Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Month

June is dedicated to creating awareness of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD]. This article is more specifically dedicated to creating awareness of the positive emotions of Awe and Wonder as an accessible means that may help initiate Post Traumatic Growth [PTG]. The positive effects of awe and the categories of PTG closely overlap. Common elements of post- traumatic growth include an appreciation for life, a sense of new possibilities, personal strength, closer relationships, and increased spirituality. This growth is the essence of the differences between persons who survive trauma and those who thrive.

One aspect of healing for trauma that can be free or low cost and may stimulate PTG, is stirring the positive emotions of Awe and Wonder. Keltner and Haidt (2003) identified awe as a specific transformative emotional experience that has the potential to reorient people’s lives according to their values and goals and that experiencing awe is one of the fastest and most potent means of initiating personal growth or change. Mangelsdorf and Eid (2015) proposed that positive experiences are more critical to persons’ long-term development because they help to build resiliency and can create a buffer or an inoculation effect against negative aversive events.

Shiota et al.’s (2011) research has shown that positive emotions such as awe and wonder can have an “undoing effect” on traumatic experiences that affects emotions, cognitive schemas, and physiological responses (p. 1369). Fosha et al. (2019) suggested that this undoing effect might help to thaw the freeze response of trauma, release overwhelm effects and enable the adaptive networks or mechanisms to begin to function normally. For example, awe and wonder activate the adaptive informational, emotional, and somatic (body) network of nervous system responses.

Of all the positive emotions studied, Awe and Wonder had the strongest effects on reducing stress hormones which add inflammation in the body. Stellar et al. (2015) specifically found that the experience of positive awe highly predicts the reduction of inflammatory cytokines, whichthe body releases during acute or traumatic stress. The reduction in cytokines enables the body to return to homeostasis and restore itself to health.

Positive awe increases the parasympathetic responses (Rest and digest) in the autonomic nervous system and stops the sympathetic (Flight-fight) activation (Shiota et al. 2011). The parasympathetic nervous system activates calm states of being and social engagement. Social engagement helps counter the avoidance and isolation that trauma tends to initiate.

Awe also has a natural effect of shifting mood in a positive direction of spiralling upward (Fosha et al. 2019). Positive emotions activate the reward system of the brain and encourage people to experience them again, which causes flourishing and well-being to spiral upward. Awe may reduce negative symptoms such as depression and self-isolation.

Weger and Wagner (2018) found cumulative positive experiences are the catalysts for growth and positive change in a meaningful worldview, and awe improves self-esteem in a healthy, self- expansive manner. Awe may also connect our uncertainty to an increase of spiritual beliefs. People who believe in something greater than themselves or engage in faith or spiritual practices tend to be more resilient and recover more quickly than those who do not. Roepke (2013) found that major events that challenge one’s beliefs can lead to self-reflection and the openness to explore new possibilities.

This is just a few ways that awe and wonder may promote healing. The good news is Awe and wonder are purposely discoverable in one’s immediate environment simply by being mindful and intentional. Awe may be found by directing our attention to simple things such as noticing coincidences, the symmetrical design of flower petals, the way a piece of music moves one’s soul, the way the stars faithfully return to sparkle in the sky, the majesty of mountains, or the way a photograph can bring back into the experience of a fond memory. It can be experienced alone, or with others. And awe can be experienced through a variety of mediums. For example, Virtual Reality may artificially induce the same effects of awe as experiencing it in real time.

While discovering awe intentionally does require us to slow down and look with intention to see what we may have missed or taken for granted, awe and wonder may be a novel approach to begin to heal from trauma and refresh our souls.

Cyndi Millett MA, BA

Registered Psychologist

The Grief & Trauma Healing Center

Adapted from The Potential Influence of the Positive Emotions of Awe and Wonder

on the Posttraumatic Growth of Adult Trauma Survivors, by Cyndi Millett

REFERENCES

Fosha, F., Thoma, T., & Yeung, D. (2019). Transforming emotional suffering into flourishing: Metatherapeutic processing of positive affect as a trans-theoretical vehicle for change. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 32(3-4), 563–593. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070.2019.1642852

Keltner and Haidt (2003) Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17, 297–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930302297

Mangelsdorf, J., & Eid, M. (2015). What makes a thriver? Unifying the concepts of posttraumatic and post-ecstatic growth. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 813. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00813

Roepke, A. M. (2013). Gains without pains? Growth after positive events. Journal of Positive Psychology, 8(4), 280–229. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.791715

Shiota, M. N., Neufeld, S. L., Yeung, W. H., Moser, S. E., & Perea, E. F. (2011). Feeling good: Autonomic nervous system responding in five positive emotions. Emotion, 11(6), 1368– 78. https://doi.org./10.1037/a0024278

Stellar, J. E., Gordon, A. M., Piff, P. K., Cordaro, D., Anderson, C. L., Bai, Y., Maruskin, L. A., & Keltner, D. (2017). Self-transcendent emotions and their social functions: Compassion, gratitude, and awe bind us to others through prosociality. Emotion Review, 9(3), 200– 207. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073916684557

Weger, U., & Wagemann, J. (2018). Towards a conceptual clarification of awe and wonder. Current

Psychology, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-0057-7