Risk and Resilience Factors in Families Under Ongoing Terror Along the Life Cycle

Families of unarmed civilians who live in warzones at political conflict areas are at risk of exposure to traumatic ongoing terrorism (OGT). This paper focuses on families living at the political conflict area by the border of the Gaza Strip at southwestern Israel, who have experienced OGT of missile fire for a decade and a half. Case examples illustrate the nuances and details of traumatic events, such as massive bombing, life threatening situations, evacuation, threat to and loss of life of family members and close friends, and their implications on the family system along life span. Members of these families are at risk of posttraumatic reactions and maladaptive system functioning in relation to the traumatic context of their specific life cycle stage. However, some families have shown potential for developing resilience, related to three main dimensions: belief system, organizational patterns, and communication channels. The objective of the present paper is to shed light, by evidence of families exposed to OGT, on risk and resilience factors affecting a family’s ability to overcome trauma throughout the lifecycle.     

Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf Oil Spill: Lessons learned about short-term and long-term effects

The impact and lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf Oil Spill are described as an example of work done reflecting best practices and theory to gain a better understanding of risk and resilience for children and families. Hurricane Katrina, described as the worst natural disaster in the US history, resulted in traumatic separations of children and families and devastation of communities and schools. The impact was greater on families with fewer resources before the hurricane who were provided limited support to return and rebuild. Insufficient community support and economic resources contributed to prolonged traumatiaation and slow recovery. Many were still recovering from Hurricane Katrina when impacted by the Gulf Oil Spill. For families with multigenerational ties to the fishing and oil industries, the Gulf Oil Spill resulted in both cumulative trauma and increased risk. In implementing the behavioural health response, much was learned about promotive and protective factors for individual and community resilience. Services provided following the disasters were based on precepts of individual, family, and community resilience. To enhance recovery and support resilience, the development of regional coalitions across at risk areas provides important coordination before disasters occur for better preparation and response.     

Loss, trauma, and human resilience: have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events?

Many people are exposed to loss or potentially traumatic events at some point in their lives, and yet they continue to have positive emotional experiences and show only minor and transient disruptions in their ability to function. Unfortunately, because much of psychology's knowledge about how adults cope with loss or trauma has come from individuals who sought treatment or exhibited great distress, loss and trauma theorists have often viewed this type of resilience as either rare or pathological. The author challenges these assumptions by reviewing evidence that resilience represents a distinct trajectory from the process of recovery, that resilience in the face of loss or potential trauma is more common than is often believed, and that there are multiple and sometimes unexpected pathways to resilience.     

Foster Care Youth Share Stories of Trauma Before,During, and After Placement: Youth Voices for Building Trauma-Informed Systems of Care

Many research studies address child trauma experiences that take place before foster care placement. However, few studies focus on the types and patterns of trauma experiences that reportedly take place during and after foster care placement; that is, after entry into adult living. This study examined the testimony of 43 foster care youth who spoke to a listening panel comprised of state legislators, child welfare professionals, and university educators. Qualitative analyses of transcribed text data revealed 3 main themes. First, the youth reported experiencing trauma before, during, and after placement. Second, the youth described trauma events and situations that were chronic (i.e., intense, composite, or cumulative). Third, youth offered suggestions for reducing traumatic experiences for foster care youth. They recommended earlier family interventions, access to people who listen and care, improved parenting skills for foster parents, continuity of relationships, and opportunities for leadership for foster youth. Foster youth voices offer important suggestions for building, strengthening, and evaluating trauma-informed systems of care.     

Applying a Family Resilience Framework in Training,Practice, and Research: Mastering the Art of the Possible

With growing interest in systemic views of human resilience, this article updates and clarifies our understanding of the concept of resilience as involving multilevel dynamic processes over time. Family resilience refers to the functioning of the family system in dealing with adversity: Assessment and intervention focus on the family impact of stressful life challenges and the family processes that foster positive adaptation for the family unit and all members. The application of a family resilience framework is discussed and illustrated in clinical and community‐based training and practice. Use of the author's research‐informed map of core processes in family resilience is briefly noted, highlighting the recursive and synergistic influences of transactional processes within families and with their social environment. Given the inherently contextual nature of the construct of resilience, varied process elements may be more or less useful, depending on different adverse situations over time, with a major crisis; disruptive transitions; or chronic multistress conditions. This perspective is attuned to the diversity of family cultures and structures, their resources and constraints, socio‐cultural and developmental influences, and the viability of varied pathways in resilience.     

