the psychologist november 2012

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november 2012vol 25 no 11

What doesn’t kill us…Stephen Joseph on the silverlining of post-traumatic growth,and Ciarán O’Keeffe looks back onthe ‘enabling trauma’ of the BBC’sGhostwatch, 20 years on

rejection and the adolescent brain 820the origins of human communication 824‘running’ an introductory module 828interview: taking control of your space 830

£5 or free to members of The British Psychological Society

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Incorporating Psychologist Appointments

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Associate Editors Articles Michael Burnett, Paul Curran, HarrietGross, Marc Jones, Rebecca Knibb, Charlie Lewis,Wendy Morgan, Paul Redford, Mark Wetherell,Monica Whitty, Jill WilkinsonConferences Alana JamesHistory of Psychology Nathalie ChernoffInterviews Gail Kinman, Mark SergeantMedia Lucy MaddoxViewpoints Catherine LovedayInternational panelVaughan Bell, Uta Frith, Alex Haslam, Elizabeth Loftus

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Twenty years ago, myself andseveral fellow undergraduates werecrammed in my room at Sorby Hall,University of Sheffield, to watch theBBC’s Halloween special,Ghostwatch. The set up was fairlyambiguous and many, including acouple of my more gullible friends,believed the supernatural eventsdepicted were unfolding for real. Infact, Ghostwatch earned the dubioushonour of being the first televisionprogramme to be cited in the BritishMedical Journal as having causedpost-traumatic stress disorder inchildren. This month (see p.856),Ciarán O’Keeffe looks back at itslegacy, talking to Ghostwatch creatorStephen Volk about the changingnature of what scares us, and the‘enabling’ nature of trauma.

The ‘silver lining’ of post-traumatic growth is also the focusfor Stephen Joseph’s article (p.816),where he concludes that ‘survivorshave much to teach those of us whohaven’t experienced such traumasabout how to live’.

Also of note this month is theinterview with Craig Knight (p.830),accompanied by our first-ever fullaudio at www.thepsychologist.org.ukif you prefer to listen!

Dr Jon Sutton

THE ISSUE

Don’t leave me out!Catherine Sebastian on her DoctoralAward winning research on rejectionand the adolescent brain

The origins of human communicationThomas C. Scott-Phillips on his DoctoralAward winning research on how wesignal signalhood

‘Running’ an introductory moduleOrla T. Muldoon and Aisling T. O’Donnellon a novel idea for your classroom

Taking control of your spaceJon Sutton meets Craig Knight to talkabout identity and the design of ourenvironments

letters 794engaging the public in psychology; on the road again; a moral abyss; and more

media 812

820

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830

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coverage of the Society’s Developmental Section conference, with Sinéad Rhodes;and Jon Sutton on the rise of ‘neurobollocks’

society 838President’s column; Book Award

848

pull-out

816

830

working in residential care, with Cian Aherne and Noelle Fitzgerald; we talk toJon White about working in public relations; plus the latest vacancies

looking back 856

new voices 854

Ciarán O’Keeffe marks the 20th anniversary of a notorious BBC Halloweenspecial with a look at its legacy and links with psychology

computer-generated exhibits on trial, with Gareth Norris, in the latest of ourseries for budding writers (see www.bps.org.uk/newvoices)

one on one 860…with Jane Ogden

news and digest 802in pursuit of awe; abuse definition; liberal bias; Kahneman warning; fanaticismdebate; nuggets from the Society’s free Research Digest service; and more

book reviews 834failure; memoirs of an addicted brain;chasing lost times; life after trauma; and more

careers and psychologist appointments

What doesn’t kill us… Stephen Joseph discusses thepsychology of post-traumaticgrowth

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Thousands of psychology papersare based on data derived fromquestionnaires that were filledout anonymously. That’sbecause most psychologistshave reasoned that the best wayto get people to be honest abouttheir practice of undesirablebehaviours is to promise themanonymity. But in a newanalysis, Yphtach Lelkes and his colleagues point out thatanonymity comes with a price.Participants will feel lessaccountable and may be lessmotivated to answer questionsaccurately.

To test this, Lelkes’ teamdevised a cunning methodologyin which dozens of undergradsconducted internet research forwhat they thought was a studyinto the way that people searchfor information on the web.

After each student hadspent 45 minutes researchingthe mountain pygmy-possum, a researcher made a show ofdeleting the student’s searchhistory before their eyes,ostensibly to prevent the nextparticipant from accessing thebrowser’s archives. In fact, aspyware programme wasinstalled on the computer andkept track of all the sites visited.After the research session, eachstudent answered aquestionnaire about their use ofthe internet in general and theirexperience of the internetresearch task, including whichsites they’d searched. Crucially,half the students wereinstructed to fill out their nameand other personal details atthe top of the questionnaire; the

The price of anonymityIn the November issue of theJournal of Experimental SocialPsychology

It’s well established that parents frequently overestimate their children’s intelligence and the amount of exercise they get. Now a team led by Kristin Lagattuta has uncovered evidencesuggesting that parents have an unrealistically rosy impression of their kiddies’ emotional livestoo. It’s a finding with important implications for clinicians and child researchers who often rely on parental reports of young children’s psychological well-being.

It’s previously been assumed that children younger than seven will struggle to answerquestions about their emotions. Undeterred, Lagattuta and her colleagues simplified the languageused in a popular measure of older children’s anxiety and they developed a pictorial scoringsystem that involved the children pointing to rectangles filled with different amounts of colour.Time was taken to ensure the child participants understood how to use the scale.

An initial study with 228 psychologically healthy children aged 4 to 11 from relatively affluentbackgrounds found that the children’s answers to oral questions about their experience of worry(including general anxiety, panic, social phobia and separation anxiety) failed to correlate withtheir parents’ (usually the mother’s) written responses to questions about the children’s

experience of worry. Specifically, the parentstended to underestimate how much anxiety theirchildren experienced.

A second study was similar, but this time theresearchers ensured the parents and childrenanswered items that were worded in exactly thesame way; the parents were reassured that it wasnormal for children to experience some negativeemotion; and the parents were able to place theircompleted questionnaires in envelopes forconfidentiality. Still the children’s answers abouttheir own emotions failed to correlate with parents’answers, with the parents again underestimatingthe amount of worry experienced by their children.

A revealing detail in this study was that parentsalso answered questions about their own emotions.Their scores for their own emotions correlatedwith the answers they gave for their children’sexperiences. ‘These data suggest that even parentsfrom a low-risk, non-clinical sample may havedifficulty separating their emotional perspectivefrom that of their child,’ the researchers said.

Finally, 90 more children aged 5 to 10answered questions about their optimism, whilsttheir parents also answered questions about theirown and their children's optimism. Again, parents’

and children’s verdicts on the children’s emotions failed to correlate, with the parents nowoverestimating their children’s experience of optimism. And once more, parents’ own optimismwas related to how they interpreted their children’s optimism.

Lagattuta and her colleagues admitted that it’s theoretically possible that the children were the ones showing a distorted view of their own emotions, and it’s the parents who were paintingthe true picture. However, they think this is highly unlikely. For starters it’s revealing that parentsunderestimated their children’s negative emotion and yet over-estimated their positive emotion,which argues against the idea that the children were simply answering more conservatively, orgiving systematically extreme answers in one direction. Moreover, the new findings fit with thewider literature showing how parents tend to have an unrealistically rosy impression of theirchildren’s well-being. An obvious study limitation is the focus on middle-class US participants, so there is of course a need to replicate with people from other backgrounds and cultures.

‘From the standpoint of research and clinical practice, this mismatch between parent and childperceptions raises a red flag,’ the researchers concluded. ‘Internally consistent self-report datacan be acquired from young children regarding their emotional experiences. Obtaining reportsfrom multiple informants – including the child – needs to be the standard.’

In the October issue of the Journal ofExperimental Child Psychology

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digest

effort was turned into an OCBscore: individuals in the self-management condition scoredhigher, making efforts over andabove what was demanded.

