Trauma changes people.
And for someone who just wants life to return to “the way it was,” this can be difficult to accept.
But in some cases, people have not only been able to bounce back following trauma, they’ve also been able to experience growth.
In the video below, researcher and author Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD offers her insights into what contributes to post-traumatic growth.
Take a look – it’s just about 4 minutes.
For expert strategies to help clients thrive after trauma, have a look at this short course on how to foster post-traumatic growth featuring Stephen Porges, PhD; Marsha Linehan, PhD; Steven Hayes, PhD; Sue Johnson, EdD; Pat Ogden, PhD; and other top experts.
Now how will you use these ideas in your work? Please leave us your thoughts in the comment box right below.
I am a practitioner and Instructor of ThetaHealing Technique along with being a spiritual minister. I’ve written several books on healing abuse and been working with childhood abuse survivors for over 30 years as well as on myself. I actually completed processing all of my memories, once frozen emotions and belief systems last year from surviving 23 years of extreme childhood abuse including NDE’s. I totally integrated from DID over 22 years ago. Bouncing back to where I was before wouldn’t have been helpful. But I get the PTG, the resiliency to move beyond that. It’s very different for me.
In what Dr. Lyubomirsky shares as happiness, I feel it as contentment, a calm knowing that all will be ok no matter what, and that I will always be taken care of by my spiritual focus. I’m more committed to my purpose than ever before.
I’m also learning what it’s like to recognize who I really am in not having traumatic memories emerge any longer, of what a more peaceful nervous system feels like that has been discharged, to feel my body, my heart, my compassion, my power, my empathy in a whole new way. This is an integration time for me, like a babe being born.
I pioneered a way and am very grateful to the therapists and healing modalities that were there for me to pave my path, to help shift a paradigm of trauma so others may know this possibility too. I’m so grateful that I stuck around to understand who I am in the scheme of life.
I was surprised and somewhat disappointed seeing this advertorial. I am a therapist who has spent the past 2 years immersing myself in studying healing contexts for trauma work. Maybe my reaction is overly picky, but I see the negative side effects of these ways of thinking in the professional field, and I believe they need to be addressed.
In my experience, there are three themes for facilitating healing of complex trauma and facilitating the emergence of post-traumatic growth that have emerged in the research and literature over time. These themes are, 1) Empowerment & Non-pathologizing of the client, 2) Supporting Narrative/Meaning making in a client-centered manner, and 3) Experiential/Somatic process/ interoception in client centered processes.
The way this article is titled and presented, strikes me as mildly incongruous to the actual process of such trauma work, even encouraging inexperienced therapists to adopt models of thinking about clients that are likely to retraumatize trauma-impacted clients!
Firstly, the idea that the therapist can “help’ or “fix” something, is risky top-down hierarchical model based on the Medical model) which Bessel van der Kolk has written and spoken about at length as the antithesis of what is needed for trauma healing. (Why would you take the epitome of antithesis of trauma healing and use it in an advertorial for trauma training?)
Secondly, Promoting the idea (even in an advertorial) that the therapist is the one doing the “helping” to the client further reifies a process of disempowering clients by seeing them as the recipients of the work of the powerful therapist, (the opposite of what works – which is empowerment on the client’s terms – after all, the client is the one who is doing the transformatory work).
Thirdly, “bounce back” strikes me as a potentially dismissive diminishment of the actual deep and often painful process of reclaiming and integrating/authoring new forms of self after a traumatic experience. I like the idea that “bounce back” seems effortless and easy, yet I suspect for many people that might not be their primary experience of trauma and recovery.
Finally, the more deeply that complex trauma heals, the less important techniques become, and the more crucial that transferential and counter-transferential self-of-therapist work becomes. There is no “technique” to get around this – if a therapist has not done their own inner work, that incomplete part of the therapist WILL impact the client and potentially block healing or worse, retraumatize the client.
In my experience good techniques and models of trauma therapy can accomplish superficial healing, but deeper healing only occurs when a therapist has done their own inner work and can open with the client into deep and intimate spaces, holding space for process, without being triggered.
I have purchased trainings from NICABM in the past, but in this case I would really hesitate before considering this program – as the very manner in which it is presented seems to me to be training those who read this advertorial into the very habits and patterns of objectifying clients which are least helpful in facilitating a healing environment in which complex trauma healing and post-traumatic growth has the possibility to occur.
I hope this is merely a mistake in the advertorial copywriting and not a reflection of the actual course material!
Sincerely,
~ Mark
Appreciate reading your awareness, Mark. I so agree that the therapist or healing practitioner needs to do their own inner work.
