The transformed self: A narrative understanding of posttraumatic growth

Abstract

preceding quote is taken from a middle-aged woman's narrative account of her most traumatic ex perience in adulthood. It clearly and vividly demon strates the close connection between the life narrative and posttraumatic growth, a connection that Tedeschi and Calhoun (this issue) include in their model but do not fully develop. However, they end their stimulating target article by challenging others to pursue this con nection: The overall picture of posttraumatic growth has been sketched. Describing the details of cognitive processing and narrative development will be much more difficult. Picking up where Tedeschi and Calhoun leave off, we respond to their closing chal lenge by presenting a more developed and comprehen sive analysis of the role of narrative within posttraumatic growth. As the basis for a sense of iden tity in adulthood (McAdams, 1996), the life story should not be viewed as just one piece of the complex puzzle of posttraumatic growth, as Tedeschi and Calhoun's process model suggests, but rather as the fundamental frame that holds the entire puzzle to gether. Specifically, we assert that posttraumatic growth may be best understood as a process of con structing a narrative understanding of how the self has been positively transformed by the traumatic event and then integrating this transformed sense of self into the identity-defining life story. This narrative perspective on posttraumatic growth has important implications for how growth outcomes are assessed in the aftermath of traumatic events, our understanding of the processes that may enhance or limit the possibility for posttraumatic growth over time, and, more broadly, the role of culture in posttraumatic growth.

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