Military Stress and Performance: the Australian Defence Force Experience.

• Author: Fenton, Damien
• Position: Book Review

MILITARY STRESS AND PERFORMANCE: The Australian Defence Force Experience

Edited by: George E. Kearney, Mark Creamer, Ric Marshall and Anne Goyne Published by: Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2003, 294pp, $34.95.

Anyone with a reasonable familiarity with the military history of the last century or so will recognise the terms 'shell shock', 'battle fatigue' and 'posttraumatic stress disorder' (PTSD). Often the subject of great controversy, these terms were, and in the case of PTSD still are, used to describe the debilitating mental and physical reactions to combat conditions suffered by large numbers of service personnel in conflicts ranging from the massive battles of the First World War to the patrol actions of the Malayan Emergency. The creation of these terms and their eventual supplementation by newer ones has gone hand in hand with developments in the science of psychology with particular regard to the study of stress and its effects on people.

The current state of that science and its application to the modern day Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the focus of this collection of 15 essays edited by Professor George Kearney, Colonel Commandant of the Australian Army Psychology Corps, and his colleagues Professor Mark Creamer, Major Anne Goyne and Dr Ric Marshall. They are joined by 17 other contributors, all of whom have extensive backgrounds in psychology and/ or the military. The result is a work that makes few allowances for a popular audience, but those with a genuine interest in the subject will find it rewarding. While the essays are largely based upon the experiences of the ADF over the last decade, there is a sufficient similarity between those experiences and those of the NZDF (and indeed most other small and medium-sized Western militaries) to provide a New Zealand reader with plenty of relevant ideas and findings.

First and foremost amongst those ideas and findings is the recognition that peacekeeping operations can be every bit as traumatic as outright combat operations for the service personnel that take part. Often this is due to the feelings of frustration and helplessness unique to the peacekeeping experience whether through constrictive rules of...