July 16, 2024 • 14 mins
In this episode, we delve into the concept of post-traumatic growth through a person-centered lens. Heena Khan provides insights into how post-traumatic growth is understood and facilitated within the framework of person-centered approach.
We explore the foundational ideas of post-traumatic growth (PTG), coined by Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun in the 1990s, which describes the positive changes that can emerge following adversity. Heena discusses the three main domains of positive change: relationships, self-perception, and worldview.
Drawing parallels between Carl Rogers' concept of the fully functioning person and post-traumatic growth, Heena explains how intrinsic motivation and the drive towards congruence play crucial roles in healing from trauma. The episode also highlights the Organismic Valuing Process theory and its three key tenets related to growth following adversity.
Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of how to foster post-traumatic growth in your clients using the principles of person-centered therapy. For additional resources, upcoming CEUs, and membership information on The Therapist Café, check the show notes.
The Therapist Cafe™: A community of Therapists focused on building cultural competence, engage in discussion & consultation, address imposter syndrome, and prevent burnout & vicarious trauma. ($32/month)
More info here: https://uplift-counseling-services.newzenler.com/courses/dj8dco7p
UPCOMING WEBINAR: Introduction to Sand Tray Therapy (1.5 CEU, $25)
More info here: https://uplift-counseling-services.newzenler.com/live-class/introduction-to-sand-tray-therapy-part-1-1-5-ceu-in-person/register
References:
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/162658352.pdf
Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (1995). Trauma and Transformation: Growing in the aftermath of suffering. California: Sage publications
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:10):
You're listening to the Therapist Treating Trauma podcast, and I'm your host,
Hena Khan, licensed professional counselor supervisor and registered play therapist
supervisor based out of Allen, Texas.
I'm a specialty trauma and grief therapist for children and adults.
On this podcast, you will get a masterclass in trauma, grief,
and loss from a person-centered therapy framework on neuroscience lens and culturally
(00:34):
competent approach to support your work as therapists in this field.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode. I'm so glad you're here.
I've got a really interesting topic for this episode today, and that's going
to be about post-traumatic growth from a person-centered approach.
So understanding what or how the person-centered approach understands post-traumatic growth.
(00:59):
So I'm really excited about this episode. Before we jump in though,
just a couple things I want to
share with you in case you're looking for resources to continue to grow.
If you are in the local DFW area and you're interested in SANTRA therapy,
I have a in-person CEU that's coming up in August.
I'll leave the links below, but it's going to be on Thursday, August 1st.
(01:23):
And so if you're interested, it's going to be a little bit of a,
what you might say, like an immersive
experience. It's going to be like an introduction to SANTRA therapy.
You'll get a sense of what it's like to to do San Trey, and then you'll get
a chance to immerse yourself in the experience as well.
So if you're around, definitely check that out. I'll leave that in the show notes.
And also, if you're looking to continue to grow through just group consultation,
(01:45):
meeting other therapists, and just being able to kind of learn and process and
do some ethical case consultation in a group, we have the Therapist Cafe Enrollment that's opening up,
and we are going to resume or start on August 1st.
Or I should say the Tuesday, the first Tuesday in August.
(02:06):
But the Therapist Cafe is like this online membership community of dynamic therapists
that are eager to huddle, come together, learn, and grow.
So we focus on building cultural competence, engage in discussion and consultation,
and then we also address imposter syndrome and eventually prevent burnout and vicarious trauma.
So it's a great place to come together with your questions, just to find support
(02:30):
community specifically for therapists that treat trauma.
So we meet weekly, you know, for the online virtual meetings,
you get a lot of support from me, as you know, with my areas of specialty of trauma and grief,
we meet once a week, so that's four times a month, and you get three free CEUs
annually as a member of this community. So definitely check that out.
(02:53):
I will again link the put in the link in the show notes.
All right, on to our topic today for this episode.
So we're going to be talking about post-traumatic growth and try to understand
that from the person-centered approach.
So first of all, let's break down what exactly is post-traumatic growth.
(03:14):
So this is a term that was coined by Richard Teske and Lawrence Calhoun way back during the 1990s.