Study 2 surveyed individualsacross a range of organisations,to offer a field replication andextend the investigation tounderstand how surveillanceinteracts with self-management. The surveyintroduced a further outcomemeasure, counter-productivework behaviours (CWBs):choosing to undermine theorganisation in some way, suchas deliberately dragging yourheels on a task. The data fromthe 423 respondents suggestedthat surveillance in itselfencouraged CWBs, but this wasdriven by its interaction withself-management. Whenindividuals believed they weresupposed to be self managing –'It is my responsibility, and notmy organisation’s, to monitormy own workplace behavior and job performance' – but the

reality was that they were beingmonitored, their CWBs weremarkedly higher. Jensen andRaver predicted this finding,seeing it as an example ofpsychological reactance: whenfreedom you believe you deserveis seemingly taken away, youwill try to recover autonomythrough other means, even atthe expense of the organisation.The survey also revealed that thenormally observed relationshipbetween self-management andhigher trust in the organisationwas severed once surveillanceentered the mix.

This research suggests thatif you don’t want to evoke pettyrevenges from employees, it’svital that cultures of self-management aren’t temperedby close surveillance. Byresisting that temptation, you’relikely to yield benefits.

I This item is taken from theSociety’s Occupational Digest,written by Dr Alex Fradera. Seewww.occdigest.org.uk.

others were told to leave itblank to ensure anonymity.

Students who answered the questionnaire anonymouslyadmitted to more embarrassinginternet behaviours, such aslooking at porn, but with regardto their searches during theresearch task they answeredwith less accuracy. There wasalso evidence of a lack of varietyin the answers to many of theanonymous students’ lateranswers, consistent with theidea that they were putting lessthought into the questionnairesas they grew tired.

Two follow-up studiesinvolved dozens more studentshaving the opportunity to eatsweets while they completedquestionnaires. A question atthe end asked them to reporthow much they’d eaten andonce again, students whoanswered anonymously wereless accurate about how muchthey’d indulged. This was thecase whether anonymity waspromised before or after theopportunity to eat the snacks.

Lelkes and his colleagueswere cautious about how farthese findings can begeneralised. For example, thesame problems might not applywhen people are interviewedface-to-face but promisedconfidentiality. However, theywarned researchers againstassuming that promisingparticipants anonymity meansthat they will provide better-quality answers. ‘Particularlyamong college students whooften complete questionnairesto fulfil course requirements,such a guarantee may serve tosanction half-hearted surveycompletion rather than freeingstudents up to respond withgreater honesty.’

Good things can come whenmembers of an organisation areallowed to manage their ownwork, such as greater jobsatisfaction and betteradherence to organisationalpolicy. But this involvesmanagement doing anuncomfortable thing:surrendering control. Often,organisations compensate bycoupling self-management withsurveillance techniques of theclose-up or electronic variety.New research suggests thatself-management has evenmore benefits, but that mashingit with surveillance can end upbringing out the worst in people.

Jaclyn Jenson and JanaRaver conducted two studies,the first looking to establishwhether people given freedomwould use it to perform morepositive, discretionary acts, so-called organisational citizenshipbehaviours or OCBs. Bymocking up a fictionalconsultancy, the researcherscould recruit 211 participants (in their own minds, employeeson a one-off, very short-termcontract) to show up, reviewinvestment advice, and write it up in the form of a report.Before starting their short-termshift, they were given Terms ofService both printed and readaloud; these either emphasisedself-management or other-management, a promiserealised by the shift supervisorsitting passively or activelypacing the room. The workinvolved discretionary elements,such as how long the report wasand whether to complete or skipsome optional questionnaires.The amount of discretional

When self-management and surveillance collideIn the June issue of Group and Organization Management

The material in this section is taken from theSociety’s Research Digest blog atwww.researchdigest.org.uk/blog, and is writtenby its editor Dr Christian Jarrett. Visit the blogfor full coverage including references and links,additional current reports, an archive, commentand more.

Subscribe by RSS or e-mail at www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog

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The Media page aims to promote anddiscuss psychology in the media. If youwould like to contribute, please contact theAssociate Editor for the ‘Media’ page, Lucy

Maddox, on [email protected]. Toshare examples of psychology in the newsand media, connect with The Psychologiston Twitter at www.twitter.com/psychmag.

children’s texting on their grammardevelopment. As she noted, theseconcerns have not up to now beenexamined in an empirical way. Thislongitudinal study found no evidence of a link between poor grammar whentexting and the actual grammaticalunderstanding of children in the UK. The study attracted a broad range ofmedia interest including an article in the Telegraph and the Irish Independent, in addition to numerous health websites.

Examining protective factors Professor David Farrington and Dr MariaTtofi were the lead researchers on a studythat examined protective factors against

criminality. Thislongitudinal studyfollowed 411 Londonboys from the age of 8 until they were 48years of age.Information wascollected via face-to-face interviews withthe boys and theirparents (ages 8–14),peer ratings (ages 8and 10) and teacherratings (ages 8–14).Ninety-three per centof the participants wereinterviewed again at 48years of age. Dr Ttofisaid: ‘We also checkedif they had received

any criminal and violentconvictions from the age of

15–50 inclusive’. The results showed that 18 per cent

of those identified as bullies at age 14 hadbeen convicted for a violent offence and39 per cent for a criminal offence. DrTtofi explained: ‘An interesting aspect ofthe findings was the contrast betweenbullies with high and low IQs. Those witha high IQ were less likely to be convictedof a violent criminal offence (5 per cent)compared to those with low IQs (26 percent). We also found that those who camefrom a small family, with a good incomeand attending a good school, were muchless likely to go on to commit crimes.Another interesting finding was thatfactors that appeared to prevent theseboys going on to violent offending tendedto be related to the individual (e.g. IQ)whilst factors that appeared to preventcriminal offending tended to be familyand social factors. The main implicationof this is that different types ofinterventions may be differentiallyeffective in interrupting the path fromschool bullying to later crime or violence.’

The British Psychological Society’sDevelopmental Section conference

recently took place in my place of work,the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow,and I was the organiser. One of theinteresting and rewarding aspects of therole was seeing the significant mediainterest received by a number of thepresentations. To our surprise this interestwent beyond the UK; there was a lot ofcoverage of press-released abstracts acrossEurope, especially Germany for someunknown reason! In total five abstractswere press released from the conferenceabstracts; three of these, in particular,

seemed to hit the media sweet spot.Importantly, each of these studies andassociated press coverage also highlightthe importance of presenting research tothe public in a number of different ways.

The first study, which examined theimpact of textingon children’sgrammar, highlightsthe importance ofaddressing popularunderresearchedconcerns withscientific data. The interest in thesecond study,which examinedthe factors that help prevent thedevelopment ofcriminality, showsthat the mediaappreciate researchthat picks apartestablishedrelationshipsaccepted by thepopulation at large.The third study, which examined humourin infants, shows how an area that mayseem trivial to research can offerimportant insights into psychologicaldevelopment.

Addressing popular concerns Professor Clare Wood, from theUniversity of Coventry, was the leadresearcher on a longitudinal study thatexamined the impact of texting onchildren’s grammar. The study assessed 83primary schoolchildren and 78 secondaryschoolchildren on two occasions, a yearapart, to see if texting affected grammarover time. Professor Wood highlightedthe concern commonly expressed in themedia and beyond about the influence of

Developing interest Sinéad Rhodes on recent responses to a Society Section conference

MEDIA PRIME CUTSThere’s a phobia about holes – psychologistsare looking into it http://t.co/MHRfGddhReparative therapies ‘relegated to thedustbin of quackery’ http://t.co/UYH7yRTQGrowing up in Broadmoorhttp://t.co/7NUqnt6FThe drugs don’t work: a ‘secretive andshameful situation’ http://t.co/PODvSru1Let’s use evolution to turn us green, sayspsychologist http://t.co/mo00TrWT ‘There were no ethical approval boards atthat time’ – the psychology of driving blindon a public highway http://t.co/JJwzvTx5 The political psychology of self-immolationhttp://t.co/tSD4tACP Replication can’t cure a flawed methodologyhttp://t.co/HfLuJZOY Joke boffins analyse tragedy humourhttp://t.co/u0bQ8txr Would you discriminate against apsychologist who displayed clearconservative views in a paper or grantproposal? http://t.co/INAgyjev Revisiting Robbers Cave http://t.co/olGgdau2



media

‘An intellectual pestilence isupon us.’ So began StevenPoole’s recent piece for NewStatesman (seetinyurl.com/8jkndqc). Theform of this plague?‘Neuroscientism – akaneurobabble, neurobollocks,or neurotrash’. According to Poole, ‘the dazzling realachievements of brainresearch are routinelypressed into service forquestions they were neverdesigned to answer’.

