the whole system out of balance, resulting in anxiety, depression, or some other psychological problem. 

Figure 1

As a matter of fact, the logo on the front and back covers (Figure 1), which I created for my practice in Kansas City, includes the Greek letter "psi", representing psychology, and the circular blue arrows surrounding the symbol represent the physiological (BODY), cognitive (MIND), behavioral (BEHAVIOR), and emotional (BODY + MIND + BEHAVIOR) components of the human psyche.  As I alluded to earlier, those four components constantly interact to make you sad or anxious, a “vicious cycle”, or happy and serene, what I like to call a “precious cycle”.  I will address each of these factors separately, and in detail, so you understand how they can affect you and what you can do to help them work in harmony.

Life skills are skills that make it easier to navigate life, even when anxious or depressed, and are skills everyone can benefit from understanding and practicing.  We already mentioned one of them and that is mindfulness.  The others are distress tolerance (stuff you can do when things get rough), interpersonal effectiveness (how to get along with others and stand up for yourself at the same time), and emotional regulation (tools you can use to feel less stressed).  These really are very simple tools, but you will be surprised by how easy it is to forget how to use them when you are feeling stressed, anxious, or worried. I will explain how to recognize and use these tools, when appropriate, to help you be more effective in life and content in the present moment.

I will then address the biggest threat to mental health in general, and the crux of the anxiety disorders: avoidance.  Avoidance takes many forms, but some of the most common are smoking, overeating, excessive drinking, drug abuse, and sexual (and other) addictions (can you say video games???).  But are those not behaviors (you are probably asking yourself)?  Yes, they are behaviors, avoidant behaviors, because they help you avoid the things that are really bothering you, like those nasty NATs that are contributing to your anxiety and/or depression.  You can, and do, also avoid thoughts, physical sensations, emotions, and other “internal” behaviors.  In short, avoiding what you are afraid of, or find distressing is what causes and perpetuates anxiety (and depression). 

Now that we have a solid foundation, the real work begins! I will next take you through a series of steps (chapters) using experiential techniques and exercises while explaining the intent of those techniques and exercises in simple terms, something Steven Hayes would probably argue against doing, but that I believe is essential when dealing with intelligent, thoughtful human beings.

We will first review all of the things you have tried, to control anxiety over the years, but have obviously failed at, or you would not be reading this book. As I mentioned earlier, control is the problem, not the solution. It seems somewhat counterintuitive and it is, because, again, as I told you earlier, my approach is unlike anything else you have tried before. What you have been doing does not work, so how about taking a radically different approach? What some might call “thinking outside the box”.

We will then determine how you view yourself and offer some alternatives, giving you a solid foundation on which we can build a totally same you. Same? Not new? That is correct. There is nothing wrong with you, nothing broken. You have simply learned to think the way you do, the way that makes you anxious, and you can learn to think in a way that does not make you anxious.

Next, we will try some things that will give you a new perspective on anxiety and emotions. You will experience a new way of thinking about your thoughts, sensations, behaviors, and emotions, focusing on the context rather than the content, a deceptively complex, yet simple alternative to the way you have been doing it for so long.

The next step in the process will be to look very hard at your values.  Not the values you think you should have because your mother or partner wants you to be a certain way, but the values that are important to you.  To put it simply, those which would be important to you if you knew that nobody else would know what those values are.  Once you determine your true values, and I am not talking about hardware, setting specific goals based on those values and committed actions, is the obvious next step.  By having a clear guide, goals that are based on your values, and making a commitment to yourself (and others if you wish) to live your life every day in accordance with your values, you will find it much easier to face and conquer the fears which have become so debilitating and disabling.

In the final chapter, I will pull it all together, giving you step-by-step assistance in implementing this new way of living, along with some possible pitfalls, those things we therapists call “relapse prevention”.  I will also explain what a typical session and course of treatment might look like for those of you who decide to seek assistance from a trained professional. 

