The Foundations of Posttraumatic Growth: An Expanded Framework

This chapter will describe our view of the diversity of outcomes associated with major losses and traumas. We will focus on how loss and trauma do not usually occur in isolation, but rather in the context of complex family lives. Survivors and family members view losses through the prisms of these webs of relationships and events. In making our case about how such contexts are connected to loss and trauma outcomes, we will present stories from an ongoing project designed to bring together narratives of young persons of who have lost parents to death and a completed project that concerned children of divorce (Harvey & Fine, 2004). We also wish to emphasize how growth after trauma or major loss may be…