As a result of dramatic experiences, we experience the coexistence of losses and benefits. It depends to a large extent on us what the balance will be. And what we learn and how we change our thinking will matter when life surprises us again with something.
- ARTICLE FROM A SPECIAL EDITION: NEWSWEEK PSYCHOLOGIA 5/2020
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Each of us, regardless of our will or preventive strategies, may become a victim of trauma. Based on the research data of Prof. Maria Lis-Turlejska, it could even be said that throughout their lives the vast majority of people at least once experience such a terrible event as an accident, serious illness or sudden death of a loved one. Traumatic events are always unwanted and surprising, they happen against our will and efforts, we cannot protect ourselves against them. However, we have an influence on how to deal with their effects.
We are generally optimists
Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, prof. psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in 1992 she wrote the book “Shattered assumptions. Towards to a new psychology of trauma ”(Broken assumptions. Towards a new psychology of trauma). It significantly changed the thinking of scientists and practitioners dealing with the psychological consequences of trauma. According to the author, the very important effects of trauma, apart from suffering and the possibility of developing posttraumatic mental disorders, include changes in the victim’s thinking about himself and the rules governing the world.
Janoff-Bulman distinguished three categories of common, fundamental beliefs underlying specific thinking patterns relating to various situations or aspects of human functioning. The first one is the belief in the benevolence of the world and the general kindness of other people. The second is the belief that everything that happens to us in life is governed by certain rules and is not accidental, but also controlled (meaningfulness of the world). An important aspect of this assumption is the expectation of some kind of justice, a bit like in the proverb: “When you make your bed, this is how you sleep.” The third category (self-worth) includes patterns of thinking about oneself as inherently good, competent, and worth a happy life.
These beliefs are shaped by life experiences, and people have different levels of positivity.
Catalog wide open
The fundamental beliefs described by Janoff-Bulman are relatively stable and do not change easily. Unless something happens that radically contradicts their content. Traumatic events can be very different, but they have one thing in common: they are completely contrary to what people with positive fundamental beliefs expect. The world suddenly turns out to be bad and unpredictable, and the person experiencing the trauma is weak, lonely and completely dependent on fate. “Why me?”; “How could this even happen?”; “For what?” – such and similar questions are on the lips of people who have been victims of an accident, rape, or physical or psychological violence, as well as many other events experienced as trauma.
According to Janoff-Bulman, there is no closed catalog of events that can be called trauma. Each of us can experience different crisis and difficult experiences differently. Those who destroy or undermine fundamental beliefs about themselves and the world become traumatic. No one can grant or take away the right to experience as a trauma something that is not traumatized by another person.
Is surviving a car accident a trauma? Probably yes, but maybe not always and not for everyone. Is being a victim of mobbing at work traumatic? It depends on whether the experience is viewed as deeply contrary to fundamental beliefs about yourself and the world.
Under the influence of trauma that leads to the undermining of fundamental beliefs, a person can deeply and permanently change their way of thinking and begin to see themselves as someone who is not worth living well, and other people and the whole world as a potential source of danger. Paradoxically, but also fortunately, the opposite can also be the case. The authors of the concept of post-traumatic growth argue about this.
In a difficult situation, it is good to activate the belief that there is definitely something we can do to help ourselves. Even if we don’t see any solution yet
Richard G. Tedeschi and Lawrence G. Calhoun, researchers at the University of North Carolina, refer to the Janoff-Bulman theory of shattered assumptions in their papers published since the 90s. However, they point out that experiencing trauma and the way of dealing with its effects may also have positive consequences, such as increasing the sense of personal strength, discovering the joy of life, deepening relationships with other people, changing priorities and increasing the sense of meaning in life.
Each event that challenges fundamental beliefs forces the person who experienced it to think about many things and look for answers to important and difficult questions. What will be the result of these considerations is not a foregone conclusion. What does it depend on whether the experience of trauma will result in a post-traumatic increase or a change in beliefs into more negative ones, i.e. post-traumatic depreciation? The process of adaptation after trauma is complex, and its course and results are influenced by many factors.
