A Model of Meaning-Making Coping and Growth in Combat Veterans

Abstract

More than 1.6 million military men and women have deployed to fight the global war on terror. Although studies have suggested that approximately one third of these service men and women return with a mental health condition or a brain injury, a gap remains in our understanding about how these individuals cope with and grow from their experiences. In this article, we review the existing body of research related to growth and recovery from trauma and then propose an empirically informed and contextually sensitive model to guide future research with combat veterans. We draw from research focused on resilience, posttraumatic growth, and decline (negative or pathological) change trajectories, and we propose that meaning-making coping is a core mechanism of the posttraumatic growth process for combat veterans. Implications for practitioners and the next steps for future research are presented.