The social sciences have no particular claim to the use of the term “resilience.” The word has been in general circulation for centuries and over time has taken on a variety of meanings. In the past several decades, however, resilience has gained currency as a psychological construct, first in the developmental literature on chronic adversity (Luthar, 2003, Masten, 2001) and more recently in the literature on loss, trauma and other forms of acute adversity in adults (Bonanno, 2004).