Body-Mind-Behavior Therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy are really very simple and straightforward, and all we as therapists do is teach you and coach you along until you know how to help yourself.  If you listen intently, are motivated to change and face your fears, and work collaboratively with your therapist, you too can live a long, happy, and fulfilling life. 

Finally, I will explain everything you ever wanted to know about psychotherapists, but were afraid to ask. Do you know the difference between a psychologist, a life coach, a licensed professional counselor, a spiritual healer, and a psychiatrist?  Well, if you do not know, and are planning on seeking treatment at some point, it could be the most important information you ever learned.  The differences are HUGE and the cost to you could be enormous, not only in terms of money thrown out the window, but in your emotional well-being as well. 

Are you ready to start your journey from avoidance to acceptance? Well hold onto your seat, because here we go....

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: AIR FORCE TIMES - "FEWER MOVES, LONGER TOURS...PLEASE!"

Let's face it, moving to a new assignment every two to four years not only takes a toll on the defense budget and, ultimately, the national deficit, it affects individuals and families stressed by leaving home and friends, and jobs as well as many emotional scars. Moving is stressful! I know, having moved eight times in a 20-year career, relatively few compared to many of my comrades-in-arms.

It's about time somebody used some common sense! In the Air Force Times article, "FEWER MOVES, LONGER TOURS" - August 20,2012 - a much more common sense approach to deficits and budget woes was FINALLY discussed.

Why cut personnel and benefits when there is such a simple solution? There are many thousands of airmen, soldiers, sailors, and Marines forced to move each year, thousands that would happily stay in place another year...or four.

Why not Minot you say? Minot and other perceived "less desirable" assignments are LOVED by many, so why not let folks stay where they are rather than uprooting a family clear across the country or globe? Some simple mathematics and computer programming could select from a pool of volunteers, leaving everybody else where they are for the time being.

Ruin a career you say? Maybe it's time to change ignorant, archaic thinking (or even better...the thinkers) and NOT penalize those who want to remain on-station, saving taxpayers thousands in moving expenses, dislocation allowances, and travel costs...thousands for each person!

By the way, those are the same "thinkers" contributing to the negative stigma of military mental health, a stigma taking lives...one military member a day lost to suicide...but that's another story.

Sincerely,

Chris Sorrentino, LtCol, USAF (Ret)

CombatCounselor

Twitter @CombatCounselor

http://www.CombatCounselor.blogspot.com

http://www.KCCBT.com/combatcounselor.html

http://www.YouTube.com/combatcounselor

Institutional Terrorism: The “Good Ol’ Boys Network” at Work

Institutional Terrorism:

The “Good Ol’ Boys Network” at Work

By Chris T. Sorrentino, MS, LPC, NCC

Chris Sorrentino is a combat and disabled veteran, retired military officer, and licensed professional counselor.  He was an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership and Counselor at the United States Air Force Academy from 1988 to 1993  and has over 30 years of experience and education in clinical psychology and mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral therapy.  He is the author of You Think, You Are…Anxious: A Journey from Avoidance to Acceptance, the first installment in the You Think, You Are series and is the creator of Body-Mind-Behavior Therapy (BMBT).

Jerry Sandusky, Penn State’s long-time defensive coordinator, has been exposed long after an alleged 2002 child molestation incident, and several others apparently, and Penn State’s legendary coach, Joe Paterno, has been fired. Moreover, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Apparently, “Stand-Up” Joe (Paterno), as he is affectionately known by the student-body, did not stand-up and do the right thing when one of his former players, a graduate assistant at the time, approached him with news of a ten year old boy having been molested in a shower at Penn State University by Sandusky in 2002. Sandusky’s alleged attacks apparently go back to the mid-90s and continued long after he was reported to Paterno and the Penn State Athletic Director.  I will not go into the details of the allegations because that is not the subject of this story. This is merely one example among thousands that occur in this country each year where innocent people are harmed and the institutions sworn to protect them stand by and do nothing…what I call “Institutional Terrorism”.

