Thriving after Adversity

Ken & Mary Gergen
October 15, 2004

Kenneth Gergen is the Mustin Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College, and his wife Mary is a Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at Penn State University, Delaware County. This short article is taken from their newsletter "Positive Aging", which is published every 2 months. You can subscribe at: http://www.healthandage.org/Home/gm=22 . Robert Griffith, Editor.

Much psychological literature and common commentary focuses on the negative after-effects of trauma and adversity. Such conclusions are typically based on people who have sought therapy in the aftermath of adversity. However, the message of the present research is that while almost everyone suffers from exposure to traumatic or extremely adverse events, most people do not experience major disruptions in their ability to function. Indeed, for many there are also positive outcomes from negative events. In effect, resilience in the face of loss or trauma is common, and as the research indicates, there are multiple and sometimes unexpected pathways to resilience.

Psychologist George A. Bonanno argues that, for most people, life is disrupted by a significant loss, such as the death of someone close, or a life-threatening event, such as a rape or robbery. Despite these setbacks, most people are also resilient; they are able to maintain stable and healthy functioning, and evidence capacities for generative growth. While such people may have several weeks of sporadic preoccupation and restless sleep, they are able to get over it rather quickly. Other research has shown that although people may lose a spouse within an untroubled marriage, the surviving partner can continue to have a happy life, despite periods of grief, loss and disruptive thoughts.

There are multiple pathways to resilience. For example, people who are married to sickly, neurotic or depressed individuals often flourish when their partner dies. They often feel better than when their partners were alive. The research suggests that certain personality traits also lead to resilience; these are hardiness, self-enhancement, repressive coping, and positive emotions.

Hardiness is the tendency to find meaning in life, to believe that one can influence one's surroundings, and that one can learn and grow from events in life, both positive and negative. Self-enhancement is defined as the tendency to bias one's self-evaluations in a positive direction. A recent study of people near or in the World Trade Center at the time of the September 11 attacks indicated that self-enhancers adjusted more successfully than non-enhancers. Repressive coping is a strategy based on avoiding thinking about the traumatic event. Recent research indicates that among young women with documented histories of childhood sexual abuse, repressors were less likely to voluntarily disclose their abuse, but also showed better adjustment than more self-disclosing survivors. Lastly, experiencing emotional "highs" and finding humor, even in difficult situations, are indicators of a resilient approach to traumatic events. Laughter can be the best medicine for saving one's sanity and perhaps one's physical health.

Source

• Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely adversive events? GA. Bonanno, Amer Psychologist, 2004, vol. 59, pp. 20--28

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