The latest theory and research on understanding posttraumatic stressand its treatment, providing evidence-based clinical interventionsusing techniques drawn from positive psychology It is known that exposure to stressful and traumatic events can have severe and chronic psychological consequences. At the same time-mindful of the suffering often caused by trauma-there is also a growing body of evidence testifying to posttraumatic growth: the positive psychological changes that can result for survivors of trauma. Blending these two areas of research and exploring the relevance of positive psychology to trauma practice, Trauma, Recovery, and Growth: Positive Psychological Perspectives on Posttraumatic Stress provides clinicians with the resources they need to implement positive psychology interventions in their trauma treatment across a spectrum of?therapeutic perspectives, including cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic, existential, and group therapies. Featuring contributions by internationally renowned researchers and practitioners and edited by experts in the field of positive psychology who have worked with survivors of trauma in the facilitation of their resilience, recovery, and growth, this timely book is divided into four parts: Toward an Integrative Positive Psychology of Posttraumatic Experience Growth and Distress in Social, Community, and Interpersonal Contexts Clinical Approaches and Therapeutic Experiences of Managing Distress and Facilitating Growth Beyond the Stress-Growth Distinction: Issues at the Cutting Edge of Theory and Practice Trauma, Recovery, and Growth explores the role positive psychology can play in how clinical practitioners treat and work with survivors of stressful and traumatic events and offers an optimistic perspective in the treatment of those who suffer posttraumatic stress following devastating events such as terrorist attacks, childhood sexual abuse, cancer, and war.

Posttraumatic Growth reworks and overhauls the seminal 2006 Handbook of Posttraumatic Growth. It provides a wide range of answers to questions concerning knowledge of posttraumatic growth (PTG) theory, its synthesis and contrast with other theories and models, and its applications in diverse settings. The book starts with an overview of the history, components, and outcomes of PTG. Next, chapters review quantitative, qualitative, and cross-cultural research on PTG, including in relation to cognitive function, identity formation, cross-national and gender differences, and similarities and differences between adults and children. The final section shows readers how to facilitate optimal outcomes with PTG at the level of the individual, the group, the community, and society.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger. (Nietzsche) The phenomenon of positive personal change following devastating events has been recognized since ancient times, but given little attention by contemporary psychologists and psychiatrists, who have tended to focus on the negative consequences of stress. In recent years, evidence from diverse fields has converged to suggest the reality and pervasive importance of the processes the editors sum up as posttraumatic growth. This volume offers the first comprehensive overview of these processes. The authors address a variety of traumas--among them bereavement, physical disability, terminal illness, combat, rape, and natural disasters--following which experiences of growth have been reported. How can sufferers from posttraumatic stress disorder best be helped? What does "resilience" in the face of high risk mean? Which personality characteristics facilitate growth? To what extent is personality change possible in adulthood? How can concepts like happiness and self-actualization be operationalized? What role do changing belief systems, schemas, or "assumptive worlds" play in positive adaptation? Is "stress innoculation" possible? How do spiritual beliefs become central for many people struck by trauma, and how are posttraumatic growth and recovery from substance abuse or the crises of serious physical illnesses linked? Such questions have concerned not only the recently defined and expanding group of "traumatologists," but also therapists of all sorts, personality and social psychologists, developmental and cognitive researchers, specialists in health psychology and behavioral medicine, and those who study religion and mental health. Overcoming the challenges of life's worst experiences can catalyze new opportunities for individual and social development. Learning about persons who discover or create the perception of positive change in their lives may shed light on the problems of those who continue to suffer. Posttraumatic Growth will stimulate dialogue among personality and social psychologists and clinicians, and influence the theoretical foundations and clinical agendas of investigators and practitioners alike.

Posttraumatic growth is an area in which investigations are now being undertaken in many different parts of the world. The view that individuals can be changed--sometimes in radically good ways--by their struggle with trauma is ancient and widespread. However, the systematic focus by scholars and clinicians on the possibilities for growth from the struggle with crisis is relatively recent. There are now a growing number of studies and scholarly papers on the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of posttraumatic growth, and there are also theoretical models that can help guide the research further. It is clear, however, that this phenomenon is not yet well understood. The Handbook of Posttraumatic Growth: Research and Practice provides both clinicians and researchers with a comprehensive and up-to-date view of what has been done so far. In addition, it uses the foundations of what has been done to provide suggestions for the next useful steps to take in understanding posttraumatic growth. The book offers contributions of important and influential scholars representing a wide array of perspectives of posttraumatic growth. This volume serves as an impetus for additional work, both in the academic aspects and in the possibilities for clinical applications of posttraumatic growth. This Handbook will appeal to students, practitioners, and researchers working in a broad array of disciplines and human services.

