Inhibition theory: Development of happiness and life satisfaction after drastic life events

Drastic and traumatising life experiences shake the people who experience them. They are experienced as shocking and require individual adjustment processes that often involve long periods of rehabilitation and therapy.

In addition to the negative consequences triggered by traumatising events - such as an accident or serious injury - it is also possible to observe developments in affected individuals that they themselves associate as positive consequences of trauma: As a result of severe traumatisation, people report a process of inner maturation, the experience of a special appreciation for life or the discovery of new personal possibilities. This seemingly paradoxical phenomenon is also described in science aspost-traumatic growth and its genesis has been little researched to date.

With this research project, we therefore wanted to find out more about people who have had a severe and traumatising experience in their own lives and also look at which factors can be identified as conducive to positive trauma processing. How did people experience their trauma? What meaning do they attribute to the experience? Which people experience a process of inner maturation and which do not? We investigated these and other questions as part of the research project.

Methodologically, we approached the topic with the help of qualitative interviews with affected people. The results of the study will help us to better understand the processes of trauma processing and to integrate the findings into treatment practice.

The publication will follow.