La sfida delle avversità: minaccia o transizioni di crescita?

This article presents the concept of post-traumatic growth, its theoretical foundations and some methodological issues concerning empirical research. Posttraumatic growth is the experience of positive change that occurs as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life crises (Tedeschi, Calhoun, 2004). The idea that there is a personal gain in suffering is ancient. However, only recently the topic of growth following adversity has become the focus of theoretical and empirical work (Helgeson et al., 2006). Growth has been reported following a wide range of stressful and traumatic events (Linley, Joseph, 2004) and the positive changes observed after these events have been variously labelled. Growth after adversity seems to have three main interconnected facets: personal identity, interpersonal relationships and life philosophy. There are three main theoretical perspectives on adversarial growth: the functional-descriptive model of Tedeschi and Calhoun (2004), Christopher’s biopsychosocial-evolutionary view (2004) and the Organismic Valuing Theory of Growth of Joseph and Linley (2005). Although much remains to be learned, the process of growth is an interesting topic for the movement of Positive Psychology that aims at providing an integrative perspective on both the positive and the negative aspects of human experience (Seligman, Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).

Maria Elena Magrin, Marta Scrignaro, Patrizia Steca, La sfida delle avversità: minaccia o transizioni di crescita? in "PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE" 1/2007, pp 11-32, DOI: