Dr. Melissa E. Noel and Cherrell Green, Ph.D. recently published an article, "I'm a Work in Progress: Rethinking Posttraumatic Growth Among Low-Income Black Men." Their study explores how posttraumatic growth (PTG) frameworks have missed the ways in which low-income Black men make meaning of trauma and pursue transformation. The study goes beyond traditional frameworks and uses case studies to highlight men’s lived experiences facing community violence, surveillance, incarceration, and cumulative loss.

Their findings revealed how structural violence leads to repeated adversities shaping pathways towards growth. Although Black men expressed conditions in which they were able to sustain growth, their narratives conveyed additional challenges embedded within structural conditions. The study draws attention to the constraints of the PTG framework and advances the PTG model by challenging deficit narratives and highlighting that growth is non-linear and collective.