Poole bemoans theproliferation of ‘neural’explanations that have‘become a gold standard ofnon-fiction exegesis, addingits own brand of computer-assisted lab-coat bling to a whole new industry ofintellectual quackery thataffects to elucidate evencomplex socioculturalphenomena’. Simply add theprefix ‘neuro’ to whateveryou are talking about. Hey presto, ‘neuromagic’,‘neuroeconomics’,‘neurogastronomy’,‘neuropolitics’…

Taking aim at a widerange of psychologists andnon-psychologists, withvarying degrees of ire, Poolequestions whether suchbooks are just self-help innew clothes. Interestingly, he suggests that theirrecommendations boil downto a kind of neo-Stoicism,drizzled with brain-juice. ‘In a self-congratulatoryegalitarian age, you can nolonger tell people to improvethemselves morally. So self-improvement is couched ininstrumental, scientificallyapproved terms.’

Poole talks to someexperts to add weight to hisargument. Professor PaulFletcher, from the Universityof Cambridge, says that hegets ‘exasperated’ by muchpopular coverage ofneuroimaging research,which assumes that ‘activityin a brain region is the

answer to some profoundquestion about psychologicalprocesses. This is very hardto justify given how little wecurrently know about whatdifferent regions of the brainactually do.’ Too often, hetells Poole, a popular writerwill ‘opt for some sort ofneuro-flapdoodle in which a highly simplistic andquestionable point isaccompanied by a suitablygrand-sounding neural termand thus acquires aweightiness that it reallydoesn’t deserve’.

As Poole acknowledgesin passing, this idea is notnew. The idea that aneurological explanationcould exhaust the meaningof experience was alreadybeing mocked as ‘medicalmaterialism’ by thepsychologist William Jamesa century ago. What Pooledoesn’t acknowledge is thatseveral psychologists andbloggers have railed against‘neurobollocks’ for years, forexample ‘Sandra K’ at theNeurofuture blog(tinyurl.com/95q6f9v), TomStafford at Mind Hacks(tinyurl.com/9owuuau) andmore. ‘The Neurocritic’picked up on this (seetinyurl.com/9ohu2xj),concluding: ‘There’s alwaysroom for snarky newneurocriticism, Mr. Poole,but please realise thatsimplified pop visions ofoxytocin and dopamine andmirror neurons have beenunder siege for years.’

For me, though, themost important lesson ofPoole’s piece was perhapsunintended. Here’s hisrecipe for writing a hitpopular brain book:

‘You start each chapterwith a pat anecdoteabout an individual’sprofessional orentrepreneurial success,or narrow escape fromperil. You then mine theneuroscientific research

for an apparentlyrelevant specific resultand narrate theexperiment, perhapsinterviewing the scientistinvolved and describinghis hair. You then climaxin a fit of prematureextrapolation, inferringfrom the scientific resulta calming bromide aboutwhat it is to functionoptimally as a modernhuman being. Voilà, alaboratory-sanctionedBig Idea in digestiblenarrative form. This iswhat the psychologistChristopher Chabris hasnamed the ‘story-study-lesson’ model, perhapsfirst perfected by oneMalcolm Gladwell.’

Now I’m not suggesting that all dissemination ofpsychology should follow the‘story-study-lesson’ modelslavishly, but I would say thatwe’d all be better educated if more of it did! As Poole’spiece descended into aseries of pops at easytargets such as JonahLehrer and NLP, I couldn’thelp feeling that we were indanger of throwing the babyout with the bathwater. Yes,we need to be wary of theseductive allure ofneuroscience, aspsychologists themselveshave warned for severalyears (for example, seetinyurl.com/8od7gxy). But perhaps we all havesomething to learn from thesuccess of the ‘story-study-lesson’ model. And as forconcerns over thecolonisation of the entirehuman map by brainresearch: who decides whatquestions psychology andneuroscience were ‘designedto answer’? Surely thebeauty of our discipline isthat pretty much anythingand everything is up forgrabs, and there are alwaysnew stories to be spun. JS


NEVER MIND THE NEUROBOLLOCKSThis study is an important example

of the need for researchers to get theirresearch ‘out there’ and engage the publicwith their findings. Studies like thisdemonstrate that simple acceptedrelationships – such as that between earlybullying and later criminality – are morecomplex, with the potential to identifyways in which pathways to criminalitycan be changed. The study receivedsignificant press interest including afeature on sciencedaily.com.

A potentially ‘frivolous topic’ A study by US researchers Gina Mireault(Johnson State College) and JohnSparrow (University of New Hampshire),which demonstrated that babies learnhumour from their parents, also attractedsignificant media interest. As theresearchers point out, at first glance,humour might seem like a frivolous topicto examine. The findings show, however,that the study of this behaviour providesinsights into more complex aspects ofsocial development.

This study involved recording thereactions of 30 infants while they watchednormal and absurd events. Infantswatched their parent react naturally totwo ordinary events, looking at a picturebook and being shown a small red foamball. The events were then changed sothat they became absurd: The openpicture book was bounced on theresearcher’s head while she said, ‘Zoop,Zoop’ and the foam ball was placed onthe researcher’s nose while she poked itand said, ‘Beep, Beep’. Parents wereinstructed to either stare at the researcherwith an expressionless face or to pointand laugh at her.

The study found that, although six-month-old infants stared longer at theabsurd events, showing that these wereunfamiliar to them, their reactions to theevents did not depend on their parents’reactions. However, infants watched theirparents closely when they laughed. Thecombination of paying close attention toabsurd events and to others laughing atthose events might explain how infantsdevelop the sophisticated sense ofhumour they possess at 12 months, theresearchers said. According to the leadresearcher, Gina Mireault, the studyshows that six-month-old infants payattention to ‘unsolicited emotional advice’from parents during ambiguous situationsthat might be funny. This study showsthat aspects of behaviour such as humourcan provide a lens through which socialbehaviours are examined, and that mediaoutlets may respond to this route in to a complex topic.



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Abraido-Lanza, A.F. Guier, C. & Colon,R.M. (1998). Psychological thrivingamong Latinas with chronic illness.Journal of Social Issues, 54, 405–424.

American Psychiatric Association (1980).Diagnostic and statistical manual ofmental disorders (3rd edn).Washington, DC: Author.

Butler, L.D., Blasey, C.M., Garlan, R.W. etal. (2005). Posttraumatic growthfollowing the terrorist attacks of

September 11th, 2001: Cognitive,coping and trauma symptompredictors in an internet conveniencesample. Traumatology, 11, 247–267.

Calhoun, L.G. &Tedeschi, R.G. (Eds.)(2006). Handbook of posttraumaticgrowth: Research and practice.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Dekel, S., Ein-Dor, T. & Solomon, Z.(2012). Posttraumatic growth andposttraumatic distress: A

longitudinal study. PsychologicalTrauma: Theory, Research, Practiceand Policy, 4, 94–101.

Gunty, A.L., Frazier, P.A., Tennen, H. et al.(2011).Moderators of the relationbetween perceived and actualposttraumatic growth. PsychologicalTrauma: Theory, Research, Practice,and Policy, 3, 61–66.

Hefferon, K., Grealy, M. & Mutrie, N.(2008). The perceived influence of an

exercise class intervention on theprocess and outcomes ofposttraumatic growth. Journal ofMental Health and Physical Activity, 1,32–39.

Helgeson, V.S., Reynolds., K.A. & Tomich,P.L. (2006). A meta-analytic review ofbenefit finding and growth. Journal ofConsulting and Clinical Psychology, 74,797–816.

