The Plausibility Of Post-Traumatic Growth: Article Analysis

Bryant McGill once said “Suffering is one of life's greatest teachers” and this quote is very true. Suffering from a tragedy, many seem like the worst thing to ever happen, but if you push through and persevere, you will learn so much about yourself and the others around you. Through Suffering we learn from our past to grow our communities in the spirit of a hopeful future by preserving and bravery.

However, vicarious resilience (VR) permits clinicians learn how to overcome adversity from their practice with survivors of trauma and become participants to the survivor’s recovery from trauma (Hernandez-Wolf, Killian, Engstrom, & Gangsei, 2014). Vicarious resilience, is positive growth and transformation of the clinician resulting from their experience with the client’s resilience within the trauma therapy process (Hernandez-Wolf, Killian, Engstrom, & Gangsei,

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate my experiential learning of personal and social adjustments when confronted with life-changing events and the mechanisms utilized to effectively cope from traumatic experiences. The components supporting this piece include: confronting the problem, learning to adapt and cope, cultivating self-worth, the importance of a support system and over time change influencers. To support my understanding of personal and social adjustments, I will use the content of this paper to speak as evidence of my experiential learning derived from confronting a long-term spiritual abuse situation and process of unraveling and coping from its affects.

Some may say that suffering doesn’t help, it only hurts, but in reality, it does help, it helps you mold you into the person you are today. One way this is shown is through the suffering of people throughout history. If you look back at groups of people throughout history you can see how suffering has changed and in cases improved conditions. Something else is that suffering really can change a person’s character and help them develop credibility.

Some may say that suffering doesn’t help, it only hurts, but in reality, it does help, it helps you mold you into the person you are today. One way this is shown is through the suffering of people throughout history. If you look back at groups of people throughout history you can see how suffering has changed and in cases improved conditions. Something else is that suffering really can change a person’s character and help them develop credibility.

Pamela Cooper-White makes an interesting claim of how people suffer and how they should recover from their pain. White claims that suffering is the “meaning that we make or attempt to make our pain.” Then for someone to fully heal, “we must make meaning in relation to our pain.” It is not an easy task to heal from pain and suffering and it takes time to heal your wounds. Sadly, some people do not recover from their wounds, and digress from their lives and society because they cannot deal with the pain. Some people do not have a form of support or no one in their lives to help them cope with their pain. Further, White claims, “we need a witness in our lives to” become aware of our experience. Without this relationship, we will never fix ourselves

In Martha Stout’s essay “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday”, she discusses how a person who has suffered a traumatic experience is most likely to dissociate their individual self from that situation and block it from their mind completely. This form of a solution allows the person to forget the experience and not feel the pain. In “Immune to Reality” Daniel Gilbert describes how every human being contains a psychological immune system, which works to shield us from horrible experiences that threaten our happiness. When experiencing a traumatic event, the psychological immune system responds by “cooking up the facts”, meaning taking the facts of the situation and turning the negative aspects of it into positive views. At first

Because of the depiction made within the media, I also assumed that victims of childhood trauma were only able to overcome through the use of therapeutic care. Therapeutic care is often depicted as the only option that victims use that will ensure that they do not fall into a state of depression or begin to abuse drugs. It is rare to see movies where they are promoting social relationships as a bonus to the use of therapeutic services. Although it is not often depicted, social relationships do help in the quest to overcome the horrors of childhood trauma. Social relationships are any form of bonds created between a person and their

When people go through something difficult it can change them. Making them who they are, it can change them for the bad or good. Therefore, hardships can greatly influence a person’s life by making them appreciate all the things that make life enjoyable.

Post-traumatic growth is when a person processes their trauma in such a way that is leads to a positive life changes. The individual can see growth from the trauma in various ways; some of which can be in their relationships (closer and more intimate), their self-esteem (seeing themselves as an overcomer/stronger), clarity and/or reprioritizing of their own life, and becoming more spiritually minded/focused on their faith.

Trauma and Abuse, Illness and Struggle May Be Injurious, but They May also be sources of challenge and opportunity

When reviewing PTG (Post Traumatic Growth) people find meaningful life lessons a renewed appreciation for life and increased feeling of personal strength because of traumatic experiences. The characters that form Post Traumatic Stress Disorder positive outcome appear form traumatic experiences have been referred to PTG. Post Traumatic Growth has potential for growth and enhancement that may result from personal suffering. development growth is closely related to literature on resilience because both resilience and PTG both focus on human strength that challenges life events.

The AAQ-II (Bond et al., 2011) is a self-report measure used to screen for psychological inflexibility. It is a seven item report that is designed to assess for the respondent’s level of psychological flexibility through the indirect measurement of similar processes (Wendling, 2012). The seven questions are rated on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from one (“never true”) to seven (“always true”), and they include statements about acceptance and action such as, “Emotions cause problems in my life” and “Worries get in the way of my life” (Bond et al., 2011). To score the test, all seven items are summed; higher scores reflect higher levels of psychological inflexibility. The instrument has been established to be both reliable and valid, showing a mean alpha coefficient of .84 and a three and twelve-month test-retest-reliability of .81 and .79 respectively. It is consistent across subjects studied and is consistent with the underlying theory from which it was developed; it demonstrates solid discriminant validity (Bond et al., 2011).

Glenn, T. (2014). A bridge over troubled waters: Spirituality and resilience with emerging adult childhood trauma survivors. Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health. 16. Pp. 37-50.

When someone experiences great adversity they can obtain from it one of two things, resilience or pessimism . These outcomes depend on a person’s attitude. If has an optimistic view throughout this time, they will learn that they are stronger and more capable of accomplishing tasks they never dared to face before. I strongly believe that during a time of misfortune a person can learn more about themselves and have a better grasp of what life is like.