The Posttraumatic Self

Restoring Meaning and Wholeness to Personality

John P. Wilson, John P. Wilson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781135416270
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Asesoramiento psicoterapéutico

Filling a gap that exists in most traumatology literature, The Posttraumatic Self provides an optimistic analysis of the aftermath of a traumatic event.

This work appreciates the potentially positive effects of trauma and links those effects to the discovery of one's identity, character, and purpose. Wilson and his distinguished contributors explore the nature and dynamics of the posttraumatic self, emphasising human resilience and prompting continued optimal functioning. While taking into consideration pathological consquences such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the authors study the impacts a traumatic event can have on one's inner self, and they help the victims transform such an event into healthy self-transcendent lifecycles. The Posttraumatic Self will help victims and healers transform the way they deal with the complexities of trauma by making important connections that will allow for healing and growth.

1

Introduction and Overview:
A Positive Psychology
of Trauma and PTSD

JOHN P. WILSON

The Posttraumatic Self: Restoring Meaning and Wholeness to Personality is a book that represents an attempt to provide a framework of a positive psychology of trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). At first glance the idea of a positive psychology of trauma and PTSD seems like a contradiction in terms and the opposite of the emotional reality for those who suffer. How can there be a positive psychology of horrific consequences of psychic trauma? After all, the word trauma originates from the ancient Greek word for “injury.” Trauma, usually inflicted from an external source, causes damage, a loss of well-being, and a change in physical or mental status that is painful, aversive, and may result in a condition of prolonged traumatization. In this same mind set, we have traditionally spoken about the process of healing wounds, recovery, and the resumption of normal functioning. In medicine and psychology, the processes of healing and recovery meant that the victim of trauma overcame their illness and got better, assuming more control and autonomy in life, and experiencing fewer residual symptoms of their illness. In terms of PTSD, a recently codified stress disorder related to trauma (DSM-III, 1980), recovery from the illness usually implied that the symptoms dissipated, resolved, or no longer had the power to disrupt daily living (Wilson, Friedman, & Lindy, 2001). In fact, the official criterion for defining PTSD as a disorder is that: “the disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning” (p. 468). By this logic, PTSD as a disorder can cause impairment in functioning which may be hidden, subtle, overt, covert or floridly dramatic, and evident for all to see in its maladaptive or unusual deviance from everyday behavior. When a PTSD illness gets “cured” or is no longer actively causing impairments in daily life, does that suggest that the person is healthy, fully-functioning and working at an optimal level of their human potential? Is the absence of psychopathology the same thing as optimal fitness and capacity for self-actualization? Is the reduction or amelioration of trauma-related symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, depression, phobias, substance dependence, etc., the same thing as positive, fully functioning behavior? When the symptoms of PTSD, such as nightmares, flashbacks, traumatic memories, hypervigilance, sleep disturbance, and social avoidance of others, dissipate in their power to cause painful emotional distress, has the person restored wholeness and become psychically integrated? When psychic trauma attacks the inner fabric of the self-structure, shredding it into pieces like a tattered and battle-torn uniform of an infantry soldier, how does it get put back together? How does the individual engage in a process of change, creating a new posttraumatic self, a reinvented architecture of oneself with a capacity to grow from the horrors and perils of trauma? How do resilient survivors find the pathways to meaning and wholeness in their lives? What does the inner world of a healthy and transcendent survivor look like in its rich tapestry of self-reinvention? What are the secrets to the success of such a survivor in living an authentic life, “in the moment,” with humanity, courage, wisdom, knowledge, humility, forgiveness, a sense of justice, and the capacity for humanness that is awe-inspiring to others?

These and related questions form the nucleus of a positive psychology of trauma and PTSD. It is my belief, born from nearly four decades of experience in working with traumatized persons suffering from PTSD, that it is more important to study the healthy, self-transcendent survivors of trauma than those most dehumanized by it. By understanding the strong, resilient, self-transcendent survivor of extreme life-adversity, we can learn how it is that they found the pathway to healing, recovery, resilience, and the actualization of their innate human potentials. In this regard, Peterson and Seligman (2004), in their research on character strength and virtue, state that the strengths of transcendence,

seem mixed, but the central theme running through these strengths of transcendence is that each allows individuals to forge connections to the larger universe and thereby provide meaning to their lives. Almost all of the positive traits in our classification reach outside the individual— character, after all, is social in nature but in the case of the transcendence strengths, the reaching goes beyond other people per se to embrace part or all of the larger universe. The prototype of this strength is spirituality, variously defined but always referring to a belief in and commitment to the transcendent (nonmaterial) aspects of life whether they be called universal, ideal, sacred or divine. (p. 519)

