The Biopsychosocial Journey: Unveiling the Veteran Identity

American Veterans currently represent a poorly understood, underrepresented segment of the population. The proportion of the US population that identifies as a Veteran is continuing to decline, with the prevalence reported as 7% in 2020 (Vespa, 2020). While cultural competence is critical to the practices of psychotherapy and clinical research, numerous divergent strategies for defining Veteran investigational cohorts can be found, at times including participants who are still actively serving or their dependents. 3 studies modeled a Veteran by participation in the VA, 2 that used participation in a campaign or a military operation to define the studied group, 3 that used a prior history of participation in the Armed Forces, and 2 studies that used alternative definitions will be presented and discussed. Simultaneously, our Veterans have been shown to be at a greater risk for a range of biopsychosocial challenges than normed civilians. The differing modeling strategies may be contributing to the “veteran disorder” that describes the reduction of functioning of Veterans as compared to civilians (MacLeash, 2019). This study sought to identify the culturally preferred strategy of self-identification of US Veterans. It has been hypothesized that the preferred self-identification of Veterans is “Veteran” while the Service Members identify with the branch of service. 325 participants were selected at random from an archival dataset of 655 respondents who were asked their preferred method of self-identification. The study population was inclusive of 94 Service Members and 231 Veterans. The responses indicate that membership in both Service Member and Veteran groups is exclusive, with 100% of Veterans preferring to identify as a Veteran and 100% of Service Members identifying with the branch of service.