CALPCC is pleased to offer a live webinar from Jessica Behne, LMFT, the author of Unseen Warrior: A Military Cultural Guide For Mental Health Professionals. We hope you will join us! Details below.

Unseen Warrior: A Military Clinical Guide for Mental Health Professionals

When a service member sits across from you, they are already deciding whether to come back. Research suggests that after a first mental health visit, many do not, and the gap is rarely clinical competence. It is cultural. It is relational. It is the invisible wall. This presentation introduces the Unseen Warrior framework, developed by three veteran mental health professionals drawing on more than 50 years of cumulative military service and 35 years of clinical expertise. The framework addresses three interconnected areas essential to effective care with military and veteran clients. First, participants will explore military cultural identity, the distinct values, language, warrior ethos, and occupational experiences that shape how service members see themselves and others, including you. Second, they will examine how repeated, intentional stress conditioning across training and deployment cycles produces lasting neuroadaptive changes that influence emotional regulation, threat response, symptom expression, and help-seeking behavior changes that do not disappear when the uniform comes off. Third, the presentation connects these cultural and neurobiological realities directly to clinical practice, addressing engagement barriers, dropout risk, and the therapeutic rapport strategies that determine whether a client returns. Participants will leave with ready-to-use tools for culturally attuned intake, communication, and treatment planning, practical strategies that help military clients feel seen, understood, and willing to keep coming back.

About the presenter: 

Jessica Behne, LMFT

Jessica Behne, Major (USMC Veteran), MA, LMFT, is a PhD candidate in Counselor Education and Supervision at Regent University. She served as a U.S. Marine Corps officer on active duty and in the reserves, supporting operational training and theater security cooperation efforts in the Philippines. Jessica teaches master’s-level counseling courses, supervises Ukrainian clinicians working with military populations, and provides trauma-informed telehealth care to veterans and military families through her practice, Breakthrough Therapy Texas. Her research examines the cognitive and clinical effects of military training and war trauma on service members, veterans, and clinicians.