My Personal and Professional Trauma Resilience Truisms

• Published in: Traumatology (Tallahassee, Fla.) Fla.), 2017-03, Vol.23 (1), p.10-17
• Main Author: Dekel, Rachel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Army Personnel; Autobiography; Coping Behavior; Daughters; Family Background; Female; Holocaust Survivors; Human; Life Experiences; Military Families; Mothers; Resilience (Psychological); Self-Perception; Trauma
• ISSN: 1085-9373; 1085-9373
• DOI: 10.1037/trm0000106

This autobiographical essay focuses on my life in Israel as a daughter of a Holocaust survivor and a mother whose children serve or will serve in the army. The 1st part of the article addresses 2 questions-who I am and what I do-and describes my life in Israel on the basis of my personal family history and the threatened Israeli context. The 2nd part of the article offers 3 top truisms about trauma resilience: (a) at the individual level, maintaining self-differentiation and retaining emotional boundaries; (b) at the couple level, making meaning out of the shared traumatic experience; and (c) at the community level, strengthening the sense of belonging to the community. Finally, I highlight theory and research implications regarding trauma resilience: (a) the need to continue identification of unrecognized populations that have experienced traumatic events, (b) the need to adopt an ecological perspective for assessment and intervention, (c) the need to educate students in the field of trauma and provide support for professionals in this field, and (d) the need to initiate collaborations between academics and professionals in the trauma field.