TPC Journal V7, Issue 4 - FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 4 331 Cohen, Bowley, & Joseph, 2010), it had not yet been systematically and scientifically catalogued in the academic literature until the early 1990s. Since then, there has been a plethora of studies addressing people’s strengths and resources despite hardships (Affleck & Tennen, 1996; Bonanno, 2004; Joseph & Linley, 2005; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996). Proponents of strength-based post-trauma paths have applied their unique nomenclature to signify the strength and benefit that clients report obtaining despite their encounters with diverse traumatic events. Terminologies such as post-traumatic growth (PTG; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996), benefit-finding (Affleck & Tennen, 1996), stress-related growth (Park, Cohen, & Murch, 1996), thriving (O’Leary & Ickoviks, 1995), resilience (Bonanno, 2004; Connor & Davidson, 2003), and adversarial growth (Joseph & Linley, 2005) have been associated with this concept of meaningful positive change from a traumatic experience. The common theme among these writers is that there can be positivity and strength in places in which we expect weakness, illness, and pathology. Subsequent sections of this paper will address various outcomes known to follow a traumatic experience, connect them to theories associated with these experiences, and extract hypotheses to be tested. Aftermath of Traumatic Experiences When humans encounter traumatic experiences, they try to make meaning of them by using available resources. While some of these resources can be physical, others are psychological and emotional. Psychological and emotional resources could include inner narratives, religious communities, spirituality, connections with significant others, and nature. Optimism and religious commitment could also be included in the psychological and emotional resources that clients use to make meaning of their war-related traumatic experiences. Trauma and psychopathology. Trauma is described as challenging experiences that push individuals beyond their normal ability to cope (APA, 2013; Ball & Stein, 2012). Trauma is ubiquitous, with research reporting that 60–80% of adults do experience at least one traumatic event (Simiola, Neilson, Thompson, & Cook, 2015). Traumatic experiences include robbery; terminal illness, for both the sufferer and loved ones; flooding; earthquakes; terrorist attacks; rape; and war-related events, for both civilians and the military. While many people who go through traumatic experiences may not have long-term negative repercussions, between 10–50% report various mental health challenges (Friedman, Resick, & Keane, 2014). Studies on traumatic experiences in adults have collectively established that after a traumatic encounter, people report and exhibit various symptomatology of PTSD, including avoidance, intrusive thoughts, negative alterations in cognition and mood, and the tendency to live recklessly (APA, 2013). Individuals who experience the direct effects of these traumatic events are not the only ones affected. Research has identified long-lasting effects on significant others (Lahav, Kanat-Maymon, & Solomon, 2016; Zerach, 2015) and helpers (Baum, 2014) because of the regular contact with traumatized individuals. Terms like secondary traumatization , vicarious traumatization , and compassion fatigue (Jenkins & Baird, 2002) have been used to describe the reaction to emotional demands from trauma survivors’ frightening and shocking images. Accordingly, significant others and helpers may sometimes react as if they themselves have gone through the traumatic events. Based on the literature on war-related military and civilian populations, it is hypothesized that at least 10% of participants in the present study would meet the criteria for PTSD, with a cut-off point of 33 on the PTSD assessment instrument (Weathers et al., 2013). Trauma and psychological growth. Another aftermath of a traumatic event is PTG (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996). The processes of rumination, meaning-making, and growth take place after the perceived shaking of a traumatized person’s worldview (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2014), and eventually