A person-centred political critique of current discourses in post-traumatic stress disorder and post-traumatic growth

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to current person‐centred research exploring post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and post‐traumatic growth (PTG), by offering a person‐centred political critique of some individualizing/pathologizing ways in which these two discourses seem to be developing. Notions of lower resilience (Regel & Joseph, ), faulty brains (Bell, ), lower intelligence (Bomyea, Risbrough, & Lang, ), faulty femininity (Lilly, Pole, Best, Metzler, & Marmar, ) and personal deficits (Joseph, Murphy, & Regel, ) are identified. Some troubling parallels with the borderline personality disorder (BPD) discourse are drawn. Yet, while the meanings/implications of a BPD diagnosis increasingly attract stringent criticism, current PTSD and PTG research is not being sufficiently challenged from a political perspective. The article argues that person‐centred approaches (PCAs) need to be more recognized as treatments for PTSD – this work is already underway (see Murphy, Archard, Regel, & Joseph, , for instance) – and that, concurrently and then increasingly, practitioners of PCAs must intervene in the PTSD discourse, also challenging themselves to conceptualize what is now termed PTSD as actually just one incongruence amongst many, rather than a psychopathology encountered by some (deficient) people.

Long-term courses of posttraumatic growth in survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

“…These findings align with previous research that characterizes PTG as a process that occurs over time and is subject to change, rather than a static state that one achieves (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004;Tsai & Pietrzak, 2017;Tsai et al, 2016). Taken together with previous findings, these findings imply that PTG may best be understood as a dynamic process that is associated with internal and external factors, rather than one that is localized solely within the individual (Lee, 2017).…”

The politics of humanitarian aid

“…Previously, there was an assumption that survivors of a disaster would heal using their indigenous (to the population) coping mechanisms (Beneduce, 2019). However, due to the assumed universality of acute and posttraumatic stress responses across varying cultures and populations (Lee, 2017), there has been a push to deliver Western-based humanitarian aid as the vehicle for trauma healing (Summerfield 2013;WHO, 2013b).…”

Feeling heavy too: Thoughts on the concept of vicarious trauma

“…In a humanistic tradition, deep empathic connection is seen philosophically as an essential response to trauma (Lee, 2017) and one of the keys to recovery (Brockhouse, Msetfi, Cohen, & Joseph, 2011). The management or diffusion of vicarious trauma here, brings to mind the image of a printer running out of ink-in this case staining affective memory-so that with each episode of telling and deep listening, on each piece of human paper, the painful ink becomes fainter.…”