AMPED

The Scoop on PTG

By understanding posttraumatic growth (PTG), therapists, clinicians, and patients hope to have more tools for treating trauma and its mental and physical aftereffects. The goal is to help people not only recover from trauma, but also to grow stronger as a result. 

What It Is:
University of North Carolina psychology professors Lawrence Calhoun, PhD, and Richard G. Tedeschi, PhD, coined the phrase “posttraumatic growth” in the 1980s, defining it as a “positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or traumatic event.” Although the concept has been around for centuries, research began in the early 1980s, and over the last couple years has gained momentum as people recognize its significance in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) patients’ recovery. According to the UNC professors, posttraumatic growth occurs in five general areas:

• New opportunities and possibilities that weren’t present before
• A change in relationships with others
• An increased sense of one’s own strength
• A greater appreciation for life
• A deepening of one’s spiritual life

Who can experience PTG:
Anyone who has experienced a life-changing event including a sickness, car accident, combat, or a natural disaster can experience posttraumatic growth. “A significant amount of research suggests we are much more resilient than previously thought,” Calhoun says. “It is important to recognize, however, that growth does not mean the absence of suffering or distress.”

The vets featured in the “Amped” story in Climbing No. 280 - the November 2009 Epics Issue, each experienced PTG through the sport of climbing. Says Chad Jukes says, one of the climbers profiled, “My amputation has allowed me to participate in activities I’d never thought I would do [before].”

Get Connected

• Paradox Sports: Founded in 2007, this group works with the disabled community, providing adaptive equipment and making it possible for them to participate in human-powered outdoor sports (paradoxsports.org).
• Disabled Sports USA: Vietnam vets founded this nonprofi t in 1967; it offers sports rehabilitation programs such as skiing, sailing, kayaking, cycling, and climbing to the disabled (dsusa.org).
• The Wounded Warrior Project: A partner of Disabled Sports USA, this group provides programs for severely wounded soldiers transitioning from active duty to civilian life (woundedwarriorproject.org).

Invisible Wounds: Climbing Through PTSD

According to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, as many as 20 percent of vets returning from combat experience some level of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Symptoms range from involuntary recall of the event, to extreme anxiety or “hyperarousal” during daily activities like driving and sleeping. As a result, many PTSD sufferers turn to alcohol, drugs, and prescription pills for relief.

Marine Corporal Phil Ramirez, 25, served three tours in Iraq, including a six-month stint during the initial invasion, in 2003. After his second tour, Ramirez noticed an increase in his drinking. “I didn’t realize I had PTSD until I had a meeting with the VA,” Ramirez says. The VA diagnosed him with PTSD and prescribed sleep medication. “I only used it 10 times,” he says. “I couldn’t keep taking it because I woke up groggy.” After more than a year in therapy, Ramirez turned to the climbing wall at his local YMCA in Jacksonville, Florida. “That’s my therapy now,” he says.

The military is catching on to the benefits of adventure sports for treating PTSD. In 2008, the Army implemented the Warrior Adventure Quest (WAQ), a program that, among other things, helps vets adjust to civilian life through high-adrenaline sports, including climbing. According to the WAQ website, “Each activity will be followed by an after-action review process . . . to draw similarities between the adventure activity and their Warrior experiences.” In other words, the adrenaline-pumping nature of adventure sports in some ways parallels the battleground, helping, firstly, to ease the transition to everyday life and, secondly, helping soldiers process traumatic events and heal from PTSD. Ramirez, for one, testifi es to its effectiveness: “When I’m climbing, that’s all I think about. It is my coping mechanism,” he says.