And the idea was that, or the way they defined it was positive changes that
people experience or report often after adversity, the following adversity.
(03:35):
So it's the positive outcomes that come from the work that's done.
And now after the adversity, they have experienced some growth and some healing,
and that's how they understood or defined post-traumatic growth.
And when you think about post-traumatic growth
there's three general kind of
(03:57):
domains that they pointed out that you
would see changes in right so one is your
relationships are different your friendships the quality of the relationships
you have are different right the way you see those relationships are different
and then the second thing is there is a shift in the way they see themselves.
(04:20):
So the way they understand themselves, the wisdom, the clarity,
right, of understanding themselves and the way they see themselves.
Right, that self concept also really changes.
And then there's a shift in the worldview, the way they understand the world,
the way they understand life events, the way they're able to make meaning of life events, right?
(04:47):
There's a huge shift in that.
And so when we think about post-traumatic growth in this way,
and this is mainstream, this is a common term that we often utilize in our work
when we're working especially with trauma survivors.
So from the person-centered approach, what we know from some of the seminal
(05:10):
texts is that Rogers talks about the fully functioning person, right?
And the fully functioning person is kind of analogous to what the post-traumatic growth is implying.
So if you think about the fully functioning person, Rogers defined the fully
functioning person as not necessarily like a destination, like you've arrived
(05:35):
or now you are fully functioning.
It was more about the process of growth.
And the fact a person who is fully functioning is a person who is continually
changing and growing is how Rogers defined that.
So it was more than just the absence of distress and dysfunction,
but about continual growth, right?
(05:57):
Continuing to get better, have more and more clarity.
And the fully functioning person, right, according to Rogers,
is someone who's accepting of themselves, right?
Values themselves, values their strengths, values their weaknesses.
They're able to live fully in the present. They're able to experience life again as a process, right?
(06:18):
That's continually changing. They're able to find purpose and meaning in their
lives, and they're able to move in that direction, have compassion for themselves,
have compassion for others, value relationships differently.
And their worldview is about this, right? So accepting and understanding change,
right? And being able to adapt to that.
So this is how Rogers identified the fully functioning or described the fully
(06:42):
functioning person, which is very analogous to your post-traumatic growth.
So now when we think about trauma, we know as person-centered therapists that
people are intrinsically motivated to self-actualize, right? To move forward.
So if we understand trauma from this perspective, traumatic events that occur
(07:04):
in someone's life are basically causing or creating this incongruence between
the self and the experience, right?
Which leads to then this breakdown of that and this disorganization,
chaos, and trying to make sense of that, right?
So when we think about those traumatic experiences,
we know from this approach that that incongruence that's caused from that trauma
(07:30):
actually is also creating or cultivating this intrinsic motivation to move towards congruence.
So there's incongruence, right? But there is this desire to move to congruence.
That's, you know, a big premise of the person-centered approach,
right? That we move towards congruence between the self and the experience.
(07:51):
So when we think about post-traumatic growth, that is essentially what we are
trying to do. We are intrinsically motivated.
When there is disequilibrium, we are motivated to find equilibrium, right?
That leads me to the organismic valueing process theory of growth, right?
That Roger's talk, it's grounded in rogers theory and basically
(08:14):
it's a theory of growth
that follows adversity right essentially post-traumatic
growth but there's three three pieces to this or three major shifts that we'll
see right in this the organismic volume process theory so number one people
are intrinsically motivated towards post-traumatic growth okay number two post-traumatic
(08:36):
stress is a normal and natural process that triggers growth.
So when there is again, distress, disequilibrium, we are naturally triggered
to find ourselves out of the incongruence. We are naturally finding ourselves
to find relief, right? Essentially.
And then three is that growth is not this inevitable thing to occur,
(08:59):
but it's more of a process, right?
And it's influenced or it's impacted by what we're surrounded with, right?
Our environment, our social support systems, our relationships, right?
So for example, the unconditional positive regard, the support we get from our
(09:21):
family, from our therapist, these influence our growth.
And Rogers believed that when we can cultivate a social environment that's characterized
by like unconditional positive regard, people will develop unconditional positive
regard for themselves, right?
