Let me start by saying, being a military spouse has its challenges, but it also has many rewards. November is Military Family Appreciation month, where we as a nation honor all military family members (mo
Reluctantly, I debated whether to try to get credentialed at the military hospital near me in pursuit of becoming a Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapist for a research study with Service members who have PTSD from deployment trauma. How would it feel to provide therapy when I hadn’t delivered clinical care for a long while? Was it worthwhile to pursue this PE therapist position when it would be outside my regular job?
Most military couples would agree that military life offers a fair number of challenges. I reached out to some “real life” experts – military couples who have been around the block a time or two – to learn from their wealth of experience. Their marriages have collectively seen hundreds of deployments, PCSs, TDYs, and other major military family events – they have experienced ups, downs, and in-betweens – and they have some amazing stories to tell. I asked them to share the greatest challenges they have faced as military couples and the survival strategies that have kept them going.
The other day, I happened to be looking at the calendar on my cell phone and it dawned on me that it had been exactly one year since I interviewed for my position at the Center for Deployment Psychology. As I thought about that day, I remembered being really impressed with and excited about all of the innovative ways that CDP was using technology (e.g., Second Life) to disseminate training in Evidence-Based Psychotherapy (EBP).
In part 1 of this blog, I explored how my colleagues and I have been personally coping with the elevated risk of terrorism and v