Understanding Veterans: Clinical Insights for Mental Health Professionals
In this course, Nicholas Fifield explains how military culture, occupational identity, service experiences, transition to civilian life, social belonging, stigma, and organisational systems can continue to shape veterans’ mental health long after service has ended. Moving beyond a PTSD-only perspective, he demonstrates how you can understand common veteran presentations within context, build credibility and trust, develop more comprehensive formulations, and adapt evidence-based treatment in ways that are structured, respectful, practical, and clinically relevant.
About this course
In this course, registered psychologist Nicholas Fifield, Registered Psychologist and Board-Approved Supervisor, introduces a clinically informed framework for understanding veterans that extends beyond trauma diagnosis to consider military socialisation, identity, transition, stigma, social belonging, developmental vulnerability, family systems, and the broader organisational context surrounding veteran care. Drawing on his experience of service in both the Royal Australian Navy and Australian Army, Fifield explains how behaviours that may appear rigid, avoidant, detached, or resistant can sometimes represent adaptations that were previously functional and reinforced within military environments.
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