Developing Resilience

Developing resilience, the author claims, is a skill that it is worth cultivating not just for the sake of being able to face trauma, but for improving day to day life. Various aspects of resilience, she contends throughout the book, are useful not just when faced with long- or short-term stress, but can improve quality of life in general. Some of these include developing the capacity for joy in small things; developing self-compassion and self-confidence even in the face of mistakes or failings; and developing open-ness about feelings. Building on these and other facets of resilience, she also says, helps lay the groundwork for occasions when particularly challenging circumstances like job loss, serious illness, or death become particular challenges. If day-to-day resilience is in place, she contends, it becomes easier to draw on larger reserves of it when such difficult situations arise.

Each of the book’s...