Joseph, S. (2012). What doesn’t kill us:

The field of psychological trauma ischanging as researchers recognisethat adversity does not always leadto a damaged and dysfunctionallife. Post-traumatic growth refersto how adversity can be aspringboard to higher levels ofpsychological well-being. Thisarticle provides an overview oftheory, practice and research. To what extent is post-traumaticstress the engine of post-traumaticgrowth? How can cliniciansmeasure change? What can helppeople to thrive followingadversity?

Suffering is universal: you attempt tosubvert it so that it does not have adestructive, negative effect. You turn itaround so that it becomes a creative,positive force.Terry Waite, who survived four years as

a hostage in solitary confinement(quoted in Joseph, 2012, p.143)

Scientific interest in positive changesfollowing adversity was sparkedwhen a handful of studies appeared

in the late 1980s and early 1990s,reporting positive changes in, forexample, rape survivors, male cardiacpatients, bereaved adults, survivors ofshipping disaster, and combat veterans.Then, the topic of post-traumatic stressdisorder (PTSD) was relatively new(following its introduction in 1980 by American Psychiatric Association), and

was attracting much research interest. The relatively few observations of positivechange were overshadowed by researchon the ways in which trauma could lead to the destruction and devastation of a person’s life.

But interest in how trauma can be a catalyst for positive changes began totake hold during the mid 1990s when theconcept of post-traumatic growth (Tedeschi& Calhoun, 1996) was introduced. Itproved to be popular and became thedescriptor for a field of inquiry attractinginternational attention from researchers,scholars and practitioners (see, Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2006; Joseph & Linley, 2008a;Weiss & Berger, 2010). Over the pastdecade it has developed into one of theflagship topics for positive psychology

(Seligman, 2011). This article aims toprovide a state-of-the-art review of thepsychology of post-traumatic growth.

What is post-traumatic growth?After experiencing a traumatic event,people often report three ways in whichtheir psychological functioning increases: 1. Relationships are enhanced in some

way. For example, people describe thatthey come to value their friends andfamily more, feel an increased sense ofcompassion for others and a longingfor more intimate relationships.

2. People change their views ofthemselves. For example, developingin wisdom, personal strength andgratitude, perhaps coupled with agreater acceptance of theirvulnerabilities and limitations.

3. People describe changes in their lifephilosophy. For example, finding afresh appreciation for each new dayand re-evaluating their understandingof what really matters in life, becomingless materialistic and more able to livein the present.

Several self-report psychometric toolswere published during the 1990s to assesspositive changes following trauma, thefirst such measure was the Changes inOutlook Questionnaire (Joseph et al.,1993), followed by the PosttraumaticGrowth Inventory (Tedeschi & Calhoun,1996); the Stress Related Growth Scale(Park et al., 1996), the Perceived BenefitScale (McMillen & Fisher, 1998), and theThriving Scale (Abraido-Lanza et al.,1998). Each of these measures asksrespondents to think about how theyhave changed since an event and to ratethe extent of their change on a series ofitems.

Using such measures of perceivedgrowth, and open-ended interviews, a largenumber of studies have shown that growthis common for survivors of varioustraumatic events, including transportationaccidents (shipping disasters, planecrashes, car accidents), natural disasters

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Joseph, S. (2012). What doesn’t kill us: The new psychology of posttraumaticgrowth. London: Piatkus Little Brown.

Stephen Joseph’s blog at PsychologyToday:www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-doesnt-kill-us

Interviews with Stephen Joseph aboutpost-traumatic growth:http://whatdoesntkillus.com/?p=3

APA website: The road to resiliencewww.apa.org/helpcenter/road-resilience.aspx

Is post-traumatic growth a normal and natural process?What factors may impede post-traumatic growth?Do we have to experience trauma in order to grow psychologically?

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(hurricanes, earthquakes), interpersonalexperiences (combat, rape, sexual assault,child abuse), medical problems (cancer,heart attack, brain injury, spinal cordinjury, HIV/AIDS, leukaemia, rheumatoidarthritis, multiple sclerosis) and other lifeexperiences (relationship breakdown,parental divorce, bereavement,emigration). Typically 30–70 per cent of survivors will say that they haveexperienced positive changes of one form or another (Linley & Joseph, 2004).

Practitioners in health, clinical andcounselling psychology will encounterpatients daily whose lives have beenaffected by such events. Up to nowpractitioners may have drawn on theoriesof post-traumatic stress to help theirpatients. A pressing theoretical issuetherefore is the relation between post-traumatic stress and post-traumaticgrowth. How can these new ideas improvehow we work with patients?

Theory and practice of post-traumatic growthResearch is now untangling a seeminglyintricate dance between post-traumaticstress processes and post-traumaticgrowth. The most successful attempt todate is organismic valuing theory, whichexplains how post-traumatic growth arises asa result of post-traumaticstress. This is a person-centred theory that drawstogether informationprocessing and socialcognitive theories of post-traumatic stress withresearch on self-determination theory. Thetheory shows trauma leadsto a breakdown in self-structure, signalled by theexperiences of post-traumatic stress indicatingthe need to cognitivelyprocess the new trauma-related information.People are intrinsically

motivated towards processing the newtrauma-related information in ways thatmaximise their psychological well-being(Joseph & Linley, 2005, 2006).

Organismic valuing refers to howintrinsic motivation is experienced by theperson. One woman who was caught up ina fatal shooting in which her close friendwas killed, and who had suffered fromconsiderable post-traumatic stress forseveral years, said how she woke early onemorning after a night of restless sleep andgot up to look at a picture of her children:

In the silent wee hours of themorning, I sat staring at their pictureand began to sob. Through my sobs, I heard the real voice of wisdom I believe we all possess. It was myvoice, the voice that knows me best,but a voice that had become muted.Guess what. No one is coming tochange the situation. No one willrescue you. No one can. It’s up to you.Find your strength. I realised that aslong as I remained a victim, I toomade my family a victim. My anxietycould only teach them to be anxious. I was robbing them of happiness anda positive outlook on the world. I hadcome to the intersection ofintersections. I could choose to end my life or I could choose to live.

I needed to live for my family – andlater I understood most importantly,for myself. (quoted in Joseph, 2012,p.142)

Post-traumatic growth involves therebuilding of the shattered assumptiveworld. This can be illustrated through themetaphor of the shattered vase. Imaginethat one day you accidentally knock atreasured vase off its perch. It smashesinto tiny pieces. What do you do? Do youtry to put the vase back together as itwas? Do you collect the pieces and dropthem in the rubbish, as the vase is a totalloss? Or do you pick up the beautifulcoloured pieces and use them to makesomething new – such as a colourfulmosaic? When adversity strikes, peopleoften feel that at least some part of them –be it their views of the world, their senseof themselves, their relationships – hasbeen smashed. Those who try to put theirlives back together exactly as they wereremain fractured and vulnerable. Butthose who accept the breakage and buildthemselves anew become more resilientand open to new ways of living.

These changes do not necessarily meanthat the person will be entirely free of thememories of what has happened to them,the grief they experience or other forms ofdistress, but that they live their lives moremeaningfully in the light of whathappened.

The implication of organismic valuingtheory is that post-traumatic stress is thecatalyst for post-traumatic growth.Helgeson et al. (2006) conducted a meta-analytic review concluding that greaterpost-traumatic growth was related to moreintrusive and avoidant post-traumaticstress experiences. As intrusion andavoidance are generally seen as symptomsof PTSD at first glance this result wouldseem to suggest that post-traumaticgrowth is indicative of poor mental health,but consistent with organismic valuingtheory Helgeson et al. suggest is that theseconstructs reflect cognitive processing:

Experiencing intrusive thoughts abouta stressor may be a signal that people


post-traumatic growth

The new psychology of posttraumaticgrowth. London: Piatkus LittleBrown.

Joseph, S. & Linley, P.A. (2005). Positiveadjustment to threatening events: Anorganismic valuing theory of growththrough adversity. Review of GeneralPsychology, 262–280.

Joseph, S. & Linley, P.A. (2006). Growthfollowing adversity: Theoreticalperspectives and implications for

clinical practice. Clinical PsychologyReview, 26, 1041–1053.

