Pain is often portrayed as a route to greater strength and resilience. But suffering can instead create uncertainty about the future and threaten a person’s sense of identity, particularly when an injury or illness disrupts routines, relationships, work and everyday responsibilities.
The difference is not only the intensity of physical symptoms. Suffering can affect how people understand themselves and their purpose. They may worry that their condition will last indefinitely, feel like a burden to those close to them or doubt their ability to care for themselves and contribute to others.
In these circumstances, telling someone to remain positive can make matters worse. Alongside the original problem, they may feel guilty for experiencing negative emotions or for not coping more effectively. Research cited in the article indicates that pressure to avoid such emotions can increase distress, while expecting post-traumatic growth may be unrealistic for someone who is simply trying to get through each day.
The idea that trauma necessarily makes people stronger is also uncertain. Some people report personal growth after traumatic experiences, but research has found that these reports do not always match measurable changes observed before and after the event. A later account of growth may help someone make sense of what happened without proving that a lasting transformation occurred.
Coping successfully does not require becoming stronger. Studies of people exposed to war or terrorism found that those showing the greatest resilience, defined in that research as the absence of post-traumatic stress disorder, reported the least post-traumatic growth. People can therefore recover or endure without emerging with a new lesson, identity or set of abilities.
Supporters can begin by taking a person’s symptoms and suffering seriously rather than trying to impose a more positive interpretation. Listening without searching for a silver lining, supporting modest goals and recognizing that someone’s capacity can vary from day to day may be more helpful than offering broad encouragement.
Practical assistance can also reduce the burden. Completing an errand, bringing food or handling a specific task may be easier to accept than a general offer of help. Support should be simple enough that the person does not have to organize it themselves, and it may need to continue after the initial attention surrounding an injury or crisis has faded.
Encouragement is most useful when it is concrete and credible: acknowledging something the person has managed or recognizing the difficulty they have faced without making the situation sound cheerful or promising that everything will work out. Recovery can matter deeply to those offering support without requiring the sufferer to find a lesson in the experience.
Sources: Psychology Today.