The Penn State cover-up reminds me of a similar case in the Diocese of Kansas City and St. Joseph, Missouri, very recently in the news for similar allegations. Catholic Bishop Robert W. Finn and the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese have been indicted by a grand jury on a charge of failure to report suspected child abuse by one of the diocese’s priests. This Class A misdemeanor carries a potential sentence of up to one year in jail and a fine up to $1,000 for the bishop. Finn reportedly failed to notify the police regarding the sex abuse of a minor by one of the priests in his diocese after having been made aware of the situation in December of 2009. According to the Huffington Post, Finn is the highest-ranking Catholic clergyman ever to be indicted on criminal charges in a court of law in the United States.  As I will discuss later, this is only one example of Bishop Finn’s propensity to cover-up for one of his own, also known as (a.k.a.) the “good ol’ boys network”, even when he knew his subordinates had done wrong.

As a retired military officer and licensed professional counselor for over 20 years, I have seen and heard of numerous incidents over the years where individuals have been abused, harassed, bullied, discriminated against, then ignored, ostracized or retaliated against for having the audacity to come forward to protect themselves or to file a complaint against their aggressors.

The United States of America has been in a “War with Terror” since September 11^th, 2011, a war with an invisible enemy and a relatively small number of casualties worldwide, comparatively speaking. The U.S. has spent billions and sacrificed the lives of thousands of men and women in the armed forces to wage this war, yet we are no closer to a conclusion than we were ten years ago. 

Institutional terrorism is a term I use to define what our nation’s corporations, institutions, and bureaucracies (large organizations) are doing to their workers when they abuse, harass, bully, or discriminate against them or tolerate the illegal or unethical treatment to occur without any repercussions to the offenders. Thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands or more, of our citizens are being tormented every day by an abuser, bully, “control freak”, sadist, or micro-manager, so much so that the stresses caused by these perpetrators result in illness, mental anguish (anxiety and depression), and even suicide or murder (as in going “postal”). What are the other costs? Not just the emotional costs the victims must face night after night, morning after morning, but the real costs related to sick days, medical treatment, administrative time, legal fees, and court costs brought about by their perpetrators? We are talking about billions of dollars annually, and those are just the monetary costs.

All public and private institutions in our country are required by law to treat the people within their organizations fairly and without animus based on their race, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, veteran status, and other protected categories. The laws which protect these people include Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which protects men and women who perform substantially equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination; and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 among others. However, the penalties for not complying with these laws are considered “civil” infractions, not “criminal” acts and those found guilty are given a “slap on the wrist” in the form of monetary compensation to the victim by a jury, if it ever gets that far. Even then, these large organizations have high-priced lawyers defending them, scaring away complainants whom rarely have the resources to fight back, and insurance policies to “pay off” the claims if they are, in-fact, ever held accountable in a court of law.

Having defined institutional terrorism and discussed how our laws (fail to) protect workers and others covered under these statutes, I will now elaborate on a few such cases and provide a synopsis of what I believe needs to be done to put an end to these practices. 

Victim #1 is in a helping profession, a generally tolerant, easygoing, empathic person and it is normally quite difficult to ruffle his feathers. Having spent many years in the military, several of them in combat zones, he has also learned to be very patient, respectful of others, and loyal to his superiors and to the organization in which he works.

In December of 2007, Victim #1 and his wife were traveling from their home in Colorado Springs, Colorado to visit Florida with the intention of possibly relocating.  He had told an old and dear friend who lives in a large Midwestern metropolitan area that they would be passing through, so his friend was gracious enough to invite them to stay at their home for the night, which happened to be Christmas Eve. This man had been Victim #1’s commander while assigned to the NATO headquarters in Naples, Italy and, beside being his former boss, they had become very good friends. Who else would invite you to spend Christmas Eve and morning with him and his family, right?

