Meet the Expert - Dr Mary Keeling
Welcome to a special edition of 'Meet the Expert' featuring a member of the FiMT Research Centre team. This series brings you informative interviews with Armed Forces researchers, policy makers and service providers. This edition features Dr Mary Keeling, Research Manager of the FiMT Research Centre. Read on to learn about her current work, aspirations for progress and future work, and insights into expert perspectives on key issues impacting ex-Service personnel and their families.
Dr Mary Keeling is a Research Leader in the Defence, Security and Justice research group at RAND Europe, where her primary role is Research Manager of the Forces in Mind Trust Research Centre. Mary is a Chartered Psychologist and has worked in the field of military psychology since 2010, both in the UK and the US. Broadly, her research aims to understand the psychosocial impact of military Service on military personnel, Veterans, and Service-connected families.
1. Please tell us about your background and how you came to be involved in work relating to the Armed Forces community?
Like many psychology graduates, I started out pursuing a career as a clinical psychologist. After five years in various assistant psychologist roles working across inpatient forensic adolescent mental health, primary care mental health, and neurological rehabilitation, and one research assistant post, I decided to do a master’s degree in psychological research methods. My master’s degree was fantastic spurring my deep interest in research and essentially becoming a bit of a methods geek! So, I decided to change track and sought out a PhD with the intention of becoming a research psychologist.
Up until this point, I hadn’t considered working with the Armed Forces, but then I saw a PhD opportunity advertised at the King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR), funded by the Royal British Legion, with the broad topic of researching the social impact of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. While it wasn’t something I’d given much thought to before, this topic area really intrigued me. I’m originally from an ex-mining town in Nottinghamshire where a lot of my male school friends signed up to join infantry or tank regiments when they were 16 and then we saw them come back after deployment to Kosovo in not the best psychological shape! So, I thought, OK, this could be very interesting and an opportunity to contribute to supporting those who serve. I applied and was successful and so started my PhD under the supervision of Prof Nicola Fear and Prof Sir Simon Wessely in 2010. I narrowed the PhD focus to the impact of deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan on romantic relationships, and since completing that in late 2013, I have been working in the field of military psychology since.
2. What research projects are you currently working on, and how do they fit into the bigger picture of understanding and supporting the Armed Forces Community?
So of course, my main role is as the Research Manager of the FiMT Research Centre, where we are working towards our vision that evidence is at the heart of decision making for the benefit of the Armed Forces community. We know that evidence informed decision making means better outcomes, but that achieving a full understanding and keeping up to date with available evidence can be challenging. That’s where the research centre comes in to provide evidence in accessible and digestible ways and make sure all are connected and equipped to use the available evidence.
With my RAND Europe, Research Leader hat on, we just started the AFTER Study, which is a collaboration between me at RAND Europe, Dr Natalie Hammond at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Prof Nicola Fear at KCMHR, with support from Prof Dominic Murphy at Combat Stress. Funded by the Scar Free Foundation, this 2.5-year study aims to understand the long-term psychosocial sexual experiences of male ex-Service personnel and their partners affected by conflict-related genital injury, and to use the results to develop and acceptability and feasibility test possible support interventions. In research I led on in my previous job at the Centre for Appearance Research, investigating the psychosocial experiences of (ex) Service personnel with appearance altering injuries, we found emerging evidence for the long-term impact of genital injuries and unmet support needs. Natalie and I went on to conduct a pilot study which provided more evidence for the psychological and sexual impact of such injuries and a need for a larger scale study. People often shy away from talking about sexual well-being and genital injuries. Still, we know that romantic, intimate relationships are extremely important for our overall well-being and therefore are an important area to understand and support.
Also with my RAND Europe, Research Leader hat on, I am involved in the Military Children: Promote, Protect, Prevent study, led by Dr Paul Watson at the Northern Hub – this study seeks to understand the experiences of military children and young people through the lens of the social determinants of health using co-production approaches to develop a screening tool for identifying MCCYP who may need additional support. The social determinants of health lens is a very useful way of identifying how and when support might be needed and takes a holistic view of health and well-being.
3. What other research or policy areas relating to the Armed Forces community are you especially passionate about or feel need further attention? Please expand on this and tell us about them, as much as you can.
There are so many! But key things that I am especially passionate about are romantic relationships and the impact on them as people transition out of the military. We know that romantic relationships play an important role in psychological well-being. Yet there is very little UK research on the romantic relationships of the UK Armed Forces. As far as I am aware, nothing specifically looks at romantic relationships through the process of military to civilian transition. I believe this is an overlooked area that needs attention in order to have a holistic understanding of military to civilian transition experiences and support needs.