And this leads to that, again, moving into congruence, self-actualizing and
(09:47):
moving towards becoming that fully functioning human being that we talked about earlier.
And now let's talk about how do we support our clients, right?
With the person-centered approach as they're experiencing that incongruence,
how can we help them continue to move in that direction of congruence?
(10:09):
So when we think about the person-centered approach, first of all,
it's called an approach because it's not a set of techniques.
So you're not going to practice a set of
techniques or have a list of things to do with
your client right this you know the
the person-centered approach is is all about this
very very organic philosophical
(10:31):
principle of respecting the client and the self-determination of the client
and our job as therapists is to create a facilitative social you know environmental
condition right our our six conditions that are sufficient right we create those
conditions positions that enable the client, right?
They create an environment for the client to then evaluate their own experiences
(10:55):
and then find their own directions in their lives.
And remember, people are inherently going back to the understanding.
You know, human beings is that they are inherently, you know,
motivated, intrinsically motivated to move towards congruence, right?
So now that may not look linear, right?
(11:15):
It may not look as smooth. So you might see some denial, you might see some
back and forth, you might see some unhealthy ways of coping with this incongruence
that they are able to make sense of.
But inherently, they are wanting, desiring, intrinsically motivated to move in that direction.
So what we do is we create those social environmental conditions with our six conditions, right?
(11:37):
Those are sufficient, we create that, and that allows them the conditions they
need to evaluate their experiences and find their own directions at their own pace.
So our task with our clients is communicating their acceptance,
creating those conditions, and then being able to.
(11:58):
Really attune to the client's direction rather than try to take them in a certain direction.
And this is what really distinguishes this approach from others is that we are
not, you know, with this non-directive approach, we're not trying to direct our clients.
What we're actually trying to do is be really attuned to our client's direction,
(12:20):
where they're going, because that's going to let us know how much incongruence is there still, right?
How much is there this back and forth?
How much is there of this denial?
It'll give us a good sense of that, and we continue to work with that.
And we'll see progression over time.
(12:41):
So for example, if a client continues to share the story of this very terrible
thing, traumatic experience that happened,
even though she's repeatedly sharing the story,
story you're if you tune in to some nuances
you'll notice how there is a little bit
of a shift in how she's sharing the story every time
(13:02):
she shares it right again if we're cultivating the conditions that
we need to you know cultivate that story that
narrative will she'll repeat it but
each time it'll have a new
meaning and she'll be able to take that
to a different in a different direction perfection and so allowing
them to go through that process and
(13:23):
you continuing to provide your you know your
conditions is sufficient all right well that is all i have today for this topic
i hope it was helpful to kind of understand the post-traumatic growth and from
the person-centered approach again if you have any questions feel free to email
me or leave a comment under this episode,
(13:45):
and then i will see you in my next episode thanks so much for being.
Music.
(00:10):
You're listening to the Therapist Treating Trauma podcast, and I'm your host,
Hena Khan, licensed professional counselor supervisor and registered play therapist
supervisor based out of Allen, Texas.
I'm a specialty trauma and grief therapist for children and adults.
On this podcast, you will get a masterclass in trauma, grief,
and loss from a person-centered therapy framework on neuroscience lens and culturally
(00:34):
competent approach to support your work as therapists in this field.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode. I'm so glad you're here.
I've got a really interesting topic for this episode today, and that's going
to be about post-traumatic growth from a person-centered approach.
So understanding what or how the person-centered approach understands post-traumatic growth.
(00:59):
So I'm really excited about this episode. Before we jump in though,
just a couple things I want to
share with you in case you're looking for resources to continue to grow.
If you are in the local DFW area and you're interested in SANTRA therapy,
I have a in-person CEU that's coming up in August.
I'll leave the links below, but it's going to be on Thursday, August 1st.
(01:23):
And so if you're interested, it's going to be a little bit of a,
what you might say, like an immersive
experience. It's going to be like an introduction to SANTRA therapy.
You'll get a sense of what it's like to to do San Trey, and then you'll get
a chance to immerse yourself in the experience as well.
So if you're around, definitely check that out. I'll leave that in the show notes.
