Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth
Resilience is the kind of concept that's hard to pin down or quantify with data, but we often know it when we see it. As human beings, we have incredible capacities for resilience. Resilience, or resiliency, is the ability to survive, and thrive from, stressful experiences while building up protective skills to manage future hardship (Jayawickreme et al., 2021).
Post-traumatic growth could otherwise be called meaning-making or integration of lived experiences. For me, it calls to mind the quotation by the famous psychiatrist and Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl from his book Man's Search for Meaning, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how." I have always appreciated this perspective; if we have purpose and meaning in our lives, wherever it may come from, it can help motivate us to continue on.
Post-traumatic growth typically refers to enduring positive psychological change experienced as a result of adversity, trauma, or highly challenging life circumstances (Center on the Developing Child, 2007).
Resilience as well as learning and growing as individuals after trauma is something that I have thought a lot about and have studied in some capacity as an undergrad and graduate student. These concepts are ever-more relevant when looking at our world and considering people's experiences of violence, war, climate change, to name a few examples. As an MFT, I have been able to give space to people to process and explore their trauma as well as to explore and embrace how they have learned and grown from their experiences.
To return to an important core concept, human beings have an incredible capacity for resilience, especially in the face of traumatic or distressing events and experiences. It's kind of only after the "dust settles," so to speak, that we can come up for air after going through trying times in life. This is where post-traumatic growth comes in. Once individuals, families or communities realize that they've been able to survive what they've been through and get to a point of wanting to reach out for help and support, they can begin to integrate their experiences instead of merely being victims to their trauma, or being defined by it.
Fortunately, there is a lot more discussion in our culture these days around trauma, PTSD and mental health concerns, and we have come a long way from people only talking about PTSD in the context of soldiers coming home after war. With that being said, it’s important to make a distinction between the nature of a person’s traumatic experiences: sometimes people experience one particular traumatic event or situation and other times, people experience multiple, repetitive or chronic traumatic events over a period of time which could lead to complex PTSD (CPTSD).
After working in healthcare as a direct care staff through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I witnessed the people in my care, coworkers, family members and friends' incredible capacity for resilience and post-traumatic growth after going through a collectively traumatic, exhausting and frightening experience of uncertainty and fear. The pandemic, as one example, was uncharted territory for many of us and sewed a lot of division and chaos both here in the US and the world, in addition to being a time marked by anxiety, emotional exhaustion, loss and grief.
Acknowledging and reflecting on our experiences, trauma and post-traumatic growth is not only important, it's necessary. We need it so that we can embrace whatever strength we each have as individuals who are part of relationships, families, workplaces, neighborhoods, communities and society at large.
From both my personal life and my clients' experiences, I've witnessed people's capacity for resilience and meaning-making after truly difficult experiences. It's a large part of why I chose to become a therapist in the first place. Finding gratitude and meaning within one's ability to continue living and integrating those experiences helps people move closer to thriving and living beyond a survival mindset. Of course, it is easier said than done but I'm sure that in thinking about resilience and post-traumatic growth, we can each think of at least one person in our own lives or even in our culture whom we feel demonstrates these capacities. If we are generous, we may also see it within ourselves.
What we see and understand as resilience and post-traumatic growth in ourselves and others is powerful, especially when we can use that sight and understanding to cultivate and share stories of adaptation, survival, strength and grit. As a therapist, I have the privilege of witnessing resilience in my clients as they trust me to help them make sense of their experiences while integrating them into their post-traumatic growth.
