ABSTRACT
Life is inevitably stressful, and there is tremendous variability in how people respond to and manage life's stressors. This chapter strives to explain the diversity of human responses to stressful life events, particularly traumatic events, which we ordinarily expect to overwhelm people's coping resources. That is, we are concerned with understanding human resilience and a particular form of resilience, posttraumatic growth (PTG), in the face of adversity. We will review some of the personal and environmental concomitants of resilience and examine how people might develop a capacity for resilience in the face of extreme stressors. We also consider the relation of resilience to transformative experiences, particularly growth, in the aftermath of stress.
