The Meaning Of the Title

WRITTEN BY DR. RENEE BRUSH & LINDA E-F

Recently, I have been called to help people beyond the many clients that I see in my private practice. I initially started down this path with my Instagram page, Library of Mental Health. I wanted a place where people could feel comfortable to go to gather information on their particular mental health issues. I started that page with a focus on trauma in its many forms, because, honestly, that is what I know the best, not only from a personal perspective, but most of my clients as well. In graduate school, I specialized in healing trauma, and I have continued that work since becoming licensed. Certainly, clients in my practice suffer from many various forms of mental health but the one thing they all have in common is a difficult history. 

After starting my IG page, I became interested in writing a blog, but could not decide on the topic. What is it that I really want to say to people? I wanted it to be different from the IG page, and maybe a record of my own journey. Like my clients, I also have a history of trauma. But I feel like perhaps I am coming out on the other side – past the trauma. Overall, that is a good thing, but there are still bad days. How does one keep moving forward when there are still lots that is bad? How do we move from the darkness so that we can be more consistently in the sunlight? In psychology, we call that Posttraumatic Growth, a term named by Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D. and Lawrence Calhoun, Ph.D. (1995) when they started exploring this concept based on their own research.  The topic hit home – and it felt right. This will be the topic of this new blog. In future entries, I will talk about the various aspects of this growth, what makes it easier, and more difficult. I will discuss it from a psychological (and thus, scientific) basis as well as a personal perspective. 

First, I had to name this blog! Recovering from trauma does not feel like you take some medicine and then it is all better. Or you don’t go into surgery and then to physical therapy to have it all healed. It is not that easy. It is more of a growth process. So, we grow out of trauma. Or, should I say, we grow FROM the trauma. And it truly feels like moving from being in the darkness to being in the light. 

As I was googling titles that involved some form of “grow,” “trauma,” “darkness,” and any other form of meaning related to those words, I came across a riddle.

“Lovely and round, I shine with pale light, grown in the darkness, a lady’s delight. What am I?” 

The answer is a pearl! That riddle really resonated with me. Never mind the descriptions of being lovely or round or a lady’s delight, but the symbolism for a pearl, grown in darkness that becomes this beautiful stone. That is undeniable! In reality, a pearl starts as a parasite or food particle (an “irritant”) that gets trapped inside an oyster and the oyster responds by secreting a fluid that gets layered around the irritant until it becomes a pearl. This fluid is literally the oyster’s defense mechanism, which results in something as precious as a pearl.  

If you look up the symbolism of a pearl, you get many answers such as innocence, purity, a sign of good fortune or wealth. The one that really makes sense in my journey is the spiritual meaning: the wisdom gained through experience. The traumas we experience become that “irritant” within ourselves. Our defense mechanisms generally do not start out being helpful, but, with time and learning, we are able to turn into something that is equally as precious: 

Wise beings that are grown from darkness.

What is Posttraumatic Growth?

When clients enter therapy after a history of trauma, they often have multiple negative symptoms, like mood swings, quick tempers, isolation, lack of motivation, and feeling emotionally numb. They describe their life as tumultuous and chaotic with lots of difficulty in their relationships. Some may go through relationships very quickly, where they start with lots of passion and then go down in flames. But, slowly, with lots of hard work and patience, they learn how to manage their emotions and their relationships and some even begin to see the “silver lining” from their challenging history. The transition tends to be so slow that, as the therapist, I try to point out what I see as I am seeing it; otherwise, the clients often miss the growth they are exhibiting. Or, they are still so caught up in the PTSD symptoms that they forget the positive steps they have made. 

In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl (1963) discussed how suffering ceases once we find a meaning for the event that caused us the suffering. After being in a depression for some time after a divorce from an abusive marriage, I remember thinking, “What is it that I am supposed to be learning from this?” I can’t say with 100% certainty that that thought is what moved me forward in my own journey, but it was definitely a turning point. And I can clearly remember the immense peace it brought me in the moment. It still took me some time to truly begin my healing journey after that moment, but it allowed me to look at my life from a different perspective.

As I said earlier, that transition from suffering after an event to discovering ways in which one has grown from that event is what is known as “Posttraumatic Growth.” Evans (2021) defines Posttraumatic Growth (PTG) as “positive psychological change experienced as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life experiences” (p. 141), with this growth creating deep, profound changes beyond where the person was before the traumatic event. Researchers of PTG usually consider five domains: personal strength, new possibilities (or finding purpose in life), relating to others, appreciation of life, and spiritual change. In the same way that every person’s trauma is unique, PTG will also be unique to each individual. Your journey is not going to be the same as mine and that’s ok. The important thing to remember is that growth IS possible. 

Since the 1990s, there has been plenty of research on how PTG and trauma are related. This research clearly shows a correlation between PTSD and PTG. Studies have shown that PTG may counteract some of the negative symptoms of PTSD (Morrill et al., 2008) and can be enhanced with therapy (Schubert et al., 2015; Shamia et al., 2015.). For example, in her study of PTG with victims of sex trafficking, Evans (2021) found the most notable areas of improvement were the participants’ “increased appreciation for life and the capacity to see and feel beauty” (p. 174). Perhaps more importantly, 11 of the 15 participants began learning how to help others in their journey away from a formerly dark and virtually hopeless life. This study showed the positive and powerful influence post-traumatic growth had on the recovery and reintegration of the participants in this study. It is astonishing that these individuals, who have seen some of the worst humanity has to offer, find strength, compassion, and gratitude for the opportunity to serve others through their post-traumatic growth journeys.

So, I hope you will join Linda, my researcher and co-author, and me as we explore the realms of posttraumatic growth and how we can all begin to implement it into our daily lives. Please feel free to leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you. 

References

American Museum of Natural History (N.D.). How pearls form. Retrieved from 

https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/pearls/what-are-pearls/how-pearls-form

Evans, H. (2021). Understanding complex trauma and post-traumatic growth in survivors of sex trafficking: Foregrounding women’s voices for effective care and prevention. New York: Routledge.

Frankl, V. E. (1963). Man’s search for meaning: An introduction to logotherapy. New York: Pocket Books.

Joseph, K. (September 7, 2017). Pearl meaning: The myths behind these sea gems. Retrieved from https://www.thepearlsource.com/blog/pearl-meaning-the-myths/

Kumar, S. (December 25, 2017). Lovely and round riddle. Retrieved from https://thinkwitty.com/2017/12/lovely-and-round-riddle.html

Morrill, E. F., Brewer, N. T., O'Neill, S. C., Lillie, S. E., Dees, E. C., Carey, L. A., & Rimer, B. K. (2008). The interaction of post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic stress symptoms in predicting depressive symptoms and quality of life. Psycho-Oncology, 17(9), 948-953. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.1313

Natural History Museum (N.D.). How do oysters make pearls? Retrieved from https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/quick-questions/how-do-oysters-make-pearls.html

Schubert, C. F., Schmidt, U., & Rosner, R. (2015). Posttraumatic growth in populations with posttraumatic stress disorder: A systematic review on growth-related psychological constructs and biological variables. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 23(6), 469-486. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.1985

Shamia, N. A., Thabet, A. A., & Vostanis, P. (2015). Exposure to war traumatic experiences, post-traumatic stress disorder and post-traumatic growth among nurses in Gaza. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 22(10), 749-755. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpm.12264

Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (1995). Trauma & Transformation: Growing in the Aftermath of Suffering. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.