And also, if you're looking to continue to grow through just group consultation,
(01:45):
meeting other therapists, and just being able to kind of learn and process and
do some ethical case consultation in a group, we have the Therapist Cafe Enrollment that's opening up,
and we are going to resume or start on August 1st.
Or I should say the Tuesday, the first Tuesday in August.
(02:06):
But the Therapist Cafe is like this online membership community of dynamic therapists
that are eager to huddle, come together, learn, and grow.
So we focus on building cultural competence, engage in discussion and consultation,
and then we also address imposter syndrome and eventually prevent burnout and vicarious trauma.
So it's a great place to come together with your questions, just to find support
(02:30):
community specifically for therapists that treat trauma.
So we meet weekly, you know, for the online virtual meetings,
you get a lot of support from me, as you know, with my areas of specialty of trauma and grief,
we meet once a week, so that's four times a month, and you get three free CEUs
annually as a member of this community. So definitely check that out.
(02:53):
I will again link the put in the link in the show notes.
All right, on to our topic today for this episode.
So we're going to be talking about post-traumatic growth and try to understand
that from the person-centered approach.
So first of all, let's break down what exactly is post-traumatic growth.
(03:14):
So this is a term that was coined by Richard Teske and Lawrence Calhoun way back during the 1990s.
And the idea was that, or the way they defined it was positive changes that
people experience or report often after adversity, the following adversity.
(03:35):
So it's the positive outcomes that come from the work that's done.
And now after the adversity, they have experienced some growth and some healing,
and that's how they understood or defined post-traumatic growth.
And when you think about post-traumatic growth
there's three general kind of
(03:57):
domains that they pointed out that you
would see changes in right so one is your
relationships are different your friendships the quality of the relationships
you have are different right the way you see those relationships are different
and then the second thing is there is a shift in the way they see themselves.
(04:20):
So the way they understand themselves, the wisdom, the clarity,
right, of understanding themselves and the way they see themselves.
Right, that self concept also really changes.
And then there's a shift in the worldview, the way they understand the world,
the way they understand life events, the way they're able to make meaning of life events, right?
(04:47):
There's a huge shift in that.
And so when we think about post-traumatic growth in this way,
and this is mainstream, this is a common term that we often utilize in our work
when we're working especially with trauma survivors.
So from the person-centered approach, what we know from some of the seminal
(05:10):
texts is that Rogers talks about the fully functioning person, right?
And the fully functioning person is kind of analogous to what the post-traumatic growth is implying.
So if you think about the fully functioning person, Rogers defined the fully
functioning person as not necessarily like a destination, like you've arrived
(05:35):
or now you are fully functioning.
It was more about the process of growth.
And the fact a person who is fully functioning is a person who is continually
changing and growing is how Rogers defined that.
So it was more than just the absence of distress and dysfunction,
but about continual growth, right?
(05:57):
Continuing to get better, have more and more clarity.
And the fully functioning person, right, according to Rogers,
is someone who's accepting of themselves, right?
Values themselves, values their strengths, values their weaknesses.
They're able to live fully in the present. They're able to experience life again as a process, right?
(06:18):
That's continually changing. They're able to find purpose and meaning in their
lives, and they're able to move in that direction, have compassion for themselves,
have compassion for others, value relationships differently.
And their worldview is about this, right? So accepting and understanding change,
right? And being able to adapt to that.
So this is how Rogers identified the fully functioning or described the fully
(06:42):
functioning person, which is very analogous to your post-traumatic growth.
So now when we think about trauma, we know as person-centered therapists that
people are intrinsically motivated to self-actualize, right? To move forward.
So if we understand trauma from this perspective, traumatic events that occur
(07:04):
in someone's life are basically causing or creating this incongruence between
the self and the experience, right?
Which leads to then this breakdown of that and this disorganization,
chaos, and trying to make sense of that, right?
So when we think about those traumatic experiences,
we know from this approach that that incongruence that's caused from that trauma
(07:30):
actually is also creating or cultivating this intrinsic motivation to move towards congruence.
So there's incongruence, right? But there is this desire to move to congruence.
