How Trauma Impacts Personal Growth and Development: Navigating Life's Transitions

We will inevitably experience change throughout our lives. From a developmental perspective, these changes are periods of growth, physically, cognitively, emotionally, and socially. Developmental psychologists often present developmental stages and periods of growth linearly ie: Erikson’s 8 stages of development. 

However, most do not experience linear intra and interpersonal maturation. Why? In short, the answer is trauma. Whether we are talking about complex interpersonal trauma, shock trauma, or a combination of both, traumatic moments create beliefs about ourselves and others that shape our internal working models of attitudes, habits, and behaviors and delay or otherwise impede linear development.

When our internal working models operate through a distorted lens we experience conflict and contraction in crucial developmental moments. For example, in Erickson’s sixth stage of development, known as young adulthood, there is an inner conflict of desiring intimacy versus desiring isolation. Moving through this stage successfully, we find the capacity to endure and feel secure in intimate relationships, whereas failure results in isolation and feelings of loneliness. 

As moments to achieve milestones in our lives arise, we face a conflict between continuing the status quo or finding new ways of being that result in growth, moving us towards self-actualization and stronger more intimate relationships. 

Staying in the status quo often feels like the safest option because it is familiar. It is the beliefs about ourselves and others that we have known for so long, and to move away from that feels uncertain and scary. To develop a sense of self-worth and open ourselves up to meaningful connections feels scary (insert one of many distorted core beliefs that “protect” us from emerging and connecting).

On the contrary, finding the capacity and resources to endure the emotional and felt experience of these transitional periods results in achieving developmental milestones. This may require some courage to grieve and accept that your developmental timeline is not what you would have hoped for. However, the result of moving forward successfully is a greater ability to cope and appreciate life from a place of confidence and security within yourself and your relationships.