I do think that a therapist’s presence, creating a sacred container, in being anchored and vulnerable themselves, does help the client, so wasn’t sure what you meant by the therapist not being there to help. Guiding the client, when they are ready, to the deeper levels is helpful in my experience both personally and with clients. But if you meant that the therapist takes an ‘authoritative’ thus hierarchal position with the client, I get it in not being conducive to being in the whole co-transference energy field of healing.
My life has been filled with trauma since around 3-4 yrs old. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse & abandoment….you name it. I will be 72 in a few days. Many have commented how peaceful I am & what a “sweet spirit” I have. This always suprises me.
Forgiveness, prayer, meditation, yoga, bicycling & other loving self-care daily practices are what I contribute those wonderful compliments too.
If others refused to care for or about me I must care for myself. Constant positive affirmations of my goodness & my abilities can sky-rocket my moment of sadness (which I allow myself to acknowledge & feel) but not to lie down in & accept as my destiny.
Journaling & writing poetry also helps me to process all those “chattering monkeys” when they perch themselves on my shoulders at any given moment of the day.
Loving & reaching out to others is easy because, due to all the trauma, of which I still experience some, I am sensitive & have an awareness of others hurt due to having walked through those same dark nights of the soul, those same valleys of the shadow of death.
I am grateful for being able to love myself as I love my neighbor.
Thank you for this opportunity to share a part of this myself. I just try to remember….this came…to pass!
Bls’ns. Patricia
Patricia…Love is a good trauma. You’ve chosen courageously and well and touched my heart. Thank you. There is so much pain in being alive but the pain of choosing to love (ourselves and others) is worth it. Probably the transformation of suffering caused by suffering is the way love evolves us to be able to love. Bless you.
We have to be wary of the traumatised people who become therapists so that they can feel less ill than their patients.
I don’t have the guts to be a therapist. I signed up for this because as a writer I need to know how people tick. I would imagine, however, that there are few therapists with stellar childhoods and that what motivates most is having been in the shoes of the traumatized and finding meaning in helping folks deal with their trauma. I find that urge noble and actual action on it ballsy in a good way. I owe a lot to every therapist I’ve ever had. I expect cattiness daily from writers, because we’re all egotistical misanthropes. You guys, however, are in the trenches, doing the hard work. I’ve got NO criticisms of you.
@ThePyatt anyone can set themselves up as a therapist without the requisite training. It is a job that requires a huge amount of self knowledge to tell what is the patient’s stuff and what is ones own. This can normally be gained by the requisite years of psychoanalysis required for trainees. Learning what is the transference and what is not is a skill that takes time, self reflection, guidance and maturity to acquire. There was nothing catty about my comment, it is just a factual one. Observational skills usually honed by a prolonged baby observation where the origins of personality are observed and a trained memory are also crucial. If you are taking notes in front of a patient you are not paying full attention to their verbal and non verbal communications.
As a witness survivor of sibling suicide in my mid twenties, I stuffed it and zipped it and went on with my singing career till my mid sixties when i began writing my one woman play, A Gift of Madness (aGiftofMadness.com) about the legacy of multiple traumas in my family. It tells my story and my Mother’s. Both of us have found transformation and transcendence through our art. Two different generations, two different paths to Post Traumatic GROWTH. On our website you can read our story and see clips of the show, which I am touring now, and am eager for ant suggestions of how to reach the people who would most benefit from it.
Interesting timing.
Most of my Healing Touch clients return to level life as before. About 5 out of 100 have made significant changes and moved on to greater happiness. This transformation did not happen over night. Through other turns and twists and processes in conjunction with counseling and medication; these 5 have changed into happier people with different jobs living in different cities. They seem to me to have found their significant self!
Interesting video series! Thank you as I get more and more PTSD clients each day due to the State of the Nation.
I am a survivor of vast trauma/torture from 3 to 20. While I definitely catorogize myself as being in the PTG category, I have a cautionary insight. One of the key ways that a survivor can express PTG is in helping others. I was a trailblazer in crisis intervention services for 17 years and transitioned to being an executive coach. Through observing myself and others who are healed by, and compelled to, help others, one needs to be very aware – cautious and vigilant – about emeshment. There is nothing like the exhilletation of ‘surviving again’ being in the firery pit with another. PTG gives you an extrodinary capacity for empathy and strength to face the unimaginable. BUT, you need to ask yourself why you need to keep plugging into a recreation of life and death. You have to ask yourself how healthy your boundaries are. Sometimes you need to step back, feel another layer of your own excruciating pain, and figure out new and less entangled ways of finding meaning in helping others.
I am not a doctor or phycologist. I am a woman that found out her husband had been cheating on her for a good part of there marriage. I was surching for answers and help and came across this media 4 &!1/2 years ago.
