Post-traumatic growth following the death of a parent: Does one auto-ethnographic account make a summer?

Abstract

Parental death in adulthood is for many a life-changing event (Pearce & Komaromy, 2021). In recent years, the work of Tedeschi and Calhoun (2004), has focused on post-traumatic growth following trauma. Qasim and Carson, (2020), challenged the inevitability of post-traumatic growth following the trauma of bereavement. This paper considers the loss of her father by the first author, from the perspective of the Tedeschi and Calhoun Model. This looks for growth in five areas; relating to others, new possibilities, personal strength, spiritual change and appreciation of life. This auto-ethnographic account follows a rich tradition of other recent autobiographical accounts in the bereavement field (Mayer & Mayer, 2020; Coles, 2021; Moore, 2021).