Emotional crisis and trauma as opportunities to develop and enhance health: questions and doubts Cover Image

Kryzys emocjonalny i trauma szansą na rozwój i potęgowanie zdrowia. Wątpliwości i pytania
Emotional crisis and trauma as opportunities to develop and enhance health: questions and doubts

Author(s): Dorota Kubacka-Jasiecka
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Psychology
Published by: Uniwersytet Ignatianum w Krakowie
Keywords: emotional crisis; bivalency of crisis; developmental crisis; adaptation process; identity; trauma; traumatic event; traumatic response; post-traumatic growth; stress coping

Summary/Abstract: This study discusses the issue of emotional crisis and trauma in terms of opportunities to develop and grow. The article seeks to show the complex psychological conditions pertaining to emotional crises, a constructive way of dealing with them, and the possibility of growing and developing thanks to having experienced such a crisis. These issues are usually omitted when describing crises; however, as the author postulates, they constitute a foundation for differentiating — as we surely must do — between emotional crisis and trauma, development and growth through crisis, and the positive adaptive changes observed in cases of post-traumatic disorder. Such changes cannot always be identified as instances of so called post-traumatic growth. The latter is described by the author, with reference to Maslow's theory, as development “resulting from the lack of something”, where this in turn reflects some trauma or other. Moreover, considerations pertaining both to current work in health psychology, and to the distinction between emotional crisis and trauma proposed here, could well prove relevant where practices of intervention are concerned.

  • Issue Year: 22/2016
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 51-89
  • Page Count: 39
  • Language: Polish