Can Trauma Fuel High Performance?

Turning Trauma into a Gift of Adversity

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

A study comparing 16 Olympic medalists to 16 non-medalists found that every medalist had been exposed to trauma in childhood, while only four of the non-medalists had similar experiences. This finding raises an intriguing question: Can trauma be a significant contributing factor to high performance?

The idea that “talent needs trauma” is a tricky concept to navigate, especially as a psychotherapist who understands the pain and harmful effects of trauma. However, I believe the phrase is more accurately suggesting that talent needs “adversity.”

In his book The Gift of Adversity, Norman E. Rosenthal argues that the difficulties we encounter in life are some of our best teachers. What turns adversity into a gift is the learning it brings.

A great example of this is Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust and later wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. His harrowing experience in a concentration camp birthed the life-changing ideas presented in his book, which has sold more than 16 million copies and inspired countless readers. Without the adversity he endured, Frankl might have been a good psychiatrist, but he wouldn’t have had the insight, character, or wisdom to write such a transformational work.

Adversity pushes us to learn and adapt. Just as muscles grow through damage and repair, our mental resilience and character can grow through adversity that temporarily damages us, allowing for rebuilding. Adversity also tends to teach us empathy, grit, self-awareness, discipline, and a sense of independence.

However, not everyone emerges from adversity with the gifts of learning. Some of us are crushed under the weight of suffering. The flip side of Nietzsche’s saying, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” is that which does kill us… well, kills us.

Beyond the potential “gifts,” adversity can also inflict trauma. Trauma is not the same as adversity; it is the lasting harm that remains after experiencing adversity. If not properly addressed, trauma can kill. It can kill our potential and, at its worst, suffering from trauma can lead to suicidal ideation.

The key to turning adversity into a gift that fuels high performance is healing the trauma. Symptoms of trauma are often easy to recognize, such as being easily triggered or repeating unhelpful patterns of thinking, feeling, or behaving that are inconsistent with our objectives and goals. Once we become aware of the trauma, we must choose to face it rather than run from it. Like an imaginary monster in the closet, trauma loses much of its power when confronted.

Returning to the question: Can trauma be a significant contributing factor to high performance? The answer is yes, but only if the trauma is healed and integrated through learning.

Healing from trauma requires learning from the adverse event that caused it. We don’t always learn the right lessons from adverse events, especially those that occurred in childhood. Our brains weren’t fully developed, and we didn’t have the cognitive capacity or wisdom to learn the right lessons at the time. Even as adults, during an intense adverse event — for example, a divorce, job loss, death, or accidents — we are often too overwhelmed or emotionally unstable to think clearly and learn from the experience, doing whatever we could to cope and survive.

This is why many treatment modalities involve revisiting the memory of the traumatic incident from a place of safety, resilience, and wisdom. Doing so alters your mental representation of the event, allowing the trauma to be processed and begin healing.

Once trauma becomes learning, it can start to be your ally rather than your enemy. Is there unprocessed trauma in your life? You have the power to turn your trauma into a gift of adversity.