Positive emotions, trauma, and resistance

In this paper we defend a new framework, based in positive emotions, to conceptualize posttraumatic stress reactions. Clinical models of psychopathology have traditionally focused on issues as vulnerability and deficits. Yet, psychological research in the last decade has shown that positive emotions and cognitions are necessary to understand human psychological functioning. We review the role that such positive elements (e.g., personality traits, emotional positive self-regulation, etc.) may have to fully understand human response in facing adversity. A reconceptualization of trauma from that new point of view may also help to understand such common phenomena as resilience, or posttraumatic growth. That approach may also help to develop effective preventive and therapeutic strategies to deal with trauma responses.