ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of theories and models of adversarial growth, followed by a review of the literature on adversarial growth in high-level athletes. It considers the other side of threats to athletes’ psychosocial health—resilience and adversarial growth. The chapter explains the concept of resilience, including a summary of its scholarly history outside of sport, and more recent advances within sport. It discusses adversarial growth and offers recommendations for the promotion of resilience and growth in high-level athletes. A consistent finding across studies is the importance of meaning-making and social support in setting the stage for adversarial growth. K. Howells and D. Fletcher’s study of adversarial growth was unique in that they analyzed content from the autobiographies of Olympic swimming champions. Most importantly, the grounded theory of sport-injury related growth represents the most complete sport-specific theory of adversarial growth to date, and an ideal starting point for future research in the area.
