Building psychological resilience among families of service personnel

Psychological resilience means adapting positively to adversity. This is armed forces' very context and function-encountering, enduring, and overcoming challenging situations through resilience. Scientific study of psychological resilience has moved from individual, to process, onward to developmental trajectories, and to neuro-biological underpinnings. Person-focused and environment-focused variables help us understand the resilient individual. Family resilience has been scarcely studied. The impact of frequent relocations, deployments, uncertainty, stress, injuries, illness, and death on spouses and children of service personnel manifests in varied ways, generating varied concerns and outcomes. Armed Forces across the world have addressed these concerns over the years. Apart from traditional approaches, some recent initiatives have been made in the Indian context. Effective psychological resilience interventions will have to be feasible, culturally acceptable, and possibly supported by digital technology to have a broad impact on families and soldiers.