To make a long story short, on Christmas eve, as they sat around the fire having a glass of wine, His friend asked Victim #1 if he would be interested in moving to the area because he had an opening for a purchasing manager in his company. His friend had become the president of a subsidiary of one of the nation’s largest construction companies after retiring from the Army a few years before and was in a position to offer Victim #1 a quite tempting and lucrative offer.

After quite a bit of deliberation, Victim #1 and his wife decided the offer was too good to turn down even though they had no desire to move to the Midwest. He had a cursory interview for the job shortly thereafter, was hired, and moved 600 miles to the area in March 2008. Sounds wonderful, does it not? In such a friendly Midwestern city, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, Victim #1 was bullied, harassed, and threatened by his new thirty-something MBA of a boss from the very beginning, putting up with it for over a year before approaching his friend (his boss’s superior) to discuss the problem. To Victim #1’s utter amazement and dismay, his “friend” threw Victim #1 out of his office, not wanting to even listen to his side of the story. Victim #1 went immediately to human resources (HR) to fill them in on what was going on. He filed a formal complaint against his immediate supervisor a few days later.

Victim #1 had thought that his good friend would never believe the word of such a rude and unprofessional person over that of an old friend and fellow military officer. Friendship is an important bond, one that cannot be broken except in the most extreme circumstances, but officership, the bond between fellow military officers, is one that Victim #1 thought was insurmountable and unbreakable. His “friend” had broken both of those bonds and Victim #1 was devastated.

Once he filed the complaint, the retaliation commenced. The very day he visited HR for the first time, his ex-friend approached him and asked, “So, are you going to resign”? Victim #1 told him that he had no intention to resign and that he (his ex-friend) was picking the wrong side. In addition, the very day he filed the complaint with HR, Victim#1 was brought into an office with his bosses and a representative from HR and, after having been a model employee for over a year, receiving a promotion and a substantial bonus in recent months, Victim #1 was given a written performance plan. Suddenly it was his behavior that was in question, not his boss’s.

It was obvious what was happening in the weeks that followed with Victim #1’s supervisors, including his ex-friend, scrutinizing everything Victim #1 did on a micro-level, bringing him into meetings and lambasting him for one thing or another, even in front of subordinates. He complained to HR about the retaliation, but it was obvious that they would not interfere with the “good ol’ boys network” within the company. His ex-friend was too powerful and had chosen whom he would support. Not knowing what his rights were and psychologically beaten, Victim #1 resigned from his lucrative position after just 15 months, during the worst recession since the great depression, rather than be subjected to the daily torment he had been subjected to for so many months.

Victim #2 had a secure position in one of the “best” school districts in the city. Having been lured from Colorado Springs, she had given up a well-paid tenured position for an excellent salary in this highly respected school district. Victim #2’s principal, who was also new to the school and uninvolved in her hiring, made it obvious from the beginning of year one that she did not like Victim #2, treating her coldly and differently than she did all of the other teachers (who happened to be fair-haired, blue-eyed, and fair- skinned for the most part). I will also point out that there was not a single minority out of 35 full-time employees in the entire school. Year one seemed to go well even though Victim #2 was routinely treated rudely by her principal.

However, at the beginning of year two, it was obvious that something had changed. A little over a month into the school year, Victim #2’s principal decided to put her on a performance plan, even though she had been a model educator for 17 years without a single blemish on her record. I cannot go into details because Victim #2’s discrimination and retaliation case has not yet gone to trial, but she was terminated illegally for filing a lawful complaint based on national origin discrimination (she is an Italian citizen).

The school district supported the perpetrators of the discrimination, performing a cursory investigation at best before finding that “no discrimination” had occurred (one of the perpetrators actually performed the initial  investigation). Of course, they would say that, not admitting publicly that one of their own had been negligent. The superintendent and school board even refused to hear Victim #2’s appeals in order to protect their employees from further unwanted public scrutiny. Fortunately, the teacher’s union was involved from the very beginning, sitting in on every meeting between Victim #2 and the district and supporting her 100 percent. She has a solid case and one of the best discrimination lawyers in the city on her side, but the worst that can happen to the district and the perpetrators is a financial judgment against them. Their insurance company will probably end up paying a majority of the costs once Victim #2, hopefully, prevails.

