Post-Traumatic Growth

This paper proposes to follow up the requirements for the group work of this curricular unit: a general characterization of one psychopathology. Having chosen the Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD) we characterized this disorder through a brief history and its basic definitions, through its diagnostic criteria and some differences compared to other disorders and the precedence of diagnosis and comorbidity, through etiology and potential triggers of PTSD, the incidence in terms of age, sex and predispositions as well as prevalence and its evolution. We also characterized PTSD through some associations with other disorders and biological disturbances and made a very brief approach to some psychotherapies that have had good results in the treatment of PTSD. Finally, a critical reflection on some procedures related to this disorder and the post-traumatic growth.

How can we do counseling and psychotherapy across the cultural divide? A principle of "mutual creative space" is presented as a basis for a meaningful and effective encounter. The paper focuses on individual psychotherapy/counseling (separate paper on clinical group work). Seven sub-categories of that principle are given, with elaborate examples of how to use them effectively within the therapeutic and related contexts. The concept has been carried over to education, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and vocational training, among others.

Evidence that posttraumatic growth is a potential outcome in the process of recovery from trauma and natural disaster highlights the importance of social environmental factors that encourage a growth response in survivors. This art-based research project followed up on a group of youth survivors (N = 11) of the 2007 earthquake in the Ica region of Peru who had been active helpers in a 9-month art therapy intervention. The current project, taking place 3 years after the earthquake, explored how the youth perceived their posttraumatic growth and employed the arts in attributing meaning to their traumatic experiences. Participants had developed a stronger sense of life purpose, a heightened sense of perspective, and the freedom to move forward. The role of the arts in bringing comfort and joy to others, and affirming survival, was identified.

An integrative training framework articulating multiple perspectives on the impact of trauma work is offered with a training/supervision exercise to address the complex and systemic relationships that affect therapists in both positive and negative manners. The concepts of vicarious trauma, vicarious resilience, compassion fatigue, resilience, posttraumatic growth, altruism born of suffering, and reciprocity are reviewed. The paper highlights the importance of vicarious resilience as a dimension of experience that counteracts the normally occurring fatiguing processes that trauma therapists experience.

Background: Stress-related situations play a significant role in children's lives and result in different reaction in children. Among various methods of evaluating the stressful environment of children, 54-item Children's Coping Strategies Checklist-Revision1 (CCSC-R1) has been developed as one of the most powerful tools for assessing different aspects of coping in children. The purpose of the present study is to find the psychometric properties of Persian CCSC-R1 and to identify the coping strategies used by Iranian children. Method: Subjects included 401 female students aged between 9 and 13 who were subjected to the Sarpol-e-Zahab earthquake (in Northeast of Iran). Construct and convergence validities were examined with confirmatory factor analysis and correlated with Children's Coping Behavior Questionnaire (CCBQ). Reliability was obtained by internal consistency. Using repeated analysis of variance, the status of coping strategies in children were achieved. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good model fit to the four-factor structure, active coping, distracting action/distraction, avoidance, and support seeking strategies. The results also demonstrated that there was a strong relationship between four-factors of CCSC-R1 including their subscales and CCBQ. Internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha) for the four dimensions were in the range of 0.76 to 0.88. The findings also showed that Iranian children use active coping, especially optimism, more than other strategies in order to deal with their stressful situations. Conclusions: It is concluded that CCSC-R1 is a valid and reliable instrument which could be employed for Iranian children. Furthermore, in the face of traumatic events, Iranian children acted same as people in individualistic cultures.

