A framework for guiding transformative growth after school shootings.

This article presents a broad framework for facilitating long-term psychological growth that can be integrated into high school curricula. It is based on the complementary theories of Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) and Transformative Learning (TL), which explain how positive psychological change can occur after a traumatic event disrupts a person’s assumptive worldview. The three segments of the TL process—questioning, exploring, and experimenting—facilitate PTG by transforming established beliefs into broader meaning perspectives that accommodate present realities. The framework below provides an organized approach to guiding high school students, staff, and communities through the full process of rebuilding global schemas after a shooting occurs. It can be implemented alongside existing crisis-response models, resulting in an expansion of their utility. Its guided-growth strategies can also be leveraged to reshape school culture and encourage collective action in the surrounding community, maximizing the possibility of positive worldview development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
Source: Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research