POST TRAUMATIC GROWTH:

Integrative Perspectives

An evening with a panel of professionals from different treatment orientations, on HOW and WHY growth happens after trauma. The evening will include personal stories of growth, so bring yours to share.

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Posttraumatic growth (PTG) or benefit finding is positive psychological change experienced as a result of adversity and other challenges in order to rise to a higher level of functioning.^[1] These circumstances represent significant challenges to the adaptive resources of the individual, and pose significant challenges to their way of understanding the world and their place in it.^[1] Posttraumatic growth is not about returning to the same life as it was previously experienced before a period of traumatic suffering, but rather it is about undergoing significant 'life-changing' psychological shifts in thinking and relating to the world, that contribute to a personal process of change, that is deeply meaningful.^[1]

It is often characterized by decreased reactivity and faster recovery in response to similar stressors in the future. This occurs as a result of exposure to the event and subsequent learning. It is associated with the positive psychology movement. The term was coined by psychologists Richard G. Tedeschi and Lawrence G. Calhoun at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the mid-1990s.^[2] According to Tedeschi as many as 90 percent of survivors report at least one aspect of posttraumatic growth, such as a renewed appreciation for life.^[3] Traditional psychology's equivalent to thriving is resilience, which is reaching the previous level of functioning before a trauma, stressor, or challenge. The difference between resilience and thriving is the recovery point – thriving goes above and beyond resilience, and involves finding benefits within challenges.^[4] from Wikipedia

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The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: Measuring the positive legacy of trauma

by Richard G. TedeschiLawrence G. Calhoun

The development of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, an instrument for assessing positive outcomes reported by persons who have experienced traumatic events, is described. This 21-item scale includes factors of New Possibilities, Relating to Others, Personal Strength, Spiritual Change, and Appreciation of Life. Women tend to report more benefits than do men, and persons who have experienced traumatic events report more positive change than do persons who have not experienced extraordinary events. The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory is modestly related to optimism and extraversion. The scale appears to have utility in determining how successful individuals, coping with the aftermath of trauma, are in reconstructing or strengthening their perceptions of self, others, and the meaning of events. Read More

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What is the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory?

The Post Traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI: Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996) was developed to evaluate the positive changes people report in the aftermath of highly stressful and potentially traumatic events (Helgeson, Reynolds, & Tomich, 2006; Linley & Joseph, 2004). Over years, the PTGI has been extensively used in studies conducted with people living in different cultures. The scale has five factors: relating to others, new possibilities, personal strength, appreciation of others and spiritual change. Of the five factors of the PTGI, perhaps the one that has been questioned most often is the Spiritual Change (SC) factor since it includes only two items, and these have a spiritual or religious aspect, but they do not capture growth that may be considered more existential in nature. Read More

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Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory: Tragedy, adversity & traumatic events can create post-traumatic stress

by Ron Breazeale Ph.D. from Psychology Today

Have the bad things that have happened in your life made you a stronger person or have they scarred you forever?  Tragedy and adversity can change an individual.  Traumatic events can create disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorders and other problems, but it appears they can also produce growth and positive change.  Research has suggested that traumatic events can produce positive growth for individuals in a number of areas, such as their ability to relate to others, their general appreciation of life, their ability to see new possibilities and changes in their spiritual life.  People often show growth in some areas but not in others and rarely show growth in all areas. Read More

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Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: OverviewPosttraumatic Growth Inventory: Overview

By Rachel F. Steffens, Michael A. Andrykowski 

Exposure to a traumatic event can unleash a cascade of negative reactions including anxiety, depression, and PTSD. However, exposure to a traumatic event also has the potential to catalyze a host of positive reactions, including improvements in personal, interpersonal, and spiritual functioning, commonly referred to as posttraumatic growth. The 21-item Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (Tedeschi RG, Calhoun LG (eds) (1995) Trauma and transformation: growth in the aftermath of suffering. Sage, Thousand Oaks; Tedeschi and Calhoun, J Trauma Stress 9:455–471, 1996) has emerged as the most common self-reported approach to measuring posttraumatic growth. The development, characteristics, and scoring of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, as well as a 10-item short form (Cann et al., Anxiety Stress Coping 23:127–137, 2010), are described. Selected representative studies using the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory are listed along with reported means and standard deviations for Posttraumatic Growth Inventory total and subscale scores. Future directions for research regarding the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory are suggested. Finally, while the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory was developed to assess growth following traumatic events, it has also been used successfully to assess growth following a variety of life-altering, “transitional” events, such as childbirth, bereavement, and divorce, that do not necessarily meet the formal definition of trauma.

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Somatic Therapy of Post Traumatic Growth

Peter Levine's www.traumahealing.org

Pat Ogden's www.sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org

Steve Hoskinson's www.organicintelligence.org

Bessel van der Kolk www.besselvanderkolk.net