ODL 440: Beyond Resilience: Understanding Secondary Traumatic Stress in Military Spouses

Created On:  9/2/2026                  

Target Audience:

This course is targeted for social workers, psychologists, and counselors.

Instructional Level:

Intermediate

Overview:

This 1-hour training is designed to increase awareness and understanding of secondary traumatic stress (STS) among military spouses, reframing it as a systemic and relational response rather than an individual deficit. Military spouses often experience ongoing exposure to their partner’s trauma, operational stress, and the cumulative demands of military life, including deployment cycles, reintegration challenges, relocation, and role strain. Despite this, their experiences are frequently underrecognized in both military and civilian behavioral health systems.

Through a trauma-informed and systems-based lens, this training explores how STS develops within the context of military family life and how it is shaped by structural factors such as stigma, confidentiality concerns, limited access to services, and service member–centric care models. Participants will examine common signs and manifestations of STS in spouses, including emotional exhaustion, anxiety, relational strain, and somatic symptoms, as well as the ways these experiences are often misinterpreted or minimized.

Course Objectives:

By the end of the session, the participant will be able to:

• Define secondary traumatic stress (STS) and explain how it presents among military spouses within the context of indirect trauma exposure and military family dynamics.
• Identify common signs and symptoms of STS in military spouses, including emotional, cognitive, relational, and somatic responses.
• Explain how military culture, deployment cycles, and systemic factors (e.g., stigma, confidentiality concerns, access barriers) contribute to the development and underrecognition of STS.
• Apply a trauma-informed, person-in-environment perspective to understand STS as a relational and systemic response rather than an individual pathology.
• Recognize common barriers to care for military spouses and describe strategies to increase engagement, trust, and access to supportive services.
• Implement practical, strengths-based, and trauma-informed approaches to support military spouses experiencing STS within clinical, community, or organizational settings.

Presenter:

Erika Wallgren, DSW, LMSW

Dr. Erika Wallgren, DSW, LMSW, is a Licensed Master Social Worker and Doctor of Social Work. She earned her Doctor of Social Work from the University of Kentucky, a Master of Social Work from Indiana University, a Master of Science in Applied Communication from Fitchburg State University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a concentration in Social Work from the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Wallgren serves as an Integrated therapist, providing outpatient treatment to individuals with co-occuring mental health and substance use disorders, with a particular focus on underserved and military-connected communities. In addition to her clinical work, she teaches graduate- and undergraduate-level social work and communication courses, bringing expertise in trauma-informed practice, interpersonal communication, and professional development. 

Her scholarship focuses on Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) among military spouses and the systemic factors that influence trauma exposure, access to care, and behavioral health outcomes within military family systems. Her doctoral capstone introduced the Trauma-Informed Military Family Systems (TIMFS) Model, a conceptual framework that integrates trauma-informed principal with the ecological systems theory to inform clinical practice, organizational policy, and service delivery for military connected families. 

Dr. Wallgren’s broader research interests include military cultural competence, trauma-informed care, family systems, behavioral health equity, and improving access to mental health services for underserved populations. Her work contributes to the growing body of scholarship examining how military culture, institutional systems, and social policies influence the well-being of service members, veterans, and their families. She has been an active member of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) since 2024.