For many years research has focused on the impact of early childhood experience on adult life. According to conventional wisdom, children who suffer trauma are destined to be unhappy as adults, but does this have to be the case? Although upbringing and genetics play a part in determining your temperament, research tells us that you can triumph over your past. In 1955 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, Emmy Werner began a study of children who had experienced stress during infancy, perhaps as a result of poverty or family conflict. As adults, two thirds of the group conformed to the stereotype, falling into crime or developing mental problems. However, the other third became competent, confident, caring adults. According to Werner, what made the difference was a trait called resilience.
Resilience is the ability to grow and develop in the face of adversity. Apart from optimism, which is an essential element of resilience, psychologists have identified a number of qualities that help us to overcome setbacks. These include high self-esteem, problem-solving skills, sociability, a sense of humour, and the ability both to create emotional distance from destructive relationships and to sustain supportive relationships. These traits come more naturally to some people than to others, but – as we will see elsewhere in this book – we can all learn to develop them in ourselves.
The life and work of psychiatrist Victor Frankl offer an inspiring example of resilience in theory and in action. After being sent to Auschwitz during the Holocaust, a period in which his wife, his parents and other family members were killed, Frankl went on to develop logotherapy, a form of existential psychology that holds that we can gain meaning and purpose from all our experiences – even the most traumatic. He also wrote 32 books, including the famed Man’s Search for Meaning (1963). He encapsulated his philosophy in this statement: “Everything can be taken from a man but the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)