Consortium for Defense Psychology

By Allison Hannah, MSW, LCSW    

For more than 20 years, my life has been defined by change.
 

As a service member, I transitioned from the Reserves to active duty and back again. I went
from serving as an enlisted soldier to commissioning as an officer. I readjusted to life in the
United States after both a 12-month combat deployment and later a two-year assignment in
South Korea, not to mention the endless moves for new assignments and training. Eventually, I
hung up my uniform and transitioned into veteran status.

But my experience with military transitions did not end when my own service did.

I went from being the service member to supporting one. Our family moved from duty station to
duty station as we PCS’d around the country. I moved from job to job, repeatedly searching for
meaningful employment wherever the military sent us. Along the way, I helped our children
adjust to new homes, schools, communities, friendships, and routines.

Sometimes, it feels like the only constant throughout the past two decades has been knowing that
another change was coming in one form or another.
 

At the end of 2025, my husband retired from the military, and our family made what we believed
would be our final transition. We moved into our forever home, settled into a community, and
enrolled our children in what we hoped would be their last new school district.

There was a great deal of excitement at first. We had anticipated this chapter for years. We
imagined the relief of no longer planning our lives around orders, report dates, school transfers,
and temporary homes.
 

But after years of becoming skilled at leaving, we’ve suddenly had to learn how to stay.
The quiet that was supposed to feel like relief suddenly felt unnerving. Without another
assignment on the horizon, quiet questions started to creep in:

• Will we be content here?
• What does it mean to build a life when no one else is determining where we go next?
• How do we create a sense of permanence after years of knowing that every home, job,
  school, and community might be temporary?

This experience has also reminded me that the “final” move is not one transition shared equally
by the entire family. The retiring service member, spouse, and children may each experience it
differently. One person may feel relieved while another feels restless. One may be ready to put
down roots while another is grieving the loss of military life, familiar resources, friendships, or a
community that understood their experience.

There is still a great deal for us to discover in the years ahead. For now, though, I want to share
five reminders that have helped me through the first part of learning how to stay.

1. Give yourself a full year before deciding how settled you feel.
You do not have to feel completely settled after the moving truck leaves or even after the first
few months.
 

Retirement, separation, and relocation involve much more than changing an address. You may
also be adjusting your routines, relationships, finances, identity, expectations, and sense of
purpose. Even familiar tasks may feel different when they are no longer connected to an
installation, unit, or military community.
 

Give yourself permission to live through all four seasons before deciding if this place is right for
you.
 

A year allows time for the initial excitement to fade, new routines to develop, relationships to
grow, and the reality of the transition to become clearer. It also gives everyone in the family time
to adjust at their own pace.
 

2. You do not have to unpack your new life all at once.
This applies to both the boxes in your home and the emotions you carried with you.
There is no prize for having every room decorated within the first week. Take your time deciding
how you want your new home (and your new life) to feel.

After years of setting up temporary spaces, it may take time to believe that you are finally
allowed to settle in. You may also find that making a house feel permanent brings up more
emotions than expected. Some boxes may contain reminders of past duty stations, friendships,
deployments, accomplishments, losses, and earlier versions of your family.
 

There is no rush. Unpack what you are ready for, both physically and emotionally.
 

3. Do not let the word “forever” become a source of pressure.
 Military families often place enormous pressure on the final move.

This is supposed to be the forever home, the forever community, the last school district, and the
place where everything finally falls into place. After years of uncertainty, it is understandable to
want the next decision to feel permanent.

But “forever” can also feel intimidating.
 

Choosing a destination today doesn't trap you into a cage tomorrow. You can give your new
home and community an honest chance without treating every decision as irreversible.

Being open to future change does not mean you are failing to settle down. It simply means you
are allowing yourself the same flexibility that helped you navigate every transition that came
before this one.
 

4. Expect everyone to experience the transition differently.
Even if your family has moved many times before, this move may bring up entirely new
emotions.

The retiring service member may be adjusting to the loss of rank, structure, responsibility,
identity, and a built-in professional community. The spouse may feel excited about new
possibilities while also recognizing how much of their own life has been shaped by the military.

Children may welcome the stability of remaining in one school while grieving friendships,
traditions, and the sense of belonging that came with being part of a military community.
 

One person may feel relieved while another feels restless. Someone may feel excited one day and
deeply uncertain the next.

There is no single correct way to feel about a major transition.

Make room for everyone’s experience, including your own. Talk openly, check in with one
another, and resist the urge to assume that the family member who appears to be adjusting well is
not carrying something beneath the surface.

5. Build a new support system before you urgently need one.
Military families are often surrounded by built-in networks, even when we do not fully recognize
them at the time. There may be installation resources, military treatment facilities, family
readiness programs, unit contacts, spouse groups, schools familiar with military children, and
neighbors who understand the realities of military life.

After retirement or separation, those supports may no longer be nearby.
 

That can make it especially important to intentionally build a new network. Reach out to friends,
family members, Veterans, military spouses, neighbors, community organizations, and others
who have already navigated the process.

Sometimes their support will come through a meaningful conversation. Other times, it may be
something practical, such as reminding you to enroll in new health coverage, transfer medical
records, update important documents, or locate services in your community.

Professional mental health support may also be an important part of that network.
 

Major transitions can bring up grief, anxiety, relationship stress, changes in identity, loneliness,
or emotions that were difficult to anticipate. Seeking counseling does not mean you are handling
the transition poorly. It may simply mean that you recognize the significance of what you and
your family are experiencing.

Finding professional support can feel more difficult when you are no longer surrounded by
military resources or living near a local installation. However, military-culturally aware care may
still be available in your community.

Wherever you have landed, you can visit the Star Behavioral Health Providers Directory at
starproviders.org to search for a mental health professional who is trained in military culture and
the experiences of service members, veterans, and military families.

