title: Facing mortality: exploring the mechanisms of positive growth and the process of recalibration.
abstract: Interviews with 11 participants who had suffered a range of traumas five or more years ago were analysed using thematic analysis to explore the impact of a negative event and the mechanisms involved in subsequent changes and adjustment. Participants described a sense of mortality reflected in a feeling that life was fragile as though the intellectual knowledge of their future death had been turned into an emotional reality, which had offered them opportunity to make changes across a number of life domains. For some, however, these changes were hindered through ongoing issues such as physical and psychological symptoms and legal action. The final theme reflected a process of recalibration and many described achieving a state of relative contentment. Transcending these themes were a series of mechanisms facilitating change including downward comparisons to friends and abstract others, active remembering involving forced reflection, self-talk and reading diaries, shifting priorities and a focus on the positives and lowered expectations. Overall, it is suggested that growth following trauma is achieved through a shift in the object of comparison whether it be others or themselves as either in an alternative life trajectory or even death. This may result in a greater appreciation of life, but rather than being achieved through growth in one's sense of self per se it reflects a generalised lowering of expectations and growth in comparison to a new lowered set of points of comparison.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK.
authors.forename: Clare
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Inman
authors.forename: Jane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ogden
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001293:Attitude to Death; D002388:Catastrophic Illness / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D006113:United Kingdom; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult