“How can you think yourself a great man, when the first accident that comes along can wipe you out completely.”
— Euripides
The subject of resilience in positive psychology deals with the ability to cope with whatever life throws at you. Some people can be knocked down by life and return as a stronger person than ever before. These people are called resilient.
A resilient person works through challenges by using personal resources, strengths and other positive capacities of psychological and spiritual capital such as faith, hope, optimism, and self-efficacy. Overcoming a crisis by resiliency is often described as “bouncing back” to a normal state of functioning. Being resilient is also positively associated with happiness.
“If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.”
We define resilience very merely as a steady trajectory of healthy functioning after a highly adverse event.
Dr. George Everly defines resilience as the ability to withstand, adapt to, or rebound from extreme challenges or adversity.
Dr. George Bonanno defines it this way: By resilience is meant the ability of individuals exposed to a potentially highly disruptive event to maintain both healthy psychological, spiritual and physical functioning and the capacity for positive emotions.