You do not have to wait until the transition becomes overwhelming before reaching out.

Learning to Stay
Perhaps the greatest lesson I have learned is that settling down is still a transition.

It deserves the same patience, flexibility, support, and grace as every deployment, homecoming,
PCS, career change, school transfer, and military milestone that came before it.
 

For years, we mastered the art of leaving well. We learned to pack up a life in boxes, adapt on the
fly, rebuild routines, and bloom wherever we were planted.
 

This next chapter may be about learning something entirely different.
 

It may be about learning how to stay.

The opinions in CDP Staff Perspective blogs are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science or the Department of Defense.

Allison Hannah, MSW, LCSW, is a Military Behavioral Health Social Worker for the Consortium for Defense Psychology (CDP) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. She assists in the implementation and expansion of Star Behavioral Health Providers (SBHP). SBHP trains civilian behavioral health providers to work with service members, veterans, and their families. The mission is to expand the availability of high-quality behavioral health services, especially for those in the reserve components.

1/5     

The proportion of "US adolescents and young adults aged 12 to 21" who "used artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots for mental health advice," according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics -- AI Chatbot Use and Disclosure for Mental Health Among US Adolescents and Young Adults.

This national survey including more than 42 million US youth (population-weighted) found that almost a fifth of adolescents and young adults reported using AI chatbots for mental health advice, representing an increase by almost half from 1 year prior. Most users told no one that they used AI chatbots for this purpose.

By Mitch Duque   

Remote-piloted drone technology has quickly become one of the most prominent staples in the modern landscape of large-scale combat operations. Given the prominence of this technology to current and future warfighters, members of the Research Special Interest Group (SIG) at the Consortium for Defense Psychology (CDP) decided to focus its monthly journal club on the mental health implications of drone warfare for remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) personnel. The article selected for review was a narrative review titled "Remote Warfare with Intimate Consequences: Psychological Stress in Service Member and Veteran Remotely-Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Personnel" by Norrholm and colleagues (2023). SIG members read the article and discussed the possible mental health implications of drone warfare for RPA crew members using this technology in their day-to-day lives.

The RPA career field has a variety of unique qualities that can potentially lead to adverse psychological effects. One of the most notable is the cognitive dissonance crew members can experience as a result of their geographical distance from their targets when conducting military operations. Despite being physically distant from their area of operation, RPA crew members experience disproportionate levels of intimacy with their targets based on the immersive nature of their weapon systems. This juxtaposition of physical distance and emotional proximity can lead warfighters serving in RPA crews to experience emotional turmoil regarding their role in conflict, particularly when executing lethal strikes on individuals that they’ve formed a remote bond with through days, months, or even years of surveillance. There can also be ‘psychological whiplash’ that occurs, with operations moving quickly from surveillance activities to kinetic action to after action-assessment, all in the span of minutes. This rapid shift is one of the central psychological challenges of RPA work.

Another dynamic worth noting in this population is the domestic nature of their work. Individuals working on RPA crews frequently execute their missions in garrison, meaning that they work in shifts and maintain personal lives when not on duty. This makes it uniquely possible for RPA crew members to play pivotal roles in potentially lethal operations akin to “mini-deployments,” mere hours before driving home from work to participate in their personal, family, and social lives. Per the article, it can be beneficial for conventionally deployed service members to have a period of decompression prior to returning home following combat operations. However, crews are not likely given adequate opportunities to decompress following this harrowing work. In other words, RPA personnel may be required to transition almost immediately from combat-related activities back to their everyday lives.

Additionally, the article identifies stigma surrounding RPA crews in the military, with crew members frequently viewed as “less than” or “inferior” for being assigned to remote aircraft instead of serving in a manned fighter or bomber aircraft. Coupled with long hours and shift work schedules that disrupt natural sleeping patterns, service members operating RPA are at a disproportionately high risk for adverse mental health outcomes and can experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and moral injury.

After learning about RPA crews and the unique challenges associated with their career field, the CDP research team discussed several important considerations for working with this population. The team was particularly interested in understanding the emotional dynamics within RPA units, especially those related to moral injury. Of particular interest was how traditional concepts of honor and military service may be difficult to reconcile for personnel who conduct remote warfare. Discussions surrounding responsibility for the deaths of enemy combatants were especially noteworthy, as many RPA crew members frequently report feeling guilt or shame for the way in which they conduct military operations, per the article.

The team discussed a handful of clinical considerations when treating these individuals. A clinical member of the team raised the possibility that psychotherapy could focus largely on stigma reduction and validation, given the isolating and invalidating nature of the environment surrounding this career field. The team also raised that cognitive-focused, evidence-based psychotherapy for PTSD, such as Cognitive Processing Therapy, may be effective in addressing experiences of guilt. Clinicians can assess and treat standard PTSD symptoms, but may also consider working with the client to target interventions toward acceptance and understanding given possible experiences of guilt, shame, stigma, and moral conflict unique to RPA service.

The unique operational environment of RPA personnel presents significant psychological challenges, characterized by a difficult juxtaposition of physical distance and emotional intimacy, compounded by the domestic setting of their work, irregular schedules, and persistent stigma. Future clinical approaches can address the prevalence of traumatic stress, moral injury, guilt, and shame in this population by prioritizing stigma reduction and employing therapies that aim to address guilt while promoting acceptance and self-understanding.

Ultimately, remote warfare may be physically distant, but it is not necessarily psychologically distant. RPA personnel may benefit from clinical approaches that recognize both the traumatic and moral dimensions of their work.

The opinions in CDP Staff Perspective blogs are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science or the Department of Defense.

Mitch Duque is a previous Research Assistant and HJF employee collaborating with the Consortium for Deployment Psychology, DoW and Uniformed Service Contractor