WAGs: Psychology for the Military Spouse

WAGs is an acronym often used to refer to wives and girlfriends of high-profile sportspersons and film personalities. After all, if people can talk and write about Hollywood wives, Bollywood wives and the likes of Cricketer wives, why can’t we talk about the military wives and shatter the commonly held notion of them being ‘just pretty faces leading luxurious lifestyles’. Military spouses constantly juggle and balance demands of military life with their own aspirations and married life with the soldier. They may serve as critical support to help tide over adversity, stress and trauma in a soldier’s life and also have the potential to be an additional source of stress.
Ways in which military spouses navigate and manage their feelings, emotions and behaviour as well as intra-psychic conflict and interpersonal relations borne out of protracted soldier deployment may have a direct impact not just on family functioning, but soldier well being and functional fitness, his decision to continue in the forces or leave. In short, military spouses have a direct impact on soldier performance, morale and motivation, selection, retention and attrition in the Armed Forces. As such, it is incumbent on military leaders to recognise their contribution and make concerted efforts to enhance resilience building among military spouses. It is time that even society at large acknowledge their painstaking efforts of an entire lifetime and strengthen social support, emotional and psychological fitness of military families in the community by providing them a sense of meaningfulness in their commitment to the military.
There is a lack of research on military spouses and little awareness of their contribution as the strength behind the soldier in uniform, to the military and the nation. This book is an effort in this direction to provide a better understanding of the military spouse.

Lt Col Dr Samir Rawat is a combat veteran and a cognitive-behavioural psychologist from India who uses an eclectic approach in imparting soft skills training and behaviour modification related to high performance leadership, trauma and stress management, personality development, behaviour modification, group and one-on-one counselling.
He is a decorated soldier with proven leadership skills in Siachen Glacier, the highest battlefield in the world, where he commanded an infantry rifle company as a volunteer officer. He was also conferred a President’s Gallantry Award for recapturing enemy held positions during Kargil operations in 1999.
Besides, Dr Rawat has contributed extensively to military journals and has edited six books on military psychology with authors from over sixteen countries and has also contributed book chapters in over a dozen military psychology books which have been published across six countries. He has taught a diverse group of population ranging from military recruits, cadets, young officers, commanding officers of the Armed Forces, Para Military Forces and friendly foreign countries as well as admirals and their spouses, uniformed and non-uniformed psychologists, and senior military leadership in India and abroad. More recently, he has conducted several workshops and was a keynote speaker in military institutions in Romania, Serbia, Norway and Poland, as well as for NATO in 2018. He is also identified as an eminent keynote speaker for the forthcoming 32nd International Congress of Psychology 2020 (ICP) in Prague, this being one of the biggest international event in the field of psychology.