Barton Buechner, PhD on Thursday 04/24/2014 at 06:53 AM
Sarah,
You are making an important point here that the process of "coming home" is at its core about becoming an individual again. military training is brilliant at breaking down the individual and imprinting a strong group identity. People are managed efficiently in group processes. When it is time to leave, there is no reverse process of "re-individuation" and the military system is not set up to do this. This requires working with each person to help them reflect, re-direct, discover, and maybe reconstruct their identity in the world going forward. Your analysis shows where we can get started.
Linda Gibson on Wednesday 04/02/2014 at 09:45 PM
Sarah, great article. Thank you for your dedication to researching these issues. Yes, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to military transition success is the idea that all veterans can be lumped together and strategies that work for one will work for all. Thanks for showing this is simply not the case. I like to have veterans think back to their boot camp/basic training/ OCS and remember the incredible variety of backgrounds their classmates came from. Although veterans will always have a shared connection, their best career choices and paths will be widely diverse. Helping them find a “new” confidence is often the key.