I went to a group called COSA and came out more pissed off than I went in. I have been diagnosed with ptsd due to the way I found and and the content of what was in when I was told.
It has taken me years to get to the place where I am at now. With the help of phycologists and a tank I am life coach I have gotten to ths point where when I talk about it I do not cry but I am moving forward with conviction.
Honestly I think I have found my purpose in life and what to help other when who have gone through what I have gone through hy hosting a group that will allow woman to speak and feel their emotion with stating “Hello, my name is _________and I am married to a sex addict. Is I’ll be divorcedmin about three – four months and my goal is to get babtised, start not only a new chapter but anaholennew book.
I want to find a way to help woman grow and do it in a more relaxed environment. I have been reading and have aligned my life coach to be. Guest or permanent fixture in my program. Of course the groups will start out small. But my plan is to get to the point where I can help as many woman recover as quickly as possible and find a new themselves.
The pain and anquish of an unfaithful spouse took me down to my knees. But I am standing tall and doing better than I ever have before. I am more successful than before. I am working on realizing that I am actually much happier than I was before.
Being separated for a year and coming up on my 35th year anniversary (I have not really celebrated the last 5) I am actually looking forward to the divorce and moving on to a nuchnhappier, healthier life ahead.
It is possible to heal and grow from such an a horrible experience.
Thank you.
I should have proofed before I posted.
Interesting that a major difficult life event is equated with trauma. Of course, sometimes that is the case. Trauma, especially repeated trauma beginning in childhood, is quite different to me. Help me understand.
Kate Braestrup explained the difference between trauma and a major difficult life event this way. Her husband suddenly died in I think it was an accident, and the whole community gathered around her while she was numb from grief and cooked and delivered their kids hither and yon and took burdens off her shoulders so she could mourn. She called that a major difficult life event because community served its purpose of being there for the individual. When she was a little girl, her parents hired a handyman who would watch her and jack off, and when she told her parents, they dismissed it, and so the guy continued this behavior and she internalized all that shame and violation and confusion and rage. That’s trauma, when the community or environment outside the individual throws them no lifeline and they’re stuck having to stuff down the hurt, and shame is a huge part of it, as well as rage. She said for this reason, trauma is best healed within a gentle and accepting community setting. Ed Tick says something similar. I attended some Just Listening sessions of Veterans Heart Georgia, and I do think it proved useful to all there.
I have to add that this aspect of trauma where the hurt is often hidden or at least goes unrecognized cannot be underestimated, because that sets the individual up for a sense of alienation from their environment/society when the need for a nurturing communal response goes unmet. This, I believe, is an intrinsic part of trauma. Case in point, thyroid cancer can prove more traumatic than breast cancer because it’s not as recognized or known or supported and it’s even dismissed as the most treatable cancer whereas breast cancer can shower one with pink ribbons and support groups, etc. The ravages of thyroid cancer can occur inside the mind when one finds one cannot think, remember, process, deal with life on such a roller coaster…it can quixotically render one a basket case. But it’s all internal with few if any external signs excepting perhaps socially frowned-upon obesity and mood swings. Therefore, little support is there. With breast cancer, on the other hand, when one is walking around bald and missing a breast, the pity gushes forth and folks bend over backward to accommodate…because it’s so visible and THE part of a woman, is it not. Those having experienced both can grow from the standpoint of watching these differing reactions/responses and realizing how easy assumptions are made based solely on appearances and social norms. Hopefully that can make one more compassionate toward those who may be dealing with a thing not so apparent or championed.
This is real. Some people can bounce back from trauma. They sometimes are able to do this after moving physically and psychologically away from a physical space and find a new life. One friend did just that abd told me recently, ” I have never felt happier in my life.
I love this …… this was my experience. After carrying a wall of complex childhood and adult trauma for years, I went through an experience that caused the wall to be pulled down… there was a lot of vulnerability but for the first time there was a release of emotion … I could cry… the world is no longer grey and desolate … there is colour and hope … not only a means of survival
This was through a spiritual experience (faith) and through trusting someone enough to allow them in….. friendship.
Very interesting….
Thanks as ever for these wonderful inputs and opportunities to reflect. I am a huge advocate, for myself and my clients, of the alchemical and elemental perspectives on adversity. When we reflect on what specific qualities a situation required / requires us to cultivate in order to navigate a trauma, we’re not only growing towards having that quality but we’re also finding personal meaning in the trauma, as our catalyst to become more of the person we were born to be.