In July 2010, Victim #3 was attacked in what he thought was a safe haven, the university he attends as a post-graduate student. By the way, Victim #3 is a Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society scholar with a 4.0 GPA in four semesters in the School of Education and a 96 percent average in his courses. Victim #3 is also a non-traditional student being over 50 and a military (disabled) veteran.

He filed a complaint against an instructor in July 2010 for possible discrimination on a course project on which he was graded drastically different (lower) than his classmates for no apparent reason. His advisor, a woman of color, accepted the complaint on behalf of the university, the investigation was mediated within the School of Education, and both sides were satisfied with the result. His advisor did make a strange comment at the end of their first meeting on the issue, stating, “I hope you learned something from this”, as if he, the victim, should learn something from being treated differently and discriminated against? He sent an email to his advisor noting the inappropriate nature of her comment, but thought little more about it.

In May 2011, Victim#3’s advisor called him into a meeting and accused him, without warrant, of acting “aggressive and threatening” in email communications with faculty. He noted that he was surprised by such an accusation and when he asked for specific examples of such behavior, his advisor could provide not a single example, saying “it’s just a perception” (that’s what people apparently say when they want to demean or accuse a person and have no evidence to substantiate their claims). His advisor then threatened his status in the program, telling him that she did not think he had the ability to complete the program successfully, even though Victim #3 is a high-ranking retired military officer, highly decorated war veteran, and Phi Kappa Phi scholar. After doing a little research, it turned out that his advisor was friends with the instructor Victim #3 had filed the complaint against in July 2010, having done research, written papers for journals, and presented at conferences together on several occasions.

When Victim #3 filed a complaint of retaliation and discrimination with the university’s Office of Affirmative Action against his advisor, he was met with resistance from the beginning. Having officially accepted the complaint, they gave him the email runaround for over a week, even insulting him, comparing him to those who had discriminated and retaliated against him (in an email inadvertently sent to him and meant for the Chancellor’s Chief of Staff). The Deputy Chancellor for Diversity, Access and Equity finally decided that Victim #3 had no basis for a complaint because he “had not followed proper procedures” and refused to investigate his legitimate complaint when, in fact, he had followed university policies to the letter.

Having nowhere to appeal within his university, Victim #3 appealed to the president of the state university system, his chancellor’s boss. Even the president of the university refused to acknowledge his complaint until it was sent certified mail, return receipt (signature required) with copies going to the victim’s U.S. senator and representative, state senator, Missouri Department of Higher Education, and the governor as well as several local media agencies (television and print). Since the acknowledgment of receipt of his complaint by the president’s assistant over three months ago, Victim #3 has not heard a single word from anybody, including his elected officials. In the interim, he was forced to withdraw from courses two semesters in a row, being only two semesters shy of graduation, because his complaint has not been successfully resolved. Victim #3’s principles prohibit him from attending an institution that treats people the way this institution has done and will not pay another cent in tuition, even if that means not graduating, which seems highly likely at this point. It is amazing that a public institution of this size and stature, a state university, is not held accountable for their actions when they fail to enforce the very diversity policy and U.S. laws they are sworn to uphold.

Victim #4’s church has joined the list of organizations that could not care less about human beings, protecting their own at all costs.  Having gone through a very difficult two years financially (and emotionally), Victim #4 and his wife started businesses to try to make ends meet. Their only option, to try to salvage their lives from financial ruin, was to start businesses in their respective areas of interest and expertise.

Because they were struggling financially, the only way they could give back to their (Catholic) church was through the donation of time and services, and they had been attempting to do so for several months. They attempted to contact the business manager of their parish on several occasions, offering  thousands of dollars worth of their services to the needy. Having been ignored for months, they wrote an email to the manager explaining their situation, but they received a reply from the parish priest, not the business manager. Instead of getting answers to their questions and concerns, the response from the priest was superficial, defensive, and insulting. He defended his business manager’s behavior, indicating that Victim #4 was incorrect in his assessment of the situation. 

