Research on Psychological Defense in a Context of Development After Trauma. As Exemplified by Reactions of Young Women to Death of Their Child Cover Image

Research on Psychological Defense in a Context of Development After Trauma. As Exemplified by Reactions of Young Women to Death of Their Child
Research on Psychological Defense in a Context of Development After Trauma. As Exemplified by Reactions of Young Women to Death of Their Child

Author(s): Alicja Senejko, Dominika Wieland-Lenczowska, Krystyna Szałkiewicz-Bargieł
Subject(s): Clinical psychology, Psychoanalysis, Health and medicine and law
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: post-traumatic growth; psychological defenses; adaptation to trauma;

Summary/Abstract: The basic aim of our theoretical and research activity is to prepare a research procedure and a theoretical basis for such procedure directed at diagnosing three possible ways of responding to trauma (absence of adaptation, adaptation and post-traumatic development) among people who were mentally stable before experiencing trauma. In subject literature, traumatic responses are most often described by grouping into three categories: absence of adaptation, adaptation, and post-traumatic growth (development). In our case study, we introduce two examined women, who had in common the type of traumas experienced. They are women between 29 and 32 years old (young adults) whose child had died in the last 3 to 5 years. We have therefore focused not on the description of individual steps in carrying out a single case diagnosing reaction to trauma, but on the presentation of preparing procedure for such a study, i.e. the description of consecutive steps that led us from the first question: what model will we use for the analysis of response to trauma and why this model and not the other one? – to the last question: what set of methods will we use to investigate the response to trauma and why this one as opposed to some other? In this case study, we present ensuing answers to the questions raised together with their rationale, dilemmas and doubts accompanying their formulation.

  • Issue Year: 24/2019
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 31-42
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: English