This unique book shows how resilience can be reinforced and structured to create stronger individuals and societies, vis a vis increasing traumatic and stressful life circumstances. The author investigates several human practices, processes and features that aid our capacity to resist, combat, adapt to or counter extreme traumatisation. These features and capabilities come into play at the interface between vulnerability and resilience, leading to a deeper understanding of the mechanism of resilience itself. Each chapter illustrates the components necessary to achieve resilience: attachment, connectedness, memory, testimony, education and the development and practice of artistic and creative activities. The book also explores the positive effects of moral commitment, empathy and altruism, and psychodynamic intergenerational therapy on trauma, showing that acts and feelings of compassion and forgiveness, and an appreciation for and use of higher order symbolic structures, such as art and creativity, together contribute to building and reinforcing resilience and social solidarity.

Drawing on cases across a range of life-threatening experiences, Laurence Gonzales makes a compelling argument about fear, courage and the adaptability of the human spirit.

The nursing profession is under pressure. Financial demands, student debt, the target culture, political scrutiny in the wake of major care scandals and increasing workloads are all taking their toll on professional morale and performance. This timely book considers the meaning of resilience in this adverse context and explains why measures to preserve individual nurses’ and students’ well-being are flawed if they don’t take into account wider political and organizational perspectives. Arguing that healthcare can be thought about and experienced differently, this book: provides a summary of the latest research on resilience, explaining its relevance and also limitations for nurses; considers debates about compassion and highlights the effects of policy agendas on nurse education and nursing work; re-evaluates nursing’s professional identity, including where nursing has come from and the effects of class, gender and race on its powerbase; assesses the role of politics and social media, both in driving change and feeding resistance; and introduces the idea of critical resilience as a complete framework for resisting bullying and fostering survival and change in the nursing workforce. Direct, upbeat, at times provocative and witty, this agenda-setting book enables nurses to understand why they feel the way they do. It also lists what opportunities are available to them to change, resist and survive in what has become a complex, challenging – if still deeply rewarding – line of work.

What differentiates resilient organizations from those that are not? Do we need to wait until a crisis strikes to see how resilient an organization is? Resilient Organizations draws on primary research to reveal the answers to these questions and provides practical ideas and actions to make your own organization more resilient. Organizational resilience is about creating organizations with the agility to adapt to unexpected challenges and the capacity to seize opportunity out of adversity. Dr Erica Seville, founder of the Resilient Organizations research programme, provides readers with the essential knowledge required to enable organizations to thrive in a world of change and uncertainty. Drawing on a decade of research, her team have identified 13 indicators to diagnose an organization's resilience. Resilient Organizations draws out the top five ingredients and shows how organization resilience is a capability that can and must be proactively fostered and maintained over time. Using case studies, diagnostic tools and key actions and initiatives to develop and maintain organizational resilience, Resilient Organizations is essential reading for everyone tasked with developing strong organizations that can survive and thrive in crisis and change - from risk, resilience and business continuity professionals to leadership and management teams.

You have survived the crisis—trauma, disease, accident, or war—now how do you get your life back? The shark attacked while she was snorkeling, tearing through Micki Glenn’s breast and shredding her right arm. Her husband, a surgeon, saved her life on the spot, but when she was safely home she couldn’t just go on with her life. She had entered an even more profound survival journey: the aftermath. The survival experience changes everything because it invalidates all your previous adaptations, and the old rules don’t apply. In some cases survivors suffer more in the aftermath than they did during the actual crisis. In all cases, they have to work hard to reinvent themselves. Drawing on gripping cases across a wide range of life-threatening experiences, Laurence Gonzales fashions a compelling argument about fear, courage, and the adaptability of the human spirit. Micki Glenn was later moved to say: “I don’t regret that this happened to me. [It] has been . . . probably the single most positive experience I’ve ever had.”