I feel the most important thing for a client after trauma is a loving, safe connection where they feel supported and there is space for them to process their strong and difficult emotions and sensations, so they can experience their internal capacity to find their sense of ground and resiliency. Their healing is being able to process their experience and find meaning in unexpected ways and treasures along the path of healing, allowing them to become a different person that is deeper, richer and fuller from having gone through the painful event. This is truly the hero’s journey, with it’s ups and downs and difficultly that in the end one has changed it a way that one could have never imagined and has left them stronger, more courageous because they faced and dealt with their trauma. I feel one needs the space to know and feel their emotions and that they are ok and make sense because they are the road home to a new sense of self and center.
Thanks for this.
I love listening Dr Sonja, thank you… enjoy the informal setting and feel enriched by the clip
I have lived through a trauma and I find what Sonja describes as true – I am much more thoughtful in life and I have come to my own conclusions which are different from some values that I was taught. I even changed professions from nursing to social work.
This lovely little tidbit says NOTHING about helping clients grow after trauma. I’m surprised you even identified it as such. She merely offers that indeed, some people rise to higher levels. How nice for them. I’ll bet they’re a lot more fun to work with and study!
Sounds like what I also got from it.
The course of trauma therapy often opens up for discussion the impacts of previous life traumas – the addressing of which can certainly contribute to a picture of post-traumatic growth and self-comfort.
I enjoy the passion Sonja showed in this presentation. Thank you, Sonja.
I can only speak from my personal experience about growth after trauma. In my case, my partner committed suicide after I disclosed I had been cheating on him… he purpose protrayed me as the villain to our friends and family… even though he admitted he too had cheated! I really struggled with the aftermath and almost lost my life too! There was no visible growth… I appeared and felt stuck! One day, a decade later… I noticed profound gratitude inside me! It took a while to tease it apart… I was not grateful for his death… I would change it if I could… but the lessons I learned! I am a better person now as a result of his death! I am grateful something happened to get my attention and wake me up! I lean into gratitude when things are difficult now… if something as bad a suicide has a gift in it.. why won’t be current problem?
Thank You … shrug and lift my head .. smile
Thankyou for sharing your epiphany. I can understand that gratitudeis a powerful and overwhelming experience after trauma. Letting it flood your soul is enriching and life enhancing. Thankyou again.
Hi Ruth,
Thanks for having shared this video. I recognize so much myself in the post-trauma growth.
Lost my own Mum from suicide at the age of 3. Dad has never spoken about her to her 3 children (me and my 2 siblings (aged 6 and 8). I was abused by my own brother at the age of 14 (sexual games).
Finally after having left the parental house during a turmoil (at the age of 25), I met and married the brother of my best friend. He was 37 and I was 30 at the wedding. We’ve got two gorgeous children from the marriage. When the kids were toddlers he suggested me to move from Belgium to Australia.
I left everything and followed him.
After a couple of years up and downs appeared more frequently in our couple far away of our roots. I started to feel something wrong and tried some family therapy. He was a pure pervers narcissist, he started to manipulate not only me but the therapist. He inherited a huge amount at the death of his parents that he put in a huge renovation of our house. I didn’t want a house, I wanted a home. And when he realised (never told me ) that he saw too big, he decided to stop working and finish by himself. He never did. I went back to work when the children were getting older. I was full time mum and full time worker. I thought divorcing in 2013 but thought no for the best of the kids !!!??? Anyway 2015 saw me descending to hell. An anxiety crisis in March 2015, followed by a double pulmonary embolism (I escaped death by a finger) in May 2015 (2 years ago on 11/5). The devil left me alone in ressuscitation room (even if he didn’t work at that time) pretending he had to feed the kids (18 and 15) and there was a nice tv program. My program was 6 doctors and nurses trying to save my life. It was not enough, he signed a contract to go to work at 3,000kms from here, leaving me and the kids alone. When I was declared on severe depression with suicidal ideation he refused to come back 3 times. Only when my GP threatened him of desertion of family (we haven’t got any family here but us) he came back but convinced me to change GP within 3 days and left again. He signed agains my consent my admission in a respite house (it was awful for me since it echoed the circumstances of the suicide of my mum) and then one month in psy ward. Finally after having lost more than 13 (yes thirteen) kilos and being able to sleep max 90 minutes a night, I was able to come back several times to help my kids to keep a householding by themselves (the first one was on last year of high school, the second in year 10…. well I thought he had to feed them … now he was leaving them 6 weeks alone). When I finally requested him (after several re-admissions to short stay at the hospital) to come back, it was the big blow of the volcano lid. Our mariage finished with police and other black legs and arms. Me splitting in front of the police, him telling me ‘How do you dare?”, the sales of our house and him turning the kids against me. My adult son being removed from my new place by the police since he became violent towards me and my own daughter telling me ‘mum you would be better to commit the same as your mum so that we will get rid of you”. Well she was one of the other weapon of her father. Nothing like that shocks me anymore since I heard from the mouth of one of the nurse in ED when I was at risk of swallowing my whole stock of medications (blood thinner and antidepressants), she told me ‘commit suicide so that your children will know who you are’.
