I do want to start out by saying I am BIASED from the get go: I believe in Christianity and have found more assistance and help from that than I ever have from MRT. And yes- I do politely pay attention and participate in MRT courses.
I recently completed flight training, became an NCO, fought and lost a divorce, was hit by a drunk driver, and terminated from a job doing exactly what I needed to do-(drill).
MRT I think would have been fine for most of these had they been spread out-but this all occurred within the span of 3 months. I desperately tried to figure out a way to get out of the abyss, and went through all of the MRT deals, and it did nothing to assist me. I find more solace and help in religion, from my pastors, my support group, and from family.
I am wondering has anyone been through a similar set of circumstances and tried to use MRT, and did it help?
Second, I think that there are a few things here that may be overlooked - 1) application: sure you can't read a book or do a class and learn resilience. True resilience comes from what you do during, as well as after the adversity. This "resilience trainings" that the army does-- not sure what it is or to what extent it's efficient, but I would guess it's quite useless. The best resilience training I've ever had for the things that hit me like a brick wall in the civilian world were the struggles in the service. Being able to reflect on your past issues, take sound lessons and apply today's error corrections tomorrow, now that I would say is true resilience education.
2) this is I think the army's answer to what is going on today after a 12 year long war... From what I've seen, and I stress, it hasn't been much... It looks like something corporate America would do if the country's day traders were quitting their job and committing suicide at the rate of 22 per day... So all in all, probably not the most inpactful.
The army is one organization that doesn't get it. I would attribute a lot of that to not being able to "promote from outside"... All of the rank and file, to the top, is all internal. It's going to take several more decades get real change that way. When the vast majority of officers never really had a post college career (active duty), other than the service- there's no good way to think different.
http://csf2.army.mil/mrtresource.html
Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2)
Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2) is designed to build resilience and enhance performance of the Army Family — Soldiers, their Families, and Army Civilians. CSF2 does this by providing hands-on training and self-development tools so that members of the Army Family are better able to cope with adversity, perform better in stressful situations, and thrive in life.
So to answer your question more directly, I think it works, but the number of people who need it, is significantly smaller than those who do not; therefore, it makes it difficult to gauge its effectiveness.
Master Resilience Training; is it working? | RallyPoint
Caveat upfront: I am a Wing MRT and have a pretty positive view of the program. Now since that is out of the way, from folks who are not MRTs/RTAs what is your experience with this training? Is it value added? Have you seen any cases where you believe the training actually helped? How often are your units training on it? Folks that ARE MRTs/RTAs, do you feel the program is working? [~506423:SMSgt Ottis West]