This article explores if the victims included in the Truth Commission of Ecuador (TCE, 2010) show Posttraumatic Growth (PTG), the conditions in which it occurs and the kind of events that are associated to it. 48 victims from five provinces in Ecuador were evaluated through the posttraumatic growth inventory. Globally, results suggest an important level of PTG in the case of Equatorians victims of human rights violation. Results show that there are some differences on the level of PTG depending on the number of experiences, the type of violence suffered. Despite this fact, growth does not mean psychological adjustment. This article discusses the implications of such findings and the inconsistencies between PTG and the victims of political violence. Keywords Victims of human rights; The Truth Commission of Ecuador Report; posttraumatic growth. Crecimiento Postraumático en víctimas informadas por la Comisión de la Verdad de Ecuador RESUMEN El presente texto explora si las víctimas que aparecen en el Informe de la Comisión de la Verdad de Ecuador (CVE, 2010) perciben Crecimiento Postraumático (CPT), en qué condiciones ocurre y con qué eventos se asocia. Se evaluaron a 48 víctimas, a través del inventario de crecimiento postraumático, provenientes de cinco provincias de Ecuador. Los resultados sugieren un nivel de CPT importante en el caso de los ecuatorianos víctimas de violaciones a los derechos humanos. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto que hay diferencias en el nivel de CPT de acuerdo al número y tipo de vulneraciones presentadas, pero no necesariamente ese crecimiento sugiere un ajuste psicológico. Se discuten las implicaciones de estos hallazgos sobre las inconsistencias encontradas en la relación entre CPT y víctimas de violencia política.

This paper presents an emergent systemic context in a current research project in which the authors are engaged. The research investigates the design of service-systems that facilitate the evolution of garments through multiple-use lives made possible with the strategic integration of textile decoration, built up in complexity over time, such as digital printing, over-dyeing and embroidery. The projects asks: What if a shirt were designed from the beginning as an integral part of a fashion service system? What if the design of both the product and the system enabled the object's aesthetic to evolve over time? The authors propose a system for iterative surface decoration of garments over time, as an alternative to purchasing additional garments to satisfy desire. Design for partial disassembly is a key aspect of this service-system. The authors argue that a rethinking of the current economic and business systems is required for such a service-system to flourish. Findings from the...

Research and knowledge related to psychosocial processes experienced by Turkish Veterans with disabilities and the factors that facilitate adapting to life with a disability are insufficient. This study aims to explore the psychosocial processes and coping resources experienced by Turkish Veterans with disabilities. A grounded theory design was used in the study. Snowball sampling and theoretical sampling were used to recruit participants. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 male participants. The data were analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding and formed into themes and categories. The results were explained within the framework of the following themes: the moment of returning from the threshold of death, treatment process, returning to life after war, acceptance, and holding on to life. The analysis revealed that the participants experienced problems, such as post-traumatic stress, the inadequacy of psychosocial functioning, social disapproval, and alienation during the adaptation to life after war. Further, coping resources such as positive personality traits, spiritual coping, making sense of experience, state assurance, and family and fellow Veterans support were found to facilitate the adaptation process.

This paper analyzes ‘food sovereignty’ and the movements that work for it at local, national, and supranational levels and at the intersection of markets, governments, and civil society. The goal is to illuminate potential aspects of post-growth socio-ecological systems management regimes. These aspects include: (a) socially and ecologically embedded and politically engaged market activity, as evidenced by ‘peasant’ modes of food production and distribution; (b) deliberative and ‘agonistic’ democratic models for policy construction, as evidenced by internal organizational processes within the transnational food sovereignty network La Vía Campesina; and (c) multi-sited ‘relational’ forms of understanding and institutionalizing sovereignty, as evidenced by the complex of institutions engaged by food sovereignty movements and the ways that ‘power over’ aspects of classical sovereignty are combined with more ‘power with’ and ‘power to’ conceptions emergent in food sovereignty. Although ...

Notre étude à méthodes mixtes a compris 435 réponses à un sondage en ligne ainsi que 71 entrevues de suivi en personne ou par téléphone avec des participants volontaires. Nous avons demandé aux gens de partager avec nous ce qui avait été utile ou inutile à la suite de leur expérience de violence, ainsi que les changements qu’ils avaient vécus dans leur vie personnelle. Nous leur avons également demandé de nous faire part de leur rétroaction concernant leurs expériences avec le système de justice pénale, les services aux victimes et le soutien qu’ils avaient reçu de leurs familles et de leurs amis. Grâce à cela, nous en avons appris sur les différents types d’interactions qui exacerbent les traumatismes ainsi que ceux qui appuient le processus de résilience et qui favorisent la croissance post-traumatique et les sentiments de mieux-être. Nous avons également appris l’importance du langage utilisé et des sentiments que des mots comme « victime » ou « survivants » suscitaient chez les participants.

