20 years after Katrina, scientists study growth after trauma : Short Wave : NPR

You've probably heard of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. But what about its counterpart, post-traumatic growth?

The term was coined in the '90s to describe the positive psychological growth that researchers noticed in people who had been through traumatic or highly stressful life events. Psychologists and sociologists conducting long-range studies on survivors of Hurricane Katrina – which hit 20 years ago and remains one of the most devastating natural disasters to hit the U.S. – are continuing to learn more about it.

"In some ways, the stronger your PTSD, the stronger the traumas that you experience, the more growth you report," says Mary Waters , a sociologist at Harvard University who studied a group of Katrina survivors before and after the storm. "So it's definitely tied