Connecting adverse childhood experiences and community health to promote health equity

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have negative effects on health outcomes across the lifespan. Furthermore, the effects of ACEs are often compounded by social determinants of health and historical and contemporary trauma that can affect entire communities. The socio‐ecological model is a valuable framework for understanding the complex systems in which efforts to promote health equity are situated. Using a trauma‐informed lens, community health becomes a powerful focal point for viable prevention and treatment options to address ACEs and promote health equity. Self‐healing on a community level involves collective engagement; people most affected by ACEs and trauma come together around activities that have the potential to lift up the entire community and foster individual and community resilience. The use of community health research and evaluation methods that are consistent with trauma‐informed, empowerment approaches can contribute to community healing. This paper is intended to establish a common language for how community healing can address ACEs and foster health equity.     

Towards an Ecological Understanding of Resilience in Trauma Survivors

Abstract

The ecological perspective of community psychology offers needed understanding of diverse sources and expressions of resilience among trauma survivors. Investigations by community psychologists into the nature of wellness-enhancing interventions and empowering social change can inform trauma-focused interventions at individual, community, and societal levels. Here, works by selected community psychologists are reviewed. The ecological view of trauma, recovery, and resilience guiding work at the Victims of Violence (VOV) Program, the range and reach of VOV's clinical and community interventions, and elements of its trauma recovery and resiliency research project illustrate the implications and relevance of these works. Five premises of an ecological understanding of resilience in trauma survivors are discussed.     

The FOCUS Family Resilience Program: An Innovative Family Intervention for Trauma and Loss

This article describes the core principles and components of the FOCUS Program, a brief intervention for families contending with single or multiple trauma or loss events. It has been administered nationally to thousands of military family members since 2008 and has been implemented in a wide range of civilian community, medical, clinical, and school settings. Developed by a team from the UCLA and Harvard Medical Schools, the FOCUS Program provides a structured approach for joining with traditional and nontraditional families, crafting shared goals, and then working with parents, children, and the entire family to build communication, make meaning out of traumatic experiences, and practice specific skills that support family resilience. Through a narrative sharing process, each family member tells his or her story and constructs a timeline that graphically captures the experience and provides a platform for family discussions on points of convergence and divergence. This narrative sharing process is first done with the parents and then the children and then the family as a whole. The aim is to build perspective‐taking skills and mutual understanding, to reduce distortions and misattributions, and to bridge estrangement between family members. Previous studies have confirmed that families participating in this brief program report reductions in distress and symptomatic behaviors for both parents and children and increases in child pro‐social behaviors and family resilient processes.     

Family resilience: a developmental systems framework

Abstract

This article presents a brief overview of a family resilience conceptual framework, grounded in a multi-level developmental systems orientation. A family systems perspective broadens attention to resources for individual resilience throughout the family network of relationships. The concept of family resilience refers to the family as a functional system, impacted by highly stressful events and social contexts, and in turn, facilitating the positive adaptation of all members and strengthening the family unit. A research-informed map of key processes in family resilience is outlined, highlighting the recursive and synergistic influences of transactional processes within families and with their social environment. Varied process elements may be more or less useful, depending on different adverse situations over time, with a major crisis, trauma, or loss; disruptive transitions; or chronic multi-stress conditions. This perspective is attuned to the diversity of family cultures and structures, their resources and constraints, salient socio-cultural and developmental influences, and the viability of varied pathways in resilience.     

Trauma and Resilience Among Refugee and Undocumented Immigrant Women

Migration and resettlement processes are often characterized by stressful and traumatic experiences. Immigrants may experience premigration trauma in their countries of origin and trauma during their migration journey. Furthermore, refugee and undocumented immigrant women navigate unique and ongoing stressors postmigration. In this study, the authors used a phenomenological approach to explore refugee and undocumented immigrant women's experiences of trauma and stress and the ways in which they develop resilience to cope with these experiences.     

