What do the September 11 attacks, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Christchurch Mosque shootings all have in common?
One of the answers is quite surprising. Resilience in the face of Trauma. Research demonstrates that resilience was more prevalent than expected. In most traumatic events, more than half of those involved showed no long term trauma or distress over time (Mancini & Bonanno, 2006).
Many people effectively coped with the stresses of highly aversive events without formal psychological treatment. It is important to note that the resilient pattern does not imply that such persons experienced no upset related to the loss or aversive event. However, their overall level of functioning was still essentially preserved.
How can that be?Â
What can we learn from the coping strategies of persons who survived, on the surface at least, relatively unscathed?Â
Psychotherapy, which carries iatrogenic risks, should only be recommended for those in genuine need. There is less need if the person has supportive relationships, is educated, has no serious financial concerns and has a personality style that is pragmatic and has a secure attachment style (Mancini & Bonanno, 2006).
With trauma, a pragmatic personality style helps. Examples of this type of strategy include repressive coping, dismissive attachment, and the deliberate use of self-enhancing attributions and biases.
A repressive coping style is a person's tendency to inhibit the experience and the expression of negative feelings (Prasertsri et al., 2011).
A secure or dismissive-avoidant attachment style is also helpful when facing trauma. Here is a cool link to see what kind of attachment style you are? It is necessary and worth knowing.
Self-enhancement is a type of motivation that works to make people feel good about themselves (Bonanno et al., 2002). It means that you think you are better than average at tasks and have selective memory. You have a whatever-it-takes approach that apportions success to your ability and failure to bad luck (Giacomin & Jordan, 2017).
If you have a healthy dose of the above three ingredients, then a mental health expert would rate you as better psychologically adjusted.
but there is a caveat.
Do you want to be Dismissive-Avoidant?Â
Here is a controversial perspective that throws a spanner in the works,Â
Without a supportive environment, the benefits of trauma talk are diluted. Talking about traumatic events may only be helpful when listeners are discreet, nonjudgmental, or likely to help (Kelly and McKillop, 1996).
Together, let's Boost your Resilience.Â
References.
Bonanno, G. A., Field, N. P., Kovacevic, A., & Kaltman, S. (2002). Self-enhancement is a buffer against extreme adversity: Civil war in Bosnia and traumatic loss in the United States. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 184–196. DOI: 10.1177/0146167202282005
Giacomin M., Jordan C. (2017) Self-Enhancement Motives. In: Zeigler-Hill V., Shackelford T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1168-1
Kelly, A., & McKillop, K. (1996). Consequences of revealing personal secrets. Psychological Bulletin, 120(3), 450–465. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.120.3.450
Mancini, Anthony D.; Bonanno, George A. (2006). Resilience in the face of potential trauma: clinical practices and illustrations:Â Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62 (8), 971-985. DOI: 10.1002/jclp.20283
Prasertsri, N., Holden, J., Keefe, F. J., & Wilkie, D. J. (2011). Repressive coping style: relationships with depression, pain, and pain coping strategies in lung cancer outpatients. Lung cancer (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 71(2), 235–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lungcan.2010.05.009