Turning Points and Trajectories in Military Deployment

Relational Dialectics Theory: A New Approach for Military and Veteran‐Connected Family Research

“…As those discourses interplay with one another, meanings are temporarily crystalized and then inform future meaning making (Baxter, 2011). Because military and veteran-connected families experience a range of relational struggles across transitional periods, such as uncertainty, anxiety, and stress across deployment (Maguire, 2015;Maguire & Sahlstein, 2015;Sahlstein Parcell & Maguire, 2014b), RDT is an apt lens for studying how the turning points and transitions inherent to military life are talked about (Sahlstein Parcell, 2013;Sahlstein Parcell & Maguire, 2014b) and offers a way to critique dominant discourses that are "privileged … [and] taken-for-granted in a dismissal or silencing of alternative views" (Suter & Norwood, 2017). But how do RDT researchers identify discourses, whether they compete, and which have dominance?…”

“…As Baxter (2011) points out, "The transparency of the struggle between competing discourses varies from text to text," and selecting texts where "competing discourses are likely to be etched in bold relief" (p. 153) will prove the most productive for analysis. Turning points, such as those experienced by wives (Sahlstein Parcell & Maguire, 2014b), "by definition, afford insight into events and actions that are steeped in metacommunicative or relational meaning" (Baxter & Bullis, 1986, p. 470). Transitional periods, such as veterans' reintegration postdeployment (Knobloch & Theiss, 2012) and transition to civilian life (Knopf, 2012;Symonds LeBlanc & Olson, 2015), are ideal for the application of RDT, as they bring out talk and sense making that are typically not a part of normal, everyday life (Sahlstein Parcell, 2013).…”

Military children’s difficulty with reintegration after deployment: A relational turbulence model perspective.

“…Without empirical observations over time, however, those claims remain speculative. Longitudinal data are essential for ascertaining when and how to offer support services to military families (e.g., Lester & Flake, 2013;Sahlstein Parcell & Maguire, 2014). Consequently, we posit Research Question 1 (RQ1) to gain descriptive information about the trajectory of parental reports of military children's reintegration difficulty: Research Question 1: What is the trajectory of parents' reports of military children's difficulty with reintegration across the first 3 months after reunion following deployment?…”

A Theoretical and Applied Review of Embodied Restorying for Post-Deployment Family Reintegration

“…Military service members and their families face serious physical and emotional stressors associated with deployment and family reintegration. Even though a majority of families show remarkable resiliency (e.g., Merolla, 2010;Sahlstein Parcell & Maguire, 2014), service members' exposure to stressors during active duty, as well as stressors related to separation from families and reintegration post-duty, are often implicated in higher rates of psychosocial problems experienced by veterans compared to the general population. For example, veterans experience higher rates of suicide attempts and completed suicides, unemployment, alcohol and other substance abuses, criminal violations, and prison sentences (Elbogen et al, 2012;Hawkins, Grossbard, Benbow, Nacev, & Kivlahan, 2012;Teten et al, 2010;Tsai, Maris, & Rosenheck, 2012;Veterans Intervention Project Report, 2009;White, Mulvey, Fox, & Choate, 2012).…”