By: Erin Biery, MA, PLMFT
With my bags packed and masters degree in hand, I was ready to begin work on my postgraduate licensing hours and bring health and wellness to military couples and families. Within a few short months of my OCONUS move I became like Goofy going down the ski jump in The Art of Skiing. The initial launch seemed good. However, it was not long before I realized I was not going to land where I had anticipated.
Read MoreBy Bri Kriley
Two days after my husband left for a month-long training, I was assaulted.
I physically and successfully fought off my attacker. It didn’t matter though, because I didn’t feel strong, safe, or independent.
I wanted to process this isolating experience. I wanted to feel secure, confident, and self-reliant.
By Marinelle Reynolds, LCSW Being a military spouse is hard. There’s a lot that happens in military family life that is out of our span of control. These characteristics are things that we can develop and strengthen. If having a career is important to you, it is possible. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. You and your spouse can both have successful careers.
Read MoreBy Marinelle Reynolds, LCSW I’ve had the privilege of interviewing about 50 military spouses with successful careers. They’ve each achieved career success while navigating the military family life. I’ve interviewed enlisted and officer spouses across the branches of the military and across different industries to see what common characteristics these spouses have.
Read Moreby Amber Noone, MA
As a military spouse of 14 years, I’ve become accustomed to the challenges of military life. But, just how does one find joy in these all-too familiar challenges: frequent moves, separation from our spouse, wiping the tears from our children’s cheeks as they leave behind friends, reinventing our careers with each move, creating a new social support system at every duty station and continually adapting to new surroundings, cultures, and ways of life?
Read Moreby Julie Costello, LMFT
I was reading a post not too long ago where a person was making a great point, but then clarified that they were just an intern. So, were they telling me to discard their point since they weren’t experienced enough to make it? It got me thinking about how often people sabotage themselves with their words; making themselves seem less than without even realizing it.
by Kasey King, MS
One of the hardest things to deal with, as a military spouse, are deployments. Not only are we often uprooted from our hometowns to places where we know no one, now we are left feeling alone. In the past eight years of my marriage, we have gone through four deployments, with one just finishing last month.
After experiencing the deployment bug (as some spouses call it), I compiled a list of tips that helped me get through these emotionally draining deployments over the years.
Read MoreBy Marinelle Reynolds, LCSW Every year, as the cold winter temperatures move in, thousands of geese take flight towards warmer weather. They quickly form the familiar v-shaped pattern in the sky. One lead goose takes the front and the rest follow closely behind in two lines. If we think of leadership as the ability to influence and take a group of people from where they are to someplace better, as Tom Worsham (1992) points out, we can learn a lot from geese.
Read MoreBy Irene Summers Temple When we learn to catch ourselves in the act of assuming and automatically categorizing, we are more likely to actually see the person in front of us, not a projection of our own beliefs. One way we can start doing this, is to use more inclusive language.
Read MoreBy Lori Derr Being a mental health therapist can be both rewarding and stressful all at the same time. As therapists, we tend to be in tune with and capable of helping our clients deal with stress, but it is often a different story when it comes to identifying and managing our own stress. Being able to manage our own stress helps us be more present with our clients. Here are three ways that I have found to manage stress throughout the workday.
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