In recent years, psychologists have become increasingly interested in the positive life changes that accompany highly stressful life events, such as being diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness, losing a loved one, or sexual assault. This phenomenon has been referred to as posttraumatic growth, and researchers have discovered five particular areas of growth that often spring from adversity:
• interpersonal relationships
• the identification of new possibilities for one’s life
• personal strength
• spirituality
• appreciation of life
Various forms of creative engagement, including art therapy and expressive writing, have demonstrated therapeutic benefits. Researchers have argued that creative expression offers therapeutic benefits because they increase engagement and flow, catharsis, distraction, positive emotions, and meaning-making. And now recent research also suggests a link between posttraumatic growth and creativity.
Overall, Forgeard found that the number of events reported by participants predicted self-perceived creative growth as well as breadth of creativity. But more interesting were the effects of the most impactful events. The amount of stress participants experienced during their most transformative adverse experiences predicted the amount of intrusive and deliberate forms of rumination that occurred after the traumatic experience. Both of these forms of rumination had an effect on posttraumatic growth in interesting ways.
These findings are also in line with Assumptive World Theory, which argues that adverse experiences can act as a “psychologically seismic event,” capable of shaking up one’s deeply held beliefs about oneself and the world. According to the theory, people who experience seismic traumatic events proceed to form new beliefs by engaging in cognitive processing, such as rumination and reflection, through which growth and wisdom as well as depreciation can occur.
Let’s be clear: these results do not suggest that adversity is necessary for creativity. As I’ve noted before, there are so many different triggers that can broaden our minds, inspire, and motivate, including any unusual and unexpected event. Nevertheless, these findings are important, considering that most people will unfortunately experience at least one adverse life event at some point in their lives. The silver lining is that these individuals can use their traumatic experiences to heal, grow, and flourish creatively.