On Posttraumatic Growth
Since my last post was about trauma, I thought it would be fitting to follow it up with a post about posttraumatic growth, which can happen afterward. Throughout my time in grad school, I have heard people say that we all experience trauma, as a sort of inevitable part of the human experience. A study by Benjet et al., (2016) found that on average, 82.7% of U.S. adults experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime. The most common traumatic events that people experience are 1) the unexpected death of a loved one, 2) witnessing a death, dead body, or a serious injury, 3) being mugged, and 4) experiencing a life-threatening accident. But events don’t necessarily have to be “objectively” traumatic, to be traumatic to you. And the opposite is also true, an objectively traumatic event might not be traumatic to you. Either way, trauma is an arguably ubiquitous human experience.
The Three Posttraumatic Growth Areas
Posttraumatic growth is a concept that was originally coined by Calhoun and Tedeschi in 1998. It essentially refers to the idea that people can find meaning in their struggles. Calhoun and Tedeschi found that there are 3 main areas of growth after trauma. The first is in our perception of self. This means that after a traumatic event, our self-concept changes. The second growth area after trauma is in our relationships with others. What changes here is that traumatized people are likely to become closer to their loved ones, probably as a way of getting social support. Interestingly, we can also become more compassionate towards others. The third and last growth area is in our philosophy of life. People are likely to reorganize the meaning they attribute to life and set new priorities. Something to note is that many people turn to religion or spirituality after a traumatic event, and it does facilitate growth.
Emotions
So, what is it about trauma that initiates growth? According to Calhoun and Tedeschi (1998), distress pushes us to change. This reminds me of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). EFT holds that “emotion moves the individual, sculpting inner experience” (Johnson, 2019, p. 28). The extreme emotions that we feel after a traumatic event are the very things that instigate our personal growth, as painful as it is.
I love this quote from Attachment Theory in Practice, “the self is… an ongoing construction, a process rather than an object, and one that is defined in interactions with others” (Johnson, 2019, p. 28). In EFT, safe interactions with others are key to growth. Safe interactions make us feel accepted and safe to grow and change. And like EFT posits, people are ever-changing, we are not a stagnant concept, we are a process, and emotion is our catalyst.
Re-Authoring
Another variable that sets off growth is the intensity of the traumatic event. According to Calhoun and Tedeschi (1998), the event must be strong enough to make us question our assumptions of the world and essentially push us to rebuild our worldview. And when something changes in our assumption of the world, we change too because we inevitably live in the world. But trauma should not necessarily stay with us even if it changes us. Instead, “one must acknowledge that the trauma must be left in the past, but also woven into the future” (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 1998, p. 363). The meaning we extract from a traumatic experience stays with us and informs the people we become.
Part of leaving trauma in the past involves the ability to re-author our story. Reauthoring shows that we have processed the event and reorganized information about ourselves and the world. In a way, we have come through the other side. In IFS, the process of re-authoring involves converting implicit memories into explicit memories (Anderson, Sweezy, & Schwartz, 2017, p. 62). In other words, we go from a somatic understanding of the traumatic event to a factual and conscious understanding of it. In this way, producing a trauma narrative is the process of digesting the memory into something that we can live with.
Traumatic events are incredibly painful and hard to live through. However, these painful emotions are also what helps us move forward. Posttraumatic growth requires us to be open to these painful emotions so that we can process a memory and perhaps even extract meaning from it. Finding a therapist that can provide you with a safe space might support your growth and change.
Further Resources:
Psychology Today Article about Posttraumatic Growth
Check out my last article on Trauma and Your Body
Watch this Interview with Dr. Richard Tedeschi
References
Anderson, F. G., Sweezy, M., & Schwartz, R. C. (2017). Internal family systems skills training manual: trauma-informed treatment for anxiety, depression, PTSD & substance abuse. PESI Publishing & Media.
Benjet, C., Bromet, E., Karam, E. G., Kessler, R. C., McLaughlin, K. A., Ruscio, A. M., Shahly, V., Stein, D. J., Petukhova, M., Hill, E., Alonso, J., Atwoli, L., Bunting, B., Bruffaerts, R., Caldas-de-Almeida, J. M., de Girolamo, G., Florescu, S., Gureje, O., Huang, Y., … Koenen, K. C. (2016). The epidemiology of traumatic event exposure worldwide: results from the World Mental Health Survey Consortium. Psychological Medicine, 46(2), 327–343. https://doi-org.libproxy.txstate.edu/10.1017/S0033291715001981
Calhoun, L. G., & Tedeschi, R. G. (1998). Beyond recovery from trauma: Implications for clinical practice and research. Journal of Social Issues, 54(2), 357–371. https://doi-org.libproxy.txstate.edu/10.1111/0022-4537.701998070
Johnson, Susan M. (2019). Attachment Theory in Practice: Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with Individuals, Couples, and Families. The Guilford Press.
