Beyond Recovery From Trauma: Implications for Clinical Practice and Research

Abstract

This article draws implications for clinicians working with survivors of major life crises in four general areas: the relation of psychological well-being, distress, and posttraumatic growth; conceptual issues in this type of clinical work; the process of encouraging growth in clients following traumatic events; and suggestions for additional research. Posttraumatic growth can be accompanied by an increase in well-being, but distress and growth may also coexist. Positive changes can occur in several domains, but many are likely to be phenomenological. Degree of change produced by clinical intervention may be limited in scope, but there clearly are some ways in which the clinician may make growth more likely for the client. Suggestions for future research include the call for longitudinal investigations, studies of rumination and responses of the social network, and the examination of potential gender differences in posttraumatic growth.