Growth, Posttraumatic

Posttraumatic growth describes the positive personal changes that some people report as a result of their attempts to cope with the aftermath of traumatic or highly stressful events. This term was introduced by Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun in their 1995 book Trauma and Transformation: Growing in the Aftermath of Suffering. Since that time, a substantial body of research has developed that describes the process of posttraumatic growth, and the frequency of these reports in survivors of many kinds of stressors, including combat, serious illnesses and injuries, natural and human-made disasters, and bereavement. The reports have come from many countries and cultures. It appears that posttraumatic growth is common and more frequently reported in the aftermath of trauma than are posttraumatic stress disorder and other ...