Posttraumatic Growth Following WWII: Polish people who were child refugees in New Zealand tell their story
PDF

Keywords

Posttraumatic growth
narrative analysis
resilience
refugees
migration
Poland
New Zealand
personal transformation
Second World War
gerotranscendence
war trauma
Siberia
labour camp

How to Cite

Chalupa, A. A., Jung, H.-J., & Rousseau, C. (2020). Posttraumatic Growth Following WWII: Polish people who were child refugees in New Zealand tell their story. Bibliotekarz Podlaski, 47(2), 9–36. https://doi.org/10.36770/bp.468

Abstract

Posttraumatic growth (PTG) denotes positive changes that arise due to one’s struggle with traumatic experiences. Despite growing interest in this field since the 1980s, PTG among individuals who have experienced trauma in childhood has been relatively understudied, and the process by which it occurs requires further examination. The narratives of 51 elderly Polish people who narrated their WWII experiences, deportation to Soviet labour camps, and migration to New Zealand as refugee children were analyzed by thematic content analysis. PTG was identified using the 5 factors of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: Relating to Others, New Possibilities, Personal Strength, Spiritual Change, and Appreciation of Life. The most commonly mentioned PTG dimension overall and among women was Changes in Interpersonal Relationships, a dimension that reflects a change that includes feeling closer to others, improvements in getting along with others, and a better understanding of others. Men reported instances of Changes in Perception of Self more frequently than women, though further analysis would be required to confirm significant gender differences. These results reveal that the experience of childhood trauma and migration may be affected by a country’s welcome practices towards refugees, and that these experiences can influence personal transformations that occur across the lifespan. 

https://doi.org/10.36770/bp.468
PDF

References

Ager, A., Stark, L., Akesson, B., & Boothby, N. (2010). Defining Best Practice in Care and Protection of Children in Crisis‐Affected Settings: A Delphi Study. Child Development, 81(4), 1271-1286.

Aldwin, C., & Levenson, M. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: A developmental perspective, Psychological Inquiry, 15, 19-22.

Antonovsky, A. (1979). Health, Stress, and Coping, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Antosiewicz, M., & Kubalska-Sulkiewicz, K. (2004). Polska Szkoła Na Tułaczych Szlakach; Polish Schooling in War-time Exile, Warsaw FAFT.

Calhoun, L. G., Cann, A., & Tedeschi, R. G. (2010). The posttraumatic growth model: Sociocultural considerations, In T. Weiss & R. Berger (Eds.), Posttraumatic Growth and Culturally Competent Practice: Lessons Learned from around the Globe (pp. 1-14). John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Calhoun, L. G., & Tedeschi, R. G. (1998). Posttraumatic growth: Future directions. In R. G. Tedeschi, C. L. Park, & L. G. Calhoun (Eds.), Posttraumatic growth: Positive changes in the aftermath of crisis (pp. 215-238). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Calhoun, L. G. & Tedeschi, R. G. (1999). Facilitating Posttraumatic Growth: A Clinician’s Guide, London: Erlbaum.

Cryder, C. H., Kilmer, R. P., Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (2006). An exploratory study of posttraumatic growth in children following a natural disaster, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 76(1), 65-69.

Davies, N. (2015). Trail of Hope: The Anders Army, an Odyssey Across Three Continents. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.

Ellis, B. H., MacDonald, H. Z., Lincoln, A. K., & Cabral, H. J. (2008). Mental health of Somali adolescent refugees: The role of trauma, stress, and perceived discrimination. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 76(2), 184.

Fazel, M., Reed, R. V., Panter-Brick, C., & Stein, A. (2012). Mental health of displaced and refugee children resettled in high-income countries: Risk and protective factors. Lancet, 379, 266-82.

Frankl, V. E. (1984). Man’s Search for Meaning (revised and updated). New York: Square Press/Pocket Books.

Giberovitch, M. (2014). Recovering from Genocidal Trauma: An Information and Practice Guide for Working with Holocaust Survivors. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Jolluck, K. (2002). Exile and Identity: Polish Women in the Soviet Union during World War II. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press.

Kovacev, L., & Shute, R. (2004). Acculturation and social support in relation to psychosocial adjustment of adolescent refugees resettled in Australia. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 28(3), 259-267.

