The Significance of Meaning to Conceptualizations of Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth: Strengthening the Foundation for Research and Practice
The primary goal of this chapter is to demonstrate that the key factors that promote resilience and posttraumatic growth are related to the perception of meaning in life. According to Viktor Frankl, founder of logotherapy, a forerunner to today's positive psychology movement, life has meaning under all circumstances even those that involve unavoidable suffering. Meaning making is thus an essential aspect of being human and dealing with adverse circumstances. A sense of meaning prior to the experience of a potentially traumatic event, coupled with the ability to perceive meaning during and after such events, likely plays an integral role in one experiencing positive psychological outcomes. This perceived sense of meaning before, during, and after a potentially traumatic event might impact whether one not only recovers (and is thus resilient) but also goes on to experience posttraumatic growth. The literature suggests that higher levels of perceived meaning are associated with resilience and posttraumatic growth, as well as related to key correlates of these concepts. The foremost aim of this chapter involves the consideration and integration of the respective meaning, resilience, and posttraumatic growth literatures, thus uniting key areas of logotherapy and positive psychology. Systematic and rigorous empirical inquiry is necessary to better understand the causal relationships between meaning, resilience, and posttraumatic growth. Such empirical pursuits have potential to inform clinical treatments and community based interventions. For clinicians who work with clients where resilience and posttraumatic growth have potential to serve as essential treatment elements, we posit that meaning is a vital concept that warrants consideration.