Irreconcilable Loss, Avoidance, and Hypervigilance: Facilitators of Refugee-Specific Posttraumatic Growth

Abstract

Abstract Few studies explore both positive and negative interpretations of life as a refugee despite an abundance of literature that recognizes psychological growth as an outcome of adversity. This iterative phenomenological study sought positive and negative subjective interpretations from five former adult refugees. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. One superordinate theme, authentic self in the irreconcilable loss of refugee trauma, overarched four subordinate themes, refugee trauma, refugeeism, life is a gift, and authenticity in posttraumatic growth, which mapped the participants’ journeys from hopelessness and fear, to a determined rediscovery of ‘self’. Rather than avoidance and hypervigilent behaviours representing psychological pathology, these participants used both behaviours as coping strategies for reconciling the traumatic loss of family and familial support, culture, country, financial and social stability, and security as a refugee, recognizing the need to welcome a future out of a past that could not be reconciled.