That's, you know, a big premise of the person-centered approach,
right? That we move towards congruence between the self and the experience.
(07:51):
So when we think about post-traumatic growth, that is essentially what we are
trying to do. We are intrinsically motivated.
When there is disequilibrium, we are motivated to find equilibrium, right?
That leads me to the organismic valueing process theory of growth, right?
That Roger's talk, it's grounded in rogers theory and basically
(08:14):
it's a theory of growth
that follows adversity right essentially post-traumatic
growth but there's three three pieces to this or three major shifts that we'll
see right in this the organismic volume process theory so number one people
are intrinsically motivated towards post-traumatic growth okay number two post-traumatic
(08:36):
stress is a normal and natural process that triggers growth.
So when there is again, distress, disequilibrium, we are naturally triggered
to find ourselves out of the incongruence. We are naturally finding ourselves
to find relief, right? Essentially.
And then three is that growth is not this inevitable thing to occur,
(08:59):
but it's more of a process, right?
And it's influenced or it's impacted by what we're surrounded with, right?
Our environment, our social support systems, our relationships, right?
So for example, the unconditional positive regard, the support we get from our
(09:21):
family, from our therapist, these influence our growth.
And Rogers believed that when we can cultivate a social environment that's characterized
by like unconditional positive regard, people will develop unconditional positive
regard for themselves, right?
And this leads to that, again, moving into congruence, self-actualizing and
(09:47):
moving towards becoming that fully functioning human being that we talked about earlier.
And now let's talk about how do we support our clients, right?
With the person-centered approach as they're experiencing that incongruence,
how can we help them continue to move in that direction of congruence?
(10:09):
So when we think about the person-centered approach, first of all,
it's called an approach because it's not a set of techniques.
So you're not going to practice a set of
techniques or have a list of things to do with
your client right this you know the
the person-centered approach is is all about this
very very organic philosophical
(10:31):
principle of respecting the client and the self-determination of the client
and our job as therapists is to create a facilitative social you know environmental
condition right our our six conditions that are sufficient right we create those
conditions positions that enable the client, right?
They create an environment for the client to then evaluate their own experiences
(10:55):
and then find their own directions in their lives.
And remember, people are inherently going back to the understanding.
You know, human beings is that they are inherently, you know,
motivated, intrinsically motivated to move towards congruence, right?
So now that may not look linear, right?
(11:15):
It may not look as smooth. So you might see some denial, you might see some
back and forth, you might see some unhealthy ways of coping with this incongruence
that they are able to make sense of.
But inherently, they are wanting, desiring, intrinsically motivated to move in that direction.
So what we do is we create those social environmental conditions with our six conditions, right?
(11:37):
Those are sufficient, we create that, and that allows them the conditions they
need to evaluate their experiences and find their own directions at their own pace.
So our task with our clients is communicating their acceptance,
creating those conditions, and then being able to.
(11:58):
Really attune to the client's direction rather than try to take them in a certain direction.
And this is what really distinguishes this approach from others is that we are
not, you know, with this non-directive approach, we're not trying to direct our clients.
What we're actually trying to do is be really attuned to our client's direction,
(12:20):
where they're going, because that's going to let us know how much incongruence is there still, right?
How much is there this back and forth?
How much is there of this denial?
It'll give us a good sense of that, and we continue to work with that.
And we'll see progression over time.
(12:41):
So for example, if a client continues to share the story of this very terrible
thing, traumatic experience that happened,
even though she's repeatedly sharing the story,
story you're if you tune in to some nuances
you'll notice how there is a little bit
of a shift in how she's sharing the story every time
(13:02):
she shares it right again if we're cultivating the conditions that
we need to you know cultivate that story that
narrative will she'll repeat it but
each time it'll have a new
meaning and she'll be able to take that
to a different in a different direction perfection and so allowing
them to go through that process and
(13:23):
you continuing to provide your you know your
conditions is sufficient all right well that is all i have today for this topic
i hope it was helpful to kind of understand the post-traumatic growth and from
the person-centered approach again if you have any questions feel free to email
me or leave a comment under this episode,
(13:45):
and then i will see you in my next episode thanks so much for being.
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