Abstract

This study discusses the issue of emotional crisis and trauma in terms of opportunities to develop and grow. The article seeks to show the complex psychological conditions pertaining to emotional crises, a constructive way of dealing with them, and the possibility of growing and developing thanks to having experienced such a crisis. These issues are usually omitted when describing crises; however, as the author postulates, they constitute a foundation for differentiating — as we surely must do — between emotional crisis and trauma, development and growth through crisis, and the positive adaptive changes observed in cases of post-traumatic disorder. Such changes cannot always be identified as instances of so called post-traumatic growth. The latter is described by the author, with reference to Maslow's theory, as development “resulting from the lack of something”, where this in turn reflects some trauma or other. Moreover, considerations pertaining both to current work in health psychology, and to the distinction between emotional crisis and trauma proposed here, could well prove relevant where practices of intervention are concerned.