But …. but … as the video mentions s well I have bounced back. I’m on the other side of the bridge,I don’t recognize myself as a victim but as survivor of domestic violence. Domestic violence was daily at home (sarcasm, put downs etc without mentioning all the lies I have found during the removal proving that he asked me my inheritance of my first grandparents to make an investment….lie and liessssss he used it to refund his debts. Our arrival in Australia was not for a better life but to escape the fisc. I was stupid, I found everything when I split from him.
Yes I bounced back, yes I’m another person. Yes I found my ownself. Yes i love myself. I lost my job during the ordeal and yes I’ve started and finished new studies. Yes I’ve grown to another person, a better one. Yes life is beautiful and worth. Yes life is a journey and yes you cannot rewind your past but you can take your past as an experience to give you the strength to rebounce.
Thanks so much for having shared this video, dear Ruth
I feel drawn to Sonja’s comment on the relationship between Meaning and Happiness and it’s potential to offer resilience. From personal experience, it was a “driven” search for meaning to traumatic experiences that enabled resilience and growth, in terms of arriving at acceptance, a growing awareness of the contextual experience in terms of time and the Why?, How? Who?, When? and Where?, and a sense of objective detachment from the traumatic event. Though not an easy ride, especially with concurrent aspirations to regain happiness also being present, I feel that with the passage of time, this “on lookers” perspective of something that caused so much pain and loss to oneself, offered some level of self-mastery and control in defining what was was meaningful and conducive to personal happiness. I am also learning (from currently living in India), that trauma may be “karmic” in nature, with spiritual growth as a necessary outcome, and this kind of makes sense to me when considering the recurrence of traumatic events in clients who are pushed to find the meaning of happiness and identify ways to welcome it into their lives.
I agree with Billur. most of the things spoken of in the video are not real or severe (life-threatening) trauma, which makes permanent changes to the brain and nerves. People working in the mental health field OUGHT TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE between real trauma and simple bad life experiences that anyone can get over and grow from. Treating any bad life experience as though they are trauma makes light of what real trauma survivors are going through. Real (C)PTSD is considered incurable for the most part due to its severity. If it is just a simple choice to grow from it, it probably wasn’t a true traumatic experience, because a true traumatic experience is very difficult if not impossible to heal from. This video makes it sound like people just have to decide to get better and they will, but many people with real trauma try to no avail. And people with real trauma do not need to be made to feel that the injury they suffered is their fault if it is too severe to heal. Nobody wants to heal more than them, but this kind of misleading video does a disservice to them.
Whilst I do agree that many people today do trivialise real trauma I don’t think it is fair to say that this video does. She talks about holocaust survivors initially, and how some don’t believe they can be happy again and some do. Which suggests that much of our experience regardless of how traumatic it may be judged by others is really about what meaning we take from it.
And I don’t think it is correct to say that real PTSD is considered incurable. What we do know is that long term neglect and low level abuse (over a long period of time) can have very similar effects on the brain as a sudden traumatic event such as rape. And what we also know now is that newer treatments such as those related to a Polyvagal approach can have a remarkable effect on helping people to recover from trauma. What this video is suggesting however is that if we can have some success in helping a client to find new meaning in their lives this too will aid recovery. This may not always work of course but I believe in principal that it is possible.
“And I don’t think it is correct to say that real PTSD is considered incurable.”
Real PTSD…that’s an interesting distinction. Jonathan Shay talks about a breach in the individual’s moral contract with society that war can create as being part of this complex called PTSD. The famous author, Tim Obrien, stood in front of an auditorium full of mental health workers and said that the day his PTSD is cured is the day he knows he’s gone insane, and he doesn’t WANT to be cured of his PTSD because that reaction was a sane response to the insane world of war…or something like that. He doesn’t want to stop feeling shocked and appalled at the experience or he feels he’d lose his humanity. You could have heard a pin drop in that room. But wow, you wanna talk about somebody drawing meaning from his trauma…his prose is effulgent. So I dunno–this is the trouble with such an umbrella term. I’ve heard of great successes with the eye movement therapy for one aspect of PTSD, I guess retraining the amygdala? I’ve heard how healing it’s been for a lot of Vietnam vets to return and do good in that country, mending that moral contract. Then you got CTE, where repeated physical impact triggers the progressive degeneration of brain tissue, which has a tangible way of dehumanizing a person. But hey, how ’bout them 49ers. Amazing to me how anyone, knowing what we know, could stomach watching a game. This work is so far from over. Instead of this talk of a cure, however real anyone deems this or that trauma, I quite wish we could eliminate all causes.
