Skip to main content
ABCT 2025 59th Annual Convention Main banner
Psychology Tools Ad
Final Program


Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Presentation Icons
Recorded Session
Recorded Session
Ticketed Session
Ticketed Session
Evaluation ViewAttendees 2

Couples / Close Relationships
Session Type:: Symposia

Symposium 51 - Innovations in Relationship Care for Veterans and their Loved Ones

Sunday, November 23, 2025
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM CST
Location: Foster 2, Level 2
CE: 1.5

Keywords: Couples / Close Relationships, Veterans, Treatment
Level of Familiarity: Basic
Recommended Readings: Liebman, R. E., Whitfield, K. M., Sijercic, I., Ennis, N., & Monson, C. M. (2020). Harnessing the healing power of relationships in trauma recovery: A systematic review of cognitive-behavioral conjoint therapy for PTSD. Current Treatment Options in Psychiatry, 7, 203-220.,   Landes, S. D., Wilmoth, J. M., London, A. S., & Landes, A. T. (2023). Risk factors explaining military deaths from suicide, 2008–2017: A latent class analysis. Armed Forces & Society, 49(1), 115–137. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0095327X211046976,   Monson, C. M., Wagner, A. C., Mithoefer, A. T., Liebman, R. E., Feduccia, A. A., Jerome, L., ... & Mithoefer, M. C. (2020). MDMA-facilitated cognitive-behavioural conjoint therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder: an uncontrolled trial. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 11(1), 1840123.,   ,  

Veteran couples experience unique challenges related to military service, such as deployment, trauma and PTSD, and physical injury or disability, that place veterans at increased risk of negative relationship outcomes, including distress and divorce. Relationship problems are common among service members and veterans, impacting as many as 75% of veterans seeking mental health services. Although it is commonplace, relationship dysfunction is harmful to the wellbeing of both veterans and their loved ones. Relationship distress increases risk of physical illness and mortality as well as anxiety, mood, and substance use disorders. Relationship conflicts have been shown to exacerbate suicidal ideation and are a primary precipitant of suicide deaths among military service members. Conversely, healthy and stable relationships are a source of resilience and can buffer against deleterious effects of military-related stress. Accordingly, healthcare systems that serve veterans, including the Veterans Health Administration (VA), place a high importance on providing relationship interventions for veterans and their loved ones.
This symposium presents results from five innovative projects aiming to improve relationship functioning for veterans and their partners. The first two presentations describe novel couple-based interventions developed within VA to address veterans’ relationship concerns. Presenter 1 will describe the initial deployment of a couples’ workshop using ACT and IBCT (Building Relationships with Vitality and Engagement, or BRAVE) with 62 veteran couples, with this efficient and scalable group-based approach showing improvements in both veterans’ and partners’ mental health and overall functioning. Presenter 2 will describe results from the first clinical trial of a novel couple-based suicide intervention for veterans and their partners (Treatment for Relationships & Safety Together, TR&ST), with results showing the safety and efficacy of intervening to prevent veteran suicide at the relationship level.
The final three presentations address relationship distress in the context of PTSD, a crucial aspect of caring for military veterans and their loved ones. Presenter 3 will describe an investigation into how veterans’ trauma disclosure to their partners is related to their treatment response in trauma-focused PTSD treatments, finding that trauma disclosure may be differentially helpful for male and female veterans. Presenter 4 will describe implementation and outcome findings from a national VA training program to train over 400 mental health providers in Cognitive-Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD (CBCT), showing that providers successfully learned CBCT and veterans and their partners benefited. Presenter 5 will describe a case study of a participant couple in the first VA study of MDMA-assisted conjoint therapy for PTSD, with rich data about the participants’ experiences and treatment response as well as implementation findings crucial for scaling this treatment throughout the VA. Finally, our discussant is an expert on relationship interventions and mental health within the VA system of care and will speak to the need and potential for innovation in relationship treatments for veterans.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this session, the learner will be able to:
  1. List at least three mental health outcomes that are influenced by relationship functioning among military veterans.
  2. Describe the protocols and research evidence for at least three couple-based treatments for veterans and their partners.
  3. Name at least two ways researchers are innovating to develop more powerful and/or more accessible relationship interventions for veterans.
  4. Incorporate an understanding of the link between relationship functioning and mental health into clinical work with veterans and loved ones.
  5. Explain the current state of research evidence on the effectiveness of couple-based treatments with veterans and their partners.

