In this article, authors conducted a research with women whose spouses were veterans of either Vietnam or Persian Golf wars and who showed the symptoms of PTSD.
III. There were 6 women in a first group, all of them were working or studying outside of home, some of them lived with a man and some didn't. They Yalom's model of group therapy was used as a framework, and researchers also employed the feminist principles among the group. .
Women, who before those sessions felt completely isolated in their peril, were enjoying sharing their experiences, which had many things in common. However, "war stories" were discouraged and in their stead researchers advised to try and get to the bottom of the feelings that women held. Many women felt victimized by the men's behavior, some felt martyred and some felt guilt for not being able to do anything about men's state of mind.
Women were asked to come up with different individual goals for the whole length of experiment. Since most of those women were trying to help their partners, their personal needs were somewhat neglected and the personal goal was welcomed. In the course of the therapy sessions, it came to light that fulfilling their personal goals gave women more insights into their relationships and in the way of dealing with them.
IV. During the group sessions, researchers were able to identify few group themes which reflected the ways in which women were dealing with their partner's PTSD. The themes were for example: rescuing, when woman usually would jump up to her partner's defense whenever it was needed or not, this behavior transferred to the group setting where woman would "defend" her group mates by jumping to their rescue when they were put on the spot.
Another theme among the few-was individuation, where women were trying to individualize themselves at home, which caused constant friction in their relationship. More they tried to dissociate themselves from the problems at hand, the more those problems arose.
