Courage After Fire for Parents of Service Members: Strategies for Coping When Your Son or Daughter Returns from Deployment

Parents of returning service members may sometimes feel that their voices are not heard. The media is saturated with stories about troops returning from deployment with mental health problems like post-traumatic stress, depression, and substance abuse. Some also return home with physical problems including traumatic brain injury, physical pain or more severe injuries like amputations. Almost all returning service members experience reintegration challenges such as readjusting to family and community, finding employment or attending school.

But rarely do we hear how parents are taking on the role of supporting their sons and daughters who have served our country. In countless ways these parents provide help―and when their military child suffers significant physical or psychological injuries, they may once again become their primary caretaker. For mothers and fathers and others in a parenting role, it can be overwhelming at times, and resources are limited.

Courage after Fire for Parents of Service Members provides a compassionate and accessible guide for the parents or guardians of returning troops. This groundbreaking book acknowledges the significant contribution and sacrifice parents have made for their military children, provides strategies and resources that will assist them in understanding and supporting their son or daughter, and will validate their own personal experiences.

Recommendations for helping them care for their returning service member are woven throughout the book, as well as education about the importance of taking care of themselves to help prevent caregiver burnout. Vignettes and reflections from parents who have had a child deploy offer a sense of hope and community.

Even in the best of circumstances, parents play an instrumental role in helping their sons and daughters successfully reintegrate after deployment. This book is a valuable resource for any parent who is seeking to better understand and support a returning military child while caring for themselves.

Paula Domenici, PhD, is a counseling psychologist focused on deployment-related mental health issues with a specialization in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She has worked extensively with veterans, as well as educating clinicians who care for them. She currently trains military and civilian mental health providers across the country on evidence-based therapies and cultural-sensitive practices for assisting the military community. Previously, she served as an American Psychological Association (APA) policy fellow in former Senator Clinton's office addressing concerns of veterans and seniors. Earlier, Domenici was a staff psychologist on the San Francisco Veteran’s Administration’s PTSD Clinical Team, treating veterans with combat trauma and supporting their spouses. She lives in Washington, DC.
 
Suzanne Best, PhD, is a clinical psychologist specializing in the study, evaluation, and treatment of PTSD and other trauma-related conditions. In her over-ten years with the PTSD Research Program at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, she directed numerous federally funded studies of combat veterans and law enforcement professionals with a focus on treatment development. She currently resides in Portland, OR, where she treats veterans, first responders, and civilian trauma survivors. In addition, she serves as an adjunct professor at Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling where she teaches courses in trauma psychology and is currently conducting a study of parents of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
 
Keith Armstrong, LCSW, is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. He is director of the San Francisco Veterans Administration's (SFVA) Family Therapy Program and the City College of San Francisco Veterans Outreach Program, and is a member of the SFVA's PTSD Clinical Team. In addition, he is a consultant for the Intensive Family Therapy program at the University of California, San Francisco. Armstrong has authored numerous clinical and research articles and chapters addressing the treatment of traumatized individuals and families. He is also a reviewer for the Journal of Traumatic Stress, a top journal in the field of traumatology, and he has conducted numerous radio, newspaper, and podcast interviews on the psychological treatment of veterans and families. He lives with his wife and two children in the San Francisco Bay Area.