Carrier Enterprise retools mental health at sea - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Carrier Enterprise retools mental health at sea

Fuzzy Bunny has a small office, a soft voice and wears the Navy working uniform. But probably the most noticeable thing about him is that he’s a very busy guy.

Fuzzy Bunny — technically, Lt. Cmdr. Amarjeet Purewal — is the carrier Enterprise’s psychologist, and he said he thinks the nickname is playing a small part in improving mental health care on his ship.

“We’re decreasing the stigma of the ‘Psycho,’” he said, referring to the traditional name for the ship’s psychologist.

It seems to be working: As the ship worked through its composite unit training exercise in January, Purewal said he was scheduling five or six appointments per day, plus having spontaneous meetings with a handful of other sailors who stop by his office unannounced or snag him for a minute or two as he walks the ship.

The Fuzzy Bunny makeover is part of Enterprise’s efforts to manage stress more effectively than during its most recent deployment. That six-month cruise, which ended in July, was particularly tough: It started with the abrupt firing and replacement of the ship’s skipper days before it got underway. Then came two suicides in one month and two man-overboards in a two-week span. Operationally, the crew and air wing stayed busy with combat missions in 5th Fleet amid questions about whether the carrier would help enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.

Also, 60 percent of its sailors were on their first deployments — an unusually high figure, ship officials said. Most of the crew wasn’t used to life at sea.

To prepare for the carrier’s final deployment, scheduled for this spring, a stress management trainer was brought onboard; the command chaplain, psychologist and others stepped up outreach efforts; and a marketing campaign was launched to educate sailors about the ship’s resources and encourage them to be mindful of the stresses they face.

One part of the ship’s marketing effort is the rebranding of “Psycho,” a term that conjures unnerving images of the Alfred Hitchcock film, with “Fuzzy Bunny.” Ship leaders said they felt that if sailors realized that there’s nothing to fear when visiting Purewal, more sailors would stop by.

Chiefs and officers are getting stress management and suicide awareness training. Some sessions include drills that walk leaders though situations they’re likely to encounter, such as a sailor stressed out by marriage troubles.

Learning sailors’ limits

The mental health overhaul is not limited to Enterprise. Other ships are deploying with stress management trainers, and all carriers and many big-deck amphibs have psychologists.

Beyond increasing the number of public health experts afloat, the Naval Center for Combat and Operational Stress Control is working to change an old habit — working sailors to the breaking point.

The new philosophy still pushes them hard, but it also tries to get sailors to do small, regular mental tune-ups instead of one giant overhaul after a psychological breakdown. It’s more preventative medicine than invasive surgery, said Capt. Scott Johnson, the stress center’s director. The hope is new efforts will mean sailors will be less likely to think about suicide, and mental health medevacs will happen less often, Johnson said.

Educating sailors about how they’re managing their own stress, and teaching them to pay attention to how their shipmates are coping, is a big part of the effort. On Enterprise, charts with colors representing different levels of stress and their associated feelings help sailors determine their stress levels.

The hope is that sailors will notice when they’re spending more time in the dangerous orange and red zones because they’re having trouble focusing and feel worn out. Then they can take time to relax, get extra sleep, work out or otherwise blow off some steam to nudge them back into the safer green zone.

The ship is trying to treat “stress injuries” before they become more serious “stress illnesses,” said Rev. (Cmdr.) John Owen, Enterprise’s command chaplain. “At that point, we lose a mission-ready sailor.”

It’s an uphill battle to change a culture that glorifies working past your limit. Complicating the effort are concerns that counseling will hurt a career either through a grounding, lost time on watch or a pulled security clearance.

Seeking psychological health rarely leads to career consequences, Johnson said. It’s more likely that ignoring problems will create bigger issues that will hurt a career, he said.

Chiefs and officers have generally accepted the changes, Owen said, but some people still don’t like the idea of stress management training or mental health care.

“To a lot of people, this is touchy-feely psychobabble nonsense. I get that. I guess that’s part of the military culture,” he said. “But I think they’re coming around ... You do it even though people say, ‘It’s crap, I’m here to fight wars.’”