The simple answer to this question is that the paper reviewed and formalized a view of human functioning that in retrospect seems obvious, but for rather complex reasons had been more or less ignored by researchers and theorists in the relevant areas. Specifically, the paper argued that humans generally show a clear ability to thrive in the face of extreme adversity (i.e., loss of loved ones, violent and life-threatening events, or other potentially traumatic events). Additionally, the paper was published in a high-profile journal, the American Psychologist, which is distributed to all members of the American Psychological Association. Also, although some of the issues discussed in the paper were quite complex, I focused the paper on three simple take-home points.

Social scientists have been interested in loss and trauma for more than a century. Yet, almost all the work on these topics has focused on maladaptation (i.e., complicated grief reactions, shell shock, posttraumatic stress disorder). The theoretical pendulum has swung with the cultural and historical norms. At times, people who have suffered from extreme aversive events were dismissed as malingering, and at other times we have been willing to label even the slightest reaction to a potential stressor as a trauma reaction worthy of therapeutic intervention. If there is a "discovery" in my research (summarized in the paper), it is the simple demonstration that a small subset of people do tend to have genuine and serious emotional difficulties after exposure to an adverse event but also that the majority of people cope extremely well with such events.

I made three basic points in the article. First, resilience among adults exposed to loss or trauma represents a distinct response from that we normally associate with "recovery." That is, people who are recovering may be thought of as experiencing sufficient emotional difficulties following such events that they struggle to maintain normal functioning (i.e., they have difficulties performing at work or experience disturbances in their interpersonal relationships) for at least several months or longer, and only gradually return to their usual or normal levels of functioning. Resilient people, by contrast, may also struggle a bit after an aversive event but they are generally able to continue functioning at or near their normal level almost immediately after the event. Second, the resilient response is very common and usually seen in the majority of people exposed to the event. Third, there are multiple and sometimes unexpected ways to be resilient. This latter point is my favorite aspect of this work. The literature on loss and trauma has tended to assume that resilience after extremely aversive events was a relatively rare response. If that were true, then we would also assume that resilience would only be seen in exceptionally healthy people. However, because the data actually seem to show that resilience is much more common and in fact usually the modal response to loss or trauma, then we need to also accept that such a large category of people will be heterogeneous. In other words, there will be many different types of resilient people who will probably find many different ways to be resilient. A corollary of this point is that sometimes people who might not normally be seen as healthy or well-adjusted might adapt especially well to unusual and highly aversive events.

I began doing this research almost by accident. I had received my Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Yale University in 1991, and I was trying to decide what to do with my career. My dissertation research had been primarily in the use of experimental methodologies and in the study of emotions, but I wanted to expand the research to a topic that was more in tune with my clinical training. An opportunity arose to join a team of researchers headed by Mardi Horowitz at the University of California, San Francisco, to study bereavement reactions. Almost from the onset, it seemed to me that the theory in this area was out of step with the larger body of research and theory in psychology. I began to formulate ideas about resilience and alternative ways of coping with loss, and had the chance to test these ideas as part of the larger research agenda. Gradually, as my work progressed, I became more interested in the broader category of events suggestive of potential trauma.