Victim #4 decided to write back, telling the priest he was confused and disappointed by his response. Two weeks passed without a word, so Victim #4 decided to take it to the next level, sending an email to the bishop of the diocese (with all previous messages attached), again explaining what he wanted to accomplish and expressing his disappointment with the response from his priest. He told the bishop (this is the same bishop, Bishop Finn, who is now being investigated for covering up knowledge of a pedophile priest and indicted) what had happened and, again, the bishop missed the mark, defending the parish priest instead of offering a simple apology and solution to the situation.

Once again, the diocese protected one of their own instead of doing the right thing, admitting to a mistake, and trying to resolve the problem professionally and amicably. Bishop Finn obviously has a history of covering-up for and protecting his own as is obvious in the charges against him for covering-up for the pedophile priest.

Finally, Victim #5’s business advertisements (postcards) were approved by his local YMCA’s general manager to be placed in their “vendor” area, providing several customers and hundreds of dollars in business revenue each month.  The ads were left “mostly” undisturbed for over a year, having been located in the same exact spot during that entire time.  Various business owners, who felt they could displace the ads with their own any time they pleased, had vandalized the postcards from time to time during that period. In May 2011, Victim #5’s advertisements were once again displaced by another business’s, so Victim #5 complained to YMCA staff. The staff, including the general manager, all of whom appeared defensive, saying they “didn’t have time” to manage business advertisements, seeming  perturbed by the complaint. Oddly, the postcards suddenly started to disappear in bulk (50 or more at a time) and when Victim #5 asked a staff member what had happened to the cards, he was  informed that the general manager had removed them.

Victim #5 brought the matter to the attention of the general manager, but she appeared to care less, giving him the impression that she was in-fact behind the vandalism and petty theft of the cards.  The victim’s business is a service-disabled veteran-owned small business by the way.  Having mentioned the problems to management on numerous occasions, they seemed to care less, appeared to not want to be bothered, and in-fact appeared resentful and even hostile at times.

Getting no assistance or resolution from YMCA staff, Victim #5 decided to file a report with the local police department and sent a letter of complaint (certified mail with return receipt/signature) to the YMCA Board of Directors, asking them to have their staff refrain from stealing postcards and treating him (a service-disabled veteran business owner) differentially from other business owners.  Nearly six months have passed and the YMCA Board of Directors has yet to either acknowledge or respond to his official complaint against YMCA staff. He has since removed his business’s advertisements and the businesses are, unfortunately, closing due to lack of clientele and some additional assistance from the local YMCA.

Does anybody deserve the kind of treatment these victims have been subjected to? Absolutely not! Does it happen? You bet it does and these victims are not alone. Discrimination laws in this country are a joke. As I mentioned earlier, there is no criminal penalty for discrimination or retaliation. I had thought it was a crime to discriminate until just recently. However, discrimination and retaliation cases, when they proceed to trial, are heard in “civil” court, not “criminal” court.

It is not a crime to discriminate and nobody goes to jail for mistreating people based on color, national origin, religion, veteran status, or other protected categories. The worst that happens is a slap on the wrist. If an organization is found negligent, their insurance company usually ends up paying the bill. Most cases are swept under the rug and never heard about because the insurance companies settle with the victims before it can go to trial, avoiding negative media exposure and possible internal sanctions.

If you have not figured it out yet, you may be surprised to know that I am Victim #1, 3, 4, and 5 and my wife is Victim #2.  This has been the story of our lives over the past three years. Having spent nearly 25 percent of my 20 year military career in combat zones, being shot at by Bosnian-Serb snipers in Sarajevo, the target of Serbian artillery while fighting for the liberation of Kosovo, and on an aircraft targeted by Al Qaeda surface-to-air missiles while in Saudi Arabia shortly after 9/11 while supporting Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, I have never in my life been the target of such unwarranted, ruthless, and needless attacks as we have since moving to Kansas City, Missouri in 2008.

