Fostering Posttraumatic Growth: The Other Face of Trauma

Abstract

In the face of multiple traumatic events that people face, there are significant differences in their reactions and their overall capacity for posttraumatic growth. The present study analyses the role of centrality of events (CE), cognitive flexibility (CF), and creativity (C) in the evolution of posttraumatic growth (PTG), defined as the positive change that follows adversity. Moreover, it investigates three separate mediation models to determine the mediating role of each CE, CF, and C on the relationship between the perception of the traumatic impact (PTI) and PTG. The research analysed a sample of 164 individuals, aged between 18 and 62 years old, including 40
men (24.4%) and 124 women (75.6%). The hierarchical multiple regression highlights the predictive role of CE and CF in shaping PTG, while C did not reach statistical significance. The results of the mediation analyses showed that PTI influences CE, which also has an input in PTG, while the mediation models for CF and C were not statistically significant. Through this present study, efforts are being made to discover new relevant variables to PTG and their contribution to posttraumatic recovery, proposing a direction for future studies in the field of psychotraumatology.