What an interesting shift, bringing light to the growth after trauma. It is interesting to study why some people bounce back even stronger or more resilient.
I learned a lot from this 3 minute video, thank you. I hadn’t thought of trauma and resilience in quite this way before.
after receiving EMDR treatments and excellent cognitive therapy, my life was changed! not only did I heal from the trauma 46 years earlier, my life was better, more balanced, more beautiful. I recognized that I thought differently. I thought is possibility, in boundary, in ownership of my one precious life.
…I am soul happy now….each day is valuable, and I can FEEL..actually FEEL the emotions I have.
I cry..but not in despair. I cry because of deep emotion. I laugh..really laugh. I have lost most of my anxiety.
there is lilfe after trauma..a better life
After multiple and intense trauma after trauma (packed into a 10 year period), I barely got over one before another climbed on top! it wasn’t until I unhooked the energy PATTERN from my subconscious mind AND from my body too. During this time, I was able to help my own clients get to resolution of their difficulties using EFT but I wasn’t getting that same response despite my own multiple weekly sessions over years using EFT (from multiple EFT/therapist). The missing piece was that the traumas weren’t broken apart and resolved before suggesting forward movement. That was a huge missing piece. I couldn’t even think about gratitude, or forward movement when I was still in reactionary, energetic, subconscious anchoring.
Thanks, Joanne. Can you say more about how you broke the trauma pieces apart to resolve them? What you are explaining here makes so much sense and I really resonate with it as someone who works in the field of healing but is also healing from trauma as well. Thanks very much.
Experiencing fully all the complex reactions we have with a compassionate and present witness or witnesses in a safe environment, consistently, through a period of time I think is key. If we have permission to process in our own time, in a holding environment, the human spirit re-groups. I’ve observed that on myself and others. But there needs to be an experience of safety, of trust, outside the self.
By being connected to be allowed to share the experience….the U.S. is a very emotionally isolated society…I was back in Europe recently and felt I had a right to share my truth….
America on the other hand is a paradox….wonderful books on the self help BUT!! Americans are reticent to truly feel and share…I feel they live in a bubble of deniel
I this week left Florida for good! Am now in Atlanta and really hope with all my heart I will be a Le to meet some real people
Thank you!
I have experienced trauma quite regularly from birth from adoptions, divorce, ill health, lost of work and money, very ill husband and most recently copying my husband’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. Sometimes I wonder if it will stop. I’ve had many years of therapy and always go back to my tool box. My go too place is always being aware of the blessings that come out of it and I usually rise higher than before. Even with the last 6 years of continuous challenge I can talk about the blessings that have come out of it all – mostly a sense of being surrounded by community. As an older woman of 66, I look at my future and wonder where I will end up. My resilience has never let me down and see no reason why not. I love the term Post Traumatic Growth and rather than saying I have post traumatic stress will change it to having a post traumatic growth opportunity. Thank you.
I get very few clients who have just one trauma. Many of my clients suffer from developmental trauma disorder which does not particularly create resilience in and of itself. It is only through more major changes in the brain over a period of time that they are able to grow from their trauma.
I’d like to hear more about the individual differences that lead people who have experienced trauma to say either, “What if this (worse thing) had happened?” and focus on the ‘what ifs’ to “Thank goodness, this (worse thing) didn’t happen!” and focus on the blessings.
Yes, I see where trauma can equip certain individuals fundamentally in growth. I begin that line of thought with the awakening of such a complex area in cognitive realizations which would undoubtedly lead to a more matured or “broader” perception of thought processing. Good video
As an educator, I see children coming from very traumatic environments on a daily basis. My hope is that each and every child experiencing adversity has a compassionate caring adult in their life. The research on relationships is key and may be the saving grace for many of our young children. Teachers may be their only hope for a resilient life. Educators need trauma informed care training to provide a trauma informed school environment.
Thank you. I so agree! I am a school nurse in a School filled with students with complex traumatized students… Do you have any suggestions on reading material or trainings to help me to be more trauma center informed and how best to assist students in school settings?
Check out the ongoing adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s) studies and research. acestoohigh.com also acesconnection.com
Dr. Geri Keskeys,
I have recently gone through persona trauma and have felt the devastating effects it can have in one’s life. I am also a teacher. This year I am working with students who have experienced great trauma in their lives. I find that my personal experience provides a strong understanding and foundation for working with these students. I do believe educators need trauma informed care training to provide a safe school environment for students to begin to build a resilient life.
I really believe in what Sonja delivers. I would like research data on this, where to find?
I actually feel that trauma is there AS as opportunity for growth. And that is what has kept me going in the darkest times. Knowing that I would not only grow but be able to help others somehow.