韧性（resilience）——在压力下复原和成长的心理机制

韧性是指面对丧失、困难或者逆境时的有效应对和适应。当生活变化对人们造成威胁时,这种自我保护的生物本能就会展现出来。来自个人、家庭、社会三方面的保护性因素之间会相互作用而组成动力系统,共同抵抗环境的不利影响。韧性的过程模型认为韧性是瓦解和重新整合之后达到的更高平衡状态,与一般意义上的“复原”有区别。在不同人生发展阶段上,韧性呈现出具有不同适应意义的层次结构,其内涵也会因情境而变化。尽管在如何测量韧性的问题上研究者们仍未达成一致意见,但一些简便有效的韧性量表得到了广泛应用。韧性研究的目的是探索个人生存和成长的力量源泉,在教育、医疗、社区和企业中开展的韧性干预训练已经显示出良好效果。     

Conversations with young people in rural and remote places: transforming the emerging self (ANZAP 16th Annual Conference "Trauma and the Transformational Conversation")

This paper describes the laying of a foundation for transformation of the inner world and the emergence of "self" in young people using the Conversational Model. The author works with young people in a technical college in a remote part of Victoria Australia. Some of the clients have experienced extreme trauma as children and live in an ongoing state of traumatic stress. The young clients are deep thinkers and intelligent, yet trapped by dysfunctional family settings. Their situations are compounded by the remote and rural location of their community. The conversational process promotes the gradual transformation of their inner world and the emergence of a healthier "self."     

ADHD and Grief: Diagnosis and Differentiation at One Federally Qualified Health Center

Family physicians provide medical care including diagnosis for children experiencing loss and grief. The cognitive impact of loss includes poor attention and concentration, suggestive of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Our study examined this phenomenon in a community health center (CHC) utilizing physicians’ surveys and a medical record audit of 378 children diagnosed with ADHD during a three-year period. Results identified ambiguous loss and trauma resulting from family instability, absent parent, domestic violence, abuse, and foster care, often unrecognized by physicians as producing grief accompanied by attention and concentration problems. Findings suggest exploration of repeated ambiguous losses in children with ADHD.     

The transgenerational trauma and resilience genogram

The understanding of trauma within counseling has expanded to include the salience of ecosystemic factors and to acknowledge the importance of multicultural and social justice considerations. Transgenerational trauma and resilience offers a framework that examines trauma across generations, attends to ecosystemic concerns, and adheres to a strengths-based perspective. However, given the complexity of trauma counseling and attending to the multitude of ecosystemic factors, counselors and psychologists may struggle to conduct comprehensive assessments and interventions with their clients. Genograms have long been used to clarify complex family and psychological patterns through visual representations, and are, therefore, a promising tool to meet this need. The Transgenerational Trauma and Resilience Genogram (TTRG) was created as a dynamic tool that can assist practitioners in conducting compressive trauma assessment and intervention from a transgenerational trauma and resilience framework. The TTRG emphasizes an ecosystemic view of trauma, culturally relevant and strength-based interventions, and attention to sociopolitical concerns that may impact trauma and recovery. The author explicates the use of the TTRG in trauma counseling, including the theoretical foundations and implications for trauma and recovery. A case example of the use of the TTRG and implications for counseling practice using the TTRG and its guiding principles are provided.     

Traumatic Loss: Conceptual and Empirical Links Between Trauma and Bereavement

Abstract

This article focuses on conceptual issues and empirical studies regarding the topic of traumatic loss (i.e., loss that occurs suddenly and under violent circumstances) as a method for linking the field of trauma, and that of grief and bereavement. Several definitions of trauma are presented that include the concept of loss, and additional concepts are suggested that may be helpful in thinking about the two areas together. Also, modes of death associated with poor recovery are noted, and it is argued that these modes are those that make a bereavement more “traumatic”. Some empirical studies on the psychological outcomes associated with traumatic loss are reviewed, and preliminary findings from a new study of traumatically bereaved women are briefly presented     

