For scientists the concept of psychological resilience began in the 1970s with studies of children who did fine – or even well in life – despite significant early adversity, such as poverty or family violence. For a long time a person’s level of resilience was thought to be inherited or acquired in early life. This idea was supported by the often-replicated statistics on what happens after a trauma: while most people bounce back to normal relatively quickly, and some even report feeling psychologically stronger afterwards than they did before, about 8% develop post-traumatic stress disorder, according to US figures.
Dennis Charney at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City and Steven Southwick at the Yale School of Medicine have avidly studied people to find out why some are more resilient than others.
[For more of this story, written by Emma Young, go to http://www.bbc.com/future/stor...train-a-tougher-mind]
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