1. FREDRIKE BANNINK
Author
Clinical psychologist
Master of Dispute Resolution!
!
www.fredrikebannink.com
@FredrikeBannink
What we’ll do today…
• Share examples of Post Traumatic Success!
• Myths about trauma & trauma research!
• Approaches to trauma: the 3 R’s of Post Traumatic Success!
• Exercises!
• Take away
Myths about trauma
• Everyone who experiences a traumatic incident will
develop post-traumatic stress!
• People must have therapy to get over post-traumatic stress
when they develop it!
• The only effective treatment for post-traumatic stress is
long-term therapy in which you have to re-experience or
remember everything that happened during your traumatic
incident(s)!
• There are only negative effects from trauma
Trauma research
• The typical pattern for even the most catastrophic
experiences is resolution of symptoms and not the
development of PTSD.
Only a minority of the victims will go on to develop PTSD
and with the passage of time the symptoms will resolve in
approximately two-thirds of these (MacFarlane &Yehuda, 1996)!
• Resilience is often the most commonly observed
outcome following a traumatic event (Bonanno, Rennicke & Dekel (2005). !
• Seligman: „We became pathologizers and victimologists”
More research…
• Studies of early trauma and neglect reveal that
neural structure and function within the brain
can be severely affected and lead to long-lasting
and extensive effects on the brain’s capacity to
adapt to stress!
• BUT: the creation of new neural integrative links
remains possible into adulthood (brain
plasticity)!
• By focusing on resilience, coping and
competence new positive neural
networks emerge and old negative ones will
‘die away’
And more research…
The primary protective
factor is having relationships
that provide care and support,
create love and trust, and offer
encouragement, both within and
outside the family

2. ‘It is not what happens to you,
but how you react to it that matters’
Epictetus (55-135)
Approaches to trauma
Problem-focused!
• Conversations about what clients don’t
want (avoidance goals)!
• Clients are viewed as damaged: how are
they affected by the traumatic
experience?!
• Remembering and expressing affect are
goals of treatment!
• Coping needs to be learned!
• Focus on insight or ‘working through’!
!
Strengths- & solution-focused!
• Conversations about what clients do
want (approach goals)!
• Clients are viewed as influenced but not
determined, having strengths and abilities:
how did they respond to traum. exp?!
• Acknowledgement, validation,
conversations about possibilities!
• Exceptions are always present: how did
clients cope, even just a little bit?!
• Focus on accountability and action,
insight may come later
What’s wrong with you?
What’s right with you?
3 R’s of Post Traumatic Success
Scale of psychological well-being!
- 10 _______________________0______________________+10
• Recovery!
• Resilience !
• enRichment (post-traumatic growth)
A person maintains a stable equilibrium in the face of adverse events.
The person quickly returns to baseline functioning following highly
stressful or traumatic experiences (O’Leary & Ickovics, 1995)!
!
The ability of people in otherwise normal circumstances who are
exposed to a potentially highly disruptive event such as the death of a
close relation or a violent or life-threatening situation to maintain
relatively stable, healthy levels of psychological and physical functioning.
They are also able to maintain the capacity for generative experiences
and positive emotions (Bonanno, 2004)!
!
Interview PTS
1. What helped you survive your (difficult) childhood?!
2. What have you learned from it?!
3. In what way have you managed in later life to have the
kind of experiences that you were deprived of as a child?
Interview your neighbor and v.v. (2 x 7 minutes); the content may remain secret

3. enRichment
Post-traumatic growth
‚„What does not kill me, makes me stronger” (Nietzsche)!
!
Benefit finding, stress-related growth, post-traumatic growth !
!
Five areas of growth that often spring from adversity
1. Renewed appreciation of life
2. Enhanced personal strength
3. Identifying and acting on new possibilities for one’s life
4. Improved interpersonal relationships
5. Spiritual deepening!
Post-traumatic growth
Caveats Tedeschi & Calhoun (2004)
• A focus on growth should not come at the expense of empathy for the pain
and suffering!
• For most people post-traumatic growth and distress co-exist, and the growth
emerges from the struggle with coping, not from the trauma itself!
• Trauma is not necessary for growth!
• Trauma is not ‘good’ in any way: life crises, loss and trauma are seen as
undesirable!
• Post-traumatic growth is neither universal nor inevitable.
There are also a significant number of people who experience little or no
growth and this outcome is quite acceptable
I
Increasing*their*successes,*that’s*my*job
Insoo%Kim%Berg%(co/founder%SFBT)%
Take away
Help your colleague to describe 5 things/ideas which
s/he could put to use at work which would tell your
colleague that this workshop has been worth the time,
energy, money and effort!
Post-traumatic success September 2014
Handbook of Positive Supervision November 2014
Thank you for your kind attention
www.fredrikebannink.com
@FredrikeBannink