Abstract
Since the formation of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) from what was, at the end of apartheid, South Africa’s ‘many armies’ (Wood, 1996), only two locally produced texts which have taken military psychology as their focal points have been published. The first, Van Dyk’s (2016) Military Psychology for Africa, which was met with some critique (Edlmann, 2017), and now, Contemporary Issues in South African Military Psychology.
While the small number of locally published military psychology texts is perhaps telling of the bureaucratic maze of counter-intelligence hoops that need to be navigated in securing the authority to conduct and publish research involving military personnel, I suspect it is also indicative of the perhaps awkward task that South African military psychology has had in defining itself post-apartheid – especially under the long shadow of psychologically and medically trained personnel within the national security apparatus of the apartheid state (Kaplan, 2001; Naidoo, 2009).
It is, in this context, that Contemporary Issues proves to be both well-timed and comparatively more successful than Van Dyk’s earlier text for the way it definitively casts a contemporary military psychology for the SANDF as largely rooted in and derived from the discipline of Industrial/Organisational (I/O) psychology.
Outline of the text
In the opening lines of the text, the editors place their reasoning for an evidenced-based and research-driven military psychology in the SANDF upfront: if ‘[e]very military initiative or activity involves people’ (p. 1), then it is those people and, in particular, the psychological needs, capacities, and well-being of those people that must be placed at the centre of contemporary military psychology research – and, by extension, the role that such a military psychology would/could/should play in the organisational design, development, and decision-making practices of the SANDF.
What the editors make clear throughout this text is that the value of a psychology applied to and practised within the contemporary SANDF is at its most effective when the operational objectives of the military organisation are optimally balanced with the promotion of the (mental) health and occupational resilience of military personnel. It is therefore not surprising that the editors define military psychology as ‘a hybrid of industrial–organisational psychology and clinical psychology, . . . concerned with the individual as instrumental to organisational effectiveness but, at the same time, still being significant in his or her own right’ (p. 2).
The emphasis that the editors place on the I/O dimensions of their definition of military psychology is not only telling of what a future military psychology may look like in the SANDF, but, also, orientates the text with a clear I/O psychology focus and ‘human resource’ flavour; although this sometimes results in the shape, character, and form of military psychological work in the SANDF being rendered reductively, that is, as a sub-discipline of I/O psychology and human resource management. For the most part, however, the I/O orientation of the text roots and links all the chapters in a SANDF-specific model of occupational (mental) health and well-being.
Structure and contents of the text
Contemporary Issues opens with an introduction penned by the editors that sets the tone for the text and the necessity for a contemporary military psychology, in both research and practice, for the SANDF. The introduction primes the initiated and uninitiated to the field of military psychology by offering, at first, a brief overview of the local and global contexts in which the SANDF now finds itself and, thereafter, a definition of military psychology and an outline of the ‘scope of practice’ that military psychological work typically entails in the SANDF.
The remainder of the text is divided into 11 additional chapters. Each chapter is relatively formulaic, easy to read, and clearly delimited. Virtually all the chapters, compiled by both uniformed and civilian contributors, are predicated on data gathered from research with members of the SANDF – an effect of which is that the text often reads much like a ‘special issue’ of Scientia Militaria, 1 rather than a stand-alone text. The topics covered within each chapter include the work–study–family interface (chapter 2); the psychological determinants of military student success (3); a model of psychosocial well-being (4); turnover intentions (5); perceptions of organisational support and commitment (6); a study of the psychometric properties of the conscientiousness subscale of the NEO Personality Inventory (7); resilience and mental toughness within the South African Navy (8); the relationship between emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, and work engagement (9); work engagement and intentions towards contract termination (10); a positive trauma-survivor-oriented framework for active duty and combat-active military personnel (11); and a concluding chapter (12).
It is worth noting, as the editors do, that ‘[t]he largest proportion of research findings reported in this book are drawn from the student population of the South African Military Academy (SAMA or the Academy)’ (p. 8). Home to Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Military Science, the Academy is tasked with offering tertiary-level education and training to the officers of the SANDF. While this geographically isolated and culturally unique research site does pose some inherent limitations for the generalisability of the text to other facets of work and life in the SANDF, and indeed beyond the SANDF, it remains refreshing to see that the recommendations throughout the text are nonetheless rooted in contemporary attitudes and experiences of uniformed members of the SANDF.
Taken together, the chapters present a recurrent focus on the ‘human resource’ dimensions of the SANDF, with I/O psychology terminology and theory taking centre stage. The data presented throughout the text are often framed within an analysis for what these studies portend for, among others, personnel resilience, organisational commitment, and the job satisfaction of SANDF personnel. It is here that I think the text will be of best use as a series of case studies for I/O psychologists as well as human resource practitioners and students who are faced with similar organisational questions and challenges within the workplaces they study or consult with.
Aside from the I/O emphasis, chapter 11 is noteworthy for an SANDF-specific model of managing post-traumatic stress. The proposed post-traumatic growth model, specifically in the context of operational deployment, is refreshing and long overdue – especially given that stock-standard models of trauma ‘debriefing’ are not always clinically and ethically appropriate. The proposed model would be increasingly useful in light of South African military forces now serving longer tours of embedded duty in peace-support and peace-enforcement missions on the continent, where operational conditions are, speaking from my own experiences of deployment, 2 can be psychologically demanding.
In closing, it is worth mentioning that I found it virtually impossible to read much of the data within the text without having the reality that the SANDF finds itself in today weighing heavily on my interpretations. Saddled with operational obligations which outstrip its current capacity; a bloated wage bill which leaves little left for operations, training, and capital rejuvenation; ageing and poorly maintained facilities and material; perceptions of incompetent leadership and soldiership; outdated force design; and an ever-dwindling budget – the SANDF is said to be in a state of perhaps irreversible decline (Jordaan, 2018). Yet, to the credit of the editors, the text does endeavour to consistently frame the value and utility of military psychology as ‘a “lens” through which to study contemporary issues in the SANDF’ (p. 9) and, in so doing, as a means to making more scientifically informed, evidenced-based, and cost-effective decisions which safeguard and optimise the management of the SANDF’s human resources under what are increasingly strenuous budgetary constraints and precarious resource limitations.
