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01-12-2011 | Original Paper

Using Cognitive Behavioral Interventions to Help Children Cope with Parental Military Deployments

Authors: Robert D. Friedberg, Gina M. Brelsford

Published in: Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy | Issue 4/2011

Abstract

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are associated with more deployments than in previous years. Recent estimates show 1.2 million school children have a parent that is serving in the active military. Family stress increases proportionately to the length of deployment and the perception of danger. In a recent study, twenty percent of children whose parent was being deployed were identified as “high risk” for psychosocial disturbances. A deployed parent represents a stressor reflecting ambiguous loss which prompts emotional distress. Cognitive behaviorally based prevention and intervention efforts have shown considerable promise with children experiencing a variety of disorders who do not necessarily have a deployed parent. For instance the Penn Resiliency Program has enjoyed considerable empirical support. It seems quite reasonable that these favorable results would generalize to a population of military children. This paper will briefly review the extant literature on the effects of parental deployment on children’s emotional well-being and then recommend a variety of cognitive behavioral interventions to enhance their psychological welfare.

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Title: Using Cognitive Behavioral Interventions to Help Children Cope with Parental Military Deployments
Authors: Robert D. Friedberg
Gina M. Brelsford
Publication date: 01-12-2011
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy / Issue 4/2011
Print ISSN: 0022-0116
Electronic ISSN: 1573-3564
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-011-9175-3

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Using Cognitive Behavioral Interventions to Help Children Cope with Parental Military Deployments

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