1st Edition

Psychological Growth After Trauma Insights from Phenomenological Research

Edited By Simon Wharne Copyright 2026
348 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

348 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

348 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Psychological Growth After Trauma is a guide to moving away from assumptions about trauma as a simple form of ‘psychological damage.’ Each chapter promotes an understanding of difficult experiences as learning opportunities that help us attune to the reality of existence and become more at ease with the truths that trigger our anxieties. The book holds close to a phenomenological stance in... Read more

1. Introduction: The Possibility of Posttraumatic Growth

Simon Wharne

 Part 1: New Awareness in the Experience of Women

 2. Birth Trauma and Existential Crisis: How Becoming a Mother Involves a Confrontation with Existence

Claire Arnold-Baker

 3. Experiences of Women Living Beyond Rape and Interpersonal Violence

Natalie Fraser 

Part 2: Developing a Self Through Early Life Trauma

4. Emerging from Adolescent Sexual Grooming: The Need for Truth

Amy Bramley

5. The Coexistence of Posttraumatic Stress and Posttraumatic Growth Related to Childhood Trauma

April Mangion

 Part 3: Encountering Death 

6. Living with Traumatic Bereavement

Chloe Paidoussis-Mitchell

7. Surviving Near Death Following Cardiac Arrest

Tania D’Aloia

Part 4: In the Aftermath of Colonialism, Political Conflict, and War

8. Lived Experiences of Antiblack Racism: Is the Impact Always a Permanent Psychological Scar, or Can There Be Growth?

Jackie Sewell

9. Political Refugees: Rising Above Trauma

Armin Danesh

10. The Impact of Active Military Service on Intimate Relationships: Trauma, Breakdown and Breakthrough

Susan Iacovou

11. Trauma: The Search for a Poisoned Chalice?

Niklas Serning

Part 5: Trauma as it Emerges in the Therapeutic Encounter

12. Applying a Hermeneutic Phenomenological Lens: A Literary Review Observes the Impact of Client Suicide on the Therapist

Mary Spring

13. Carrying the Torch of Hope: An Investigation into the Experiences of Shared Interpersonal Trauma in the Therapeutic Relationship

Polina Lukanova

14. Vicarious Trauma and Growth in Mental Health Workers

Simon Wharne

Part 6: Making Sense of Our Work with Trauma 

15. Trauma and Existence: Existential-Humanistic Understandings of Trauma, with Existential-Analytic and Phenomenological Implications for Practice

Marc Boaz

 

 

Biography

Simon Wharne is a chartered counselling psychologist and existential psychotherapist who has experience in clinical practice, leadership, and education.

“This book is an eye-opener for anyone who works with trauma. Understanding, practice, and investigation are all integrated in a brilliant and needed complement to the existing literature.”

Alfried Längle, MD, PhD, professor of psychotherapy at the Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, and the University of Klagenfurt, Austria

 

“The field of trauma studies often fails to consider relational and contextual aspects of trauma. Psychological Growth After Trauma seeks to correct that, exploring the experience of a variety of traumas, many of which frequently go under the radar. In all these contributions, the phenomenology of traumatic experience is foregrounded and should be a significant resource for therapists trying to avoid adhering too rigidly to the fashionable formulations du jour.”

Martin Milton, professor of counselling psychology and existential psychotherapist