Well said.
I have experienced this myself. After a traumatic marriage and divorce as well as a loss of a job I went down into a pit that I thought I would never be able to get out of. I am now 10 years past these events and have started on a path that was better than before. I have found myself and recognize my strengths and weaknesses. I do believe in Post traumatic growth. This process is painful but beautiful. I am so grateful to be conscious of this shift in perception. I would love to be a part of this ongoing discovery.
Very helpful perspective on recovery after traumatic life experience.
In my area of expertise, i.e., the unacknowledged trauma of competent non-disordered adults who grew up with parents with a (diagnosed or undiagnosed) serious mental illness, I find that grief intersects and interacts with trauma in potentially powerful ways, as demonstrated via the Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) concept, i.e., post-traumatic growth as a trauma reaction by the cohort I researched after their parents’ physical death. Trauma is a normal reaction so is grief. Normalising grief and trauma reactions of this group (even if social taboo lines are crossed – and they often do!) validates this population I researched on two levels: (1) as traumatised children, when matters were outside their control due to dependency needs; and (2) as disenfranchised trauma-carrying adults. So I think happiness “potentially” connects with meaning in the PTG context but this would depend on a case by case basis taking into account all the variables I discuss in my thesis.
Thank you. I’m going to look at your research.
I’m not a clinician, but I’m a trauma survivor and a public health researcher. I think that social support is so key to growing after trauma. If the family or social circle is not supportive or wants to deny that the trauma happened, it’s hard to heal. With proper support and love, healing and positive change can happen.
Thank you I free as someone with unite a history of trauma the lack of family validation and support has made healing hard… But fortunately it’s by speaking support outside of my family I have been able to heal… Still a work in progress but I find there are so many things that have helped… A validating therapist, yoga, meditation, 12 step recovery programs….
With proper support I think the issue really looks smaller and manageable too. I think this can help us go a long way. Struggling without support has revealed itself to be detrimental to my health in the past especially after the experience of several losses. Although family is not always there when we want it, I understood my support could means more. And the rebound becomes possible with hope and time to heal from the traumatic events.
After a traumatic experience, no matter How Hard or Big it was, a person needs to recover, re-engineer or even imagine their new ‘fighting spirit’ through the “CAN DO ATTITUDE’, validated by the actions and outcomes.
As we know, crawl, walk, jog sprint is the wisest formula because there is a period of adaptation for body, mind, soul, psyche, immune system, perceptions and consciousness… before it becomes a habit and thereafter a SKILL WE OWN and practice daily or regularly. Then apply the 6P’s: Perfect Practice Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Those results will go long way to supercharge your self-esteem. But it must be gradual, consistent, persistent, unrelenting, disciplined, etc. Once this formula is mastered and you stick with the most important follow through, you will be completely amazed HOW EASY IS OUT-GROW YOUR OWN EXPECTATIONS!
I strongly recommend using as an additional form of hobby/therapy any of the creative arts./ However, not as a job but a hobby and pastime (for me creative writing and classical music have been extremely beneficial, after 29 years suffering from Bipolar disorder type II. Today highly functioning. Many thanks for the opportunity to comment, Cheers.
Some are stuck in the Freeze Response. Educating about this and encouraging ‘opposite action’ can be helpful.
Resiliency is interesting, and I see people who are amzingingly resiliant and others who struggle. I use ACT and DBT and the skills to increase effectiveness for both sets of clients. I read and listent o experts who have worked with many people to hear what has worked for others.
Thank you for this. I have found that the DBT skill of validating for families of BPD or anxiety/depression persons could be greatly enhanced by going beyond validation and offering empathy specifically the empathy that is in Nonviolent Communication. The intention to be with a person however they are, be present and give them a sense of being gotten is quite powerful. Having a safe space to be heard, to mourn and experience presence and acceptance can be one of the most powerful things. It seems to support people in having their inner wisdom have room to come out where they begin to have gratitude and resilience.
Beautifully said! And I so agree!
Just challenging to find people who have those skills to truly listen with compassion and empathy…
DBT is useful off-label for so many people and conditions. It is trans-diagnostic.
Examples given in this segment do not qualify as ‘trauma’ except for the holocaust
survivors. divorce, having children with down syndrome or coming out as gay/lesbian
maybe classified as ‘adverse experiences’ but they should not lumped under the
category of ‘trauma survivors’. not a compatible study group I find.
After living through family violence for the last 8 yrs I look back at who I was and only being three months out of this situation it takes a great deal of positive reinforment and and I use CBT to help support the growth and changes I have and to combate the flash backs and stinking thinking that attacks you when you live in the cycle of abuse. I see how important it is to mourn the loss of self and fantasy of the happy family, but I am loving the visualisation I get when you talk about post traumatic growth, it shows me that I do have an Identity, I have choice, and I can be happy and be true to who I am meant to be by riding the rollercoaster with the safety gear on this time! I am free to follow my passion and give back to others.
Thank you zo much for this video from Sonja. And I’m absolutely agree with her statement from my own experience in my live. I’m 53 years old now, a mindfulnesstrainer and I can say that I had 2 very ‘good’ strong trauma experiences in this life. After going really down, very, very, I can say that my life is on this other level now, wat Sonja disciribed. Thanks so much for this recogniition. But I have changed and also relationships, that was in some cases also very painful for me and sometimes it feels as a lonely path? But it is not possible to go the way back. And I feel it is very important and inspirering (I heard) for younger people us a rolmodel, how to live this life.
I agree that finding and doing something meaningful after going through trauma is a healing way to find happinesss. I’ve always been a person who could find the silver lining. It’s been tougher in the last few years raising a son with severe Reactive Attachment Disorder, giving up my career( which was part of my identity) to save him, and recently caring for and then losing a Mom with advanced Alzheimers, losing a precious and close brother after a grueling fight to live through an unexpected complication to surgery, as well as taking care of a Dad who targets me with his angry paranoid dementia. I’m just so exhausted and it’s tough to get the energy to invest in llooking for the silver lining, but I know it’s there and I know I will find it. I always found it in the past and just need to breathe so that I can see it clearly in that moment it becomes obvious to me. Meaning = Contentment which allows me to experience joy.
Some have wanted to find meaning, maybe even a personage message, in the event of abuse or the trauma they have suffered. While I fully agree that happiness and meaning have a mutual, perhaps inter-causal relationship, to seek to narrow meaning to a sole event, however momentous for the individual, might be a mistake. It can lead to a desire to implicate the person in the event, which is absurd and can lead to myth- making. However find a meaning in the largesse of life can be hugely healing and transcend the needs and imperatives of the ego. I have seen this successfully applied in recovering from trauma.
Empowering. A new concept for me all in keeping with positive psychology. That life can indeed get better after a critical incident.
Wonderful to be thinking about this topic, and to read people’s shares. Thank you. (Author of ‘The Uses of Sadness’, Allen and Unwin, Sydney 2009)
I agree in post traumatic growth but my question is ‘can it be sustained?’ To give a bit of context….I was sexually abused by a family member for two years starting at age 8. I then witnessed my oldest brother attack both of my parents with a kitchen knife which left my mum critically injured and which my dad tragically didn’t survive. For the next 8 years I was emotionally and mentally tormented by these events and engaged in high risk activities & became suicidal… despite hiding behind a bright and bubbly personality. At age 18 I became a chriistian and for the next 25 years I lived in freedom from this torment. I still had loads of challenges but I seemed able to overcome them by applying these biblical principles. BUT, 12 months ago an event triggered the tormenting emotions and I now feel too exhausted to mentally and emotionally cope with any more adversity. I desperately want to go back to how I was 18 months ago but just don’t seem to be able to. What do I do when I’ve experienced post traumatic growth only to return to what feels like PTSD 35 years after the trauma first happened. I feel desperate. 🙁
I sort of have similar path, but the collapsing started about 4-5 years ago with series of hard event, and it took at first a few years to realise that it was also very old trauma wounds resurfacing. I was difficult because I thought my spiritual life should have fixed all hidden wounds. But spirituality is not psychology, so we still need to heal psychologically the psot trumtic disrorder and not use spiritual blessings and realisations as a bypass –oh well, we don’t even notice we do so when we do. Beside therapy (including body wor, creative work and meditation) you may like to read anything on spiritual bypass. I like also Abdi Assadi’s blog as he deals wih this is a very war way.
Astrology has also helped me understand that we go through cycles and sometimes things resurface –an opportunity to work on ourself and grow at a deeper level, though it feels horrible at times, and sometimes some astrological cycles last for years. You’ll be stronger and happier at the end, don’t give up, just do your work. And trust the divine blessing that says you are strong enough now to heal the deep pain.
Have you tried EMDR with someone who is certified to offer that? ( certified, not just trained)
Those are very powerful events and emotions. DBT for distress tolerance, re-regulation, self care, boundaries, etc may be helpful for growing your coping skills — before embarking on therapy or EMDR. HTH
Absolutely: Post-traumatic Growth is Possible in most of my clients. My discovery in treating adult survivors of historical sexual abuse is that within the context of a nurturing therapeutic relationship, most are able to eventually become the individuals that they were supposed to be. It is a long, difficult journey, but worth the intense work.
Debbie Davis
MSW, RSW