Trauma and identity: A reciprocal relationship?

Trauma can alter the course of identity development and destabilize existing identity commitments. Trauma, whether past or current, can also impact the resources a person brings to identity work. However, identity can also be a lens through which trauma is perceived and interpreted, helping to determine whether a traumatic experience results in posttraumatic stress disorder or posttraumatic growth. Despite the apparent implications each construct has for the other, the scholarship at the intersection of trauma and identity remains sparse. This Special Issue explores how and when trauma and identity influence one another by considering their association across various adolescent populations, methodologies, traumatic event types, and facets of identity. In doing so, this Special Issue lays the groundwork necessary for exploring, proposing, and testing more complex and nuanced reciprocal relations models between identity and trauma.

Empowering Marginalized Youth: A Self-Transformative Intervention for Promoting Positive Youth Development.

This article reports the results of a positive youth development (PYD) intervention for adolescents in alternative high schools (209 African American and Hispanic American adolescents, aged 14-18; 118 females and 91 males). The intervention was guided by a self-transformative model of PYD (Eichas, Meca, Montgomery, & Kurtines, 2014). This model proposes that the actions youth take to define themselves function as active ingredients in positive development over the life course. Consistent with the self-transformative model, results provided support for direct or mediated intervention effects on the self-transformative processes of self-construction and self-discovery, life goal development, identity synthesis, and internalizing problems. The findings illustrate the utility of using a self-transformative approach to PYD in work with marginalized youth populations.

Links between alcohol and other drug problems and maltreatment among adolescent girls: perceived discrimination, ethnic identity, and ethnic orientation as moderators.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the links between maltreatment, posttraumatic stress symptoms, ethnicity-specific factors (i.e., perceived discrimination, ethnic identity, and ethnic orientation), and alcohol and/or other drug (AOD) problems among adolescent girls. METHODS: These relations were examined using archived data from a community sample of 168 Black and Hispanic adolescent girls who participated in a school-based substance use intervention. RESULTS: The results revealed that maltreatment was linked to AOD problems, but only through its relation with posttraumatic stress symptoms; maltreatment was positively related to posttraumatic stress symptoms, which were positively related to AOD problems. Both perceived discrimination and ethnic orientation were significant moderators. Specifically, greater perceived discrimination was associated with an increased effect of maltreatment on posttraumatic stress symptoms. Ethnic orientation demonstrated protective properties in the relation between maltreatment and AOD problem severity, such that the effect of maltreatment on AOD problem severity was less for girls with average to high ethnic orientation compared to girls with low ethnic orientation. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study underscore the importance of developing interventions for Black and Hispanic girls that target maltreatment and AOD use concurrently and address ethnicity-specific factors.

Identity and spirituality: a psychosocial exploration of the sense of spiritual self.

The authors examined the structure and content of adults' sense of spiritual identity by analyzing semistructured interviews with 13 spiritually devout men and 15 devout women, ages 22 to 72. Individuals' responses to the Role-Related Identity Interview (G. T. Sorell, M. J. Montgomery, & N. A. Busch-Rossnagel, 1997b) were content analyzed and rated on the role-related spiritual identity dimensions of role salience and flexibility. Individuals were categorized as spiritually foreclosed, achieved, or in moratorium, on the basis of their motivational, affective, self-evaluative, and behavioral investments in spiritually defined roles and their reflectiveness about and behavioral changes in role-related spiritual identity. Similarities and differences within and between spiritual identity status groups were observed, suggesting a variety of ways that spiritual identity provides a sense of continuity as well as a domain for adult developmental change.

Developmental considerations for substance use interventions from middle school through college.

This article summarizes a symposium organized by Dr. Elizabeth D'Amico and presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Vancouver, Canada. The four presentations illustrate the importance of creating substance use interventions that are developmentally appropriate for youth. They represent innovative approaches to working with preteens, teenagers, and young adults. Dr. D'Amico's paper describes her research on the development of a voluntary brief intervention targeting alcohol use among middle school students. Findings indicated that by using school and community input, she was able to obtain a diverse a sample of youth across grades, sex, ethnicity, and substance use status. Dr. Ellickson's paper describes her research on Project ALERT, a school-based prevention program for middle school youth. Her findings indicate that Project ALERT worked for students at all levels of risk (low, moderate, and high) and for all students combined. Dr. Wagner's Teen Intervention Project was a randomized clinical trial to test the efficacy of a standardized Student Assistance Program for treating middle and high school students with alcohol and other drug problems. The study provided a unique opportunity to begin to examine how development may impact response to an alcohol or other drug intervention. Dr. Turrisi's paper examined processes underlying the nature of the effects of a parent intervention on college student drinking tendencies. Findings suggested that the parent intervention seems to have its impact on student drinking by reducing the influence of negative communications and decreasing the susceptibility of influences from closest friends. Dr. Kim Fromme provided concluding remarks.

Abuse experiences in a community sample of young adults: relations with psychiatric disorders, sexual risk behaviors, and sexually transmitted diseases.

This study documents significant associations among lifetime abuse experiences, psychiatric diagnoses, and sexual risk behaviors in a multiethnic community sample of young men and women (N = 1803) in South Florida. Self-report data were collected via structured interviews as part of a longitudinal follow-up of a larger school-based study. Participants were grouped according to extent of lifetime abuse experiences. Cumulative lifetime abuse experiences were associated with increased risk for a broad range of individual lifetime psychiatric disorders, as well as cumulative lifetime psychiatric disorders. Both cumulative abuse experiences and cumulative psychiatric disorders were independently associated with (a) higher levels of sexual risk behaviors and (b) higher risk for lifetime sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Implications for selective prevention of sexual risk behaviors and STDs among young adults with histories of abuse and psychiatric disorders are discussed.

Amenability and implementation in secondary school antitobacco programs.

OBJECTIVES: To describe relationships between teachers' amenability to implement antitobacco programs and features of implementation settings. METHODS: A telephone random survey was administered to middle school and high school teachers in Florida. Data were analyzed via cluster analysis and other multivariate techniques. RESULTS: Teachers were classified by their amenability to implement tobacco-use-prevention education (TUPE). Cluster membership was associated with key contextual variables. Hierarchical multiple regression identified significant predictors of teachers' perceptions of program success. CONCLUSION: After controlling for other school and community factors, classroom activities remained significant predictors of program effectiveness. Findings may have implications for the design of secondary interventions to promote teacher efficacy related to delivery of antitobacco programs.