Enhancing Family Resilience Through Family Narrative Co-construction

We draw upon family resilience and narrative theory to describe an evidence-based method for intervening with military families who are impacted by multiple wartime deployments and psychological, stress-related, or physical parental injuries. Conceptual models of familial resilience provide a guide for understanding the mechanics of how families respond and recover from exposure to extreme events, and underscore the role of specific family processes and interaction patterns in promoting resilient capabilities. Leading family theorists propose that the family’s ability to make meaning of stressful and traumatic events and nurture protective beliefs are critical aspects of resilient adaptation. We first review general theoretical and empirical research contributions to understanding family resilience, giving special attention to the circumstances, challenges, needs, and strengths of American military families. Therapeutic narrative studies illustrate the processes through which family members acquire meaning-making capacities, and point to the essential role of parents’ in facilitating discussions of stressful experiences and co-constructing coherent and meaningful narratives. This helps children to make sense of these experiences and develop capacities for emotion regulation and coping. Family-based narrative approaches provide a structured opportunity to elicit parents’ and children’s individual narratives, assemble divergent storylines into a shared family narrative, and thereby enhance members’ capacity to make meaning of stressful experiences and adopt beliefs that support adaptation and growth. We discuss how family narratives can help to bridge intra-familial estrangements and re-engage communication and support processes that have been undermined by stress, trauma, or loss. We conclude by describing a family-based narrative intervention currently in use with thousands of military children and families across the USA.     

When culture fails: coping with cultural trauma

The research into the phenomenon of cultural trauma is growing as the effects of historical transformations are recognized and analysed. The concept of cultural trauma and the analytic concept of the cultural complex is a suitable theoretical approach for this research. The Lithuanian experience of cultural trauma after the historical shifts indicates the importance of the interplay between societal and individual factors in coping with trauma. Academic psychotraumatological studies carried out at Vilnius University indicate a stronger traumatic experience by people who are survivors of direct political repression and even intergenerational transmission of trauma, but this group also seems to demonstrate an intergenerational transmission of resilience. Paradoxically, from a long‐term perspective, the victims of direct repression seem to have suffered less than the people who accommodated to the regime, and this applies also to their offspring. Analysis in terms of overcoming cultural trauma indicates that society is gradually integrating historic traumatic experiences, although a healthy cultural identity has not yet been restored.     

Spirituality and Resilience in Trauma Victims

The way people process stressors is critical in determining whether or not trauma will be experienced. Some clinical and neuroimaging findings suggest that posttraumatic stress disorder patients experience difficulty in synthesizing the traumatic experience in a comprehensive narrative. Religiousness and spirituality are strongly based on a personal quest for understanding of questions about life and meaning. Building narratives based on healthy perspectives may facilitate the integration of traumatic sensorial fragments in a new cognitive synthesis, thus working to decrease post-traumatic symptoms. Given the potential effects of spiritual and religious beliefs on coping with traumatic events, the study of the role of spirituality in fostering resilience in trauma survivors may advance our understanding of human adaptation to trauma.     

Building Communities in Tense Times: Fostering Connectedness Between Cultures and Generations through Community Arts

The worldwide upsurge in social polarizations generates intercommunity tensions that challenge the social fabric of urban neighborhoods and undermine the relationships between their members. Because community arts can foster the creation of connections between people that would not have been in contact otherwise, they are often perceived as being powerful tools to foster community resilience. Through a multiple case study approach, this article describes how three community arts projects, carried out in two socioeconomically deprived neighborhoods of Montreal (Canada), influenced the social relationships between participants from diverse ethnocultural backgrounds and generations. Using participant observation and arts-based data collection methods (photography, video, and arts productions), the authors examine how the three projects illustrate (a) the interactive processes at play, (b) the transmission and hybridization of stories and images of adversity and resiliency, and (c) the access to a collective voice.     

Trauma and Gender

The meaning of trauma within psychology has for a long time been viewed mostly from a ‘pathologising’ standpoint. Viewed as pathology, people's trauma may become understood using a singular lens thereby leaving out broader contextual (social, environmental, political, historical, economical etc.) aspects that have been shown to play a role in the subjective experience of various forms of suffering. Psychology has for a long time been quick to diagnose victims of traumatic experiences from an individualistic perspective, almost always positioning the ‘problem’ within the person. As a result of the Vietnam War, World Wars I and II and the Holocaust, the rise in the diagnosing of PTSD gave way to the labelling of trauma. Within psychology, post‐traumatic stress disorder has become the way to operationalise suffering, and I would like to argue that this occludes how suffering lives in a family, a community and in gendered bodies. The gendering of trauma continues to be a silenced space. There is a need to highlight and acknowledge the gendered nature of suffering which begs for trauma to be understood in context and not as an isolated act or occurrence affecting the individual. Women have remained, and in many ways continue to remain, silenced with minimal opportunities to name the world for themselves. This paper seeks to provide a critical analysis of the notion of trauma (and its intersection with gender) that arises from conflict and post‐conflict situations.