Keywords:
Creative writing – Lyric essay – Heterotopia – The Walking Dead

Over the last two decades US lyric essayists have defined the lyric essay form (D’Agata & Tall 1997; Miller & Paola 2004; Seneca Review 2007; D’Agata 2015) to the point where the term ‘lyric essay’ has fallen out of favour (D’Agata 2015); yet, here in Australia, the form has yet to really find its place. By examining the parallels between the established conventions of the lyric essay and Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, ‘We might as well call it a boat’ seeks to demonstrate the complexities of this evolving form from an Australian context.

‘We might as well call it a boat’ creatively demonstrates the lyric essay as heterotopia. By adopting the lyric essay form to map itself as a heterotopic site, building on the form’s tradition to break with conventional linear structures, blend styles of writing, resist easy interpretation and its history as a vehicle for representing pain and trauma (Mintz 2011), it reveals the conventions and potential of the lyric essay with the intention of encouraging other writers to experiment with the form.

By locating the lyric essay as heterotopia, ‘We might as well call it a boat’ offers a model of the form as a site of juxtaposition, of otherness, of crisis, of non-conformance, of resistance and of transformation that adds to the still burgeoning discourse on the lyric essay in Australia, making a significant contribution to discourse on the essay in an Asia-Pacific context.

Objective. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the prediction that greater subjective identification with relevant groups and social categories (i.e. family ) can be an outcome of post-traumatic growth (PTG). To date there are no studies that have explored these relationships.
Methods. A longitudinal study was conducted with a group of 100 liver transplant patients from the outpatient populations of the participating centre. Data were collected by means of a self-report questionnaire, which was completed at two different time points (T1 and T2) that were 24 months apart.
PTG was assessed using the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory, while both transplantee and family identification were assessed using group identification scales. A path model was tested, using a structural
equation model (SEM) approach, to examine the reciprocal effects among family identification, transplantee identification, and PTG over time.
Results. As predicted, we found that greater PTG T1 predicted both greater family identification T2 and marginally greater transplantee identification T2. However, the two identification variables did not predict PTG over time.
Conclusions. The results show that family identification and transplantee identification may be outcomes of the PTG process, confirming the importance of adopting a thriving multidimensional model of adjustment to medical illness, whereby people facing adverse life events, such as transplantation, may
flourish rather than deteriorate psychologically.

Parcutio It features a bewildering array of internationally-based contributors, ranging from 'conventional' poets through to off-the-wall experimentalists. For example, Jacques Coulardeau who, 'has contributed to Percutio almost since its inception. He is a very interesting outsider on the French 'scene'. He researches what he wants to, but has a strong interest in US politics and European music'. I - Rapatahana - can only wonder as regards the existential je ne sais quoi of an outsider in outsider France, home of Camus, who lent this title, of course, to Colin Wilson...such are the interesting personages found in this publication. 
« James Crittle, a famous pilot of the French Air Force, later turned university professor, on February 18, 2015, was found dead in full uniform Rue Montmartre in Paris. He had used some cyanide to put an end to his life. The French Air Force took over his funeral in Bordeaux, but Joseph and Magdalena Seth, two young people who had been his friends up to three years before when James Crittle stepped out of their life without any explanation, hearing the news on the radio decided to claim his body since he had no known direct relatives.
They are entrusted then with an important envelope addressed to them and that contains the manuscript of this “Untellable Story” and my name and contact. I had been James Crittle’s friend some fifty years earlier when I was going to the university and met him then. He had obviously kept track of me over these years. . . »

Es tut sich was im Feld der Wachstumskritik: Unter dem Label „Postwachstumsgesellschaft“ werden seit einigen Jahren wieder intensivere Debatten über die Grenzen des Wachstums und die Transformation zu einer nicht mehr wachstumsabhängigen Gesellschaftsformation geführt, und seit 2014 die 4. Internationale Degrowth-Konferenz in Leipzig mit über 3.000 Teilnehmenden von sich reden machte, sprechen einige gar von der Entstehung einer „Degrowth-Bewegung“ im deutschsprachigen Raum. Bisher werden die Begriffe „Postwachstum“ und „Degrowth“ dabei oft synonym verwendet. Das kürzliche Erscheinen der beiden hier besprochenen Überblickspublikationen gibt Anlass, diese Gleichsetzung zu überdenken.

