Resilience is a term extensively used to describe the factors that promote well-being and strength in individuals who are undergoing unusually stressful life conditions. It is an interactive construct concerned with acutely traumatic experiences followed by positive psychological outcomes despite those experiences (Luthar, 2003). In an attempt to better understand this construct, the present chapter will rst review commonly understood denitions of the term, as well as key protective factors related to the development of resilience. Against this background, the second part will evaluate resilience research in populations of aid workers, stress factors associated with their job and consequences of experienced trauma. In the nal part of the chapter an investigation conducted between 2004 and 2008 at London South Bank University by Comoretto et al. (2011), aimed at investigating processes of resilience development in

3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 47 3.2 Dening the Construct of Resilience ..............................................................48