This chart illustrates the process people and families go through as they manage their PTS. 

​

Based on a groundbreaking study on the intergenerational impacts of PTS in Military families, this chart is easily applied to all service families and people, regardless of their field of service.

​

It shows how the primary behaviours of PTS (hypervigilance, emotional numbing, sleep disturbances, etc) are either reinforced in social contexts to form Secondary Behaviours that contribute to dysfunctional responses, or are challenged in social contexts to change the person's perspective and lead to emotional fitness.

​

The critical point of intervention is at this point where people are searching for meanings in their understandings of their lived experiences. The feedback they have received so far from their peers, the media, school and workmates and broader society informs them they are not like others, and neither is the way their family operates (particularly when under stress).