Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, Battlemind, and the Stress Continuum Model: Military Organizational Approaches to Prevention

In this chapter, we review the historical development of mental disorder prevention programs in the military as the context in which to describe two recent sets of programs in the U.S. DoD: the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) and Battlemind programs and the Navy and Marine Corps’ Combat and Operational Stress Control (COSC) programs, which are based on the stress continuum model. Although these approaches share common features, they diverge in significant ways. We hope to make these differences understandable as various solutions to the same problem: that of integrating modern mental health science with the traditional warrior ethos. After reviewing the scope, goals, methods, underlying assumptions, and empirical support for these two programmatic approaches, we offer an integrated model for the prevention of mental and behavioral problems in the military that encompasses both approaches.