2 April 2022 | New Scientist | 49for example. And people who have had higher
amounts of trauma in their lives tend to develop
more severe symptoms from further trauma.
Bonanno has found that the way a person
thinks can improve their odds of recovery.
He refers to a “flexibility mindset”, a set of
characteristics that tend to be associated with
better outcomes. In his research, people who
are generally confident, optimistic and braced
for challenges, as well as able to understand
their situation and how to improve their lot,
tend to fare the best.
This was borne out in his Hubei study:
optimism and a flexible mindset, as well
as good health and family support, appeared
to be key to following a resilience trajectory
following lockdown.
But resilience isn’t a baked-in personality
trait. “I don’t like the term resilient, because it
seems to imply that someone is resilient or not,
a yes or no,” says Koenen. People might be more
resilient in some aspects of life, and less so in
others, for instance. Koenen has seen people
who, following a trauma, perform well at school,
but struggle in their relationships. “Resilience
is really multidimensional,” she says.
How to boost resilience has been a hot
topic of research – whether through positive
thinking, meditation or even using a pill.
But such approaches can be misguided,
says Mekawi. “Based on my experience,
people who have resources, who have
stability, and who have space to process their
trauma are more resilient,” she says. “I think
the idea of taking a pill to boost resilience
is just so bizarre. Why not change our social
structure to support people?”
And given the ever-changing nature of
our understanding of what trauma is, we
can afford some flexibility in our definition,
says Mekawi. “Trauma is a social construct...
there’s no single truth that everyone is going
to agree on,” she says. “There’s no reason to
gatekeep trauma.” ❚Need a listening ear? UK Samaritans: 116123
(samaritans.org). Visit bit.ly/SuicideHelplines
for hotlines and websites for other countries.following the implementation of a strict
covid-19 lockdown in January. By the end of this
period, just 7 per cent of people had symptoms
that might qualify for a PTSD diagnosis.
Studies like these have important take-home
messages, says Bonanno. One is that simply
hearing about an event doesn’t necessarily
make it traumatic for you. Another is that,
on the whole, people tend to be remarkably
resilient. “There isn’t an event I’ve studied
yet where even the majority develop PTSD,”
he says. “Usually it’s a very small percentage –
5 or 10 per cent.”
According to Bonanno’s research, the way
individuals recover from a traumatic event
can take one of a handful of trajectories. Over
the past few decades, he has identified three
common ones.
In the resilience trajectory, people move
on and continue with their lives. This is the
most positive and also the most common,
occurring in 62 to 73 per cent of people
depending on the study.
Then there are around 7 per cent of people
who tend to show high levels of PTSD in the
first few months of an event, but display
improvement within about six months or
so. They usually recover within a year or two.
The third common trajectory is that followed
by people whose PTSD symptoms last for years.
Their symptoms are severe enough to affect
their ability to function in life. And it can take
several years for their symptoms to improve.
Even so, people are complicated, and it
isn’t always possible to file complex cases
into one of three neat categories. And while
Bonanno’s recent book, The End of Trauma,
focuses on these three trajectories, in reality,
there are many more, he says.
Koenen, too, has been trying to better
understand how people will respond to
trauma. Since 2016, her team has been working
with hospitals around the US to assess people
who seek care in emergency departments
following a potentially traumatic experience.
Volunteers are then followed up for a year,
during which they undertake surveys and
cognitive tests. Blood and saliva samples are
scoured for biological clues that might one
day predict a person’s response to trauma.
A handful of key factors have now been
identified that play a role in resilience.
The worst symptoms tend to develop after
experiencing violence from another person,JACQUES
LANGEV
IN/SY
GMA^ VIA^ GET
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IMAGESJessica Hamzelou is a science
journalist based in London“ Planes fly over
my apartment.
After 9/11, I had
nightmares about
planes crashing”
Streets in Wuhan, China,
are all but deserted in
January 2020, as a strict
lockdown is imposedSTRINGE
R/GET
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IMAGES