Post-traumatic growth: what holds true and what simply sells well

“I know I should be grateful. Everyone tells me how much I’ve grown.”

The woman who says this survived a serious car accident two years ago. The people around her admire her: she changed jobs, took up running, and shares thoughts on social media about how the accident opened her eyes. All of that is true. But it is also true that she still cannot sit in the passenger seat, that she wakes at night to the sound of braking, and that every conversation about “growth” leaves her feeling a little more alone. As if the story has already been written and she simply hasn’t reached the final chapter yet.

Post-traumatic growth is one of the most beautiful ideas psychology has given us in recent decades. It says that after a terrible experience a person can not only survive, but in some ways live more deeply than before. It is also one of the most easily misused. In this piece I want to separate what the research really shows from what simply sounds good — and therefore sells well.

Post-traumatic growth in brief

The concept was established in the mid-1990s by the psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun. They noticed that after severe losses, illnesses and accidents, people often reported not only suffering but also changes they experienced as good. They called these changes post-traumatic growth and set out to measure them.

I have already described the basics — that growth does not come from the event itself but from slow processing, and that it can live alongside pain — in “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” — why that isn’t true of trauma. Here I want to go a step further: how growth was measured in the first place, what critics found later, and what this means for someone who is told they should “get something good” out of their experience. You can also find a short definition in the knowledge base under post-traumatic growth.

How growth was measured

In 1996 Tedeschi and Calhoun published a questionnaire that became the foundation of almost all later research: the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory. It has 21 statements grouped into five domains. For each one, people rate how much something has changed for them “as a result of the crisis” — for example, whether they appreciate each day more, whether they discovered they are stronger than they thought, or whether they have grown closer to others.

The five domains are:

• Relating to others — more closeness, compassion and willingness to show vulnerability.
• New possibilities — new paths, interests and decisions you would not have made before.
• Personal strength — the sense that “if I survived that, I can handle a great deal”.
• Spiritual or existential change — a deeper relationship with questions of meaning, faith and mortality.
• Appreciation of life — different priorities, less taken for granted.

The questionnaire was groundbreaking because it gave language to something people had known for centuries — from religious traditions to literature. At the same time, it contains a trap that for a long time nobody took seriously enough.

The trap in the question “How much have you changed?”

Try to answer honestly: how much more do you appreciate life than five years ago? To answer, you would need to know exactly what you were like then, what you are like now, and how much of the difference is down to a single event — rather than ageing, new relationships, work or children. None of us knows that. What we know is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.

This is exactly what a group of researchers led by Patricia Frazier tested. They followed students over several weeks and measured their values, relationships and well-being twice. Those who went through something difficult in between also filled in a growth questionnaire at the end. The finding, published in 2009, was sobering: what people reported as their growth matched only weakly with the change the researchers actually measured. What is more, self-reported growth was linked to greater distress, while measured growth was linked to less.

That does not mean people are lying. It means that “I have grown” is often also a way of coping with the experience. The psychologists Andreas Maercker and Tanja Zoellner described this as the Janus face of growth: one side is genuine change that shows up in a person’s life, the other is a self-consoling story that helps them endure. Both are human. But they are not the same thing.

What the research does support

Despite the criticism, it would be wrong to throw the concept away. Several findings remain fairly solid:

• Many people report some positive change after terrible experiences. This recurs across cultures and across different kinds of events — from illness to loss.
• Growth and distress are not opposites. A meta-analysis by Jane Shakespeare-Finch and Janine Lurie-Beck showed that the relationship between them is not simple: growth is often greatest in people with moderate distress, and smaller both in those with very few and in those with very many symptoms.
• Some people don’t grow because they don’t need to. George Bonanno and colleagues showed that after loss or trauma the most common path for many is resilience — relatively stable functioning without a prolonged collapse. If you didn’t fall apart, there is nothing you have to “rebuild”, so you also report less growth.
• What really changes shows up in behaviour. More recent reviews, including work by Eranda Jayawickreme and Laura Blackie, suggest that growth should be measured by what a person does differently — how they act in relationships, what they choose, how they tolerate uncertainty — and not only by what they say about themselves.

What simply sells well

When a beautiful idea moves from research into bookshops, onto stages and into social media posts, it changes along the way. A few sentences I hear often that the research does not support:

“Everything happens for a reason.” Research on growth says nothing about the reason for an event, only about what a person later does with it. Meaning that someone slowly finds is something quite different from the claim that the suffering had a purpose. For many people the second idea is hurtful — what reason could the death of a child possibly have?

“Your trauma is a gift.” No. The event is not a gift. If something good emerges later in life, the credit belongs to the person and the people around them, not to the misfortune.

“If you haven’t grown, you haven’t done enough work on yourself.” This is perhaps the most unfair version. Growth is not the measure of a successful recovery. Someone who, after an experience, is simply able to live, work and love again has recovered — even if their life has not become “deeper”. I wrote about what working on yourself is and isn’t in What “working on yourself” means, and what it doesn’t.

