Cognitive Processing, Rumination, and Posttraumatic Growth

Intrusive thoughts about traumatic events are an important factor in determining the development of posttraumatic growth, although research has focused on the frequency rather than the type of intrusions. Based on cognitive processing models of posttraumatic growth, the authors present two cross-sectional studies exploring different types of intrusive ruminations about trauma and their associations with posttraumatic growth. Study 1 examines brooding and reflection; Study 2 uses measures of both deliberate and intrusive rumination regarding a past trauma. The results indicate that intrusive reexperiencing and ruminative brooding are not significantly associated with posttraumatic growth, whereas deliberate rumination is significantly positively associated with posttraumatic growth (beta = .44, p < .001) and reflection (partial r = .20, p = .003) is positively associated with posttraumatic growth in the context of low brooding.