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. In boyhood, Louis Zamperini was an incorrigible delinquent. As a teenager, he channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when World War II began, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to a doomed flight on a May afternoon in 1943. When his Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean, against all odds, Zamperini survived, adrift on a foundering life raft. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will. Appearing in paperback for the first time—with twenty arresting new photos and an extensive Q&A with the author—Unbroken is an unforgettable testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit, brought vividly to life by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand. Hailed as the top nonfiction book of the year by Time magazine • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and the Indies Choice Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year award “Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] one-in-a-billion story . . . designed to wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby adjectives we normally try to avoid: It is amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing, chilling, and inspiring.”—New York “Staggering . . . mesmerizing . . . Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.”—People “A meticulous, soaring and beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.”—The Washington Post “Ambitious and powerful . . . a startling narrative and an inspirational book.”—The New York Times Book Review “Magnificent . . . incredible . . . [Hillenbrand] has crafted another masterful blend of sports, history and overcoming terrific odds; this is biography taken to the nth degree, a chronicle of a remarkable life lived through extraordinary times.”—The Dallas Morning News “An astonishing testament to the superhuman power of tenacity.”—Entertainment Weekly “A tale of triumph and redemption . . . astonishingly detailed.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “[A] masterfully told true story . . . nothing less than a marvel.”—Washingtonian “[Hillenbrand tells this] story with cool elegance but at a thrilling sprinter’s pace.”—Time “Hillenbrand [is] one of our best writers of narrative history. You don’t have to be a sports fan or a war-history buff to devour this book—you just have to love great storytelling.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The classic guide to what makes people survivors, now in a revised and updated new edition. Who survives? Who thrives? As a psychologist who spent more than forty years studying the phenomenon of survival, Al Siebert gained valuable insight into the qualities and habits that help human beings overcome difficult situations-from everyday conflicts to major life stresses. In this revised and updated edition, he delineates the "survivor personality" and examines the latest research to show how survival skills can be learned, leading to better coping, increased success in work and relationships, and a vastly brighter outlook on the future.

In 1990, after a sudden cardiac event, Joyce Mikal-Flynn was dead for twenty-two minutes. While CPR and determined doctors returned her to life, she came to find that this new life wasn’t her life at all. Faced with depression, personal and professional setbacks, she ultimately recognized that this was not an end point—but a beginning. Over time, she understood that taking control begins with the essential choice to move forward. Her struggles fueled her. You got this, she told herself with every obstacle, failure, and misstep. Trauma and crisis are inescapable aspects of life. Framed, at times, as something to get over, trauma never fully leaves those who experience it. For over two decades, Dr. Mikal-Flynn has worked with and studied issues faced by survivors. She understands and recognizes their desire to move forward, identifying specific mindsets and behaviors that encourage progress. Making the choice to move forward, fierce determination, and well-researched actions are key for survival and growth. Interlacing stories with research on genetics, posttraumatic growth, and the neuroscience of resilience and happiness, this book outlines how survivors of trauma structure a positive and productive response. An ingenious strengths-based rehabilitation system—metahabilitation—engages them by uncovering and developing their resilience, grit, and capacity for growth after trauma. This book shows you how survivors are built and presents a unique system guiding them forward.

Jan J. Boersema reconstructs the ecological and cultural history of Easter Island and critiques the hitherto accepted theory of its collapse.

Discover how to transform stress and other unwanted states into resilience, clarity, and improved wellbeing with this insightful new book Resilience By Design: How to Survive and Thrive in a Complex and Turbulent World delivers the world’s most detailed and research-backed how-to manual to integrate advances from neuroscience and complexity theory with real world expertise, providing practical techniques that you'll want to use every day. Alongside well explained scientific theory, each chapter contains dramatic, real-life stories of people from frontline services, elite sports, and everyday survivors who learned to thrive in high pressure, demanding, and often deadly situations. You'll discover how resilience isn’t just the ability to tough it out; it's dependent upon an interconnected set of skills, techniques, creative processes, and new understandings of how we think, act, and interact with our environments and each other. If you or someone you care about experiences unwanted stress, anxiety, decision fatigue, overwhelm, or burnout, by applying the step-by-step techniques in this book, you'll learn to develop resilience, clarity, improved energy, wellbeing, and overall performance. You'll also learn: There's no such thing as an inherently stressful situation, workplace, or event. How to appreciate and benefit from the hidden information in your unconscious signals and intuitions How to adapt your decision making to meet the challenges of uncertainty, from the complicated and complex, to the outright chaotic When to define your limits and 'line in the sand' so that you never expose yourself to unmanageable risk or potential burnout What is it to, 'Know Thyself', through techniques that change perspective and bring clarity even in uncertain, turbulent times Techniques that can be easily taught to people you care about Lifelong resilience and being at your best is available to each of us, no matter what life throws at you. Resilience By Design was derived from the experiences of hundreds of people on the frontline of emergency services, defense, Olympic level sports, business, art, science, and many other areas of expertise—from firefighters and paramedics to social workers and athletes. This book is written for students and teachers, parents and children, caregivers and patients, athletes and coaches, managers and employees, entrepreneurs, and fortune 500 CEOs, and anyone who wishes to know how to survive and thrive in an ever more complex and turbulent world.