What Is Post-Traumatic Growth?

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Great trauma can lead to a deep, painful sense of powerlessness.

Traumatized individuals can gain resilience through the work of healing.

Posttraumatic growth can serve as the basis for great achievement.

There is a widely told story about a visitor who goes to the circus and asks the elephant trainer why the animal can be controlled by just a stake in the ground and a light chain. The trainer answers that the elephant doesn’t recognize its own strength because it’s been chained all its life. The animal doesn’t know it has the power to pull itself free and do what it wants.

The story is one most of us have heard, but many are unfamiliar with the practice that makes so many domesticated elephants ignorant of their power—a practice called phajaan. The Thai word means “the crush”—and it’s a cruel practice used to ensure young elephants taken from the wild never rebel against their trainers.

In phajaan, a young elephant is captured. In the months that follow, the young elephant is confined to a cage, its legs are restrained, and it’s beaten, stabbed, starved, and tormented with a bull hook. At the end of this barbaric process, the elephant is considered “broken,” and its handler believes it will never rebel.

The truth of the matter is that most of the elephants that undergo this experience are not broken. What they lack is trust—in themselves and in others. What these emotional animals carry is fear, anger, or grief (Samui Elephant Haven, 2025).

People who have experienced great trauma can adopt a similarly deep, painful sense of powerlessness. But, like the great elephant, we have strength within us that is waiting to be rediscovered and set free. It is within our power to pull up the stake, turn away from our tormentors, and know we can take care of ourselves.

The process by which this happens is growth—and it is the steady work of the subconscious that can help us transform our traumas to grace, as demonstrated by the following case example.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in an Adolescent

James, a 15-year-old athlete, was referred to work with me to deal better with anxiety stemming from his deeply troubled relationship with........

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