Chapter 7: Posttraumatic Growth

Today young people who place themselves in potentially dangerous situations as part of their life’s work are often expressing a commitment to ideas much greater than themselves. They may be enacting a spiritual value of service and sacrifice, seeking to order their lives around themes of meaning and purpose, exposing themselves to experiences that will sharpen their sense of being alive, or challenging themselves to see what they are capable of enduring or accomplishing. One thing that may be accomplished when people expose themselves to potentially harmful events is personal development and psychological growth. In this chapter, the process by which this growth occurs in the aftermath of extremely stressful or traumatic events will be described and a role of team leaders in facilitating it will be suggested.