Krolikowski, L. (2001). Stolen Childhood: A Saga of Polish War Children. Buffalo: Author’s Choice Press.

Kurtz, M. E., Wyatt, G., & Kurtz, J. C. (1995). Psychological and sexual well‐being, philosophical/spiritual views, and health habits of long‐term cancer survivors. Health Care for Women International, 16(3), 253-262.

Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1987). Transactional theory and research on emotions and coping. European Journal of Personality, 1(3), 141-169.

Liebkind, K. (1996). Acculturation and stress Vietnamese refugees in Finland. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 27(2), 161-180.

Manterys, S. & Zawada, S. (Eds.). (2004). New Zealand’s First Refugees: Pahiatua’s Polish Children. Wellington: Polish Children’s Reunion Committee.

Masten, A. S., Best, K. M., & Garmezy, N. (1990). Resilience and development: Contributions from the study of children who overcome adversity. Development and Psychopathology, 2(4), 425-444.

Peddle, N. (2007). Assessing trauma impact, recovery, and resiliency in refugees of war. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 14(1-2), 185-204.

Pynoos, R. S., Steinberg, A. M., & Piacentini, J. C. (1999). A developmental psychopathology model of childhood traumatic stress and intersection with anxiety disorders. Biological Psychiatry, 46(11), 1542-1554.

Robinson, S., Rapaport-Bar-Sever, M., & Rapaport, J. (1994). The present state of people who survived the Holocaust as children. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 89(4), 242-245.

Sigal, J. J., & Weinfeld, M. (2001). Do children cope better than adults with potentially traumatic stress? A 40-year follow-up of Holocaust survivors. Psychiatry, 64(1), 69-80.

Suedfeld, P., Soriano, E., McMurtry, D. L., Paterson, H., Weiszbeck, T. L., & Krell, R. (2005). Erikson’s “components of a healthy personality” among Holocaust survivors immediately and 40 years after the war. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 60(3), 229-248.

Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (1996). The posttraumatic growth inventory: Masuring the positive legacy of trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 9(3), 455- 471.

Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L G. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual foundations and empirical evidence. Psychological Inquiry, 15(1), 1-18.

Tornstam, L. (2005). Gerotranscendence: A Developmental Theory of Positive Aging. Springer Publishing Company.

Weiss, T., & Berger, R. (2010). Posttraumatic growth around the globe: Research findings and practice implications, In T. Weiss & R. Berger (Eds.), Posttraumatic Growth and Culturally Competent Practice: Lessons Learned from around the Globe (pp. 189-195). John Wiley & Sons.

Weiss, T. (2014). Personal transformation: Posttraumatic growth and gerotranscendence. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 54(2), 203-226.

Articles published in the “gold open access” mode on the basis of a non-exclusive license agreement between the publisher and the author. Permitted use:

- the publication may be read and stored on any device,

- the publication may be cited (with obligatory reference to the author, the title of the text, as well as the full title, bibliographic address of the issue and page of the journal)

The editorial team of “Bibliotekarz Podlaski” implements an open access policy by publishing materials in the form of the so-called Gold Open Access. From volume 42 (issue 1/2019), the journal is available under the Creative Commons license (Attribution – ShareAlike: CC BY-SA).

The key declarations of the Open Access and Open Science movement, which we fully support, are available on the CEON Open Science website.

COPYRIGHT:

The editorial team of “Bibliotekarz Podlaski” implements an open access policy by publishing materials in the form of the so-called Gold Open Access. The journal is available under the Creative Commons license – Attribution – ShareAlike 4.0: International: CC BY-SA 4.0).

The key declarations of the Open Access and Open Science movement, which we fully support, are available on the CEON Open Science website.
 

“Bibliotekarz Podlaski” allows its readers to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search and link to the full content of articles. We enable full, immediate, unlimited (both in a territorial, temporal and technical sense) open access to all published content, in accordance with the principle that freely available research increases and accelerates the global development of science and the exchange of knowledge.

The editorial team of “Bibliotekarz Podlaski” encourages authors to place articles published in the journal in open repositories (after the review or the final version of the publisher), provided that a link to the journal’s website is provided.

The journal does not charge the authors any fees for accepting and publishing their texts.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.