ABSTRACT
More than ten years ago Ho and Bai (2010) provided an account of the phenomenon of posttraumatic growth (PTG) in Chinese culture using mainly studies among cancer patients to inform their discussion. They argued that there are universal dimensions of PTG shared among people in different cultures and types of traumatic events and suggested some clues regarding the underlying mechanisms of PTG. This chapter reports new studies conducted by the research team at the Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center (KFSYSC) in Taiwan on the PTG of cancer survivors in the past ten years to update our current understanding of the subject. In particular, our report focuses on two questions. First, does PTG represent a constructive change or a maladaptive coping mechanism to handle cancer diagnosis? Second, can cancer survivors simultaneously experience positive changes (PTG) and negative changes (posttraumatic depreciation, PTD), and if so, what is the relationship between PTG and PTD?