“Three steps to growth after trauma.” Programmes that promise quick transformation skip exactly what Tedeschi and Calhoun placed at the centre: time, slow processing and relationships in which that becomes possible.

Why pressure to grow does harm

When we talk about growth to someone who is still bleeding, we tell them that their pain is something to get over as quickly as possible. This has several consequences that I notice again and again in conversations with people.

The first is loneliness. If the people around you expect a victory story, you stop talking about what still hurts. Flashbacks, sleeplessness, fear — all of it becomes a secret, because it would spoil the story. And loneliness is one of the strongest factors slowing recovery down.

The second is shame. “Others made something out of it, and I still can’t go into the shop where it happened.” Comparing yourself with an idealised growth story can add yet more proof that something is wrong with you — especially for someone already carrying a difficult self-image after abuse.

The third is premature closure. A growth narrative can be a way of closing an experience before it has really been processed — a nice facade over a room you never enter. This is precisely why Maercker and Zoellner suggested that the self-consoling side of growth helps in the short term, but not in the long term if it remains the only one.

In relational family therapy, which I am training in, we also look at this through the family. Sometimes it is not the person who needs the growth story, but those close to them — because it is hard for them to watch someone suffer. “But you’re stronger now” is then also a plea: please don’t be sad in front of me any more.

A conversation that opens space

(composite, not a real person)

“Everyone says I’ve grown since the illness. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel I’ve just got used to being afraid.”
“Both can be true at the same time. What do you feel has really changed in you?”
“I worry less about what others think. That’s true. But when I’m waiting for test results, I’m that frightened girl again.”
“So something has grown and something still hurts.”
“Yes. But I’m not allowed to talk about the second part. Because then I’m not the brave one any more.”
“Here you can be both.”

In this conversation I am not looking for evidence of growth, nor am I denying it. I am looking for a space where a person can tell the whole story — including the part that won’t fit into any inspirational post.

What real growth looks like

If growth exists, it is rarely spectacular. More often it is quiet, and others notice it before the person does. A few signs worth looking for:

• You can talk about the experience without being overwhelmed every time — and without having to make it pretty.
• Relationships are more honest: you can ask for help, say no, show that things aren’t easy.
• Decisions are more your own — less about what is expected, more about what matters to you. There is more on how people search for meaning in the knowledge base.
• The pain hasn’t disappeared, but it has its place. It is no longer everything you are.

Interestingly, these signs overlap considerably with what attachment research calls earned security: the ability to speak about a difficult past coherently, without being flooded and without denial. Perhaps this is the most reliable form of growth — not a new person, but a person who can carry their own story.

Exercise: two stories about the same experience

This exercise is meant for those who already have some distance from a difficult experience and are not overwhelmed when they think about it. If even the thought of the event throws you off balance, don’t do it alone — that is a sign you need support first, not writing.

1. Write down three things you feel you learned from the experience, or that changed in you. Without censoring.
2. Next to each one, write one concrete action from the past month that shows it. If you can’t find one, mark the point with a question mark — not as a failure, but as information.
3. Write down three things that still hurt or that you avoid. These points matter just as much as the first ones.
4. Read both lists together and ask yourself: which one is easier to tell others? Which one do you believe yourself?
5. Choose one person to whom you could show both lists, not just the first. If there is no such person, that may be the first thing worth changing.

Where this view has its limits

I don’t want this piece to be read as saying that every report of growth is self-deception. For many people, change after a terrible experience is real and deep, and it is not my job to take it away from them. The critical research says that self-report is not enough — not that growth doesn’t exist.

Nor is a positive narrative bad in itself. At a time when everything is hard, a story of strength may be exactly what keeps a person upright. The problem only begins when it becomes compulsory — when it crowds out everything else.

And finally: this piece is not a substitute for professional help with trauma. I am not a trauma specialist. If, after a terrible event, you experience flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance and constant tension for weeks or months, it makes sense to seek out a professional with additional training in trauma — more on when the right time is can be found in When is it time to work on trauma, and when not yet. What post-traumatic stress disorder means is explained in the knowledge base. It is also a good idea to check with your GP or a psychiatrist whether you need another form of help as well.

If things are very hard, or you have thoughts of not wanting to live, contact the Mental Distress Helpline on 01 520 99 00 in Slovenia (every day from 7 pm to 7 am) or the Samaritan helpline on 116 123 in Slovenia (24 hours a day). In an emergency, call 112.

What to remember

• Post-traumatic growth is a real phenomenon, but most research measures it only through what people themselves say about their change.
• Self-reported growth does not necessarily match actual change — sometimes it is also a way of coping.
• Growth and pain can exist at the same time; resilience without growth is an equally healthy path.
• Sentences such as “everything happens for a reason” and “trauma is a gift” do not come from research and can do harm.
• Real growth shows in actions and relationships — and it is never an obligation of recovery.