Joseph, S. & Linley, P.A. (2008a).Psychological assessment of growthfollowing adversity: A review. In S.Joseph & P.A. Linley (Eds.) Trauma,recovery, and growth: Positivepsychological perspectives onposttraumatic stress. (pp.21–38).Hoboken, NJ: Wiley .

Joseph, S. & Linley, P.A (Eds.) (2008b).

Trauma, recovery, and growth. Positivepsychological perspectives onposttraumatic stress. Hoboken, NJ:Wiley.

Joseph, S., Maltby, J. Wood, A.M. et al.(2012). Psychological Well-Being –Post-Traumatic ChangesQuestionnaire (PWB–PTCQ):Reliability and validity. PsychologicalTrauma: Theory, Research, Practiceand Policy, 4(4), 420–428

Joseph, S., Williams, R. & Yule, W. (1993).Changes in outlook followingdisaster: The preliminarydevelopment of a measure to assesspositive and negative responses.Journal of Traumatic Stress, 6,271–279.

Kunst, M.J.J. (2010). Peritraumaticdistress, posttraumatic stressdisorder symptoms, andposttraumatic growth in victims of

Post-traumatic growth – people describe that theycome to value their friends and family more




are working through the implicationsof the stressor for their lives, andthese implications could lead togrowth. In fact, some might arguethat a period of contemplation andconsideration of the stressor isnecessary for growth to occur. (p.810)

It is in this sense that post-traumaticstress can be conceptualised as the engineof post-traumatic growth. This is also theconclusion of a recent study by Dekel andcolleagues (2012), who set out to shedlight on the interplay between PTSD andpost-traumatic growth. Using longitudinalself-report data from Israeli combatveterans who were studied over 17 years,with assessment at three time points, theresearchers found that greater PTSD in1991 predicted greater growth in 2003,and greater PTSD in 2003 predictedgreater growth in 2008.

However, it also seems that therelationship between post-traumaticgrowth and post-traumatic stress is afunction of the intensity of post-traumatic

stress. Butler et al.(2005), forexample, in theirstudy following theattacks ofSeptember 2001,found that greaterpost-traumaticstress wasassociated withgreater post-traumatic growth,but only up to apoint, above whichpost-traumaticgrowth declines.

Could there be a curvilinearrelationshipbetween post-traumatic stress andpost-traumaticgrowth? Low levelsof post-traumaticstress reactions indicate that the person hasbeen minimally affected, thus one would

expect minimal post-traumaticgrowth. A moderate level of post-traumatic stress is indicative thatthe individual’s assumptive worldhas in some way been challengedtriggering the intrusive andavoidant experiences, but theperson remains able to cope, thinkclearly, and engage sufficiently inthe necessary affective-cognitiveprocessing needed to work through.A high level of post-traumaticstress, however, where a diagnosisof PTSD might be considered, islikely to mean that the person’scoping ability is undermined andtheir ability to affectively-cognitively process and workthrough their experience isimpeded. The inverted U-shaperelationship between post-traumaticstress and post-traumatic growthhas been reported in several studies(e.g. Kunst, 2010).

Thus, through the aboveresearch and theory we are

developing a new understanding ofpsychological trauma that integrates post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growthwithin a single conceptual frameworkwhich can guide clinical practice. A newconstructive narrative framework that canguide practitioners is the THRIVE model(Joseph, 2012). THRIVE consists of sixsignposts (see box). Starting with ‘takingstock’, the therapist works with the clientto alleviate problems of post-traumaticstress sufficiently so as to enable them toengage in effortful cognitive processing.Then follows five further signposts inwhich the therapist can work alongside the client. Post-traumatic growth providespractitioners with a new set of tools intheir armoury for working withtraumatised patients.

New directionsEach of the measures mentioned above provides a particular operationaldefinition of the construct, and they tendto be only moderately inter-correlated.Unlike, for example, the construct ofpost-traumatic stress disorder, which has

violence. Journal of Traumatic Stress,23, 514–518.

Linley, P.A., Felus, A., Gillett, R. &Joseph, S. (2011). Emotionalexpression and growth followingadversity: Emotional expressionmediates subjective distress and ismoderated by emotional intelligence.Journal of Loss and Trauma, 16,387–401.

Linley, P.A. & Joseph, S. (2004). Positive

change processes following traumaand adversity: A review of theempirical literature. Journal ofTraumatic Stress, 17, 11–22.

McMillen, J.C. & Fisher, R.H. (1998). ThePerceived Benefits Scales:Measuring perceived positive lifechanges after negative events. SocialWork Research, 22, 173–187.

Park, C.L., Cohen, L.H. & Murch, R.L.(1996). Assessment and prediction of

stress-related growth. Journal ofPersonality, 64, 71–105.

Peterson, C. & Seligman, M.E.P. (2003).Character strengths before and afterSeptember 11th. PsychologicalScience, 14, 381–384.

Prati, G. & Pietrantoni, L. (2009).Optimism, social support, and copingstrategies as factors contributing toposttraumatic growth: A meta-analysis. Journal of Loss and Trauma,

14, 364–388.Seligman, M.E.P. (2011). Flourish. New

York: Free Press.Splevins, K.A., Cohen, K., Joseph, S. et

al. (2011). Vicarious posttraumaticgrowth among interpreters.Qualitative Health Research 20,1705–1716.

Tedeschi, R.G. & Calhoun, L.G. (1996).The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory:Measuring the positive legacy of

THRIVETaking stock (Making sure the client is safe and

helping them learn to manage their post-traumaticstress to tolerable levels, e.g. through exposure-related exercises).

Harvesting hope (Learning to be hopeful about thefuture, e.g. looking for inspirational stories ofpeople who have overcome similar obstacles).

Re-authoring (Storytelling, e.g. using expressivewriting techniques to find new perspectives).

Identifying change (Noticing post-traumatic growth,e.g. using the Psychological Well-Being Post-Traumatic Changes Questionnaire to track change).

Valuing change (Developing awareness of newpriorities, e.g. positive psychology gratitudeexercise).

Expressing change in action (Actively seeking to putpost-traumatic growth into the external world, e.g.making a plan of activity for following week thatinvolves doing concrete things).

Post-traumatic stress can be conceptualised as the engine of post-traumatic growth


there is a weakercorrelation, but for thosewho are less distressed thereis a moderate association(Gunty et al., 2011). It maybe that perceptions ofgrowth are at times illusoryand a way of coping withdistress (Zoellner &Maercker, 2006). Thereforeresearchers do need to bewary of always takingreports of growth at facevalue, particularly in theimmediate aftermath of acrisis when people are mostdistressed.

However, while we may question people’sperceptions of growth, thereis no question that actualpost-traumatic growthoccurs, as this has beendemonstrated in before-and-after studies (e.g. Peterson& Seligman, 2003). What is now needed are moreprospective longitudinalstudies able to documentthe development of growthover time, how both actualand perceived growth co-vary over time and howthey relate to othervariables – both as outcomevariables in order tounderstand the development of growth,and as predictor variables in order tounderstand the consequences of growth.Research shows that greater post-traumaticgrowth is associated with: personalityfactors, such as emotional stability,extraversion, openness to experience,optimism and self-esteem; ways of coping,such as acceptance, positive reframing,seeking social support, turning to religion,problem solving; and social support factors(Prati & Pietrantoni, 2009). But now moresophisticated theoretically informeddesigns are also called for in which we can begin to understand the factors thatmediate and moderate post-traumatic stressand thus lead to post-traumatic growth.

As an example of the directions thatsocial and personality researchers maypursue, in one recent study it was foundthat emotion-focused coping mediated theassociation between subjective ratings ofdistress and post-traumatic growth and that emotional intelligence moderated the association between emotion-focusedcoping and post-traumatic growth (Linleyet al., 2011). While there is much that canbe learned from quantitative research, thereis also a need for qualitative research toexplore new contexts (e.g. Splevins et al.,

2011) and interventions (e.g. Hefferon et al., 2008).