Presentations:

  • 10:05 AM - 10:22 AM CST
    (SYM 51) Building Relationships with Vitality and Engagement (BRAVE): A Mixed-methods Evaluation of a Pilot Trial of a One-day Workshop for Veterans and Their Romantic Partners

    Speaker: McKenzie K. Roddy, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) – Vanderbilt University Medical Center

    Co-author: Lilian Dindo, Ph.D. – Baylor College of Medicine

    Co-author: Malena Cramer, MS (she/her/hers) – Baylor College of Medicine

    Co-author: Nicte Donis, BA (she/her/hers) – Baylor College of Medicine

    Co-author: Mackenzie Shanahan, Ph.D. – US Department of Veterans Affairs

    Co-author: Derrecka Boykin, PhD (she/her/hers) – Baylor College of Medicine

    Co-author: Merlyn M. Rodrigues, M.A. – Baylor College of Medicine

    Co-author: Ken Woods, B.S., Other – VA South Central MIRECC

  • 10:22 AM - 10:39 AM CST
    (SYM 51) A Randomized Controlled Trial of Treatment for Relationships and Safety Together (TR&ST): A Couples Suicide Intervention

    Speaker: Chandra E. Khalifian, Ph.D. – University of California, San Diego and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System

    Co-author: Sumire Lundell, B.A. – VA San Diego Healthcare System/University of California, San Diego

    Co-author: Katerine Rashkovsky, B.S. (they/them/theirs) – VA San Diego Healthcare System/University of California, San Diego

    Co-author: Amy Hoang, BA (she/her/hers) – VA San Diego Healthcare System

    Co-author: Feea Leifker, MPH, PhD (she/her/hers) – University of Utah

    Co-author: Kayla Knopp, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) – VA San Diego Healthcare System/University of California, San Diego

    Co-author: Colin A. Depp, Ph.D. – UCSD

    Co-author: Shirley M. Glynn, Ph.D. – VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System

    Co-author: Leslie Morland, Psy.D. (she/her/hers) – National Center for PTSD

  • 10:39 AM - 10:56 AM CST
    (SYM 51) Do We Really Need to Talk About It? Informal Trauma Disclosure and PTSD Treatment

    Speaker: Laura Meis, Ph.D. – Women's Health Sciences Division, National Center for PTSD

    Co-author: Siamak Noorbaloochi, PhD – Center for Care Delivery and Outcomes Research, Minneapolis VA

    Co-author: Brian Smith, PhD – Women's health Sciences Division, National Center for PTSD, VA Boston

    Co-author: Dawne Vogt, PhD – National Center for PTSD

    Co-author: Melissa Polusny, PhD LP – Minneapolis VA/University of Minnesota

    Co-author: Afsoon Eftekhari, PhD – National Center For PTSD

    Co-author: Craig Rosen, PhD – National Center for PTSD, Dissemination and Training Division

    Co-author: Jessica Friedman, PhD – VA Greater Los Angeles

    Co-author: Emily Taverna, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) – National Center for PTSD

    Co-author: Kristen Howard, PhD – Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin

    Co-author: Michele Spoont, PhD – Center for Care Delivery and Outcomes Research, Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System

  • 10:56 AM - 11:13 AM CST
    (SYM 51) Provider and Patient Outcomes from a National VA Training Initiative in Cognitive-behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD

    Speaker: Kayla Knopp, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) – VA San Diego Healthcare System/University of California, San Diego

  • 11:13 AM - 11:30 AM CST
    (SYM 51) A Case Study of the First Mdma-augmented Couple-based PTSD Treatment Within the Veterans Health Administration

    Speaker: Leslie Morland, Psy.D. (she/her/hers) – National Center for PTSD

    Co-author: Kayla Knopp, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) – VA San Diego Healthcare System/University of California, San Diego

    Co-author: Bettye Chargin, BS – VA San Diego Healthcare System

    Co-author: Tamara Wachsman, B.A. – San Diego State University/University of California San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology

    Co-author: Chandra E. Khalifian, Ph.D. – University of California, San Diego and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System

    Co-author: Dimitri Perivoliotis, Ph.D. (he/him/his) – Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System/University of California San Diego Department of Psychiatry

    Co-author: Anne C. Wagner, Ph.D. – Remedy / Toronto Metropolitan University Department of Psychology