How Higher Ed Can Reverse the Tide on Rising Rates of PTSD Among Students
I’ve spent the past 20 years as a community psychologist, researcher, university faculty member and administrator, and during this time have become increasingly concerned about the rising rates of mental illness among students.
By now, we all recognize that the pandemic accelerated what had been a steady simmer into a rapid boil. Diagnosed cases of acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among students doubled from 2017 to 2022, according to new research reported in the New York Times and Inside Higher Ed.
With more than 50% of college students indicating that they’ve experienced violence, emotional or sexual abuse, a natural disaster, or other traumatic event prior to or during college, authoritative sources, including The American Psychological Association, rightfully recognize the need for a culture of wellness rather than solely individually-oriented fixes to this societal problem.
The question is, how do we create this culture of wellness where students live, work, study, and play?
Recognizing the Potential for Posttraumatic Growth
One promising approach is to build capacity among students, faculty, and staff to promote posttraumatic growth (PTG). By normalizing how we support one another to turn our struggle into strength, we can promote positive transformation after trauma.
Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D., coined the term “posttraumatic growth” in 1995 and has conducted extensive research on the topic since then. He explains that after struggling through trauma, access to professional and/or community-based social support allows people to “develop new understandings of themselves, the world they live in, how to relate to other people, the kind of future they might have, and a better understanding of how to live life." (Collier, 2016)
Posttraumatic growth is often used interchangeably with psychological resilience. But PTG is more often seen in people who are not “resilient,” rather struggling psychologically in the aftermath of their trauma. Through PTG, individuals come to appreciate the fact that they have become stronger, developed a greater capacity for relating to others, acknowledge new possibilities, and can experience immense gratitude, spiritual, and/or existential growth.
Researchers have studied the existence of PTG among college students extensively; however, the promotion of PTG through interventions or initiatives have yet to be widely applied to student populations. There has been exciting progress with other groups. For example, an 18-month follow-up study found significant reductions in PTSD symptoms and additional psychological gains for veterans who participated in a PTG training program called Warrior PATTH (Rhodes et al., 2023). Early evaluation data from PTG training programs with first responders across the country called Struggle Well is also showing promising results, both for individuals and in shifting the organizational culture to one of trust and support with a focus on wellness and growth.
Fostering Posttraumatic Growth in University Settings
Lessons learned from these promising programs can be a guiding light to transform colleges and universities into trauma-informed settings that embody a culture of wellness. The path to serving our communities more effectively and empowering students, faculty, and staff to transform their struggles into strength is three-pronged:
1. Increase staffing of mental health practitioners.
Many organizations, including the National Education Association, have decried budget cuts to wellness services and counseling centers at a time when they are needed most and have called for universities to invest additional resources to address the growing mental health crisis on campuses.
Investing in a variety of services and increasing staffing to meet the needs of the day are absolutely essential. However, university counseling centers and other college resources will not be able to meet the demand with a one-on-one therapeutic model alone.
2. Develop PTG-informed student support services.
There needs to be a holistic focus at the institutional level on the five domains of PTG: relationship with others, personal strength, new possibilities, appreciation of life, and spiritual and existential change.
These domains allow students and others who have experienced trauma to understand how their distress has led to growth, wisdom and new meaning in their lives.
Colleges must provide access to support, both formal and informal, from people who listen well, wish to learn about a trauma survivor’s experience, and can help students see a path toward posttraumatic growth. This can be accomplished through a range of cross-departmental programming, including peer support models, culture change initiatives, wellness workshops, and training in peer accompaniment, self-care and emotional regulation.
3. Building a pipeline of PTG-informed practitioners
Looking toward the future, PTG training should be added to curriculum throughout the helping professions, including certificate and degree programs in psychology, counseling, social work, and public administration.
Some trauma is inevitable. Yet, building healthier communities may also aid in reducing stress and tension and help us de-escalate potentially dangerous situations and prevent many future traumatic events.
As we prepare our students to be high-functioning contributors to society, few durable skills are more valuable than learning to understand themselves, the world they live in, how to relate to other people, and how to live life. We can all learn to “struggle well” and grow in service of others. Using the approach outlined above, we can increase PTG and reduce the number of people who cannot find a path beyond their PTSD.
This post was authored by Judah Viola
