94 The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 1 This revelation of the spouses’ worldview aids our understanding of ways to best support spouses and areas to focus on to support their resilience. Our participants’ definitions of their resilience were shaped by their relationship with their service member and the influence of the military’s mission. In addition, while past research has indicated that the military lifestyle and culture is challenging for spouses to navigate (Cole et al., 2021; DaLomba et al., 2021; Donoho et al., 2018; Mailey et al. 2018), our participants’ description of their feelings of responsibility for their family’s well-being reveals the added burden that military spouses face as they help their families navigate the military lifestyle. Finally, our participants confirmed that resiliency should be viewed as a variation and is unique to each individual (Pietrzak & Southwick, 2011). As outlined in the professional literature (Masten, 2014; Southwick et al., 2014), the participants confirmed the dynamic nature of resiliency, recognizing that sometimes they felt more resilient than at other times. In the midst of these challenges, our participants emphasized that the military spouse community serves as a protective factor and a source of their resilience against mental health challenges. This perception of the military spouse community aligns with previous research highlighting the supportive role that spouses play for each other, so much so that it is a protective factor against suicide (Cole et al., 2021). Therefore, military leadership and the counseling community might focus on enhancing this community and connecting spouses with one another—especially more seasoned spouses with newer spouses. In addition, because military-sponsored resilience programs are often targeted to better support service member outcomes, community providers might find ways to focus on supporting the spouses and helping them to overcome the challenges they face in their daily lives. Finally, the participants discussed how they overcame the challenges of the military lifestyle, including constant moving, deployments, and overall uncertainty, through their own individual and collective resilience. These lifestyle challenges that the participants described correspond to career struggles and shifting family dynamics that cause ongoing stress to the military spouse, both of which have been previously documented in the professional literature (Borah & Fina, 2017; Cole et al., 2021; DaLomba et al., 2021; Donoho et al., 2018; Mailey et al., 2018; Numbers & Bruneau, 2017). Currently, since the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the United States is experiencing peacetime, whereas the nature of future conflicts is uncertain (Marsh & Hampton, 2022). Enhancing the resiliency of military spouses and finding solutions to ongoing stressors is key during this time of peace so that spouses are ready and able to face the stressors of future, potentially large-scale wars (Sefidan et al., 2021). Implications for Counselors Professional counselors are called to be trained and ready to meet the unique needs of military spouses, especially in understanding the nature of military culture and its impact on spouse mental health and well-being and enhancing spouse resilience in times of adversity (Cole, 2014). Our study echoes the continued struggles of military spouses described in the professional literature (Cole et al., 2021; Lewy et al., 2014; Runge et al., 2014), suggesting that new and innovative ways of understanding and approaching military spouse resilience is needed within the counseling community. For example, counselors might encourage spouses to explore how their resilience is shaped by the military community in order to increase self-awareness and understanding. They might also help spouses develop their independence and sense of self-efficacy while simultaneously seeking collective support within the military community. Counselors can help spouses examine their social support and help them develop their social skills so they can connect with others around them. Counselors should also help military spouses unpack their perceptions of outsiders’ expectations of their resiliency. Encouraging spouses to reflect on others’ expectations, and the ways in which these expectations impact their sense of well-being, may help define resilience for themselves and capitalize
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