Where the Client Is

Soldiers Project

Therapists offer free services to vets.  From the L.A. Times:

Before he was deployed to Iraq, Scott Shore refused to take aspirin for headaches.

Six years later, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, he takes six medications daily for ailments ranging from depression to insomnia.

“Just to leave my house and take my kids to the park is a struggle,” said the 34-year-old Mission Viejo resident, who also receives counseling from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

But another part of Shore’s therapy began in January with the Soldiers Project. The Los Angeles-based nonprofit includes a network of mental health professionals who provide free, unlimited, confidential counseling to service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families.

“It’s helped me open up a little bit more,” Shore said.

Judith Broder, a psychiatrist and founder of the Soldiers Project, said the idea came to her after she saw a Hollywood play featuring monologues of soldiers’ lives overseas. She was so shaken by their experiences that she awoke the next morning with the idea for the project.

The network, founded in 2005, has expanded from Los Angeles across Southern California and to Sacramento, Seattle, Chicago, New York and Boston. The licensed mental health professionals practice from their private offices, eliminating the long lines and crowds of people often seen at the VA.

The nonprofit can be reached at (877) 576-5343 or at www.thesoldiersproject.org.

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One response to “Soldiers Project”

  1. wtci Avatar
    wtci

    Same, but different–Volunteers in Psychotherapy–free therapy for non-profit volunteers: http://www.ctvip.org/scripts/index.asp

    From the N.Y.Times: “In Connecticut, you can barter four hours of volunteer work in a soup kitchen for a private hour of therapy with a psychologist, courtesy of a group know as Volunteers in Psychotherapy or V.I.P.

    Not that you would be restricted to working in a soup kitchen in exchange for your therapy. You can help out in a hospital, a museum, a shelter, a library or any charity you choose so long as it is recognized as a legitimate, nonprofit organization.

    V.I.P. was founded in 1999 by four psychologists and two nonprofit specialists to make psychotherapy truly private and available to anyone who needs it…”

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