Transcendence of self, I suggest, is among the cardinal characteristics of the posttraumatic self in which states of traumatization, including PTSD, have been overcome and integrated within a new identity structure as part of the architecture of the self and its six core components (i.e., continuity, coherence, connection, autonomy, vitality, energy). Indeed, understanding the posttraumatic self requires analysis and study of how personality processes and the self-structure is impacted by different types of traumatic experience. In the simplest formulation, we can ask: How is it that powerful traumatic experiences produces changes to inner self-processes and identity? How do overwhelming and adverse life-events affect the architectural integrity of the self? When trauma damages the tapestry of the self, identity, and basic psychological processes associated with them (i.e., perception, memory, consciousness, etc.), how do persons transform and rebuild themselves? Beyond a doubt, anecdotal accounts from those who have endured the Abyss Experience (Wilson, 2004a) of trauma and confronted the specter of their own death, the possibility of self-disintegration and loss of soul, report that afterwards their views of life and themselves change, often in profound ways. I have learned from war veterans, Holocaust survivors, torture victims, and those experiencing death encounters that they step back, sometimes way back, and reexamine their priorities in life, rearranging values and shedding nonessential things and patterns of living. They uniformly report being less materialistic and more concerned with authentic existence and the quality of life from a position that values life, kindness, justice, gratitude, hope, integrity, and simple pleasures.

A personal friend and Holocaust survivor of several Nazi death camps always remarked that his best “life insurance” policies were his few, close friends with whom he could enjoy life simply, honestly, and with the joy of their presence. My friend understood the gratitude of daily living and used to tell me to look in the mirror each morning upon awakening and meditate on life's goodness and what was going to be “good” about “today” without worrying about tomorrow or what would happen the rest of the week. After surviving the Holocaust as a young man who suffered from the devastating effects of typhus, he came to understand what Buddhists refer to as consciousness of living-in-the-moment. My friend taught me that so much of what we worry about is illusory and the product of a materialistic culture and has no ultimate meaning. After the Holocaust he had to reinvent himself, having lost family and friends to the death camps, and create a new sense of personal identity and a positive life-trajectory. He understood the fundamental existential choice—grow, change, and transcend the legacy of the death camps or remain frozen in time, bitter, and possessed by demonic memories. He found the pathways of self-reinvention and a new, positive posttraumatic self. It was a long and difficult journey but he manifest resilience and moral character, one battle at a time.

Since the beginning of the 21st century there has been a resurgence of interest in positive psychology which was referred to in the 1960s and 1970s as The Third Force after behaviorism and psychoanalysis as schools of thought (Maslow, 1968). Today, the study of positive psychology embraces in a more generic way what was previously classified as humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Martin E. P. Seligman (2002), one of the principal organizers of a new positive psychology, has stated that

the aim of positive psychology is to catalog a change in psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life. To redress this imbalance, we must bring the building of strength to the forefront in the treatment of mental illness. (p.3)

Clearly, it is an important task for the field of traumatology to achieve balance in understanding the worst (i.e., lowest, pathological, destructive) and best (i.e., highest, growth-promoting, self-actualizing) consequences of psychic traumatization. Traumatic stressors and the phenomenon of PTSD are multidimensional in nature (Wilson, 2004b). Moreover, there is a continuum of posttraumatic impacts to human growth and development which range from severe states of psychic brutalization and the loss of humanness to transcendent self-actualizing modes of existence that represent the essence of all that is good in human character and virtue, irrespective of time, space, and culture.

In Chapters 11 and 12 I discuss the transformation of psychic trauma and that PTSD may result in different forms of self-transcendence and the farther reaches of human nature in terms of optimal states of functioning, consciousness, and enlightenment. Transcendent trauma survivors, who have reinvented the inner dimension of the self, exemplify and embody the deepest levels of compassion for others—an ultimate generative concern for the well-being of loved ones and the species as a whole. Their individual character structure contains most, if not all, the traits listed as strengths in Peterson's and Seligman's (2004) description of transcendent, high-order personality functioning: (1) wisdom and knowledge; (2) courage; (3) humanity; (4) sense of justice; (5) temperance; and (6) transcendence. Interestingly, the strength of transcendence as a trait includes the subdimensions of appreciation for beauty, awe, wonder, elation, gratitude, hope, humor, faith, and spirituality, all of which are positive aspects of resilient trauma survivors (see Chapter 10 for a discussion). Further, in terms of the transformed, posttraumatic self with a highly integrated cohesive identity structure, there are qualities of a grounded sense of self which has moved beyond the constraints imposed by PTSD and degraded organismic functioning to new and higher levels of human strength. A similar position has been expressed by Seligman (2002), who has discussed the positive preventive aspects of good mental health

