Chapter two - The Impact of Psychological Trauma

Abstract

This chapter examines how people adapt in the wake of experiencing psychological trauma. This is called the “longitudinal” (i.e., over a period of time) or “prospective” (i.e., beginning with a particular time or event and continuing into the future) course of posttraumatic adaptation. Traumatic stressors have an impact that is not limited to when they are occurring or the immediate aftermath. Experiencing psychological trauma affects how people adjust and carry on with the rest of their lives, beginning with traumatic events but continuing in the subsequent months, years and even decades. Like the aftershocks of an earthquake, the impact of traumatic stressors may be felt in many ways for many years and in ways that are not entirely predictable. The chapter begins by describing what makes a stressor traumatic and considering the acute (immediate) reactions that people have to psychological trauma, both of which are based upon a number of biological, psychological and sociocultural factors. Next, several patterns of positive and negative adaptation following exposure to traumatic stressors are examined. The impact of traumatic stressors includes a variety of changes in the pathway that a person's life takes which occur as time passes, including positive trajectories that have been described as “resistance,” “resilience, ” “recovery” and “posttraumatic growth.”