ConclusionThe idea of post-traumatic growth hasbecome one of the most exciting topics in modern psychology because it changeshow we think about psychologicaltrauma. Psychologists are beginning torealise that post-traumatic stress followingtrauma is not always a sign of disorder.Instead, post-traumatic stress can signalthat the person is going through a normaland natural emotional struggle to rebuildtheir lives and make sense of what hasbefallen them. Sadly it often takes a tragicevent in our lives before we make suchchanges. Survivors have much to teachthose of us who haven’t experienced suchtraumas about how to live.



an agreed definition providedby DSM around whichmeasurement tools can bedeveloped, there is no goldstandard definition of post-traumatic growth. Onesuggestion arising fromorganismic valuing theory is to reframe post-traumaticgrowth as an increase inpsychological well-being(PWB) as opposed tosubjective well-being (SWB)(Joseph & Linley, 2008b).Traditionally, the focus ofclinical psychology has beenon SWB, which can be broadlydefined as emotional states.Clinical psychology has been

largely concerned with thealleviation of negative emotional

states. With positive psychology in thebackground, clinical psychologists arenow also concerned with the facilitationof positive emotional states. But post-traumatic growth does not refer to apositive emotional state but to an increasein PWB, defined as high levels ofautonomy, environmental mastery,positive relations with others, openness to personal growth, purpose in life andself-acceptance (see box).

The topic of post-traumatic growth has also attracted interest from quantitativeresearchers in personality and socialpsychology. People may say they havegrown, but have they really? There is a limitation to the above-mentionedmeasures, which is that they rely onretrospective accounts of change – that is,asking people to report on what positivechanges they perceive themselves to haveexperienced since an event. We might referto this as perceptions of growth todistinguish from actual growth, asmeasured by calculating the differencebetween state measures of psychologicalwell-being before and after trauma.

Research suggests that the strength ofassociation between actual and perceivedgrowth is moderated by the degree ofdistress: for those who are most distressed

Stephen Josephis a Professor at theUniversity of Nottinghamand Honorary Consultant inNottinghamshire NHS [email protected]

trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 9,455–471.

Weiss, T. & Berger, R. (Eds.) (2010).Posttraumatic growth and culturallycompetent practice: Lessons learnedfrom around the globe. Hoboken, NJ:Wiley.

Zoellner, T. & Maercker, A. (2006).Posttraumatic growth in clinicalpsychology. Clinical Psychology Review,26, 626–653.

Assessing growthThink of how you yourself have been influenced by events inyour own life. The Psychological Well-Being Post-TraumaticChanges Questionnaire (PWB-PTCQ) was developed toassess post-traumatic growth as defined by an increase inPWB. The PWB-PTCQ is an 18-item self-report tool in whichpeople rate how much they have changed as a result of thetrauma. A short six-item version is shown below.

Read each statement below and rate how you have changedas a result of the trauma.

5 = Much more so now4 = A bit more so now3 = I feel the same about this as before2 = A bit less so now1 = Much less so now

1. I like myself2. I have confidence in my opinions3. I have a sense of purpose in life4. I have strong and close relationships in my life5. I feel I am in control of my life6. I am open to new experiences that challenge me

People may find it useful to use the PWB-PTCQ to gaininsight into how they have changed. Often these dimensionsof change go unnoticed in everyday life but deserve to beflagged up and nurtured. Clinicians will find the new tooluseful as it allows them to bridge their traditional concernsof psychological suffering with the new positive psychology of growth following adversity (see Joseph et al., 2012).

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I felt strongly that we were clearly makinga piece for people who liked that kind ofthing, i.e. the spooky ghost story, notthose who didn’t. It was never going todelight people who didn't congenitallylike being scared. And it was never goingto please experts who took their role inparapsychology as more important andserious than anything the media, ordramatic fiction, especially in this deridedgenre, could come up with.’

I asked him if he would have changedanything in hindsight. In fact, he says hewas hoping for more realism. ‘I thinksome better “real-life stories” might havebeen more interesting, but the productionsimply couldn’t find them, or ran out oftime. Also there was a decision to amp itup and go for broke at the climax – tomake it clear in the end that it wasdrama. I’d have preferred to maintain thehorror and simply cut to black with thethought that “Pipes” [the ghost] was now

streaming out intoyour own home. Theproducer drew theline at that, possiblyrightly so, given thatit later earned the

dubious honour of being the first television

programme to be cited in the BritishMedical Journal as having caused post-traumatic stress disorder in children.’

A trawl through various medicallibrary catalogues revealed that two yearsafter Ghostwatch, two doctors fromGulson Hospital in Coventry, Simons andSilveira (1994), reported on two 10-year-old boys who were referred to their childpsychiatry unit. The boys’ symptomsincluded sleep disturbances, fear of thedark, difficulty concentrating, separationanxiety, depressed mood and irritability,one of them even banging his head toremove thoughts of ghosts. The authorsreported that ‘the trauma in our two caseshad been caused by the televisionprogramme the boys had watched’.

The following month, in the ‘Letters’section of the same journal, a number ofother cases, outlined by psychiatrists from

Twenty years ago, a Halloweentelevision programme wasintroduced with these dramatic

words: ‘No creaking gates, no gothictowers, no shuttered windows… Yet forthe past 10 months this house has beenthe focus of an astonishing barrage ofsupernatural activity.’ For 90 minutesthere followed a dramatised investigationof ‘the most haunted house in Britain’ ledby a team of well-known televisionpresenters. Viewers of Ghostwatch weretaken into an unexceptional three-bedroomed terraced house in Northolt,compelled to watch as paranormalphenomena gradually began tooverwhelm its residents and investigators.Presented as ‘live’ television (although youcan watch the continuity announcementat www.ghostwatchbtc.com), the BBC’sswitchboard was swamped withthousands of calls from viewers unawareit was drama not reality.

According to Bob Rickard of ForteanTimes, Most callers felt that this fictionalprogramme breached the trust betweenbroadcaster and audience. Star ofGhostwatch, Michael Parkinson, enragedmany by gloating: ‘If we’ve scared thepants off people, we’ve done our job well.’

The original idea for Ghostwatch wasnot developed just to provoke such afurore. I spoke to Stephen Volk, its creatorand writer (see www.stephenvolk.net). He told me that ‘it was first pitched andstructured in around 1988 as a six-partdrama series (even then calledGhostwatch) about a TV investigative film

crew (à la Granada’s World in Action)getting involved in a contemporaryhaunted tower block story in the courseof which they meet a (what we thencalled) psychical researcher. The BBCdidn’t go for the supernatural six-parteridea, so the producer, Ruth Baumgarten,asked if it could work as a 90-minutesingle drama as part of the Screen Onestrand. I suggested to herthe idea of the climax ofmy six-parter – a livebroadcast from a hauntedhouse: “But what if we didit as if it actually was live?”She was very excited bythat and commissioned a script instantly.’

The public reaction and commentarycame from many corners. For Dr SusanBlackmore, a parapsychologist at the time,there were severe ethical issues to contendwith: ‘It treated the audience unfairly. It can be exciting to play on the edge offantasy and reality, or stretch the acceptednorms of television conventions, but thiswas neither true to its format nor fun. It was horrid to watch the distress of thegirls, real or faked. I found it over-longand occasionally disgusting… The lack of adequate warnings was irresponsible.’

‘Of course we fought for the lack ofobvious forewarning that the programmewas drama,’ Stephen Volk says in hisdefence. ‘For the conceit of theprogramme to work on any level, it wouldhave been ridiculous to blow the gaffe upfront. It was always a balancing act, but


Ballon, B. & Leszcz, M. (2007). Horrorfilms: Tales to master terror orshapers of trauma? American Journalof Psychotherapy, 61(2), 211–230.

Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1996). Psychoanalyticstudies of religion. Westport, CT:Greenwood Publishing Group.

Bell, V. (2012). How Ghostwatch hauntedpsychiatry. Retrieved 1 October 2012from http://mindhacks.com/2012/04/21/how-ghostwatch-haunted-

psychiatry/Bozzuto, J.C. (1975). Cinematic neurosis

following ‘The Exorcist’: Report offour cases. Journal of Nervous andMental Disease, 161, 43–48.

Forbes, F. & McClure, I. (1994, March).The terror of television: Made worseby family stress. British MedicalJournal, 308, 714.

Simons, D. & Silveira, W.R. (1994,February). Post-traumatic stress

disorder in children after televisionprogrammes. British Medical Journal,308, 389–390.

