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NCUPA Winter Newsletter

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12 We take the position that resilience and post-traumatic growth are not the same. Highly resilient people are sometimes less likely to experience post-traumatic growth than less resilient people. Resiliency reflects one's capacity to "bounce back," but the "bounce" is less profound among those who are already resilient than among their peers who have to put forth more effort to recover. Rendon (2015), a journalist, followed up on the Tedeschi and Calhoun data by reading related literature and conducting his own interviews. He was especially impressed by Viktor Frankl's experiences in a Nazi concentration camp and how they led to his development of logotherapy, a type of existential psychotherapy. He also recalled a fictional 1936 story about a young boy who saw his parents murdered and vowed to fight crime, becoming "Batman" in the process. Rendon found that about half of the trauma survivors he read about or interviewed reported positive change as a result of their experience, assisted by social support, faith, and creativity – talking or writing about the experience. However, hope is often preceded by despair, optimism by depression. A woman who fell in front of a train (as a result of an overenthusiastic hug) left her life of meaningless jobs to become a counselor for low-income clients in South London. Her former partying life ended, because she had to wear a colostomy bag at all times. In this regard, families and friends can play a pivotal role in reintegrating veterans into civilian life. More than two million U.S. children have parents in the military, many of whom are dealing with multiple deployments, war injuries, and PTSD (Elmore & Patterson, 2012). Sports, pets, cookouts, and other family activities can be therapeutic. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network is attempting to facilitate such pastimes. Honoring the Path of the Warrior is a non-profit group that sponsors group retreats for veterans and their supporters. Humanistic psychology has pioneered many innovations in both family therapy and the use of support groups to assist personal development and to prevent substance abuse and other self-destructive behavior. Howard Wasdin, a member of the U.S. Navy's elite Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) team, survived combat with three bullets in his leg, chronic pain, and PTSD. His wife urged him to write about his experiences and, much to his surprise, the process diminished his symptoms. Wasdin recalled the training he had received and the quick decisions he had to make. After he began to visit a firing range, he found that he enjoyed recreational target practice. His muscles recalled his previous training, despite his wounds (Wasdin & Temple, 2011). Needless to say, this type of writing is not a panacea, and one must choose the correct time and place to avoid becoming retraumatized in the process. Potentially traumatizing events occur frequently. Genetics and early life experiences predispose some people to experience certain events as traumatizing. For others, a single traumatic experience itself can lead to PTSD. Whether one or several traumas trigger PTSD, those persons' worldviews and sense of self are assaulted. Their personal myths are shattered, leaving a residue of moral and ethical wounds. These injuries result when people feel extreme guilt or shame for something they did or witnessed that goes against their values. Not all people with moral or ethical wounding have PTSD; nonetheless, an adroit psychotherapist will recognize the condition and attempt to treat it. Reproduced with permission of The Licensor through PLSclear / Routledge

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