From Training to Transition – What We’re Not Teaching Enough

A veteran once said to me:

“I spent six months being trained to join. I got two days to leave.”

It stuck with me.

We put enormous effort into preparing people to enter the Armed Forces — physically, mentally, culturally. The identity of ‘serviceperson’ is forged through structure, repetition, and meaning.

But when it comes time to leave, at it's best the resettlement process helps people find a good job and a stable start to come out to, but too many get a debrief, a few forms, and a well-meaning PowerPoint on job searches. I've worked veterans who worked pretty much to their last day before unceremoniously handing their ID card to a busy clerk and walking out the gate. Not good enough by a long way.

But even when resettlement is done well - then what?

Veterans are expected to just… slot back into civilian life. Pick up an identity they never trained for. An identity that, if they joined as teenagers, they've never actually had as an adult. Navigate grief, loss, anxiety, and uncertainty — often alone.

Where is the training for that? Shouldn't we treat training for civilian life as seriously as we treat training to serve?

What ACT offers here

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) provides a powerful lens for supporting this kind of transition:

- Psychological flexibility to hold painful experiences without shutting down and learn to adapt, improvise, and overcome, rather than become caught up in rigid ways of seeing the world, & ourselves. Ways that worked in the military but lead us to get stuck in the new environment of civilian life

- Values clarification to build a new post-service life rooted in purpose

- A focus on workability, bringing pragmatic action to moving forward, working with what is, rather than what should be.

A free guide for veterans

I wrote Beyond the Uniform to support veterans through this critical (and often overlooked) process.

📘 You can download it here:

 👉 www.christiankhughes.com/resources

If you're working with veterans, you might also find it useful.

And if you’re already using ACT to support military or identity transitions, I’d genuinely love to hear what’s working in your practice.

Christian Hughes is a Psychotherapist, Clinical Supervisor, and Clinical Trainer, specialising in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, with expertise in Trauma, PTSD, and a special interest in Moral Injury.