This article focuses on green non-ecological critiques of orthodox economic growth and offers a distinctive green republican political economy argument in favour of democratising production as part of the ‘just transition’ to a sustainable, regenerative economy. Democratising production could, by enabling the realisation of some of the internal goods of work, reduce ecologically damaging orthodox economic growth. The article then proceeds to critically analyse the dominant conception of ‘work as disutility’ within both the history of modern political economy and more importantly within neoclassical economics. This (mis)conception of work is one that both neglects to recognise the internal values of work, frames a ‘productivist and growth’ oriented view of human labour which is used to justify ‘despotic’ workplace management practices. Hence liberating the macro economy from the imperative of endless growth, and at the micro economic/workplace level liberating production from capital...

Background and Objectives: Cancer caregivers are at risk for experiencing health issues due to the stress of caregiving. Despite this, it is possible to prompt adaptive coping during the cancer experience. Adaptive coping is associated with improved health for caregiver populations. Forms of emotional disclosure are associated with caregiver reports of post-traumatic growth (PTG), which is an adaptive coping mechanism that comprises positive change following trauma. This study sought to identify areas of PTG identified by spousal hematopoietic stem-cell transplant (HSCT) cancer caregivers, via emotional disclosure writings. Design & Method: Twenty-two spousal caregivers of patients who underwent a (HSCT) submitted emotional disclosure writings three times at one-week intervals. Writings centered on positive outcomes arising in light of the cancer experience. A qualitative grounded theory approach was used to evaluate caregiver accounts of PTG that arose while caring for their spouse. Results & Conclusions: Findings suggest seven areas of PTG recognized through the disclosure process: living in the moment, a sense of honor and pride, choosing positivity, uninfluenced self-choice and expression, deprioritizing materialism, personal and/or spiritual connection, and altruistic expansion. The primary theoretical advancement arising from this study includes the notion that PTG largely appears to be a socially dependent process.

The article deals with the problem of the existing hardiness research  approaches,  which  aim  at  determining  the  essence  of  this category, and uncovers the issue of the synthesis of theoretical approaches to the definition of this concept. The study proved that the conceptualization  of  the  category  of  hardiness  is  dominated  by a functional approach, in which the main goal of resilience is to achieve an effective result in dealing with difficulties, namely, overcoming hardships in the personal growth direction. Slightly fewer studies focus on  the procedural aspect of the concept of hardiness, that is, finding effective coping mechanisms and behavioral strategies in circumstances that are perceived by the person as unfavorable.
As a result of the analysis of domestic and foreign scientific research on the problem of hardiness, two subdivisions in determining the theoretical basis of hardiness were identified. Namely, approaches to the hardiness study were divided into those that rely on the structural organization of the phenomenon and those that provide an understanding of the content and ideological and theoretical foundations of the concept. The first should include  systems  approach  and  structural  and  functional  approach(G. Vanakova,  T. Larina,  S. Maddi,  V. Panchenko,  A. Rasskazova,T. Titarenko,  А. Fominova,  А. Chikhantsova),  the  second  –  existential, resource and ecopsychological approaches (L. Alexandrova, D. Koshaba, Т. Larina,  D. Leontiev,  N. Loginova,  Р. Lushin,  S. Maddi,  V. Panchenko, Т. Titarenko, G. Harvey). These approaches formed the basis of the article as those, which most deeply reflect the essence of the hardiness phenomenon. Basing on the analysis of these approaches to the hardiness study and considering the fact that the concept of hardiness may only be understood fully and comprehensively via the synthesis of theoretical approaches to the  hardiness  conceptualization,  the  article  attempts  to  provide  a synthesized definition of this category. Hardiness may be defined as a systemic  psychological  formation,  an  integral  personal  attitude  which aims  at  overcoming  difficulties,  activating  problem-solving  capacities, supporting the self-changing trajectories (of metamorphosis type), and contributes to the new identity meanings emergence, self-image building, and the emergence of new opportunities in problem-solving.
Keywords: hardiness; coping resource; post-traumatic growth; systems approach;  structural  and  functional  approach;  existential  approach; resource approach; ecopsychological approach.