Disclosure frees and strengthens
The results of the study conducted in 2020 countries around the world on four continents, including Poland, published in July 10 in the journal “Personality and Individual Differences”, indicate intercultural differences that affect what factors favor post-traumatic growth. But one thing is universal: the importance of disclosing to others your thoughts and feelings about the trauma.
In all 10 countries, those who told others about the trauma had a higher level of post-traumatic growth and a lower level of post-traumatic depreciation. It allowed them to better understand their emotions, see the traumatic event in a new light, or figure out what happened in their minds.
Calhoun and Tedeschi in their 2013 book “Posttraumatic growth in clinical practice” show how important it is who listens to such a story and when. It is important that this person can listen with attention and understanding. It does not have to be a professional, i.e. a psychologist or therapist. It can be, for example, someone who has been in a similar situation himself, or thanks to his wisdom and experience, can understand the story he is listening to, and refrain from giving advice and naive comfort. Telling someone who really listens is not only a source of emotional support, but also an opportunity to organize your thoughts, name what you feel and, above all, give your experiences a coherent, coherent narrative. This, in turn, will help to rethink fundamental beliefs about oneself and the world and to reconstruct them.
The effect of trauma does not have to be a change of positive beliefs into negative ones, but e.g. some kind of realism, and thus strengthening of positive thinking patterns. In a nutshell, it could be presented in such a way that the alternative to the belief that people can be trusted does not have to be the lack of trust, but the belief that many people can and is worth trusting – I know it for sure, because I have experienced it. in a very difficult moment for me.
It also happens that the experience of trauma provides information that strengthens previous positive beliefs. At the Center for Research on Trauma and Life Crises at the SWPS University, we conducted several hundred interviews with traumatized people and we heard many of them say: “How I dealt with all this showed me that I am stronger than I thought before”; “Thanks to what happened, I realized how important my loved ones are to me and how much I love them”; “I believe even more that life is worth living.”
Wise hope helps
There are also dangers in telling others about your experiences, including increasing distress. This is indicated by the results of research on the effects of the so-called debriefing, i.e. a technique once used in crisis intervention and usually consisting in group reconstruction of a traumatic event shortly after its occurrence. Currently, it is believed that the positive effects of revealing your experiences to others in the form of a story are visible primarily when confessions do not take place earlier than at least a few weeks after the event, and they consist not so much in recreating the course of the traumatic event as in analyzing its meaning. for the life of the affected man.
Telling others about your experiences fosters post-traumatic growth, especially in the case of people who are more reflective and have better insight into their mental states. Such people not only know how to name them correctly, but also do not shy away from confronting difficult thoughts.
In their model of posttraumatic growth, Tedeschi and Calhoun emphasize the positive importance of constantly rethinking what happened and what significance it may have (the so-called deliberative ruminations). Thinking about difficult things is not pleasant, but it can lead to positive effects over time, including accepting what happened and finding new meaning and meaning in life.
When confronted with trauma and its consequences, it is not a passive, positive expectation that it will be fine, but hope based on two interrelated beliefs: about your own agency and the ability to find solutions.
There is something else that emerges from the research carried out by the team I lead. When confronted with trauma and its consequences, it is good to have hope, but of a specific type. It is not a passive, positive expectation that it will be okay, but hope based on two interrelated beliefs: self-agency and the ability to find solutions. This is what CR Snyder, one of the most eminent researchers of positive psychology, described.
In a trauma situation, we rarely have ready and proven action strategies. On the contrary: we are generally completely surprised to find ourselves in a completely new, difficult situation. It is good then to activate the belief that there is definitely something I can do to deal with it all. Even if I don’t see any solution yet.
Trauma can destroy but also strengthen. Most often it is not an alternative, because we experience rather a coexistence of losses and benefits. The balance sheet depends on how we help ourselves to find its meaning and the ways to rebuild our inner world. What we learn and how we change our thinking as a result of a difficult experience will matter when life surprises us again.
***
dr Mariusz Zięba: psychologist, head of the Center for Research on Trauma and Life Crises and the Department of General Psychology at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poznań. He conducts research on post-traumatic growth and narrative psychology. He manages the research project financed by the National Science Center “Searching for the meaning and meaning of life and personal growth as a result of trauma: prospective research”
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