Winner, 2019 Written Media Award, International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation. Winner, 2015 William James Book Award, American Psychological Association How to navigate the therapeutic relationship with trauma survivors, to help bring recovery and growth. In therapy, we see how relationships are central to many traumatic experiences, but relationships are also critical to trauma recovery. Grounded firmly in attachment and trauma theory, this book shows how to use the psychotherapy relationship, to help clients find self-understanding and healing from trauma. Offering candid, personal guidance, using rich case examples, Dr. Robert T. Muller provides the steps needed to build and maintain a strong therapist-client relationship –one that helps bring recovery and growth. With a host of practical tips and protocols, this book gives therapists a roadmap to effective trauma treatment.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is estimated to affect around 1 in 3 people who go through a traumatic event. While awareness of the debilitating impact of trauma has grown in recent years, what s not so well known is that traumatic experiences can also be the catalyst for significant personal growth and transformation, proving that what doesn't kill you really can make you stronger. In this insightful book, positive psychologist Miriam Akhtar explores the new science of post-traumatic growth, answering the most frequently asked questions about the subject, including: # What is trauma and what is post-traumatic stress? # What is meant by the concept of post-traumatic growth? # How do you cope positively during and after trauma? # How can you strengthen your resilience to keep going? # How can you grow from adversity? The combination of the Q&A approach, real-life case studies and a range of practical resilience-building strategies guides you gently on the journey from adversity to growth, showing that it s possible to emerge from trauma s shadow with not only greater well-being but also a deeper sense of meaning and fulfilment in life.

Traumatic life experiences can be devastating and they inevitably shape who you are. Such events can also become a powerful force that awakens you to an undercurrent of your own aliveness. Trauma recovery involves learning to trust in your capacity for new growth. In order to grow, we must make use of our suffering in order to find our happiness. Within these pages, you will find an invitation to see yourself as the hero or heroine of your own life journey. A hero's journey involves walking into the darkness on a quest for wholeness. This interactive format calls for journaling and self-reflection, with practices that guide you beyond the pain of your past and help you discover a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. Successful navigation of a hero's journey provides opportunities to discover that you are more powerful than you had previously realized. Written by Dr. Arielle Schwartz, bestselling author of The Complex PTSD Workbook, this healing guide provides a step-by-step approach to trauma recovery that integrates: Mindfulness & yoga Somatic psychology EMDR therapy Parts work therapy Relational therapy

This book explores 'why some people experience post-traumatic growth leading to greater wisdom and others do not’ and suggests that a critical variable is how one copes with that trauma: individuals who actively reflect on their experiences of trauma should develop higher levels of self-transcendent wisdom. This same dynamic has been shown both in research studies of post-traumatic growth and by therapists working with people who have experienced trauma, but these two bodies of work have rarely been brought into direct conversation with each other. In this volume, wisdom researchers and therapists with direct experience with trauma survivors comment on each other’s ideas about how coping with adversity can lead to wisdom, and how their proposed models of developing wisdom incorporate the act of coping with a stressful or traumatic event. Based on a synthetic integration of the recommendations in each chapter, the book concludes with the introduction of a new conceptual framework that can better help even individuals who experience significant stressors in their life to cope well and develop wisdom that will be both theoretically robust and practically useful.

Identity Transformation and Posttraumatic Growth Following Traumatic Brain Injury and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder provides an autoethnographic qualitative study that portrays the author’s recovery from a devastating life-changing event – a car crash resulting in the hybrid diagnosis of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), leading to posttraumatic growth (PTG) and identity transformation over a ten-year recovery period. In so doing, the text offers a comprehensive literature review on TBI, PTSD, PTG and disability culture. Throughout, the author explores whether growth (PTG) and distress (PTSD) and whether TBI and PTSD can co-exist. Having lost her ability to read and write, the author had to learn how to learn, to heal and to have faith again. As a licensed trauma therapist and researcher, she collected self-observational data by writing her actual behaviors, thoughts and emotions in real time, both in a field and a process journal, even before she could write in full sentences. The many symptoms and co-morbidities of TBI and PTSD and the tenets of PTG are portrayed as they evolved in recovery showing the behaviors and characteristics of each. The text refers to actual journal entries, medical records and clinical notes from rehabilitation specialists, alternating between her clinical analysis and interpretation. The findings show that tragedy and suffering can lead to growth and positive change (PTG) after TBI, even though the precipitating trauma and psychological distress (PTSD) may persist for years. Changes are seen in self-perception, interpersonal relationships and philosophies of life. This chronicled account of the author’s emergent recovery from patient to doctor is intended to benefit neuro-rehabilitation service providers (neuropsychologists, primary care physicians, speech-language pathologists) and also mental health clinicians who can see the evolution of PTG for what is now the new next step for many in PTSD recovery.

People who experience trauma often struggle with its effects, but many men and women have found meaning in their traumatic event and now experience life differently. Written by two psychologists and experts on trauma psychology—including one of the key researchers on posttraumatic growth (PTG)—this unique, evidence-based, step-by-step workbook offers a new model for processing traumatic experiences in order to gain wisdom, strength, and resilience. There is no denying the psychological and physical costs of trauma, but suffering a traumatic experience does not necessarily mean you’ll develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and have to live with its debilitating long-term symptoms. While the process of recovering from trauma is difficult and painful, survivors also experience posttraumatic growth (PTG). And with the right approach to healing, the same challenges that create PTSD can also set the stage for a psychological rebirth. The Posttraumatic Growth Workbook expands the focus on posttraumatic stress and its related difficulties to include the significant potential for positive growth in the aftermath of trauma. With this guide, you’ll learn more about traumatic experiences and their short- and long-term effects, discover where you are in your own process, explore vulnerability as an important aspect of post-traumatic strength, identify and develop other strengths for coping with—and growing beyond—your trauma, and successfully integrate your experience into your personal story. Navigating the aftereffects of trauma is a difficult journey, but many people report having a new appreciation for life and feeling even more resilient after working through their traumatic event. Using this powerful, PTG-based workbook, you’ll find it’s possible to come out of your trauma even stronger and wiser.