Taylor, S. & Admundson, G.J.G. (2008).Postraumatic stress disorder:Current concepts and controversies.Psychological Injury and Law, 1, 59–74.

Thacker, S. (1994, March). Post-traumaticstress disorder cannot followtelevision viewing. British MedicalJournal, 308, 714.

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The ghost in the living room Ciarán O’Keeffe marks the 20th anniversary of a notorious BBC Halloweenspecial with a look at its legacy and links with psychology

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various hospitals, showed remarkablysimilar symptoms. Forbes and McClure(1994), for example, discussed the onsetof intrusive thoughts, panic attacks andnightmares occurring suddenly followingan 11-year-old boy’s watching of theprogramme. Such cases were certainly of note, with the originators of theGhostwatch PTSD research claiming that ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder due to watching a television programme hasnot been reported previously’ (Simons &Silveira, 1994, p.390).

Maybe not television, but it’s not thefirst time other media has provoked sucha reaction. A classicprecursor to the ‘is itreal, or isn’t it?’ mediahoax is the 1938 radioadaption of The War ofthe Worlds narrated byOrson Welles. Alsobroadcast aroundHalloween, panic ensuedas the listening publicthought the descriptionof a Martian invasionwas real. In 1973 therelease of The Exorcist, afilm adaption of WilliamPeter Blatty’s novel,inspired by a ‘true’possession case, causedsevere reactions. Similarto Ghostwatch, the filmprovoked controversyand resulted in anumber of cataloguedPTSD cases. Bozzuto(1975) reported on fourcases of what he termed‘cinema neurosis’ wherepeople suffered from a number of symptomsincluding insomnia,appetite loss, paranoia,nightmares andirritability precipitatedby viewing The Exorcist.Cinematic neurosis hasbeen defined elsewhereas ‘the development ofanxiety, somaticresponses, dissociation,and even psychotic symptoms afterwatching a film’ (Ballon & Leszcz, 2007).Bozzuto (1975) does note, however that‘each patient had a predisposition fortrauma… The movie was traumatictherefore not because of its use ofviolence, or aggression, but because itportrayed uncontrollable forces within the person, which could be unleashed by outside forces over which one had no control’ (Bozzuto, 1975, p.74). Otherresearchers described these cases more

dramatically, claiming they were cases ofhysterical ‘possession’ thereby supportingBozzuto’s discussion of Freud’s‘demonological neurosis’ (Beit-Hallahmi,1996).

It shows, perhaps, that even non-traumatic stressors can give rise to PTSD-like symptoms, particularly forparticularly susceptible individuals, aview echoed by recent PTSD researchers(e.g. Taylor & Asmundson, 2008). It isworth noting though that these reactionsmay not apply these days. In a briefinterview I conducted with Bozzuto hestated that ‘The Exorcist would not have

the same impact today. Audiences wereunprepared, and uneducated. However, it is important to note that all movies cancause some disturbances. They may notattain the full effect of PTSD, but they canstill be disturbing, loss of sleep, intrusivethoughts, etc., just less severe. We are abit desensitised to violence now.’

The controversial reactions continuedfollowing the publication of such PTSDcases. Taylor and Asmundson (2008)state that it seems more likely that many

of the case reports from seeing TheExorcist as a traumatic incident areindividuals who had ‘schizotypalpersonality features, includingsupertitiousness and magical thinking,which may have amplified their fears ofdemonic possession after viewing thefilm’ (Taylor & Asmundson, 2008, p.65).More emphatically, the cases ofGhostwatch PTSD are dismissed out ofhand by some researchers, who point tothe rapid resolution of the children’ssymptoms as an indication that they weresuffering merely a brief anxiety reactionto the television programme (Thacker,1994).

However, beyond the professionalcommunity, there were those who wereconvinced there had been a direct andnegative impact of Ghostwatch on itsviewers. The mother of 18-year-oldMartin Denham blamed the BBC for herson’s suicide, although the coroner madeno reference to the programme inannouncing his verdict (seetinyurl.com/8q2zmts). The BroadcastingStandards Commission, required to hearthe complaint of the Denhams and othersby a judicial review, ruled that ‘The BBChad a duty to do more than simply hint at the deception it was practising on theaudience. In Ghostwatch there was adeliberate attempt to cultivate a sense ofmenace.’

The ‘value’ of traumaGiven the impact of Ghostwatch, and itscontinued influence to this day, exactly 20years later, I wanted to ask its creator andwriter, Stephen Volk, about some of thepsychiatric and psychological aspects.What were his views on some of themental health concerns following itsshowing? He told me:

Earlier this year I went to a screeningof Ghostwatch at the Electric Cinema,Birmingham, which was veryinteresting because the programmerDavid Baldwin said in no uncertainterms that Ghostwatch hadtraumatised him as a child and one ofthe reasons he wanted to show it aspart of his Shock and Awe HorrorFilm Festival was to ‘put his demonsto rest’ – though he wasn’t even surehe’d be able to watch it a secondtime, it had had such a profoundimpact on him. Anyway, he did, and hestill found it uncomfortable. But weinterviewed him afterwards for ourdocumentary Ghostwatch: Behind theCurtains (which is a full look at themaking of and aftermath of the show,with interviews with all the cast andcrew and several critics and


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Illustration by Ghostwatch fan Arfon Jones sent to the‘Ghostwatch Behind the Curtains’ website


broadcasters). Fascinatingly, Davidsaid that yes, it scared him as ayoungster but he found that a positiveexperience. It put him on the road tobeing interested in horror films anddoing what he does now as a career.He went on to talk about the ‘value’ of trauma, which sounds paradoxical,but as a horror writer I canunderstand it: the fact thatGhostwatch was a thrilling catalyst forhis becoming interested in the genreand interested in fear – his own andother people’s.

The relationship between traumaand horror films is the stuff of anentire thesis in itself, but for those ofus creative in the horror genre, thethings that scare us influence usdeeply and enable us (compel us, youmight say) to create things that scareothers – it’s a cyclical, ongoing eventwhich is perhaps analogous toaspects of PTSD.

In a nutshell, far from being‘harmed’ by watching Ghostwatch,David felt strangely ‘enabled’ by it.And that’s something I’ve heard fromscores of grown-ups who werechildren ‘scared witless’ but who now come up and shake my hand and say they are now film-makersbecause of it.

Stephen had mentioned PTSD. WhenGhostwatch was shown, the criteriondefined by psychiatrists for PTSD wasthat ‘the person has experienced an eventthat is outside the range usual humanexperience and that would be markedlydistressing to almost anyone’. Would thisbe true for any media portrayal of theparanormal nowadays? In fact, would itbe true for anything we witness in anymedia format nowadays?

Perhaps it is about context. If theyshowed a beheading on the BBC 9o’clock news – yes, that wouldtraumatise people. That horrid filmabout executions. That traumatisedme. I still have flashbacks of theimages. But I also think it’s hard toproscribe what is going to be scary. I remember as a child I found BusterKeaton terrifying, or a certainillustration in a book, so much so Ihad to carefully turn over two pageswhen I got to it. My father foundDerren Brown upsetting because hecouldn’t understand it. My granny gotupset by Star Trek because shethought there was nothing in spaceexcept God. I don’t think trauma isgoing to go away, though I’m worriedhow desensitisation in modernculture creates over-sentimentality:

now it is not enough forone person to cry on X-Factor – everyone mustcry! Yet in everyday life itseems that we care lessand less about ourfellow man.

Of course thevoyeuristic distance ofGhostwatch’sparticipatory audience isanother factor. The factthat we the audience arehappy creating a ghostbecause we’re not therein the haunted house toget scared by it. This isvitally important to thescript I wrote. Throughtelevision, this thing inall our homes, thisinvader, we are livingvicariously. We areprepared for others toexperience and to sufferjust as long as we aresafe. But how far are weprepared for them tosuffer? I think that’s aquestion that stillpreoccupies me and I’veaddressed it, or exploredit, in a few other storiessince then.

