Abstract
Transportation is a fundamental component of social infrastructure, ensuring access to education, healthcare, employment, and social life. While safe and efficient systems protect mobility rights, support economic development, and foster social integration, traffic accidents remain a major public health concern with severe physical, psychological, social, and economic consequences. This study investigates factors influencing the well-being of individuals who developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms following traffic accidents. Eleven participants (5 men, 6 women; aged 25-69, M = 42.7) with 2-45 years of driving experience (M = 18.5) were interviewed using semi-structured questions based on Seligman's PERMA model. Thematic Analysis revealed that participants' accounts of well-being corresponded to PERMA dimensions—positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment—while also reflecting the impact of accident severity and material/physical damage. The psychoanalytic interpretation, grounded in Lacanian theory, offered a deeper analytic reading of these themes. Positive emotions often functioned as counter-reactions, deployed defensively to manage traumatic affects. Engagement and accomplishment were linked to avoidance strategies, reflecting efforts to channel psychic energy away from the site of trauma. Narratives around relationships revealed processes of symbolization: by recounting their experiences, participants transformed the unspeakable real of the accident into the symbolic order, enabling meaning-making and partial integration. In this sense, well-being was not a simple restoration of balance but a reorganization of subjectivity, where traumatic growth occurred through symbolic mediation rather than the erasure of trauma. These findings highlight the analytic dimension of post-traumatic well-being following a traffic accident and emphasize the centrality of the symbolic in structuring responses to trauma. Future studies may examine how integrating positive psychology frameworks with psychoanalytic interpretations can inform intervention strategies, offering implications for both clinical practice and public health policies in the context of traffic or other relevant fields of application.