Abstract
This paper discusses the political implications of the British military’s Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) approach to personnel suffering from combat-related mental debilities such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Drawing on narratives that emerged from qualitative interviews with trained TRiM practitioners and military welfare workers, I tease out some of the assumptions and beliefs about mental health and mental illness that underpin this mental health intervention programme. I explore TRiM as a biopolitical strategy targeted towards the construction of a particular conceptualisation of mental wellness and militarised masculine personhood. As a biopolitical strategy, I argue that TRiM plays an important role in the construction of ideas around mental well-being and mental frailty that best enable the operation of military power in the contemporary British context. I discuss the narrative of transformation in militarised models of masculinity that emerge from discussions of TRiM, and highlight the important political function that this plays in enabling and legitimating militarism. Finally, I draw attention to the ways in which the focus on individual and cultural factors, rather than war as the primary cause of difficulties for servicemen experiencing psychological distress, functions to neutralise the potential trouble that could be instigated for the British military by the bodies of servicemen psychologically damaged by their experiences of conflict.
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Notes
For a discussion of some of the ethical issues raised by using data provided by participants in ways that they may not foresee, see Davidson (2008) and Miller and Bell (2012).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the participants who took part in my research for sharing their stories with me. I would also like to thank the Army Welfare Service for acting as sponsor for my research on domestic abuse in the British military, and the MOD for allowing me access to interview MOD personnel. I would also particularly like to thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers, as well as Dr Alessandro Castellini for his very helpful feedback on an earlier version of this paper, and Dr Marsha Henry for her ongoing support for my research.
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Gray, H. the Trauma Risk Management approach to post-traumatic stress disorder in the British military: masculinity, biopolitics and depoliticisation. Fem Rev 111, 109–123 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2015.23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2015.23