As I said earlier, we are not alone and this is a huge problem in our nation. Many thousands of citizens and non-citizens are being abused, bullied, harassed and discriminated and retaliated against while the bureaucracies their aggressors work for turn their heads the other way, covering up for the corporate elite and refusing to do the right thing.

Joe Paterno and Bishop Finn could have stopped needless sexual abuse had they come forward immediately and reported the offenders as is required by law, but the institutions they represent let the offenders continue their abuses in the name of protecting their own and their institution’s “good” name. Whether it is child abuse, sexual abuse, bullying, harassment, discrimination, or retaliation, if an institution covers-up an offense, whether criminal or civil, they are not acting in the public interest, they are acting in their own interest.

As I see it, being not just an expert in human behavior, but a management and leadership expert as well, the many difficulties we are experiencing as a society stem from a lack of accountability as well as a lack of clarity regarding our values. Let me explain briefly.

First, individuals are not held accountable within organizations because to admit wrongdoing when a complaint of abuse, harassment, bullying, or discrimination is lodged against an employee, is to admit that the institution is culpable. I have seen it repeatedly that the powers that be refuse to protect the victim, siding with the aggressor in order to save face and avoid possible litigation and responsibility.

Because bullying, harassment, discrimination and retaliation are civil crimes at the very worst, they are swept under the table until the victim navigates a complex web of requirements and deadlines in order to file a case, often without the assistance of a lawyer.  Why no lawyer? Because the legal profession will not lift a finger until they see “dollar signs” and, by then, it is often too late because the victim had missed one step or strict deadline along the way, negating the validity of the case in the eyes of the law.

Did you know that if you are discriminated against, you have just 180 days (in most states), only 6 months, after the alleged offense to file a formal complaint or you lose your right to justice? Even then, you must follow the institutions complex policies to the letter, then filing with the appropriate state agency (e.g. Human Rights Commission) or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (federal).  Until these laws are changed, making them criminal rather than civil offenses, and the aggressors, as well as those who cover-up those offenses, are held accountable, going to jail when appropriate, these institutions will continue to hide their atrocities as was recently the case at Penn State and in Kansas City’s Catholic diocese.

Second, individuals and institutions have lost touch with their values, if they ever had any in the first place. I have seen it repeatedly in my practice; people do not have a clue what their core values are. That is why my therapy, Body-Mind-Behavior Therapy (BMBT) focuses on values clarification and living a value-driven life. Without clearly defined values, it is impossible to set clear, just, and attainable goals. These institutions have lost touch with what it means to do the right thing, even if it means making themselves look bad or turning-in one of their own when they have done wrong.

Until many more Americans and American institutions start holding their people accountable and stop giving “lip service” to their core values, starting to make decisions based on them instead, our country is going to continue to deteriorate. We see it more and more very day. Bernie Madhoff, Elliot Spitzer, Enron, AIG, Bank of America, Joe Paterno, Bishop Finn, the list goes on and on, people and institutions will do practically anything and crush anybody that gets in their way in the name of self-preservation, preserving the status quo…“the good ol’ boys network”.

Chris Sorrentino is host of the weekly series, CombatCounselor Q&A, on YouTube’s CombatCounselor Channel, airing Saturdays at 11:00 AM CST.  This series answers viewer’s questions, taking them through ten steps toward better mental health while incorporating his proprietary, holistic, cognitive-behavioral approach to the treatment of anxiety and depression known as Body-Mind-Behavior Therapy (BMBT).  Chris also plans to write a series of books, the You Think, You Are series, focusing on the role of cognition, physiology (e.g. diet, exercise, and sleep), behavior (positive and negative), and emotion in maintaining a healthy mind and positive lifestyle. You can follow Chris on Twitter @CombatCounselor or read his blog, CombatCounselor, on Blogspot.

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