Coming Back Together

L. Sayers Steven

Sujets

• Histoire
• Military history
• Dating
• Abnormal psychology
• Psychotherapy

Informations

• Publié par: New Harbinger Publications
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781608829873
• Langue: English

Extrait

“Written by a nationally recognized expert in the VA system in supporting veteran families, Coming Back Together is an empowering, helpful resource for partners of deployed service members and veterans. It teaches cognitive-behavioral skills to help partners cope with a range of issues upon a veteran’s homecoming, including intimacy, parenting, communication, and seeking professional assistance. Filled with poignant quotes from family members and practical exercises to spark reflection, this resource is certain to bring practical advice and comfort to many families.”
— Michelle D. Sherman, PhD , clinical professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and coauthor of Finding My Way: A Teen’s Guide to Living with a Parent Who Has Experienced Trauma and My Story: Blogs by Four Military Teens
“This book is packed with practical wisdom for resuming your lives together after being apart due to military service. With his deep understanding of the issues families face, Sayers explains specific steps for success in reintegration. You can do this, and he will show you how.”
— Scott M Stanley, PhD , research professor at the University of Denver and coauthor of Fighting for Your Marriage

Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2014 by Steven L. Sayers
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Amy Shoup
Acquired by Melissa Valentine
Edited by Gretel Hakanson
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file
To the spouses and other intimate partners of those who served in the US military and were deployed far away from their loved ones, their homes, and their country.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction
1 The Reunion: Waiting for Your Partner’s Return
2 When Your Partner First Returns
3 Rediscovering Intimacy
4 Who Does What?
5 Watching
6 Making It Work
7 Helping Your Partner Redevelop Relationships with the Kids
8 Special Challenges and Getting Support
9 When Do We Go for Help?
References
Acknowledgments
There were many positive forces behind the writing of this book.
I want to thank Melissa Valentine at New Harbinger Publications for bringing me the opportunity to write this book, and to Jess Beebe, Nicola Skidmore, Rachel Rogers, and the rest of the staff at New Harbinger for guiding the writing. Their professionalism and enduring positivity were essential in keeping the writing going at what felt like a blistering pace.
My wife, Margaret, and children, Douglas and Kenan, spent many weekends without my presence while I wrote. Their love and support helped me stay focused on the project, while giving me the freedom and space to get it done. Margaret’s expertise and input as a child psychologist was essential in the writing of chapter 7 on redeveloping relationships with children. A loving and wonderful experience in my family of origin also provided a solid background from which to understand the challenges that come with transitions.
I want to thank my able staff at Coaching Into Care, the US Department of Veterans Affairs call center, for helping family members and friends concerned about military veterans. Their work with family-member callers has brought to light the concerns and struggles that these family members face. I have drawn liberally from our work in the stories of partners adapted for this book.
The work of many cognitive behavioral theorists and clinicians informed the material in this book and has influenced my career. The seminal ideas and intervention strategies of Aaron Beck, MD, and David D. Burns, MD, informed many of the cognitive strategies I have described. Special thanks go to David D. Burns, MD, author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy and many related books. He was the first to show me how important and powerful books written for the lay audience can be. Many relationship researchers and therapists have influenced the methods I have described, including my first professional mentor, Donald H. Baucom, PhD. In addition, Alan S. Bellack, PhD; Andrew Christensen, PhD; Norman Epstein, PhD; Howard Markman, PhD; Scott Stanley, PhD; and Robert L. Weiss, PhD, have all had a significant impact on my thinking and in some way influenced the content of this book.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the military service members who are routinely deployed to far-away places and put their lives at risk in service of our country. I am inspired by their sacrifice.
Foreword
Thirty years ago, when I began my career as a social work intern helping veterans, I encountered a very different system of care than what we have today. At that time, veteran services focused only on the military service member, leaving partners and family members out of the process. At best, partners and families of veterans were tacitly acknowledged by the health care system. At worst, they were viewed as an annoyance to be actively avoided. Sadly, these partners and families were left to solve problems on their own without guidance or help from health care professionals. Thankfully, this has changed.
Today, the family is seen as a critical collaborator in the provision of health care for the veteran. Even in individual therapies for veterans returning from war, inviting the partner or parent of the veteran to join the therapy is becoming more commonplace in many clinical settings. This is significant, since research has shown that veterans want their families involved in treatment (Batten et al. 2009). However, there is more work to do in this arena. Rather than asking whether we should include the family in the therapy process, we should instead be asking, Is there any reason to exclude the family from treatment? In the vast majority of cases, the answer will be a resounding no.
More than half of our military service members who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan are married. Clearly, the success or failure of these partnered relationships can affect the recovery and successful reintegration of recently deployed military service members. Yet while websites and books addressing the needs of veterans and their families are more common than five years ago and information for military families is more accessible than ever, few websites and even fewer books capture the partner’s experience of what it is like on the front lines when his or her military partner returns home from deployment.
Reuniting with a partner after deployment is fraught with challenges. While both members of a couple often experience excitement upon reuniting, they also can experience tremendous anxiety. Psychologists have written about the importance of attachment between a mother and child. And this concept—of a child’s need for a safe haven and secure base from which to explore—has been extended to adult relationships. Adult love relationships also need that same level of safety and security. Military service members coming home from a dangerous deployment and their partners who have anxiously awaited their return need to strengthen their relationship bond in order to feel more secure.
After the two are reunited, the questions start to materialize: How have we changed? Does that change serve to strengthen our bond, or will we need to better understand each other in order to thrive as a couple? Can we negotiate our differences and come together to be as strong as we were before the deployment? Can we find meaning from our time apart in order to enhance our partnership?
Steven Sayers, PhD, provides an extremely helpful book for partners of those who have served. Steeped in empirically validated cognitive behavioral principles, Sayers’s book beautifully outlines the common challenges couples face upon return from deployment and provides suggestions for how to negotiate those challenges. Incorporating recent state-of-the-art research findings into experiential understanding of the problems encountered by these couples, Sayers provides solutions to issues in an optimistic can-do guide to help couples improve their relationships. The research described in the book is presented in an easy-to-understand way, and it is boiled down to practical recommendations and tips, with an excellent summary of “Final Words” at the end of each chapter. Although the book targets partners of military service members, I suspect that military service members themselves may pick it up and utilize the helpful suggestions provided throughout.
The return from deployment is indeed a difficult transition to make, even in the best of circumstances. It is my belief that this book will provide an opportunity for couples to not only successfully negotiate the challenges of reuniting after deployment but to develop and strengthen their relationship bonds with each other. As a result, their journey ahead will be smoother.
Keith Armstrong, LCSW
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco
Director of Couples and Family Therapy, San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center
Co-author of Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Troops Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and Their Families and Courage After Fire for Parents of Service Members: Strategies for Coping When Your Son or Daughter Returns From Deployment
Introduction
I wrote this book for spouses and close partners of military service members and veterans who have undergone lengthy military deployments, either to a war zone or another area that holds risk. You are part of a small and unique group of the US population. Only a small per