“I'm Still Fighting for the Two of Us”: How Partners of UK Veterans Construct Their Experience of Living with Combat‐Related Trauma

There has been little qualitative research into the experiences of UK partners of veterans with PTSD. This study therefore aimed to explore how partners constructed their experiences of living with the condition. Fifteen female partners of male UK veterans were recruited and interviewed. Using a social constructionist thematic analysis, five themes were constructed: the women's need to subdue own emotional and behavioral responses; dilemmas about whether the veteran was unwell or ‘bad’; attempts at negotiating multiple roles; challenging the narrative of veterans as heroes; and the relational struggle with the transition to nonmilitary life. This study highlighted the importance of considering the veteran as existing within a relational and cultural context, and the need to include partners in therapeutic interventions

A qualitative exploration of mental health professionals' experience of working with survivors of trauma in Sri Lanka

This study explored the struggles and rewards of trauma work and the notion that individuals are changed in some way by the work they do with survivors of traumatic events. Interpretative phenomenological analysis of interviews with twelve mental health professionals working in Sri Lanka has shown these changes to have both an accumulated negative emotional impact but also to simultaneously contain positive, growth-promoting and personally satisfying aspects. There is a bias prevalent in the trauma literature towards focusing on the many negative aspects of the impact of working with survivors of trauma or surveying the moderating factors for managing secondary trauma. The present research, instead, uses the paradigm of adversarial growth to demonstrate that when mental health professionals rebuild their assumptive world in light of their experiences of working with survivors of trauma there are valuable opportunities for personal, and by implication, professional growth. This study is of a qualitative nature and explores phenomenologically grounded knowledge seeking to gain an understanding of the lived experiences reported by mental health professionals working with survivors of trauma, and the subjective and collective meanings that shape these experiences