Post-Traumatic Growth

Much has been written about post-traumatic stress disorder. We have posted blogs discussing this problem and suggesting ways in which the skills and the attitudes ofresilience could be helpful. Undoubtedly, when we go through traumatic situations, they cause stress and they can cause damage and create scars that will last for a long time. But many of these will not be permanent. And, indeed, if we survive the trauma, we may develop attitudes and skills that will help us in dealing with our life in general and with future traumas.

A number of years ago, a group of psychologists decided they would do a meta-analysis of all of the studies of child sexual abuse, focused specifically at how victims of this abuse survived and what happened to them in later years. Do they carry the scars of their abuse forever? How well-adjusted were they? Did they marry? Have children? Create relatively normal and positive lives for themselves? Somewhat to the surprise of some of the researchers, they found that, indeed, the majority of victims of such abuse developed relatively normal, healthy lives in later years. They did not in all cases. In fact, did not in most cases carry permanent scars that hindered them from having relatively healthy and productive lives.

The researchers expected that their study would be greeted in a positive way by others in the field. To their dismay, many in the field were exceedingly critical of them and their research and appeared to want to maintain the idea that the majority of people who are abused as children will be damaged for life. Will be damaged forever. This is not what the research showed. Indeed, some were, but many were not. Their study illustrates that human beings are amazingly resilient creatures and that children and adolescents especially are. The participants in these studies were victims initially.  But in the end they were survivors.

Out of their research and the work of a number of other people, the concept of post-traumatic growth has developed. The concept is basically one of:  If it doesn’t kill you, it may, indeed, make you stronger.

For most of us who have worked in this field for many years, the concept of post-traumatic growth is not a new one. Long before extensive research was done in this area, most of us were quite aware of the individuals that we had worked with who had actually grown and developed new skills and attitudes in dealing with the traumatic experiences that they had had in their lives. The field of positive psychology has benefited from this research and has used much of it as a cornerstone for the positive psychology “movement.” The  positive psychology movement is not focused on denying the impact of trauma on our lives. Individuals can be damaged and, in some cases, destroyed by the traumas that they experience in their lives.  But many may learn the skills and the attitudes that will carry them through and allow them to have meaningful and productive lives.

If you haven’t read much about this area, I would encourage you to look on the Internet for articles about post-traumatic growth. A number of these have been authored by Dr. Martin Seligman and his colleagues.