Most people are exposed to at least one and often multiple potentially traumatic events (PTEs) during the course of their life. Epidemiological research indicates that only a small subset of people react to such extreme events with enduring emotional difficulties. Yet, until recently, trauma theorists have understood PTEs from a purely psychopathological approach and assumed that responses to PTEs form a homogenous distribution of change across time. Trauma theorists have also assumed that the capacity to maintain stable healthy adjustment or resilience following PTEs was rare. In this talk Professor Bonanno reviews research and theory that argues for an individual differences approach based on the alternative assumption that responses to potential trauma are heterogeneous, and typically explained by multiple trajectories of outcome. Further, he defines resilience as distinct from the outcome pathway traditionally associated with recovery, and present evidence indicating that resilience is not rare, but rather often the most common response among adults exposed to adversity. He describes more recent approaches to modeling trauma outcome that use a relatively new data analytic framework, Latent Growth Mixture Modeling (LGMM), which incorporates the idea of outcome heterogeneity. He reviews several recent studies in which he used the LGMM approach to model change following PTEs. Finally, he considers variables that best inform resilient outcomes following exposure to PTEs.

Sponsored by Aging and Health faculty/HumanDevelopment and The Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center