A spiral, a magical realist labyrinth, a lyric essay, a mirror-maze, and a mandala, Mothsong celebrates art's capacity to facilitate and map posttraumatic growth. It is a testimony of healing from child abuse that peers into the chrysalis. Through poetic prose, visual image, ekphrasis, and intuitive enquiry, the author carries the lamp of art into the magical realist labyrinth of the wounded soul to unveil the terrifying and the sacred. In the spaces between a heartbeat, the stories of Lolah--who represents the author from the age of sixteen to the present--and January--her younger self--are entwined with the silken threads of "You" and other voices to sing a song of transformation. Mothsong creates a new myth for the moth as a symbol of the soul's urge to heal, and in so doing, goes far beyond elevating the beauty within darkness.

The associations between exposure to traumatic events and psychiatric disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety have been established. It is important that clinicians notice to this phenomenon and avoid from inappropriate interpretations and additional laboratory tests. Here, a case of 45-year-old man with Essential thrombocytosis developed after multiple psychic traumas was introduced.

Maintaining steady growth remains the central goal of economic policy in most nations. However, as evidenced by the advent of the Anthropocene, the global economy has expanded to a point where limits to growth are appearing. Facing the end of growth requires a careful re-examination of plausible future conditions. We draw on a diverse literature to present an interdisciplinary exploration of post-growth conditions in the areas of climate change, ecological impacts, governance, and education, finding that such conditions may invalidate many prevalent assumptions regarding the future. The post-growth world, while subject to significant uncertainty and heterogeneity, will be characterized by profound hazards and discontinuities for both human and natural systems. Furthermore, we argue that an economic paradigm change will be predicated on an involuntary and unplanned cessation of growth. This implies a necessary strategic expansion of the heterodox economic discourse to formulate appro...

Life-course studies have shown that early-life conditions predict health and socio-economic status in adult life. This study analyzes whether experiencing a traumatic event in childhood, i.e., the Second World War (WW2), affects subjective survival probabilities (SSPs). We rely on a representative sample of European adults who were differentially exposed to WW2 during childhood as a result of their date and place of birth. Results show that exposure to WW2 increases SSPs, with socio-economic and health characteristics not playing a mediating role. War exposure also counterbalances the adverse effects of health impairments on SSPs, but it does not affect health outcomes per se. This fact, jointly with low mortality rates of the cohort under investigation, suggests that selective mortality and post-traumatic stress are not the main channels. Instead, the results support the hypothesis that personal growth and life appreciation emerge after traumatic events, thereby leading to optimistic perceptions of longevity.

Although working with trauma survivors can be a source of both deleterious and positive transformations in mental health professionals, little is known about the experience of clinicians in shared traumatic contexts, particularly in the Global South, where most humanitarian crises occur. In collective disasters or armed conflicts, the personal and professional experiences of mental health staff inform each other, situating the clinical space at the intersection between singular and collective spheres. Drawing on an intersubjective and socioecological perspective, this qualitative study explored the ways in which working in a shared traumatic context affected mental health and psychosocial staff in postearthquake Haiti. We interviewed 22 local mental health workers in the capital, Port-au-Prince, 2.5 years after the 2010 disaster. We coded and thematically analyzed interviews using an iterative process, based on grounded theory principles. Thematic analysis uncovered four dynamic poles in clinicians' narratives: balancing duty and desire to help, experiencing fragility and strength, negotiating separation and connection, and sharing hurt and hope. Our findings suggest clinicians considered their work mainly as a source of strength in the face of adversity, whereas experiences of trauma and growth transmissions were mutual and intimately intertwined. We discuss the complexities of clinical work in shared traumatic settings as well as the dynamic interplay between professionals' experiences of suffering and growth. We conclude with recommendations on ways to involve local mental health clinicians in postdisaster contexts while addressing the special needs that they may have to process their own trauma.

