Episode #38
Airdate: 6/15/10
Helping Vets Heal
Dr. Judith Broder created the Soldiers Project to provide free, confidential counseling for soldiers – and their families. Her goal is to help soldiers come home in the fullest sense, not just physically but mentally, by preventing problems and offering treatment early.
As a psychiatrist, she knew that without help some soldiers would never get past what they had seen and done. And, though she knew very little about the military health system before she started, this social innovator knew enough about how people react to trauma to be convinced that with more than a million soldiers returning to their old lives - sometimes after multiple deployments - there would be a need for help.
Judith’s journey to her encore career and the great work she’s doing will give you an inspired perspective on your own “what’s next”. Tune in!
Judith T. Broder, MD, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who practiced in Los Angeles from 1972 until her retirement in 2009. She was active in teaching psychiatric residents and candidates at psychoanalytic institutes throughout her career. She is a Training and Supervising analyst at LAISPS.
She founded The Soldiers Project, which provides unlimited, free, confidential therapy to combat veterans, in 2005. The sessions aim to alleviate the behavioral problems that can result from combat trauma and address personal, moral, and spiritual crises that may follow grim wartime experiences or personal actions.
The five-year-old program has a network of more than 200 volunteers, has treated more than 300 patients in the Los Angeles area, and is being replicated in other cities. Judith is a 2009 Purpose Prize winner.
