What Motivates Resilience after Trauma?

Abstract

The author presents her view that resilience following trauma can only occur when three unconscious internal motivators (Survia, Passia, and Transcia) take turns or rotate in affecting our attitudes, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors through our ego states. Survia is concerned with personal survival, Passia with the survival of our species by supporting creativity, and Transcia with our need to sleep and to transcend everyday reality. Typical attributes of each motivator are listed, and a diagram depicts the relationship of motivators to ego states. Using examples drawn from her own and others' experience, the author discusses how, for someone who has suffered trauma, Survia may become overly dominant and the smooth rotation of motivators is thus impeded. When attributes pertaining to Passia are stimulated, rotation of motivators and consequent emotional balance are resumed and resilience becomes possible.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bergson

(1911). Creative evolution ( Mitchell

, Trans). New York. (Original work published 1907) Encyclopedia of philosophy (Vol. 1). (1972). New York: Macmillan.

English

(1998). The forces within us [DVD]. San Francisco: International Transactional Analysis Association.

English

(2001). Family influences and unconscious drives: Motivators for career choices. Career Planning and Adult Development Journal, 17(2).

English

(2003). How are you? How am I? In Sills

& Hargarden

(Eds.), Ego states (Key concepts in transactional analysis: Contemporary views) (pp. 55–72). London: Worth Publishing.

English

(2005). Unconscious constraints on freedom and responsibility. Retrieved 20 November 2008 from http://www.usataa.org/general/unconscious-constraints-to-freedom-and-responsibility.html.

English

(2007, 11 August). The unconscious motivators that determine our choices and relationships. Presentation at the International Transactional Analysis Conference, San Francisco.

English

(2008). The unconscious reimagined. Transactional Analysis Journal, 38, 238–246.

English

, & Pischetsrieder

(1996). Ich: Beruf, leben, beziehungen [My self: Profession, life and relationship]. Hamburg: Pischetsrieder Consulting.

Frankl

V. E.

(1995, July). [Untitled]. Address given at the First World Congress of Psychotherapy, Vienna, Austria.

10.

Frankl

V. E.

(1997). Man's search for meaning. New York: Washington Square Press. (Original work published 1946)

11.

Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary (11th ed.). (2003). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.

12.

Piper

(2002). The little engine that could. New York: Platt & Munk. (Original work published 1930)

13.

Sontag

, & Alvarez

(2008, 12 January). Across America: Deadly echoes of foreign battles. New York Times, Sect. l, 1.

14.

Ventner

J. C.

(2007). A life decoded. New York: Viking Penguin Group.