Psychological Growth from Extreme Trauma

By Rick Nauert Ph.D.

People who survive an extreme traumatic experience may rebound and experience personal growth. In fact, individuals may savor a higher level of personal strength and function.

This position statement, provided by a University of Buffalo researcher and expert in the effects of horrifying trauma may calm fears of lifelong stress after an event such as 9/11.

At the heart of the findings is a surprisingly optimistic conclusion: Most people recover well following devastating events, and even among those who struggle with the experience, many of them can find some benefit from the experience, despite the negative effects of the event in their lives.

“Even when people go through a horrible life-threatening event, or endure huge losses and very difficult circumstances, many of them actually find some positive aspects to the experience and are able to grow from it,” says Lisa D. Butler, associate professor in UB’s School of Social Work, whose multiple studies on the trauma following 9/11 and other severely disruptive life events have been published in numerous professional journals, including the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.

“That does not negate the pain of what they have been through or the lingering effects in their lives, by any means,” Butler says. “But there is room for some positive changes as well.”

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The Mental Health Impact of Rape

The National Women’s Study produced dramatic confirmation of the mental health impact of rape. The study determined comparative rates of several mental health problems among rape victims and non-victims. The study ascertained whether rape victims were more likely than non-victims to experience these devastating mental health problems.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The first mental health problem examined was posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an extremely debilitating disorder occurring after a highly disturbing traumatic event, such as military combat or violent crime.

• Almost one-third (31%) of all rape victims developed PTSD sometime during their lifetime; and more than one in ten rape victims (11%) still has PTSD today.
• Rape victims were 6.2 times more likely to develop PTSD than women who had never been victims of crime (31% vs 5%).
• Rape victims were 5.5 times more likely to have current PTSD than those who had never been victims of crime (11% Vs 2%).

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there are approximately 96.3 million adult women in the United States age 18 or older. If 13% of American women have been raped and 31% of rape victims have developed PTSD, then 3.8 million adult American women have had rape-related PTSD (RR-PTSD):

• If 11% of all rape victims have PTSD, then an estimated 1.3 million American women have RR-PTSD.
• If 683,000 women are raped each year, approximately 211,000 will develop RR-PTSD annually.

Other Mental Health Problems

Major depression is a problem affecting many women, not just rape victims. However, 30% of rape victims had experienced at least one major depressive episode in their lifetimes, and 21% of all rape victims were experiencing a major depressive episode at the time of assessment.
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