Posttraumatic Growth and Posttraumatic Depreciation as Predictors of Psychological Adjustment

Informed by current trauma literature, this study explored the relationships between posttraumatic growth (PTG), posttraumatic depreciation (PTD), and other posttrauma outcomes including well-being, psychological flourishing, and psychological distress. The predictive utility of PTG and PTD was also examined. The sample comprised 104 trauma survivors (28 community members and 76 university students) who completed the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory42 and several outcome measures. As expected, PTD showed strong linear correlations with well-being, flourishing and distress, and emerged as a significant predictor of scores on such measures. However, PTG showed negligible correlations with well-being, flourishing, and distress. This reaffirms that PTG and PTD measure conceptually distinct and independent dimensions of experience, which has implications for therapeutic practice.