Resilience, or resiliency, is an inherent human quality. Resilience emphasizes human strengths and potential and is a significant part of the recovery process from a traumatic experience. Human beings have exhibited and demonstrated resilience from the beginnings of humankind: overcoming natural disasters, tribal conflicts, civil and international wars, and personal struggles and strife. These are some of the many instances in which human beings have shown, time and time again, that as a species, we possess an innate drive to prevail and get through challenging times and experiences.

This entry provides a fundamental introduction to resiliency and the ways in which it can be promoted within an individual. It also focuses on some of the components that are necessary to promote resilience in the traumatized.