The current DSM-IV-TR diagnosis forPTSD says that ‘the person experienced,witnessed, or was confronted with anevent or events that involved actual orthreatened death or serious injury, or athreat to the physical integrity of self orothers’ and that the person’s responseinvolved ‘intense fear, helplessness, orhorror’. Ghostwatch confronts viewerswith potentially threatening events inwhich some would react with intense fear.Bell (2012) notes, however, that the newproposed criteria for the DSM-5 wouldn’tallow television-triggered PTSD. In fact itspecifically says that exposure totraumatic events ‘does not apply toexposure through electronic media,television, movies, or pictures, unless thisexposure is work related.’ So perhaps wedon’t need to worry about PTSD in suchcircumstances any more. But, I askStephen, do you think it would bepossible to produce a TV show or filmthat could provoke such a response froma viewer?

A film like Martyrs was one I foundcompletely, unbearably harrowing andI can think of several horror films thathave seared their images on myretina. Another recent one is theSpanish film Silent House or of course

the Japanese Audition. The strangething is, I think the contract with thehorror audience is almost ‘Go on,traumatise me! I dare you!’ It is a verypeculiar bargain, one unlike you havewith any other genre – we defy it to dowhat it is designed to do. We don’t goto a comedy and defy it to be funny!But we resist a horror film beingterrifying.

The thing is – especially with a TVaudience (as opposed to a cinemacrowd) – you are talking about a widerange of people from dyed-in-the-wool horror fans to quaint littlegrannies who like Midsomer Murders.You are not going to get the samereaction from any two people. Somepeople didn’t believe Ghostwatch for a minute, while others took the wholething as gospel from beginning toend. Some people I know cannot bearthe sight of a splash of tomatoketchup on screen whereas I canquite happily watch the odd specialeffect decapitation, knowing it’s allfake. So in a way it is hard to regulatefor upset or trauma or ‘offence’,which is the buzz word of the day.

One reason Ghostwatch worked isthat when you go to a horror film inthe cinema you know what you’regetting. You go there, but televisioncomes to you. That’s why I wanted so


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A child's artwork made soon after transmission by LydiaRobinson, and given to director Lesley Manning


desperately to make a ghost story fortelevision. Something that gets to youwhere you feel safest. Literally in yourown home. Which is why I wanted theghost to come to you at the end. Youwanted it. You pleaded for it. Nowyou’ve got it.

In terms of some viewers’ extremereactions to Ghostwatch (i.e. thinking it was real), is it fair to say we’re seeing a natural development in terms ofaudience reactions from the first filmsshown in cinema, to ‘live’ radiobroadcasts (e.g. Orson Welles reading TheWar of the Worlds), to Ghostwatch, BlairWitch Projects, etc. to staged viral videoson YouTube? Is it therefore also fair to saythat each of these media formats becomesless effective for such ‘reality’ portrayals aspeople’s exposure to them increases?

It’s almost a truism that once they’redone you can’t do ‘em again! By theirvery nature. The basic thing is that, atany of these threshold or watershedmoments, someone added a sense ofveracity or realism to something, adramatic form, that was hackneyedand that sudden anarchic act, playfulact in a way, took people by surprise.

I think the interesting thing is to gofurther back to ‘spirit photographs’ bythe likes or Mr Mumler, etc. It’s veryeasy for us to say, ‘My God, that looksso fake, how could anybody think thatwas genuine?’ But of coursephotography was in its infancy. Peopledid not understand the secrets of thedark room and also in a way they‘chose’ to believe. Similarly peoplemight watch Ghostwatch and say,‘Christ, how did anybody take it forreal? It looks so fake!’ But the fact ofthe matter is that in 1992, manypeople did think it was real. A friendof mine thought so and I’d told herweeks before that I’d written it. Shesaid, ‘Yes, but when I saw Parkinson I thought you’d made a mistake.’

The psychology of GhostwatchIt occurred to me there is a ‘Psychology’here. More than any other televisionprogramme, there are published journalarticles citing it, there’s the discussionwe’re having about PTSD-like responses,documentaries analysing its appeal andthe frequent forum discussions wheremiddle-aged men confess the fear theyfelt when they first watched the show as teenagers. There has even been a live‘experiment’ as part of Nottinghampsychologist Brendan Dare’s ‘thrilllaboratory’, inspired by Ghostwatch. I askStephen: if I were to invent a phrase, the

‘Psychology of Ghostwatch’, what do youthink that would mean?

I would say the psychology withinGhostwatch is that of a ‘need-basedexperience’. I was very influenced bythe books of Hilary Evans (ironic,given his later criticisms ofGhostwatch). The core idea behindGhostwatch is that TV creates a‘massive séance’ and in so doing it is a kind of prism that focuses thedesire of the audience, in this case itsimplicit desire to see a ghost. So I feelvery much that we, the audience,create ‘Pipes’ because we want to seehim. The girls in the show sayexplicitly to camera: ‘It’s what youwanted, isn’t it?’ and I was verydeliberate in trying to say to the TVaudience that they (we) are complicitin what we watch. In that regardGhostwatch was perhaps a timelywarning when you think of thetsunami of ‘Reality TV’ that followed it in years to come, and the effect of it,and the way audiences react and feela part of entertainment today.

On the otherhand, you couldlook at ‘Thepsychology ofGhostwatch’ fromthe outside,meaning its effect,or the reaction ofthe audience. Keyto this, I think, is the role of the BBC,firstly in the way they reacted to theprogramme and its aftermath. Afterits first and only transmission, thecontinuity announcer did notacknowledge in any way that it hadbeen a drama, and following thetabloid outrage, the BBC simplydropped a hot potato, didn’t hesitatein doing so, and refused to back itsprogramme makers in any way.

Secondly the fact that the BBCmade Ghostwatch is integral to itseffect. Someone recently asked me ifit might have been better on Channel4 but I replied that it was far moresubversive coming from a ‘respectedauntie rather than a rather dubiousuncle’. The BBC is a trustedorganisation. It provides world news with an integrity second tonone. Of course, that was perfect forour purpose. Our ghost story was allabout what, or who, you trust. Do youeven trust your eyes? So in a hugeway the outrage caused was verymuch about ‘the BBC shouldn’t havedone this’. People’s trust in thatestablishment had been abused, theyfelt. Of course, that was what made it

effective too. In horror the scheme orintent is often to strip away everythingthat gives the protagonists or viewerssecurity or comfort – family, mother,God, science, and finally even, horrorof horrors, the BBC...

When people have asked ‘how would youdo it, if you were to do it now?’ you’vegone on record elsewhere as saying‘Number one, I wouldn’t do it now, andnumber two, if you did it now you wouldjust do it for real, you wouldn’t do it as adrama because the whole TV landscapehas changed between then and now.’ Hasyour answer now changed? Do you thinkit’s possible to have that kind ofpsychological impact on an audience withall the various media formats that peopleaccess regularly? Or do you think peoplehave become too cynical of the world’smedia?

Audiences are too knowing by farnow. You could not do the same thing.You just have Most Haunted with theStars of Corrie – and nothing happensexcept some green faces in the dark

swearing. I’m so glad we didit when we did it in 1992because it was the rightthing at the right time,culturally, when TV waschanging and the languagesof fictional and factual TV

were blurring. In fact, I believeRuth Baumgarten got the BBC to

finally green light Ghostwatch becauseshe said, ‘Look, if you don’t do thisfast, somebody else will’.

Perhaps the reason why Ghostwatchworked so well in provoking extremereactions from its viewers is that it didnot conform to the genre at the time. A survey of over 50 years of horror andghost films up to the mid-1980s showedthat they generally follow a three-partnarrative. First, instability is introducedinto an apparently stable situation;second, the threat to instability is resisted;and third, the threat is removed andstability is restored (Ballon & Leszcz,2007). In Ghostwatch, and indeed TheExorcist, there is no resistance to thethreat and instability is ever present. As the final stages of the programme areaired there is no hint the threat will beremoved and certainly no resolution tothe instability. Ghostwatch still givesnightmares, even today.


looking back

I Ciarán O’Keeffe is a psychologistspecialising in parapsychology and forensicpsychology, at Buckinghamshire NewUniversity [email protected]

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“there is no resistance tothe threat and instabilityis ever present”


the psychologist november 2012

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