Considerations of well-being or flourishing include Maslow's and Rogers' concepts of self-actualisation and actualising tendency. Recent empirical findings suggest that only a modest proportion of the population might be considered to be flourishing. Separate findings focused upon the nature and determinants of post-traumatic growth identify it as comparable to flourishing, and facilitated by supported accommodation to the trauma. This can be understood as reflecting self-actualisation. Empirical findings such as these provide ontological stability to a set of phenomena that share much with ancient teachings extolling redemption through suffering. This framework challenges conventional healthcare policies and practices , but in ways that offer insights into how patient-centred approaches to chronic illness and disability might be better conceived and enabled. It also throws into doubt the rectitude of an economic model built around services and products designed to provide easy access to sources of immediate gratification.

This presentation seeks to explain why conflict-related sexual violence against males, adult males in particular, can be thought of as gendered violence, and to explore why a feminist-inspired approach to acknowledging and responding to the gendered quality of such violence has the potential to help combat violence that we more usually associate with the term ‘gendered violence’ – violence by men and boys against women and girls.

Oftentimes trauma patients express extreme gratitude for their lives being spared. The question, however, is when and how they work through the grief associated with their limitations resulting from the trauma. This article examines the patient's timing and means of dealing with both grief and gratitude following a traumatic event.

Co-production is gaining ground as a key dimension of public policy reform across the globe. This paper argues in favour of social welfare shaped by the principles of co-production and suggests that the promotion of democratic relationships is more likely to enable the agency and recovery of victim-survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The paper, based on an autoethnographical approach, is likely to be of relevance to social care practitioners who work with a range of marginalised people, particularly in liberal states that promote organisational cultures shaped disproportionately by risk. Cultures of risk, it is argued, promote power balances and othering—arguably an institutional perpetuation of the original abuse. Co-production, on the other hand, has the potential to legitimise expertise by experience, enabling victim-survivors to be reinstated as citizens with associated rights of participation. The paper subsequently draws out some of the benefits of co-production for practitioners whose professional engagement may be stifled. We suggest that co-production potentially points towards practice based on the valuing of expertise by experience and social solidarity.

Presented as part of a symposium on 'Positive psychological interventions for clinicians' (convenor: J.T. Pedrotti)

Bereavement can be a highly traumatic event that may not only be accompanied by extreme distress, but that can also seriously disrupt a survivor’s sense of self as well as the basic assumptions a person may hold about the world, life and death, potentially leading to a serious crisis of meaning, especially when the death of the loved one was violent, sudden and/or unexpected. While much of the clinical bereavement literature in the 20th century has focused on ‘letting go and moving on’, some recent strands of bereavement scholarship have emphasised the potential adaptiveness and non-pathological nature of the ongoing relationship with the deceased, have focused on meaning-making and meaning reconstruction and have shown that  bereavement can also lead to positive changes such as post-traumatic growth. As an example, many people who have lost a loved one report experiences of the presence of the deceased, sometimes in sensorily perceivable forms and sometimes through events that may be experienced as meaningful signs and symbols. Qualitative research (by the presenter) showed that perceivers who made sense of these experiences by drawing on religious or spiritual frameworks, reported more positive changes as well as personal growth. As perceivers tend to be reluctant to share such experiences with others including professionals for fear of ridicule or being thought of as mad, practitioners may need to develop sensitive techniques to allow for disclosure, exploration and meaning-making. It is argued here that counselling psychologists are particularly well-placed to engage with such work. The purpose of this contribution to the symposium is to invite discussion about applying a positive psychology stance to working with such phenomena in order to facilitate meaningful development and post-traumatic growth.

This qualitative study aimed to explore the potential role that might be played by reported experience of ‘sensing the presence of the deceased’ in meaning-making processes in bereavement. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve participants who reported having had such an experience and the transcripts were subjected to thematic analysis. Seven overarching themes were identified, three of which were considered central: ‘finding benefit in the continuation of the deceased’, ‘finding benefit in the continued relationship’, and ‘finding meaning through existential, spiritual, and religious sense-making’. While participants found many benefits in what they experienced, finding meaning beyond immediate coping seemed to require the availability of spiritual/religious frameworks which could be adopted or, if available but discrepant, could meaningfully accommodate the experience.