We have discovered that there are human strengths that act as buffers against mental illness: courage, future-mindedness, optimism, interpersonal skills, faith, hope, work ethic, honesty, perseverance, the capacity for flow and insight, to name several. Much of the task of prevention in this new century will be to create a science of human strength whose mission will be to understand and learn how to foster these virtues in young people. (p. 5)

I believe that knowledge of how individuals transform trauma, PTSD and comorbid states (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance abuse) is a critical task for a complete psychology of trauma. It is a fact that most people bounce back from trauma and resume the trajectories of their lives. And yet, many spend years and decades with the long-lasting effects of trauma. Recently, for example, an undergraduate student spoke to me of his concern for his aging grandfather, a survivor of World War II now in his eighties. The insightful 20-year-old said

My grandpa is still bothered by what happened during WWII when he was a U.S. Marine who fought in the South Pacific against the Japanese. He still won't talk about what happened and my aunt said that he started drinking heavily right after the war [1945], had nightmares, sleep problems, and was real jumpy. He still is jumpy and gets upset when he watches war movies. I don't think the war ever ended for him.

Some trauma survivors remain frozen in time and unable to move beyond powerful experiences that seem to stop the natural progression of healthy development in life. When we encounter individuals whose lives are haunted by traumatic residues which continue to exude unresolved emotional pain after many years, we have to ask why healing, integration, and transformation did not occur. What is it that prevents or blocks persons from finding pathways to healing and the achievement of optimal states of functioning, affect balance, higher levels of self-awareness, and self-actualization? Clearly, these are central questions of a positive psychology of trauma.

This book has its goals and limitations in regard to furthering the understanding of the posttraumatic self and the restoration of meaning and wholeness to personality. There are many key points that will be addressed by the chapters in this book concerning a positive psychology of trauma and PTSD. These central focal points include:

• What is the nature of the posttraumatic self and its potential alteration by trauma and the existence of PTSD and self-pathologies?

• What are the impacts of trauma on the epigenesis of identity in the life-cycle?

• What are the stage-specific consequences of trauma in terms of growth, development, and defensive operations to guard against injury?

• How are optimal states of psychological functioning achieved following traumatization?

• How does the continuum of dissociation to integration function in the wake nt traumasurvivor?

• What is the archetype of trauma across cultures throughout history?

• How does trauma impact normal personality states and traits?

• How are states of posttraumatic shame and guilt embedded in the self?

• What set of traits, personality processes, and behavioral tendencies characterize the resilient trauma survivor?

• What are the mutative transference processes in dynamic psychotherapy that lead to growth and mental health?

• What are the 12 sets of factors that characterize persons who have transformed extremely stressful life-events?

• How is posttraumatic resilience related to self-transcendence?

• What are the core principles for healing and recovery from psychic trauma?

A positive psychology of trauma and PTSD is one that contains a theoretical framework which provides insight into the polarities of illness and growth, traumatization and transformation, despair and transcendence. A positive psychology of trauma includes...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• ROUTLEDGE PSYCHOSOCIAL STRESS SERIES
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Editor
• Contributors
• Series Editor's Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction and Overview: A Positive Psychology of Trauma and PTSD
• 2. The Posttraumatic Self
• 3. Trauma and the Epigenesis of Identity
• 4. Childhood Trauma: The Deeper Wound
• 5. Trauma Archetypes and Trauma Complexes
• 6. Trauma, Optimal Experiences, and Integrative Psychological States
• 7. Trauma and Alterations in Normal Personality
• 8. Mutative Transference and the Restoration of the Posttraumatic Self
• 9. Posttraumatic Shame and Guilt: Culture and the Posttraumatic Self
• 10. The Resilient Trauma Survivor
• 11. Trauma and Transformation of the Self: Restoring Meaning and Wholeness to Personality
• 12. Transformational Principles: Healing and Recovery from Psychic Trauma
• Index