There is a good reason confidentiality is a keystone of psychotherapy. The patient must know he or she is free to express the all of their experience if they stand a chance of getting free from that part of their experience which, in too many cases,  shackles their ability to feel comfortable in their own skin. The treatment arena must be a safe place. It seems the U.S. Military fails to make it so.

The  New York Times  this week said the military asks veterans seeking psychiatric care to sign a waiver acknowledging that under certain circumstances the content of their therapy sessions would not be kept confidential. If returning veterans deserve anything it is the ability to be and feel safe and secure in their own country, and that includes their medical treatment, physical and emotional. Given the requested waiver it should surprise no one that some veterans are refusing to sign the waiver and, as a result, are not getting the emotional support they deserve.

It is hideously unconscionable to think when our young men and women come back from war, struggling with PTSD, addiction and array of other torments, they continue to get wounded, by us.