The role of identity and the psychosocial aspect of transition is an area I think needs more attention, especially in including psychosocial elements in transition support. Transition support has come on leaps and bounds, but there is still more to be done. The focus of transition support remains mostly practical and misses the role of and preparing those leaving for the potential impact on, their sense of identity, and the existential impact of loss of meaning, purpose, structure, and familiarity.
Another overlooked area is the important role of psychological mechanisms such as self-determination, agency, self-efficacy, and other factors of motivation, as well as psychological flexibility and adaptability in the transition process. I generally think there is a need to draw more on existing psychological theory to understand the transition process to inform transition support beyond the practical and to enhance engagement and agency in the process.
There are many more, but it would take up too much space – quick list – under employment and career satisfaction among ex-Service personnel and their partners; public perceptions of the Armed Forces and the impact on transition post-Service; eating disorders and body image among serving and ex-Service personnel and military connected family members; the experiences of families especially non-traditional families; developing a better understanding of how current young adults feel about joining the military and what might encourage or deter them; and developing a greater understanding of the positive benefits of military Service, how best they can be harnessed in post-Service life, and create a more balanced understanding of the Armed Forces among the general public.
4. What are your future aspirations for the impact and utilization of your work/research?
I hope that all the work and research I am involved in leads to positive change for the benefit of the Armed Forces community; whether that be in the development of new support and interventions, in informing policy changes, or in developing knowledge and evidence that raises awareness and understanding about the Armed Forces community among the general population that might minimise the military/civilian gap and create a balanced perception of the Armed Forces.
5. What do you think are the key challenges impacting current Veterans and their families, and how do you think research and/or policy can be best used to address them?
The world is a precarious place currently, with the obvious geopolitical issues, as well as the many societal issues that are affecting all, including Veterans, such as the cost-of-living crisis, housing crisis, loneliness, the state of the NHS and the education system, local councils close to bankruptcy, to name just a few. Arguably, for those currently in the process of transitioning out of the Armed Forces, having to navigate unfamiliar systems that are struggling to function effectively is likely to make transition for some more challenging.
The key thing is that we conduct robust research, building on existing knowledge, and that new evidence generated is being used to inform the development of any new services and/or policy. Additionally, there is a need for good quality evaluations of any new services, interventions, and policies. Good quality research and evaluations require appropriately sized research budgets to allow for the required time and resources – this is something I would like to see being addressed – it will be better to have fewer studies done well than more that are less robust, thus making the evidence less reliable. Properly funded evaluations and research with clear and specific research questions and tight and robust methods that are well executed are crucial. And of course, collaborating with others, drawing on expertise and pooling resources also enables best use of available funds.
6. What do you think will be the leading challenges for the next generation of Veterans, and how do you think research and/or policy can be best used to address them?
This is a tough question, as I feel we are at a particularly tumultuous geopolitical moment set against an Armed Forces recruitment and retention problem. I think we need to better understand how the public perceives the Armed Forces, if and how the civilian/military gap is widening, and what this might mean for reintegration and transition post-Service. Additionally, as noted above, the general societal challenges related to public spending on health care, education, housing, inflation and the cost of living, which seems to only be worsening, are all likely to affect the next generation of Veterans and their families.
7. Can you tell us about the methods you tend to use in your research and why you gravitate towards these kinds of approaches?
I’m a mixed methods researcher, so I draw on many different qualitative and quantitative approaches, with the key being choosing the correct method to address the research question. Different types of questions require different methods, and if you get it wrong, you won’t be able to answer the question.
I enjoy the depth of qualitative research and getting to understand how people have made sense of their experiences and what is important to them, especially when using methods such as Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis or narrative approaches. Still, I also value the ability to look statistically at the likelihood of certain outcomes and the factors that contribute to that likelihood. Taking both of these approaches to answer questions provides holistic and robust evidence that can be used to develop interventions and inform recommendations for policy and practice.
8. Given unlimited funding and time, what would be your dream piece of research to undertake involving the Armed Forces community?
We need longitudinal research to truly understand what is going on and what factors are important. I would really like to conduct a longitudinal mixed methods piece that looked at romantic relationships through Service, through the military to civilian transition process, and years after; I would also like to conduct a longitudinal mixed methods study that focuses on examining identity and its role in transition experiences.
Right now, I think a really important piece of research that needs to be conducted is to understand the prevalence, risk factors and experiences of eating disorders among serving and ex-Service personnel and their families.
Many thanks to Dr Mary Keeling for sharing her insights.
Catch us next month for another interesting and informative interview with an expert from the Armed Forces research community.
