Behav. Sci. 2015, 5(2), 264-304; doi:10.3390/bs5020264
Goal-Directed Resilience in Training (GRIT): A Biopsychosocial Model of Self-Regulation, Executive Functions, and Personal Growth (Eudaimonia) in Evocative Contexts of PTSD, Obesity, and Chronic Pain
1
Research Department R151, Phoenix VA Health Care System, 650 E. Indian School Rd., Phoenix, AZ 85012, USA
2
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, 651 E. University Drive, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104, USA
3
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Dr. SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: John Coverdale
Received: 22 September 2014 / Accepted: 18 May 2015 / Published: 1 June 2015
Abstract
This paper presents a biopsychosocial model of self-regulation, executive functions, and personal growth that we have applied to Goal-Directed Resilience in Training (GRIT) interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obesity, and chronic pain. Implications of the training for the prevention of maladaptation, including psychological distress and health declines, and for promoting healthy development are addressed. Existing models of attention, cognition, and physiology were sourced in combination with qualitative study findings in developing this resilience skills intervention. We used qualitative methods to uncover life skills that are most salient in cases of extreme adversity, finding that goal-directed actions that reflected an individual’s values and common humanity with others created a context-independent domain that could compensate for the effects of adversity. The efficacy of the resilience skills intervention for promoting positive emotion, enhancing neurocognitive capacities, and reducing symptoms was investigated in a randomized controlled trial with a veteran population diagnosed with PTSD. The intervention had low attrition (8%) and demonstrated improvement on symptom and wellbeing outcomes, indicating that the intervention may be efficacious for PTSD and that it taps into those mechanisms which the intervention was designed to address. Feasibility studies for groups with comorbid diagnoses, such as chronic pain and PTSD, also showed positive results, leading to the application of the GRIT intervention to other evocative contexts such as obesity and chronic pain. View Full-TextKeywords:
PTSD; interventions; resilience; coping; adaptation; Goal-Directed vs. stimulus-based; pain; prevention; Veterans
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).
Scifeed alert for new publications
Never miss any articles matching your research from any publisher- Get alerts for new papers matching your research
- Find out the new papers from selected authors
- Updated daily for 49'000+ journals and 6000+ publishers
- Define your Scifeed now
Share & Cite This Article
MDPI and ACS Style
Kent, M.; Rivers, C.T.; Wrenn, G. Goal-Directed Resilience in Training (GRIT): A Biopsychosocial Model of Self-Regulation, Executive Functions, and Personal Growth (Eudaimonia) in Evocative Contexts of PTSD, Obesity, and Chronic Pain. Behav. Sci. 2015, 5, 264-304.
Related Articles
Article Metrics
Comments
[Return to top]
Behav. Sci.
EISSN 2076-328X
Published by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland
RSS
E-Mail Table of Contents Alert