crisis could stall progress on climate action. This year, GRPS respondents ranked environmental risks as four of the top five by likelihood—“infectious diseases” is fourth. Global CO2 emissions fell by 9% in the first half of 2020, when COVID-19 forced most economies to shut down for weeks.56 A similar decrease is required every year for the next decade Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience Have We Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events? George A. Bonanno Teachers College, Columbia University Many people are exposed to loss or potentially traumatic events at some point in their lives, and yet they continue to have positive emotional experiences and show only minor and transient disruptions in their ability to function. Unfortunately, because much of psychology’s knowledge about how adults cope with loss or trauma has come from individuals who sought treatment or exhibited great distress, loss and trauma theorists have often viewed this type of resilience as either rare or pathological. The author challenges these assumptions by reviewing evidence that resilience represents a distinct trajectory from the process of recovery, that resilience in the face of loss or potential trauma is more common than is often believed, and that there are multiple and sometimes unexpected pathways to resilience. Most people are exposed to at least one violent or life-threatening situation during the course of their lives (Ozer, Best, Lipsey, & Weiss, 2003). As people progress through the life cycle, they are also increasingly confronted with the deaths of close friends and relatives. Not everyone copes with these potentially disturbing events in the same way. Some people experience acute distress from which they are unable to recover. Others suffer less intensely and for a much shorter period of time. Some people seem to recover quickly but then begin to experience unexpected health problems or difficulties concentrating or enjoying life the way they used to. However, large numbers of people manage to endure the temporary upheaval of loss or potentially traumatic events remarkably well, with no apparent disruption in their ability to function at work or in close relationships, and seem to move on to new challenges with apparent ease. This article is devoted to the latter group and to the question of resilience in the face of loss or potentially traumatic events. The importance of protective psychological factors in the prevention of illness is now well established (Taylor, Kemeny, Reed, Bower, & Gruenewald, 2000). Moreover, developmental psychologists have shown that resilience is common among children growing up in disadvantaged conditions (e.g., Masten, 2001). Unfortunately, because most of the psychological knowledge base regarding the ways adults cope with loss or potential trauma has been derived from individuals who have experienced significant psychological problems or sought treatment, theorists working in this area have often underestimated and misunderstood resilience, viewing it either as a pathological state or as something seen only in rare and exceptionally healthy individuals. In this article, I challenge this view by reviewing evidence that resilience in the face of loss or potential trauma represents a distinct trajectory from that of recovery, that resilience is more common than often believed, and that there are multiple and sometimes unexpected pathways to resilience. Point 1: Resilience Is Different From Recovery A key feature of the concept of adult resilience to loss and trauma, to be discussed in the next two sections, is its distinction from the process of recovery. The term recovery connotes a trajectory in which normal functioning temporarily gives way to threshold or subthreshold psychopathology (e.g., symptoms of depression or posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]), usually for a period of at least several months, and then gradually returns to pre-event levels. Full recovery may be relatively rapid or may take as long as one or two years. By contrast, resilience reflects the ability to maintain a stable equilibrium. In the developmental literature, resilience is typically discussed in terms of protective factors that foster the development of positive outcomes and healthy personality characteristics among children exposed to unfavorable or aversive life circumstances (e.g., Garmezy, 1991; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000; Masten, 2001; Rutter, 1999; Werner, 1995). Resilience to loss and trauma, as conceived in this article, pertains to the ability of adults in otherwise normal circumstances who are exposed to an isolated and potentially highly disruptive event, such as the death of a close relation or a violent or life-threatening situation, to maintain relatively stable, healthy levels of psychological and physical functioning. A further distinction is that resilience is more than the simple absence of psychopathology. Recovering individuals often Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to George A. Bonanno, Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 West 120th Street, Box 218, New York, NY 10027. E-mail: gab38@columbia.edu 20 January 2004 ● American Psychologist Copyright 2004 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0003-066X/04/$12.00 Vol. 59, No. 1, 20–28 DOI: 10.1037/0003-