ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews four interrelated topics: stress, coping, resilience and posttraumatic growth. It defines each concept, unpacks their key components and briefly reviews the empirical research around them. The winters of life entailing challenge and hardship are common to all of us, and can occur in forms, and at any time. Traumas are gruelling life occasions when people face mortal stakes. Posttraumatic growth research focuses on people who had journeyed through tragic events, endured harrowing upheavals and anguish, and have emerged from these experiences stronger than before. The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory is the most widely used scale to measure posttraumatic growth. Finally, the phenomenon of growth following from a battle with a traumatic event is well documented, and research around it has offered a detailed and nuanced analysis of the process of adaptation that can facilitate growth and the development of wisdom following from a major life crisis.
