A Social Ecological Approach to Understanding Posttraumatic Stress,Emotion Dysregulation,and Resilience Among Complex Trauma Survivors

Abstract

Complex trauma (CT), or chronic interpersonal trauma that begins early in life, has been associated with a multitude of negative outcomes, including posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and emotion dysregulation. Some CT survivors also exhibit adaptive functioning, such as resilience. Social and contextual factors may have an impact on the expression of adverse and adaptive outcomes for CT survivors, yet have been neglected. As such, the current study utilized a social ecological model to examine individual-level (i.e., age, sex, race, income, cumulative CT exposure), microsystem-level (i.e., family and friend social support, religious coping, parental monitoring, parent–child communication), and macrosystem-level (i.e., community cohesion, community disorder) factors associated with PTSS, emotion dysregulation, and resilience among emerging adults who experienced CT (N = 171, M_age = 20.33, SD = 2.18). In the final hierarchical linear regression model for PTSS, more cumulative CT exposure, less friend support, less maternal parent–child communication, and more parental monitoring were related to more PTSS. Similarly, less friend support, less maternal parent–child communication, and more parental monitoring were associated with greater emotion dysregulation. A different pattern emerged for resilience. More friend support, more positive religious coping, and greater community cohesion were tied to higher levels of resilience. Findings illustrate the central role of microsystem-level factors, especially parental communication and friend support, in understanding outcomes following CT exposure. The results highlight the value of assessing distinct factors across the social ecology to generate a comprehensive view of variables related to emerging adult CT survivors’ functioning.