What Counseling Psychologists Can Do to Help Returning Veterans

The purpose of this article is to describe the needs of service members and their families who have fought or are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and who have sustained psychological and/or physical injuries and how counseling psychologists can help. The focus is twofold: (a) to help the reader better understand those who have served and how what counseling psychologists have to offer may be especially unique and valuable and (b) to describe several programs consistent with the traditions of counseling psychology that those at the Life Skills Center have developed. One program, F.R.E.E. 4 Vets, will be described in some detail.